Sample Question and Answer Lesson – Juan Goes to New York

One of the most effective methods for becoming a better speaker of English (or any language) is the use of Question and Answer lessons (or circling – as it is known by teachers who use the TPRS method of language acquisition). This technique is effective because it gives you lots of repetitions, so you can […] Read more »

Are You Afraid to Speak?

  Are you afraid to speak English? Are you worried about making mistakes? Are you embarrassed if someone asks you to repeat something? Well, join the crowd! Just about everybody I know who has tried learning another language has been afraid to speak. The most common reason to learn a language is to be able […] Read more »

How To Be a Successful Self-Directed Learner

One of the amazing things about the internet these days is that you can learn practically anything online. Whether you are interested in perfecting your coding skills, learning how to knit a hat, baking the perfect apple pie, or becoming an excellent English speaker, you can likely find a website, a video, a program or […] Read more »

Become an Excellent English Speaker with Success with Stories

Last Sunday, I released the first volume of a new series of programs that I have created to help English learners become excellent speakers of English.  The program is called Success with Stories and it uses the Teaching Proficiency Through Stories (TPRS) method developed by Blaine Ray. The program gives you MASSIVE amounts of comprehensible input […] Read more »

Learn Phrasal Verbs with Songs

One of the things that can be difficult for English learners is understanding the grammatical structures known as phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs combine verbs and prepositions to make idiomatic expressions whose meaning is usually not obvious by understanding the individual words. They are used a lot in both written and spoken English. To improve your listening and […] Read more »

What will you commit to in 2014?

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great 2013 and I wish you all tremendous success in 2014 – in all areas of your life! As you know, New Year’s Day is often a time for reflection and planning ahead. This is a time when we look back at the last 12 […] Read more »

Get Active

As I have mentioned many times on this blog, and in my free email course 7 Strategies for English Fluency, listening is really important – and repetition is key!! But in order for you to become fluent in English, you are going to need to get active. Listening to a story is passive. Watching a […] Read more »

Learning with Stories

One of the best ways to learn new idiomatic expressions and vocabulary words is to read a short story. Stories that are funny, scary, surprising, silly or that in some way invoke emotions, help your brain learn and remember new information better. Let’s take for example the idiomatic expression “it’s like pulling teeth”. It is […] Read more »

Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!

There is a video on YouTube of a lady saying: Ain’t nobody got time for that. This video has received over 40 million views. It was originally part of a TV news report and then it was made into a song. It’s pretty funny. Click on the link to check it out. Anyway, earlier today […] Read more »

Can the Brain Multitask?

Many people believe that the brain can multitask, that is, that it can do more than one thing at the same time. It can’t. Even though it seems like we can eat, drive a car, and talk to a friend all at the same time, research shows that the brain is actually a sequential processor; […] Read more »