7 Rules to Improve Your English From AJ Hoge

I am writing this blog in english, but this is not mean that my english is good, I’m still learning english because english is my second language. When I browsed web, I found AJ Hoge blog which contents were tips to learn english effortlessly. AJ Hoge is an English teacher and has got Masters Degree in teaching english.

I have read 7 Rules to Improve English from him, I like the rules and made learning english became more fun and stress free, it was very different when I learned english at school, the rules are:

1. Always Study and Review Phrases, Not Individual Word

Most people learn english by memorizing words, but native speakers do not learn english by remembering single words, native speakers learn phrases. Phrases are groups of words that naturally go together.
2. Don’t Study Grammar

I was very surprised with this rule that suggest me to stop studying grammar, stop studying grammar rule here means that we don’t learn from the grammar books, but we learn grammar subconsciously. AJ will give you articles with its mp3 files.
3. The Most Important Rule, Listen First

Reading text books, studying grammar books, remembering word lists. Effortless english is a listening first system. We learn english with our ears not our eyes.
4. Slow, Deep Learning is Best

The secret to speaking easily is to learn every word and phrase deeply. Its not enough to know a definition, its not enough to remember for a test. You must put the word deep into your brain.
5. Use Point of View Mini-Stories

You must use point of view stories for automatic grammar, you must learn grammar by listening to real english. The best way is to listen to the same story, told in different times (points of view): Past, Perfect, Present, and Future.
6. Only Use Real English Lessons and Materials

Although you have learned more about text books and grammar books but it is not guaranteed that you will understand native speaker easily, Native speaker’s pronounciation was totally different from text books tapes and CDs you listened to. Native speaker used idioms, slang, and many casual phrases. To understand them you must stop learning from text book tapes and CDs, you must learn real english. How do you learn real english?, It’s easy, Listen to real english movies, TV shows, audio books, audio articles, stories. Use real english material.
7. Listen and Answer not Listen and Repeat

Listen and repeat is not enough, when you repeat you only copy the speaker, but when you hear a question and you answer it, you must think in english.

Maybe when you read this post you still confuse, I think you would better go to AJ Hoge blog. You can download articles with its mp3 files. So you can listen to mp3 and look for the article if you hear a new word. I think when you learn in this way you will enjoy and more fun. Try now!. You can also download articles and its mp3 files from VOA Special English and English as a Second Language. The articles was interesting to listen. Good luck with your english learning!.