I'm making a new set of videos to help you speak English fluently.   Each video discusses on of my 7 Rules for speaking Effortless English.   I'll also be adding bonus suggestions and other methods for speaking English faster and more fluently.

Of course, if there is one challenge for fluent English speaking, it is speed.  Speed is the big difference between written and spoken English.   When we read and write, we can go slowly.  We can take our time.  We can think. 

But with speech, the situation is totally different.  Everything happens so fast!  You must understand spoken English instantly.  And you must speak automatically-- without translating, without thinking.  There certainly is no time to think about grammar rules!

I hope you'll enjoy my new videos.. and I hope you'll enjoy your English learning! 

Follow the 7 rules and you will speak English fluently.

Learn English Vocabulary

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I just released a new e-book at Effortless English.  This free e-book it titled "Powerful English Speaking" and can be downloaded here:  Powerful English Speaking e-Book

I hope you enjoy this new Effortless English e-book.  Use the suggestions to learn faster, improve your study methods, and speak more easily and quickly.

Enjoy!

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Effortless English has a room for our upcoming summer classes in San Francisco.  Today I talked to my friend (and old boss) Zac.  Zac now owns his own English school in San Francisco (Advance English Academy) and he has offered to let us use a spare room for our Effortless English evening class this summer!

I'm quite excited about the summer class.   First, I'm excited about getting in front of a live class again-- for several weeks.   It'll be a great opportunity for students to have a continuous live learning experience with me... and a great opportunity for me to experiment with new teaching techniques and continue improving.

Also, I'll be recording each class.. audio and possibly video.  These recorded classes will be put on our upcoming new Master Member site...  so as a member you'll be able to enjoy a bit of the live Effortless English experience!

Finally, this will be a great opportunity for the whole Effortless English (and Learn Real English) team to prepare for our big demo and seminar tour in Winter.   We're planning some very big events in Bangkok, Thailand...  and events in Osaka and Tokyo too.  

I'm also interested in doing a demo in Bangalore, India... if I can organize it from abroad.  Singapore is also a possibility.

So... fun fun fun.

Thanks to Zac for the use of the room.   I'll let you know when the Member site is ready... I'm curious to get your feedback about the live Effortless English classes!

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The Effortless English lessons are doing very well, and I have been enjoying the internet part of our business.  In fact, I am almost finished with a whole new Lesson Pack, which I'm calling "Power English".  It will be available in June.

After three years of building our internet services, however, I find that I miss the face to face contact of teaching in a class.   Tomoe (my wife) and I have talked a lot about this subject.   We enjoy the online community we have created, but we want to do more-- we want to bring people together (physically) and create remarkable shared learning experiences for them.

And so, the Effortless English Demos & Seminars were born.   The demos are half day events designed to teach the Effortless English learning system, and to provide motivation for students who may be feeling tired, frustrated, etc..   At the demo, I teach students how to study most effectively, and just as importantly, how to enjoy studying. 

Actually, I teach students not only to "enjoy" the process..  but how to be wildly happy and enthusiastic while learning.  This is not how we learned in school! 

It takes 5+ hours to teach this because students are so programmed by their life in schools--  they have forgotten how to play and have a great time while learning.   Luckily, it's a fun process to re-learn this.

The first Effortless English demo was in Bangkok, Thailand a few months ago.  It was a great success.   Everyone seemed to enjoy it and the energy level of the students was super-high!  I had a great time as well-- and thoroughly enjoyed teaching "live" again :)

Now that we're back in San Francisco, I'll be doing a series of demos here in the city.  Our first one is on May 30th.  The major challenge is promoting the demo in order to get people to come!  It's free, but a lot of students are nervous about trying yet another English class (and I can't blame them). 

So, we'll build slowly.   The good news is that people who attend the demos are usually super-excited-- and they want to drag all their friends to the next one.  I certainly hope that trend continues!

Let me end by saying Thank You to all the students who have attended or will attend a demo--   Your enthusiasm is what motivates and inspires me the most!  Thanks for energizing me and inspiring me to keep improving.
 

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It seems that our Effortless Business English lessons are suddenly becoming very popular.  I'm not exactly sure why there is so much increased interest in them, but my guess is that the economic disaster currently unfolding has people more interested in learning how to create their own successful business.

That, in fact, is one of the very unique aspects of these lessons.   Honestly, I detest most business English lessons.  Most of them are terribly boring and they are nothing more than business vocabulary books with a lot of horrible actors reading fake scripts. 

When I created our Effortless Business English lessons, I decided to be different (what can I say, being normal is not my strong point ;)  

I decided to create a pack of lessons that would be focused first and foremost on teaching people how to start and build their own business--  beginning with very little or no money.  This is what I did with my own business and I want to share my knowledge and experience to help others become financially free. 

So, these are first of all business lessons, not just English lessons.   Once I had created a powerful entrepreneur course, I then created English lessons to help learners understand the grammar and vocabulary used in the course.. using our Effortless English system.  

These lessons sold slowly at first, but recently they have become very popular.   What has pleased me the most are the reports from students who thank me for giving them the inspiration and knowledge to start their own business.   While the students are happy to learn business vocabulary, what they love most is the content itself-- which helps them attain greater financial security and freedom.   That's exactly what I hoped for when I created the lessons and I'm happy that they are finally reaching their potential.

In this current unfolding economic disaster, having a job is probably the LEAST secure position you can have.  As an employee you have few options.  You are at the mercy of your amoral company... which will cut jobs without a second thought if it benefits the upper-management.   

The MOST SECURE position to be in is being a business owner.  As a business owner you have flexibility.  You can adapt.  You can innovate.  You can be flexible and make adjustments and have a huge number of options to help you survive and thrive even in disastrous economic times. 

Ironically, most people believe that a job at a "good" company is stable, while starting/owning your own company is "risky".   In fact, the opposite is true.

I hope more learners will use our Effortless Business English lessons to gain greater security...   while learning business English at the same time!

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The Mac is a great computer and Apple in general is fantastic-- which is why I always recommend that our members get Apple's iTunes program to manage their English learning mp3 files.  iTunes works on both Macs and Windows and is super-easy to use.

I've always been astounded by the number of questions we get from Windows users-- who have trouble just opening a zip file and finding and organizing their mp3 files. 

With a Mac, all of this happens automatically.  So if you are considering a new computer and will be using it to learn English, I highly recommend a Mac!   If you already have a Windows computer, at least get iTunes (free download at www.apple.com/itunes ) to make your life easier!

And read more about English learning on our official homepage!  Learn English Mac is one of our recent topics which you can read more about.

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The Effortless English Bangkok Seminar was fantastic.  I couldn't ask for anything more.   For 5 straight hours we jumped, yelled, and learned together.  

This first trial seminar convinced me, more than ever, that intensive seminars must be a vital part of our system.   Day to day gradual "kaizen" learning is great.  It's necessary.  

But...  

We also need periods of intensity to dramatically increase our emotion and motivation.   In fact, this is exactly the formula I'm using while learning singing--  periods of intense learning alternating with periods of gradual day to day improvement.   I find it's the fastest way to master any new skill... producing the fastest improvements and the highest motivation (the two are linked, obviously).

In fact, I am increasingly convinced that Tony Robbins statement about success is 100% correct:
"Success is 80% psychology, 20% method".

For most of my teaching career, I focused myopically on the 20%-- method.  I learned from the best:  Stephen Krashen, Blaine Ray, Steve Kaufman, Von Ray, David Long. 

Yet, in my own language learning and in that of my students, I noticed that no matter what the method-- many still lost motivation and thus "failed" to achieve their goal of spoken mastery. 

And so during this past year, I have been learning the psychology of learning and success intensely.  I've been attending every seminar on the subject I can find and I have been experimenting with my own lessons, system... and now, with our seminars.

I'm happy to report we now have a psychological system as powerful as our teaching method.  In fact, I think it's even more powerful.  The results in Bangkok were incredible.

To keep the momentum rolling, we will be doing another seminar in Bangkok on March 29th (2009).  It will be at the Royal Hotel.  

Read more about it at: How To Learn Spoken English Seminar Bangkok

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Spoken grammar is much more difficult than written English grammar, mainly because of speed.  While spoken English grammar is much looser than written grammar, it must also be produced very fast-- almost instantly.

Read more about spoken English grammar on our main Effortless English website at:
http://effortlessenglishclub.com/spoken-english-grammar

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I've decided to return to using my original blog as the "official" Effortless English blog.   Its easier because many people already know it.

Also, I don't like the ads that Vox automatically adds to this blog... so check out my blog back at its original address:
Effortless English Learn English Blog

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Ive run a couple of surveys on the Club site recently, and members have also posted feedback regularly on the Forums.   Here is a short summary of the trends I've noticed:

1.  The POV Mini-Stories are a HUGE hit.  In fact, the new POV stories already seem to be the most popular lesson with members.  I suppose this shouldn't be surprising.  The POV stories allow members to practice and use the most common conversational grammar forms-- without studying grammar in any way.  You learn how and when to use these grammar forms... but you never study grammar rules and you certainly never worry about terms like "present perfect", etc.  

Of course, due to this feedback, I will continue doing POV lessons for all lesson bundles.   I will also continuing doing the basic TPR Mini-Stories-- which focus more on vocabulary, but still teach grammar intuitively and naturally as well.

2.  The new movie lessons are a hit.   The movie lessons have also proven to be popular.  In the movie lesson, I take a scene from a popular movie and then base a series of lessons around it (including a TPR Mini-Story & POV Story lesson).   Our first movie is the romantic-comedy "Hitch", starring Will Smith.

3.  Keep the Vocabulary Discussions.  One concern I had was with the vocabulary discussions.  To be honest, I worried they were a bit dry and boring compared to the other lesson types.  I considered eliminating them.  But members have unanimously asked me to keep them-- saying they are easy and helpful.  So, I'll keep doing them ;)

4. Layout.  Navigation and homepage layout have been a problem for a while-- the source of many complaints, in fact.  These have now been completely changed and the new layout seems much more popular.  Members can now easily access all lessons from the home page.  Also, lessons are now grouped by lesson title instead of lesson type.  In other words, on the homepage you click a lesson title (ex. "Hitch Intro", "Censorship") and that links to all the lesson types for that subject (ex. "Censorship Text", "Censorship Mini-Story", "Censorship POV", "Censorship Audio Article", "Censorship Commentary", "Censorship Vocab").

5. Audio Quality.  This was a problem in the beginning, but I've finally found a new microphone that is working very well.   Audio is now very clear and strong.

Remaining Issues

Members also had a few more suggestions and issues:

1. Forums-- Forum participation is still anemic.  Writing is the final step in the Effortless English system, but many members say they are too shy to write because they fear they will make many mistakes.  Of course I say, "Its fine to make mistakes"... but I know that isn't enough to reassure learners.

So I'm still thinking about ways to improve the Forums.  One idea I will try is to add lighter Forum topics.  Right now they are fairly serious-- especially ones related to the lessons.   I'll try adding topics such as "Movies", "Music", "Book Club", etc. and see if this encourages more participation.

2. More Memberships.  Lots of people have complained that I'm still in Beta Mode and am still limiting membership each month.   My only answer is "please be patient :)"     I don't want to fully launch the site (with totally open membership) until it is "ready".  By ready I mean:    a) The site has a library of at least 50 complete lesson bundles (each "bundle" contains:  Text Article, Vocab Discussion, TPRS Mini-Story, POV Mini-Story, Audio Article, and Commentary),  b) audio is upgraded further (I'm still researching even higher quality microphones and recording equipment), c) the Forums are active and energetic, d) our Street Team is organized and energized, and e) I've got a wider variety of lesson topics.  

Once these goals are met, I will end "Beta Mode" and will open membership more fully.  Until then, the best way to hear about periodic membership openings is to subscribe to the free Effortless English Newsletter-- to subscribe go to: www.effortlessenglish.org

So that's where things stand with The Effortless English Club.  HUGE thanks to the amazing members who have helped build the site.  Its only been a few months, but we have made big progress.   I'm having a fantastic time working with you all- and look forward to growing and improving more in the near future.

Take care!

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