8 Learning Spoken English

If you doubt that the proprioceptive sense is an important part of

speech, try this experiment. Read two or three sentences written in your
own language. Read it entirely in your mind without moving your lips.
You may even speed read it. Now read the same sentences "silently" by
moving your lips without making any sound. Your mind will respond to
the first way of reading as simple information which is primarily a
memory function, but will respond to the second way as speech because
of the proprioceptive feedback from your mouth.
Did you also notice a difference between the two readings in terms
of your mental intensity? The first reading would elicit the mental
activity required when you do a written grammar-based English
assignment. The second would result in the same kind of mental
activity required when you study English using spoken drills. How
quickly you learn to speak fluent English will be directly proportional
to your mental involvement when you study.

The best way to learn English

Two skill areas must be emphasized if you want to learn to speak
English fluently. The first is memory (which is involved in both
vocabulary and syntax) and the second is proprioceptive responses
(which are involved in both pronunciation and syntax).
You may be able to learn simple vocabulary-related memory skills
with equal effectiveness by using either verbal or visual training
methods. That is, you may be able to learn pure memory skills equally
well with either spoken drills or written exercises.
However, it is impossible for you to retrain your proprioceptive
sense without hearing your own voice at full speaking volume. Thus, in
my opinion, it is a waste of your time to do written assignments for the
purpose of learning spoken English.
Surprisingly, it will take far less time for you to learn both fluent
spoken English and excellent English grammar by learning only spoken
English first, than it will for you to study written English grammar
lessons before you can speak English. This does not mean, however,
that grammar is not a necessary part of spoken English instruction. It is
impossible to speak English—or any other language—without correct
use of its grammar. My statement simply means that the best way to
learn English grammar is through spoken English exercises. (See
Chapter 3: Grammar and Writing in Spoken English Study.)
Teaching Your Tongue to Speak English 9

Inasmuch as
spok en En glish
Control and Feedback Training involves multiple
Must be Simultaneous areas of skill
w o r k i n g
cooperatively in real
Control time, it is mandatory
that effective spoken
English teaching
m e t h o d s
simultaneously train
all of these areas of
Recalibrate speech. This is
shown in Figure 5.
Feedback It is the important
area of the
proprioceptive sense
which has been most
overlooked in
current grammar-
based teaching
methodology. When
any student over the
age of about 12
attempts to learn a
spoken language, his
or her proprioceptive
sense must be
Time 0 consciously
retrained for all of
the new sounds and
syntax.
Figure 5: Control and feedback training
must be simultaneous. Furthermore, to
properly retrain the
proprioceptive sense of the mouth, the combined feedback from the
mouth and hearing must be simultaneously processed in the mind.
Simply said, the student must speak out loud for optimum spoken
language learning.
Without simultaneous involvement of all skill areas of speech, it is
impossible for you to effectively retrain your proprioceptive sense in
10 Learning Spoken English

order for you to speak fluent English. Yet, this is exactly what
grammar-based English instruction has traditionally done by
introducing grammar, listening, writing, and reading as segregated
activities. It is not surprising that you have studied English so long in
school without learning to speak fluently.
Grammar-based instruction has hindered English learning by
segregating individual areas of study. This segregation is represented in
Figure 6. Grammar-based English training has not only isolated
proprioceptive training areas so that it prevents simultaneous skill
development, it has replaced it with visual memory training by using
written assignments. Grammar-based language instruction teaches
English as though spoken English was an open-loop system. The result
for the student is that, gaining English fluency requires far more study
time, pronunciation is often faulty, and grammar becomes more
difficult to learn.

Control and feedback training are not simultaneous in

grammar-based English Instruction. Feedback is largely
ignored. Written work predominantly aids visual memory.

Control

again = снова
book = книга
lesson = урок"

Time 0

Figure 6: Control and feedback training are not simultaneous in grammar-

based English instruction.
Teaching Your Tongue to Speak English 11

Conclusion.
Why has it taken you so long to learn to speak English fluently?
Grammar-based English language instruction teaches as though
spoken English is primarily a function of memory. Consequently,
grammar-based English lessons emphasizes non-verbal (written) studies
of grammar, writing, reading, and listening. All of these activities may
increase recall memory for written examinations, but they have little
benefit in teaching you to speak fluent English.
The only way you can effectively learn spoken English is by using
spoken English as the method of instruction. All of your study
(including English grammar) should be done by speaking English at full
voice volume for the entire study period.

[1] Some researchers think human speech is an open-loop system. However,

it has been shown that the human brain does many things using both open–
and closed-loop control. As suggested in this chapter, spoken English
learning would be improved using spoken English study irrespective of
whether speech control is open– or closed-loop.
[2] The terms Proprioceptive Method and Feedback Training Method may
be used interchangeably in describing this language learning method. An
earlier term, Proprio-Kinesthetic Method, was also used for this same
language program. I will use the term proprioceptive to describe the
neurological process but will call the language learning method the
Feedback Training Method.
Chapter 2: Four Rules for Learning Spoken English

Chapter Summary: This chapter explains four rules which you

must follow in order to learn spoken English. These four rules
help you retrain your mind and tongue simultaneously so that you
will learn to speak fluent English quickly.
You will be surprised by the fourth rule which states, "You
must never make a mistake when you are speaking English."

There are four simple rules you must follow when you are learning
to speak English:

1. To learn to speak English correctly, you must speak it aloud.

It is important that you speak loudly and clearly when you are
studying spoken English. You are retraining your mind to respond
to a new pattern of proprioceptive and auditory stimuli. This can
only be done when you are speaking aloud at full volume.
One of the reasons that your English study in school required so
much time while producing such poor results is that none of the si-
lent study did anything to train your tongue to speak English.

2. To learn to speak English fluently, you must think in English.

The proprioceptive sense is not all that you are retraining when
you learn spoken English. There is cognitive learning (memory)
which must also take place. Grammar-based English instruction has
emphasized cognitive learning to the exclusion of retraining the pro-
prioceptive sense. Nonetheless, cognitive learning is an important
part of learning to speak English fluently.
For speech to occur, your mind must be actively involved in syn-
tax development. The more actively your mind is involved in spo-
ken English, the more effective the learning process becomes.
Four Rules for Learning Spoken English 13

However, just as you will hinder proprioceptive training by trying

to study silently, so you will also limit cognitive learning by reading
from a text rather than constructing the syntax in your own mind. If
you are studying English with Spoken English Learned Quickly,
you may use the written text when you first study a new exercise.
However, after repeating the exercise two or three times, you must
close the text and do the exercise from recall memory as you listen
to the audio recording. You must force your mind to think in Eng-
lish by using your recall memory when you are studying spoken ex-
ercises. You cannot read from a text.
I will come back to this later in Chapter 5: Selecting a Text, be-
cause there will be times when reading from a text such as a newspa-
per is an effective language learning tool. But when you are doing
sentence responses with recorded exercises, you must force your
mind to develop the syntax by doing the exercise without reading
from a text.
You are not thinking in English if you are reading. Making your
mind work in order to think of the response is an important part of
learning to speak English.

3. The more you speak English aloud, the more quickly you will learn
to speak it fluently.
Proprioceptive retraining is not instantaneous. It will require a
great deal of repetition to build the new language patterns in your
mind. As these new patterns develop, there will be progression from
a laborious, conscious effort, to speech which is reproduced rapidly
and unconsciously.
When you speak your first language, you do so with no conscious
awareness of tongue or mouth position and the air flow through the
vocal cords. In contrast, it requires experimentation and conscious
effort when you first attempt to make an unknown discrete sound in
English—this single sound, usually represented by one letter, is
called a phoneme. Some new sounds will be relatively simple for
you to make. Others will be more difficult.
To add to the complexity, each phoneme has other phonemes or
stops adjacent to it which change its sound slightly. (A stop is a
break caused by momentarily restricting the air flow with the tongue
or throat.) For example, the simple English sentence, "Why didn't
14 Learning Spoken English

that work?" may be difficult for you to pronounce if your language

does not use the English "th" sound. But it may give you difficulty
for another reason as well. There are actually two stops in the sen-
tence. When properly pronounced, there is a stop between the "n"
and "t" in "didn't" and another stop between the final "t" in "didn't"
and the first "t" in "that." Even though the sentence may be said
very quickly, the two stops would make it, "Why didn / t / that
work?"
Your objective is not to be able to write the sentence, "Why didn't
that work?" accurately in English. Your goal is not even to be able
to say it just well enough so that someone could figure out what you
meant. Your objective is to be able to say, "Why didn't that work?"
so perfectly to an American that she would think she had just been
asked the question by a fellow American.
That degree of perfection will require thousands—if not tens of
thousands—of repetitions. Therefore—to be somewhat facetious—
the more quickly you correctly repeat a particularly difficult pho-
neme ten thousand times, the more quickly you will be able to use it
fluently. That is what I mean when I say, "The more you speak Eng-
lish aloud, the more quickly you will learn to speak fluently."

4. You must never make a mistake when you are practicing spoken
English.
When you are learning spoken English using the Spoken English
Learned Quickly method, you are strongly reinforcing the learning
process each time you speak. However, when you construct a sen-
tence incorrectly, you have not only wasted the learning time used to
construct that sentence, but you must now invest even more time in
order to retrain your mind, mouth, and hearing in order to construct
the sentence correctly. The more you use a sentence structure incor-
rectly, the longer it will take for your mind, mouth, and hearing to
identify the correct syntax.
Ideally, if you used only correct syntax and pronunciation, you
could retrain your speech in considerably less time. Consequently,
you would learn to speak fluent English more quickly.
Yet, before you conclude that this would be impossible, let's look
at a way in which it can actually be done using the Spoken English
Learned Quickly language course. (Well, it can almost be done!)
Four Rules for Learning Spoken English 15

Traditional English study

Traditional methods of teaching English attempt to engage the stu-
dents in free speech as quickly as possible. Though the goal is com-
mendable, in practice it has a serious drawback. A beginning student
does not have enough language background to be able to construct sen-
tences properly. More to the point, the instruction program seldom has
enough teachers to correct every student's errors. Consequently, begin-
ning students regularly use incomplete sentences having incorrect syn-
tax and verb construction. The instructor often praises them for their
valiant effort, in spite of the reality that they are learning to use English
incorrectly. The student will now need to spend even more time re-
learning the correct syntax.

Controlled language study

The better alternative is to derive all initial spoken language study
from audio recorded materials which contain perfect syntax, perfect use
of the verb, and perfect pronunciation. This sounds restrictive, but, in
fact, it can be done with the Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons.
Say, for example, that during the first two weeks of English study,
you used only the Spoken English Learned Quickly recorded exer-
cises. You would repeat the recorded lesson material which was accu-
rate in every detail. For the entire instruction period, you would work
by yourself while repeating the exercise sentences hundreds of times.
Needless to say, in two weeks' time, you would have spoken English
correctly far more than had you been passively sitting in a traditional
English class. But more to the point, everything you would have
learned would have been correct. Your syntax would have been cor-
rect. Your use of the English verb would have been correct. And, as
much as possible, your pronunciation would have been correct.
To continue the example, say that it was now time for you to begin
trying free speech. Yet, we still would not want you to make mistakes.
Consequently, all free speaking would be taken directly from the many
sentences you would have already learned. Your teacher would ask
questions from the Spoken English Learned Quickly exercises so that
you could answer in the exact words of the sentences you would have
studied. Subsequently, you would be given questions to answer which
would use the same structure as the sentences you already knew, but
16 Learning Spoken English
now you would substitute other vocabulary words which would be in
the same lessons.

Making the application

I assume that you are a college student or a young professional and
that you are highly motivated to learn to speak English fluently.
You will do much better if you seek ways in which you can speak
English correctly from the very beginning. Strike a careful balance be-
tween free speech and forcing yourself to follow a pattern of correct
English use. Do everything in your power to use English correctly.
In the early weeks of English study, this may require that you spend
more time repeating recorded Spoken English Learned Quickly exer-
cises than in trying to engage in free speech. Later, however, you will
need to spend a great deal of time talking with others.
Nonetheless, every time you encounter new syntax in English, use
controlled language drills long enough so that your mind becomes thor-
oughly familiar with correct sentence structure and pronunciation. If
you are using the Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons, repeat the
exercises until you can say them quickly and accurately with perfect
pronunciation. As you progress in your English study, begin reading
English newspaper articles aloud. Look for examples of new vocabu-
lary and sentence format. Mark the sentences, verify the vocabulary,
and then read—and repeat from recall memory—the sentences aloud
until they become a part of your speech.
Chapter 3: Grammar and Writing in Spoken English

Chapter Summary: Any language is unintelligible without

grammar because grammar consists of the rules used to put
words together in ways which convey meaning. The issue is not
whether or not you need to know English grammar. The ques-
tion is, "How do you learn English grammar best?"

My personal experience
I had the great advantage of growing up in a home in which gram-
matically correct English was spoken. As I progressed through pri-
mary school and on into secondary school, my language ability ma-
tured as a result of my home and school environments.
In retrospect, I believe this is what happened: for the most part, I
used proper sentence structure and pronunciation because that is what
I heard in my home. However, when I went to school, I needed to
learn grammar. I—like probably most of my classmates—did not
learn to speak because I studied grammar. Rather, I was able to learn
how to do grammar exercises because I already knew how to speak.
Certainly, I learned many important things about English through
grammar study. But it was of importance to me only because I had
already achieved basic English fluency. I did not learn to speak Eng-
lish as a result of English grammar lessons.
I also took two years of Spanish in secondary school. We started
with basic grammar. We wrote exercises every day. But we almost
never heard spoken Spanish, much less spoke it ourselves. After sec-
ondary school graduation, I could neither speak Spanish, nor did I un-
derstand Spanish grammar.
Within 10 years of my secondary school graduation, I spent a year
in Paris studying French. I had the great fortune of enrolling in a