book for kids. You’ll probably find a book by Dr. Seuss is more interesting
than a textbook, because it is a real story written for native English speakers.
As you get better, when your English level is higher, you can listen to
audio books for young adults or for older children. Just keep listening to real
English. When something gets too easy, choose something a little more
difficult until that gets easy. Eventually, when you are advanced, you can
listen to CNN or the BBC, or American movies, British movies, Australian
movies, etc. But again, that’s at an advanced level. Start with easy stuff.
By focusing on real English materials, you are immersing yourself in the
language used by native speakers. You are not learning a strange special
language taught only to students. By listening to real English, you guarantee
that you are learning useful language that is used in the real world. At the
same time, because the material you use is authentic, you also learn idioms
and culture – which are vital to understanding spoken English.
I have created an audiobook version of this book so you can use this book
for English practice. See the back of the book for more details.
Real English materials will even help you improve faster on exams such
as the TOEFL. Research by Dr. Ashley Hastings found that students who
learned with authentic materials (books, movies, TV shows) improved 35%
more than students who studied in a TOEFL preparation course using sample
tests.
What about reading? While listening will be your main focus, reading
authentic materials is also powerful. With reading, you follow the same
principles as you did with authentic listening materials. You read easy
English story books or easy English novels. You choose books that are
pleasurable. Pick something you enjoy, something that’s interesting – maybe
a romance or maybe an adventure story or any topic or category that
fascinates you.
Dr. Krashen calls this “free voluntary reading” and it is the most powerful
way to increase your English vocabulary. Reading authentic materials has
been shown to increase vocabulary much faster than studying lists of words.
As you’ll see in a future chapter, this kind of reading is also the best possible
