CHAPTER 12
The Fourth Rule – Repetition Is The
Key To Spoken Mastery
You want to learn English and you want to speak it well RIGHT NOW.
The problem is most language classes move too quickly for students to
master material before moving onto something new. In this chapter, we’ll
focus on the fourth rule of Effortless English™ which advises you to take
your time and learn deeply.
What does it mean to learn deeply? To learn deeply means to learn
English to the point where speaking and understanding are automatic. Often
people know a lot of English grammar and vocabulary, but they don’t know
it deeply. When it comes time to speak, they’re translating vocabulary and
analyzing tenses in their heads or struggling to understand the meaning of
what someone is saying to them. Effortless English™ emphasizes training
for mastery.
Deep learning means repeating what you have learned, again and again.
This might feel very different from the way you learned in school. Most
schools have a lot of pressure to move fast. They’re always pushing the
students to learn more grammar or a certain number of new words every
week. The teachers rely primarily on textbooks, and try to finish them on
schedule. The problem for students is that you learn a lot of stuff but then
you forget it. Or you remember the basic idea, but you can’t use it.
Take the past tense, for example. If you’ve studied English before,
chances are you learned the past tense. Chances are also good that you
studied it in a textbook and then *BOOM* very fast, you moved on. You
went on to learn more grammar, possessives, the future tense or the present
perfect tense.
