Have you ever listened to a parent talking to their toddler? If you have, you will notice that they always repeat everything. They use the same phrases over and over again. Parents do this even before the child can speak. Why do you think they do this? When a parent talks, the child recognizes the voice. There is usually a small physical acknowledgment – the child will look or stop what they are doing; they are listening all the time. “Clever boy!”, “Clever girl!”, “Are you thirsty?”, “Are you hungry?”, “I’ve made your lunch”, “Let’s go to the park later” – all these sounds become associated with different actions or events. The action could be as small as a smile from the parent or as big as being bundled into a pushchair and taken to the park. All the time, the child is listening and associating.
With our learning system, we want you to do something similar. Choose a topic, then listen over and over again to sentences about that topic. Sometimes you will find them easy, sometimes they will be difficult. The level does not matter; what you are doing is learning to recognize the sounds that connect to a topic. You may often already know the word when you see it written down, but in English, we don’t pronounce all the sounds in a word. We often change a vowel pronunciation for an unstressed syllable, so even if you know the words, you need to keep listening to associate the sound of the word with the word.
Trust us, this system works. After all, people could talk long before they could read or write – listening is key, and it only works with repetition!
