OK... we finally have a new home for the blog & podcast-- on our main Effortless English Club website!
The new Blog address is: www.EffortlessEnglishClub.com
New blog posts and new podcasts are on the right sidebar.
I add new ones almost every week :)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Why So Quiet On The Blog & Podcast?
Why have I been so quiet?
Why so few blog and podcast posts recently?
Well, I'm currently working to move the blog (again!!)-- this time to the EffortlessEnglishClub.com URL.
So I uploaded Wordpress and am trying to learn how to use it. Another system to learn-- ugh :(
But I think Wordpress will have advantages long term. Ill be able to do a lot more with the site... and be able to integrate the lesson pages, the blog posts, and the podcast.
Wordpress also makes it easy to create special "members-only" pages-- pages that require a password. So I may add more bonus material, such as bonus lessons, short videos, etc. for members-only.
Meanwhile, its a lot of work to learn the new system, and all the various plug-ins I need.
I'm also working to put many of our main web pages on Wordpress.
Hopefully, you'll like the result once I'm finished.
Oh.. and I haven't forgotten about the Transcript Contest.
I have started to read some of the entries-- a winner will be chosen soon :P
Really ;)
Sign Up For My Free 7 Day Email Course. Enter Your Email Below, Now:
Listen To This Article at:
The Effortless English Podcast.
Why so few blog and podcast posts recently?
Well, I'm currently working to move the blog (again!!)-- this time to the EffortlessEnglishClub.com URL.
So I uploaded Wordpress and am trying to learn how to use it. Another system to learn-- ugh :(
But I think Wordpress will have advantages long term. Ill be able to do a lot more with the site... and be able to integrate the lesson pages, the blog posts, and the podcast.
Wordpress also makes it easy to create special "members-only" pages-- pages that require a password. So I may add more bonus material, such as bonus lessons, short videos, etc. for members-only.
Meanwhile, its a lot of work to learn the new system, and all the various plug-ins I need.
I'm also working to put many of our main web pages on Wordpress.
Hopefully, you'll like the result once I'm finished.
Oh.. and I haven't forgotten about the Transcript Contest.
I have started to read some of the entries-- a winner will be chosen soon :P
Really ;)
Sign Up For My Free 7 Day Email Course. Enter Your Email Below, Now:
Listen To This Article at:
The Effortless English Podcast.
Monday, July 7, 2008
The Transcript
Here's the transcript for the contest, I'll choose a winner soon:
----------------------------------------
Hello, this is AJ and today we have a special podcast. Today we have a contest. This is a transcription contest so I’m going to speak about a subject and you need to listen and write down what I say and then you need to send me your transcripts. Send me the text from this podcast. Send it as a personal message to my forum. So send it to me in the Effortless English forums and send it as a personal message. So this is obviously for members. So here we go. I’m just going to talk for probably about five minutes spontaneously. You need to write down the text of what I say.
What I’m going to talk about is an idea that Tomoe and I have been talking about and that is we are going to start a physical Effortless English club or actually, it won’t be an Effortless English club, it will be an Effortless Language club. So, excuse me, the idea is that we’re going to get a little room or a little building, some physical space, and we’re going to teach some language classes using the Effortless English method or the Effortless method.
So I’m going to teach some English classes and she’s going to teach some Japanese classes. I’m also going to train some teachers, train some volunteers to teach them the method so that it doesn’t just depend on me. So it will be kind of be like a school but I don’t want to call it a school. I want it to be an interesting environment, a club in the sense of like a membership club or a social club or even a country club, but you know, not for rich people.
Dammit, excuse me, got a cough. So anyway, I’m not sure what the name exactly will be but something probably like the San Francisco Effortless Language Club and of course we’ll have language programs as I just said but we’re also going to have social programs and motivational programs.
I’ve often thought about having my own school and there are kind of some main points that I always think would be important for a physical school. One of course are the lessons or the teaching method and I already have that. That’s the Effortless English method. But there are other important parts and the second important part for a school is the atmosphere, the physical environment. I think schools are ugly, butt ugly in fact and I’ve always thought I wanted to create a space that had mojo, that had some special quality, an interesting atmosphere, an atmosphere that was kind of transcendent or transformational so that when you walk in to this school or club or room, instantly your feeling changes, you have some kind of shift in your emotional state.
Maybe you were tired, maybe you were bored, maybe you were stressed before, but just by walking into this physical space, you change and get some more energy and you feel a little bit better. All of us can think of certain spaces like that.
Sorry, I’ve had this cough for about two weeks, excuse me, and I can’t seem to get rid of it. So anyway we can all think of these sort of kind of spaces. For example, some temples or churches are like this. You walk in and there’s instantly some kind of magical quality. Even sometimes a coffee shop or a restaurant can have that quality. You walk in and just by going into this physical space because of the decorations, the colors, the sound and the way it’s painted, what’s hanging on the walls, all of that, even the smells, create a change in you. So that’s powerful and I think we should use it in education. I think we should make schools that are beautiful and inspiring. We don’t have much money so I’m going to have to do this on a small budget but that’s one of the requirements for me.
Another requirement is a motivational curriculum and this is something that all schools neglect or almost all schools neglect. You know, they have their teaching method which is usually bad. They have their physical space which is usually ugly and then they totally neglect the whole idea of motivation. But I think that motivation, emotion, is equally important to teaching method because the biggest problem with language students, any language, any foreign language, is that they quit, right, because they get bored or they get discouraged and they give up. So we have to support, help, and teach learners how to manage their emotions, how to build their motivation, how to build their enthusiasm, how to support and build and increase their passion and energy for learning the language. So I want that to be a component of our club, our school, our program as well, helping our members increase and support their emotion, enthusiasm, and passion for learning the language. Those will be the three main parts of our new San Francisco Effortless Language Club and I’ll be talking more about that as we develop it.
Alright, well get working. You’re going to have to listen to this many times and type or write this and I guess you’re going to have to type it because you have to send it to me in the forums as a personal message. I will check and the best transcript, the text that is the closest to what I actually said in my audio, you’ll be the winner and everybody will love you, yay! Ok, good luck. You have one week, you have seven days to finish your transcript and send it to me. Bye.
Sign Up For My Free 7 Day Email Course. Enter Your Email Below, Now:
Listen To This Article at:
The Effortless English Podcast.
----------------------------------------
Hello, this is AJ and today we have a special podcast. Today we have a contest. This is a transcription contest so I’m going to speak about a subject and you need to listen and write down what I say and then you need to send me your transcripts. Send me the text from this podcast. Send it as a personal message to my forum. So send it to me in the Effortless English forums and send it as a personal message. So this is obviously for members. So here we go. I’m just going to talk for probably about five minutes spontaneously. You need to write down the text of what I say.
What I’m going to talk about is an idea that Tomoe and I have been talking about and that is we are going to start a physical Effortless English club or actually, it won’t be an Effortless English club, it will be an Effortless Language club. So, excuse me, the idea is that we’re going to get a little room or a little building, some physical space, and we’re going to teach some language classes using the Effortless English method or the Effortless method.
So I’m going to teach some English classes and she’s going to teach some Japanese classes. I’m also going to train some teachers, train some volunteers to teach them the method so that it doesn’t just depend on me. So it will be kind of be like a school but I don’t want to call it a school. I want it to be an interesting environment, a club in the sense of like a membership club or a social club or even a country club, but you know, not for rich people.
Dammit, excuse me, got a cough. So anyway, I’m not sure what the name exactly will be but something probably like the San Francisco Effortless Language Club and of course we’ll have language programs as I just said but we’re also going to have social programs and motivational programs.
I’ve often thought about having my own school and there are kind of some main points that I always think would be important for a physical school. One of course are the lessons or the teaching method and I already have that. That’s the Effortless English method. But there are other important parts and the second important part for a school is the atmosphere, the physical environment. I think schools are ugly, butt ugly in fact and I’ve always thought I wanted to create a space that had mojo, that had some special quality, an interesting atmosphere, an atmosphere that was kind of transcendent or transformational so that when you walk in to this school or club or room, instantly your feeling changes, you have some kind of shift in your emotional state.
Maybe you were tired, maybe you were bored, maybe you were stressed before, but just by walking into this physical space, you change and get some more energy and you feel a little bit better. All of us can think of certain spaces like that.
Sorry, I’ve had this cough for about two weeks, excuse me, and I can’t seem to get rid of it. So anyway we can all think of these sort of kind of spaces. For example, some temples or churches are like this. You walk in and there’s instantly some kind of magical quality. Even sometimes a coffee shop or a restaurant can have that quality. You walk in and just by going into this physical space because of the decorations, the colors, the sound and the way it’s painted, what’s hanging on the walls, all of that, even the smells, create a change in you. So that’s powerful and I think we should use it in education. I think we should make schools that are beautiful and inspiring. We don’t have much money so I’m going to have to do this on a small budget but that’s one of the requirements for me.
Another requirement is a motivational curriculum and this is something that all schools neglect or almost all schools neglect. You know, they have their teaching method which is usually bad. They have their physical space which is usually ugly and then they totally neglect the whole idea of motivation. But I think that motivation, emotion, is equally important to teaching method because the biggest problem with language students, any language, any foreign language, is that they quit, right, because they get bored or they get discouraged and they give up. So we have to support, help, and teach learners how to manage their emotions, how to build their motivation, how to build their enthusiasm, how to support and build and increase their passion and energy for learning the language. So I want that to be a component of our club, our school, our program as well, helping our members increase and support their emotion, enthusiasm, and passion for learning the language. Those will be the three main parts of our new San Francisco Effortless Language Club and I’ll be talking more about that as we develop it.
Alright, well get working. You’re going to have to listen to this many times and type or write this and I guess you’re going to have to type it because you have to send it to me in the forums as a personal message. I will check and the best transcript, the text that is the closest to what I actually said in my audio, you’ll be the winner and everybody will love you, yay! Ok, good luck. You have one week, you have seven days to finish your transcript and send it to me. Bye.
Sign Up For My Free 7 Day Email Course. Enter Your Email Below, Now:
Listen To This Article at:
The Effortless English Podcast.
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