This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 120.
Effortless English podcast host AJ Hogue gets emotional with All Ears English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now, here are your hosts.
Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
In today's episode, get three tips from language learning expert AJ Hogue, so you know how to feel positive emotions while studying English and make learning not just fun but also effective.
Do you ever feel like your English is good but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations, but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey, Michelle, I'm so excited to be here for a guest episode with AJ Hogue.
Are you ready?
I am ready.
Oh my gosh, this is awesome.
AJ is the founder of Effortless English and host of the Effortless English podcast.
So it's so exciting to have him as this expert here today.
I know, guys.
In this episode, we're going to be playing clips from our interview with AJ Hogue.
And so you're going to get real insight directly from him, from his voice.
But first of all, let's talk about the name of his company.
Michelle, what does Effortless mean?
Hmm, effortless.
It means kind of like light and not having to think too hard, right?
Like having to have something be a burden, I think.
Yeah, totally.
Exactly.
This idea, yeah, you don't really have to try that hard and you just learn automatically.
You obviously still do have to put in some effort, but it's kind of like the type of effort that you put in is really what matters, right.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
It doesn't mean that you don't put in effort.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
You just say, whatever, right?
It's just a different type of effort.
So yeah guys, AJ is going to share his three tips for how to learn English in an effortless way, which is going to be super helpful.
So should we go into his first tips?
Yeah.
Let's just get right into it guys.
So now we're going to play AJ's first tip and then Michelle and I are going to talk about it here.
Here we go.
Okay.
First thing that I always talk about is emotion.
It's a strange thing that we don't hear much about in school.
But that emotion is, I would say, 80% of success.
And specifically what I mean.
I gave a class in Vietnam last year, for example, and we're telling a story and we're doing this story lesson with the students, but they're not just sitting there passively falling asleep.
They would shout their answers excitedly, you know.
They would jump and shout and get a lot of excitement and energy and passion and that kind of wakes up the brain.
It improves memory, it improves learning.
It's it's a.
An extremely important point that a lot of people miss is to really inject a lot of powerful, positive emotions into their English learning.
OK, Michelle, I think this is so true.
You know, AJ just told us that emotion is 80 percent of success.
I mean, what do you think when you hear that?
Wow.
That's I'm surprised, you know, like that emotion has so much to do with it.
But I think that it is true.
Well, and I think that's kind of why traditional classrooms don't always work for students.
There is no emotion.
They're sterile, right?
Yeah, many of them are.
If you've got a good teacher and I hope you do you know they can be really engaging in my classes.
I certainly try.
Not your classes, Michelle.
My classes are amazing.
No, I'm just joking.
But yeah, you know you want to have.
You don't want to have that bad emotional connection with learning.
Yeah.
And, you know, it makes sense that some students, they might be embarrassed.
They're afraid to show any emotion because they've never done it before, or they think maybe it doesn't seem cool to show your emotion.
But when you engage that emotional part of your brain, that is what actually imprints the memories, that becomes language learning right.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
So yeah, that's a great tip from AJ.
So I mean, how does he convince you to feel this energy while learning?
Yeah, good question.
Let's go ahead and play the second clip from AJ and let's find out.
Here we go.
Okay.
This is what I do in my classes because I sort of step by step get them to that point.
It doesn't really happen immediately.
The first thing I teach people is just use their body.
Oh, nice.
Stand up straight.
Bring your shoulders back.
Put a stupid smile on your face.
Yeah.
And breathe more deeply.
Increase your volume.
Speak a little bit louder.
OK, so AJ has told us that you know, controlling our body in a physical way is the way to make it work.
And that's what he does in his classes.
Interesting.
I would like to sit in on his classes to see how this actually works.
Right.
It's the hack into controlling the mind.
What do you think about that, Michelle?
That is interesting, and I like it.
Like, for example, if you're having a bad day, you can try smiling or moving around.
You know, encourage yourself to come out of whatever kind of hole that you're in.
And, you know, that makes me think of, like...
You know when you're talking on the phone and sometimes they say, if you just smile, you're going to sound so different.
Yeah, true.
I mean sometimes when I talk on the phone, if I'm nervous I'll stand up and walk around the room and kind of just get my arms moving, get involved.
And that does change my tone of voice and what I'm saying and my success on the call. right?
Right, right, right.
So if you act confident, then you will feel more confident, right?
Yeah.
So that is the first part of one of his tips for success is physical movement imprinting the memories by being active, being emotional.
Let's find out what the next tip is.
I think it has to do with listening.
Right?
Are you ready for it?
All right, let's do it.
It's so important because speaking comes from listening.
When you think of babies, how do babies learn English or any language?
They're listening to their parents and other people talking, talking tons of listening.
Okay, Michelle, this is good because I really agree.
And I think that's why a lot of listeners have had success, even with All Ears English here and with AJ's podcast too is that it's all about listening first?
Don't you hate it when you're trying to buy something online and when you finally make all of your selections and get ready to check out, your credit card is nowhere to be found.
When this happens, I love seeing the purple pay button at the top of the checkout, because I know I won't have to dig for my card.
This simple purple button is one of the best features in all of the online shopping world and can make a huge difference in sales for your online business.
Shopify is the e-commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 of all e-commerce in the US.
From household names like Skims and Thrive Cosmetics to brands just getting started.
Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you.
Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.
Best yet.
Shopify is your e-commerce expert, with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping, to processing returns and beyond.
See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go... with Shopify and their Shop Pay button.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
Go to Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com slash A-E-E. mm-hmm right right right like babies right babies yeah i mean you've had a baby right i did what was your i so how long did your baby kind of listen before he started speaking what yeah no i You know, I don't remember.
I mean, like, you know, first it's like a lot of listening and then it's like, you know, small words or pieces of words here and there.
Right.
But he wasn't going to... come out talking.
Yeah.
No, no.
Because he has to hear the sounds and start to know what they mean.
I mean, there's such a process.
So why is it that students think they should just go straight to being able to speak, right?
That's the big question.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I think that we have to.
I don't know.
He mentions taking the pressure off ourselves and you know listening, you know it can be better than speaking, and you hear things over and over.
I mean, I'm thinking when I'm working in a language office.
Or you know, or I'm listening to something in a language that I worked on a while ago, that haven't that, I haven't really spoken.
You know, do you ever find like oh, that you can understand a lot more of it, but you couldn't.
It's like harder to produce it then.
So if you keep on listening, then you'll be, you'll start to remember more.
Yeah, listening is huge.
And we can do this even when we're on the subway, if we're in an English-speaking country.
There's so many ways we can do this that don't require you know sitting at your desk and playing a tape right.
There's so many ways we can do it.
And just to add on to AJ's tip is to go ahead and listen multiple times, guys.
It's okay to listen to an episode more than once.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Right, right, right.
Exactly, exactly.
So I love that.
I don't know.
And then, right, listening multiple times.
And then we have another tip that we have from AJ, right?
Yeah, let's listen to what AJ's third tip is here, and then we will come back and talk about it.
All right.
So listen to real English.
And by real English, what I mean is real communication, real topics.
So don't focus so much on the little pieces of the language.
Forget textbooks and analyzing the grammar and nouns and clauses and all that stuff.
And just focus on real speakers, you know, in our case, real Americans who are talking about interesting topics.
Yeah, I love how AJ says that you need real English, not focusing on the little pieces of the language, right?
He says the topics that you choose have to be interesting.
That's huge, Michelle.
I mean, how important is that?
You have to like it, right?
It has to be something that you like and it has to be real.
I mean, if it's not real, then what are we doing, right?
Because we're practicing for the real world when we're learning a language.
So if you're not listening to something real, then it's just – I don't know.
It's kind of – then you have the extra step of having to move from –
I don't know.
I'm going to call it fake or like, you know, English too.
Then you have to move from that to the real.
So why not just learn real from the beginning?
Right.
It's not like you're going to have that conversation with a native speaker about past perfect tense.
If you try to, they're not going to know what that is.
Your average native speaker does not know what the past perfect tense is.
So we're going in the wrong direction if we're spending all our time learning English talking about these grammar tenses.
Instead, let's talk about something we're actually interested in guys, and we're going to learn those tenses through that thing that we're interested in.
Right, Michelle?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Good stuff.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, I think that, just like you know, whatever you listen to, whether it's movies news, whatever you can find listen to podcasts.
And, you know, he also was talking about YouTube channels.
Audiobooks are good, too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, don't let the textbook company tell you what to learn, right?
Direct yourself and your own learning as an adult.
You know, we don't need to wait for the companies to tell us how to learn.
I love that.
So let's go ahead and sum up AJ's three tips for our listeners.
Michelle, what was his first tip?
Well, the first one was feel interested and emotionally positive while you're learning.
I love it.
And number two was listen to a lot of English.
Listen as many times as you need to.
For example for this episode if you didn't catch everything, there's no shame in going back and playing it again.
Right?
Right.
Listen again.
We're happy to have you.
Exactly.
And then the third, what was it?
The third is to use material that's real.
That is real English communication about topics that are interesting to you.
Yes, movies, music, drama, Broadway, whatever it is that you love, sports, talk about it in English.
All right.
Now, Michelle, how can our listeners find out more about A.J.
Hogue and go check out his material?
Okay.
Well, you can listen to his podcast, which is Effortless English, or go to his website effortlessenglishcom.
And also he has a YouTube channel called AJ Hogue.
Yes, I love it.
All right.
Well, I'm glad we had AJ on the show today.
And Michelle, thanks for chatting with me to sum up what we learned from AJ.
Love it.
All right.
Thank you to AJ.
And thanks, Lindsay.
Talk soon.
Bye.
All right.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English and if you believe in connection, not perfection, follow our show wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
