Learn English Now: General Beginners, Songs, Conversations, Hotels, Retail Sales, Restaurants, Telephone
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Think about Better Ways to Teach
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The best way to speak with a good accent is to learn from native speakers, especially at first, so you start with good habits. Beginners can learn cheaply from lessons recorded by native speakers. (Native speakers in person are good too, but most schools and beginners cannot afford to hire them.) Here are the courses, sorted by language.
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Most classroom language teachers, in most of the world, are not native speakers. While they are good for guidance and explanation, they are not the best at teaching accents. Many students learn poor accents which are a barrier to communication. Travelers (both pleasure and business) all over the world have trouble communicating, because they and/or the people they talk to have thick accents.

The barrier of incomprehensibility is especially sad when middle and lower income people around the world want to learn languages to work in tourism or trade. They study hard from teachers who do their best, but the teachers themselves lack a good accent.

Meanwhile some people want to learn rare languages in order to learn from the people who speak them, and have similar trouble getting understandable accents.
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Recordings by native speakers have an important role in teaching, and are widely available.
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Sound Effects
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Sound effects can show the meaning of many foreign words recorded by native speakers. Quick sound effects allow most of the recording to be in the foreign language, and show students what the foreign words mean. While sound effects cannot teach all words, they teach a surprisingly large and varied vocabulary, helpful to beginners.
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The Lessons tab starts with teaching numbers by sound. These are easy for people to learn, since the recording plays 1 beep, 2 beeps, 3 beeps, and counts in the target language, 1, 2, 3...
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Recordings can also teach many words with widely known sounds: thunder, woman, baby, man, dog, trumpet, clanging steel, tearing paper, etc.
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When sounds show the meaning of foreign words, beginners have a strong start, without distraction from their own language or from trying to read a foreign language.
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The "Wordlist" has 400 words which can be taught entirely by sound, a decent start on comprehension. Most are in the lists of Voice of America's "Special English" and New General Service List, so they are a helpful step toward learning that larger vocabulary. Students can go on to listen to those broadcasts to expand their ability. Hear-Say has a few sound effects in a few languages.
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If you were teaching a language by sound effects, lessons might go in the following order, for reasons explained in the individual descriptions. However the last three can also be approached in any order the learners like.

1. Counting
2. Basic
3. Time
4. Sounds
5. Geography

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Songs
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Songs are a good way to learn, and there are many counting songs for practice (English, Arabic, Chinese, more in the Counting section). Too few recordings have clear adult voices.

If more sound effects and words were put into songs, they would be easier to repeat and learn. Please send any good lists of teaching songs, or put them in Comments below. Earworms helps learning in 13 languages just by playing rhythmic music in the background.

For intermediate students who know some words and the alphabet, YouTube shows the words of many songs in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Russian, Spanish, etc. However  in some languages, searching for the local translation of "song lyrics" on YouTube just gives songs in English.
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Existing Approaches to Teach Beginners
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The most common approach for beginners has been to use two languages in a lesson, teaching the target language with explanations in the local language. However switching between two languages is slow, expensive, muddies a beginner's ear, and is not needed if we have sound effects.
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Another alternative for beginners is to hear words entirely in the target language while seeing pictures or text on a TV, internet, or in printed materials to understand the spoken words. However many learners cannot afford the internet or printed materials, or the time to sit looking at pictures or text while they learn.
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Native speakers teaching in person are fine too, though far too expensive for most middle and lower income people who want to work in tourism or trade. Also many learners are embarrassed to make mistakes in front of a teacher, and prefer recorded lessons which we replay often.
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Recordings of native speakers may be better for beginners than in-person teaching by non-native teachers. Later lessons benefit from a teacher in person, after students learn accents and rhythms of the language from native speakers.
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The main goal for some learners is to read a language (great books, newspapers, rules, contracts...). For them a good accent is less important than a large vocabulary and grammar, and they need written materials more than they need native speakers. A very thoughtful reviewer, Arguelles, makes this distinction; his priority is to read, and he acknowledges a weak accent in some of his languages. Even so, while learning he prefers audio in the target language only,

• "... I much prefer to have target language only and just sort of switch my brain to that frequency rather than having a teaching language sort of make me go back and forth, back and forth..." (5:47)

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Schools and Training
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Lessons recorded by native speakers on radio or MP3 can be used inside schools and training programs, or as supplements. In classes which have a local teacher who is not a native speaker, recordings give students a good accent, and the local teacher can explain, expand, and encourage progress. In schools with no language teacher present, students can learn language entirely from recordings, under simple direction by an older student or adult. Click for more detail.
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In class and in any group of learners, students can repeat the words along with a radio or MP3 file. If there is no class or group, beginners must practice in a place where saying the words out loud does not bother others. They may be working in a field, walking on the road, or driving a car if they have one. Hallet points out that recording lessons from a radio broadcast lets learners repeat them as needed, and can be more useful than trying to learn directly from the radio.
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Learners put huge effort into learning a second or third language. It is very important for them to start with good pronunciation from native speakers in the first lessons, which means radio or MP3 files. With good pronunciation learners will actually be understood when they speak. It is harder to correct mispronunciation later.
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After beginning with native speakers in any form, learners can then learn other lessons from local teachers, from general conversation with other learners or travelers, from Voice of America Special English, BBC 6-Minute and Express English, and from movie dialog with subtitles.
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The Reviews tab in the top menu covers 70 self-study programs, teaching 300 languages, and recommends which programs to use.

Radio
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Lessons broadcast by radio would be another cheap way to learn from native speakers. Everyone can listen, People can record lessons and listen while on the go, making more time for learning. Radio has been teaching language since 1923 (Hallet).

It is striking and puzzling that beginning language lessons are not broadcast by any of the major international radio stations, whether in English (All India, BBC, VOA), Arabic, Chinese, French, German or Spanish. 

China Central Television and Chinese Radio International have Chinese lessons and Deutsche Welle has German lessons for beginners on the web but they do not broadcast them. BBC's web site teaches several languages, but not English and none by radio. VOA and BBC do have radio programs and websites for intermediate learners who know more than 1,000 words.

Among the major international radio stations, it is striking and puzzling that most do not broadcast beginning language lessons to help people understand more about the country of the broadcaster.

As the 1st section in this site says, lessons broadcast by radio are the cheapest way for people around the world to learn languages from native speakers. Lessons for some regions could be simple, with only one language needed for explanation. Lessons for other regions could explain in different languages at different times, and make maximum use of sound effects to teach many words to native speakers of all languages.

Broadcasters may think that if they transmit in the language of the listener, the listener does not need to learn the native language of the broadcaster. However many listeners do want to learn the language, want to learn more about the country broadcasting, and want to speak to its travelers.

BBC's web site teaches several languages, but not English and none by radio. VOA and BBC do have radio programs and websites for intermediate learners who know more than 1,000 words of English, generally the middle classes and elites. 

China Central Television and Chinese Radio International (same lessons are at Confucius Institute) have Chinese lessons, and Deutsche Welle has German lessons, for beginners. These lessons are on the web, not broadcast. 

Broadcasters and legislators may respond to ideas from the public about their programs. There are links below for Broadcasters and their Legislatures

• Al Jazeera

• All India Radio, Lokh Sabha
• BBC, Reviews, Parliament
• Radio Exterior de Espana, Congreso de los Diputados

• Radio France International, Assemblee Nationale,
  

• Voice of America, Reviews, Congress
• Other broadcasters
  

Until lessons are broadcast, learners can find good courses by reading the Reviews.

Many standardized tests cover social, rather than business vocabulary, and reading more than pronunciation. The more advanced TOEIC and CASAS (below) are exceptions.

• Starting with social situations drives students away from language, since the Foreign Service Institute has found that social conversation is the hardest skill, not the easiest. 
  
• Starting with reading, and limited exposure to recorded or live native speakers, means that students are misunderstood even in social situations. (See recommended courses.)

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There are several scales of language learning. Tests measure where students fall on these scales. 
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Sample tests are at 

• Written Placement tests: Arabic, Catalan, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish
  
• ExamEnglish.com - written and oral sample questions for IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, .PTE Academic+General, Michigan, Cambridge (CAE, FCE, KET and PET)
  
• Toetal.org - written and oral sample questions for TOEIC test of English
• Canada's written and oral test of English.
• CASAS written test of English.
• The Lessons tab has oral English tests for numbers, comparisons, and time.

Scales and scoring reinforce a bias for social, rather than business vocabulary: 

1. Europe's CEFR ratings require personal details and travel in the first levels (p.24), not business topics.
2. ACTFL in the US requires beginners to learn "social situations... such as ordering food and making simple purchases."
3. The ILR scale for US government staff does include business topics: "information about business hours, explain routine procedures in a limited way, and state in a simple manner what actions will be taken." But it requires even more casual social conversation.
4. IELTS in Australia and Britain has little on business. It tests "social context, e.g. a conversation in an accommodation agency... a speech about local facilities... home, family, work, studies and interests" (p.7). Topics for extemporaneous speech are mostly social (p.3).
5. TOEFL omits business. It covers "three aspects of academic speaking proficiency: academic course content, campus situations, familiar topics."
6. TOEIC was intended to measure English language needed in large companies. It covers dining out, entertainment, finance, general business, health, buying, renting, manufacturing, personnel, computers, technical specifications, travel. Sample questions cover business reporting, correspondence, advertisements. Sample oral questions cover a vacation inn, fruit market, favorite TV program, conference schedule, an ATM which swallowed a card, salary, hours. Thus they cover much vocabulary used by businesses, at an advanced level. In 2012, "Most test takers (58%) had a [university] degree or were pursuing one... 81% had spent more than 6 years studying English, 47% of test takers who took the TOEIC test in 2012 had previously taken it on three or more earlier occasions" (p.3). 76% had taken it at least once before (p.26). Students whose studies emphasized speaking earned better scores, even on listening and reading, than students whose studies did not emphasize speaking (p.20). 
7. CASAS competencies are aimed at helping students in an English-speaking country get work, including Basic Communication, Community Resources (including telephone), Consumer Economics, Health, Employment, Government and Law, Math, Learning and Thinking Skills, Independent Living. They go beyond language. They list speaking skills without mentioning accents. The official sample questions cover timetables, work instructions and correspondence. Like TOEIC they omit buying, selling, making appointments, or spelling email addresses and websites.

It is striking that the first 3 scales expect bad accents from beginners, an assumption which reflects that beginners rarely listen to recorded or live native-speakers, rarely study phonetics, and skip too quickly to reading, so they keep their own language's pronunciation of letters and never learn the different pronunciation in the new language.
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I encourage you to start instead with recommended courses, so you learn a good accent from the start.

Computerized courses can give feedback on your pronunciation. You speak into a microphone, and the course gives feedback in a score and sometimes in graphs. The approach lets you practice repeatedly and improve your accent. 

For any language you want to learn, the List of Courses shows where you can get this computerized feedback on your pronunciation. The programs work by comparing your recording to a standard recording, adjusting for any basic difference in pitch. The programs vary widely in what they offer. Items 1-3 are excellent and worth getting.

1. Pronunciator is free through many libraries and has good scoring in 72 languages. It is easier to use than Transparent, though the graphs are far less detailed. It has at least as much vocabulary as Learn to Speak.
2. Transparent gives the most detailed graphs to show how well you pronounce. They need Windows 8 or earlier, not 10 or Mac,  Each time you say a word or phrase, you can see an overall score, and graphs on how the vowels, consonants, pitch, etc. sounded. They provide this feedback for 76 languages. The graph of pitch would be especially good for tonal languages like Mandarin.  $20-$40 gives you permanent ownership of the program, with all 76 languages, and no web connection is needed.
3. Passport to Languages / Learn to Speak has a simple pronunciation score in 6 languages. They need Windows XP (nothing newer), and have less detailed graphs but more vocabulary than Transparent. $20 for purchase, and no web connection is needed.
4. Two more are expensive and hard to use, according to reviews: TellMeMore and Rosetta Stone. TellMeMore scores pronunciation generously. I got undeservedly high scores in Spanish. A graph shows volume and an extra line for pitch to help you learn intonation. Reviewers say that in sentences, you must speak each word separately to get a good score.
5. Babbel gives you too little feedback about pronunciation and then moves on to reading and writing. It scores good pronunciation on a scale 50-100, but gives you no score or feedback on poor pronunciation and goes on to the next screen before you get the pronunciation right. They let you say each word just once each time through a lesson.
6. Two others are free, but only teach intermediate English: EnglishCentral and GoEnglishMe.
7. Berlitzonline is expensive, and no samples or reviews are available.

​There are books and good tips on accent reduction in English::

• speakingyourbest.com/accentguides.html for native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tagalog
• professional-business-communications.com/chinese-accent-reduction-fast-changes/
• accentreductionclassroom.com/linking-in-american-english-pronunciation/
• accentreductionnow.com/about/accent-modification-tips/

Some books explain how to form words in English, and discuss common errors. For example:

• Edith Skinner has hundreds of speaking exercises for actors, and a CD, which would also help learners of English. These are in her 400-page book, Speak with Distinction, not the 40-page booklet with the same title.
• Peter Avery (1992) describes English pronunciation in detail, updated from an earlier version for Canadian immigration classes. It discusses distinct errors in English by speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish, and Vietnamese. The book is written in English, for teachers, and could also be useful for intermediate students. Amazon has sample pages.
• Celce-Murcia also describes English pronunciation, and the 2010 edition includes 2 CDs of her examples (sample pages).
• If these are not in your library, there may be other books in subject classifications PE1137, PN2071, 421, or 428

If readers can suggest similar books in other languages, please add them to the comment section below.

Arguelles discusses 5 ways to learn an accent:

• Recorded Native Speakers - very helpful, starting with slow, clear "didactic" speech, and advancing to authentic broadcasts, recorded books, and movies.
• Interacting with Native Speakers - the next step after recordings. Especially helpful is consultation with an expert phonetician in the target language who knows the most common pronunciation problems which learners from your language have. An encouraging idea is that hard work on any one pronunciation problem will help your other problems, because sounds are related. Several websites connect you with non-experts to practice through Skype or Kakao.
• Understanding Phonetics Principles - very helpful to understand how your mouth forms sounds, how sounds differ between languages, and how to change the habits of your mouth muscles to form new sounds. He mentions the example that T is formed by the tongue touching the top of the mouth; different languages have the tongue in slightly different places, and Hindi has 2 different T's, in 2 different places. Learning the principle may help you listen for and create the right T. He has an introductory video on phonetics principles
• Immersion - in a country where the language is used everywhere, spoken and written, it becomes a "living thing" and has power to pull you in.
• Text and Phonetic Symbols - too hard for most people.

He has found that children up to about age 12 can learn accents very well: their ears are willing to hear new consonants and vowels which are slightly different from their native language, and their mouths are willing to form these. After that age, depending on natural ability, many students can learn a good accent, when learning from good models, but a completely native accent would be rare. You can see this distinction for example in recordings of native speakers and US teachers at Middlebury Language Schools. The US professors are excellent speakers, but their pronunciation and rhythms are not quite the same as the native speakers'.

The Foreign Service Institute, which teaches US diplomats, makes a similar point, "Most adults are not good at eliminating accents and developing a native-like pronunciation, but, for FSI, as stated earlier, proficiency refers to the ability to use language as a tool to get things done. Native accent is typically not a practical criterion for success in this ability (although intelligibility is)" (p.74).

Avery (his book is listed above) says learners have difficulty both "because they have never exercised their mouth in the particular way required to pronounce certain English sounds," and because their native language affects "the ability to hear English words... Students continually repeat a mispronounced word in the same way... the word is heard through the sound system of the native language... sounds which occur in the native language will be heard rather than the actual sounds of English" (p.xv).

A good accent, which does not cause barriers to communication, is a reasonable goal. Learning from native speakers is a good starting point, and is possible with the best courses reviewed here. Many beginners who do not use these recorded courses are handicapped by local teachers who have poor accents, and perhaps never learned from native speakers.

There is even a small potential problem with native teachers who have learned your language well enough to interact with you. A study of 7 native French-speakers who had learned English well, and 7 native English-speakers who had learned French well, found the pronunciation of T in the native language had shifted away from the norm in the native language, in some respects, to be more like T in the second language. So bilingual teachers may not be the best models to learn from! (Flege, Journal of Phonetics, 1987 v.15 pp.47-65)

Arguelles notes that recorded didactic voices often have pauses for you to repeat. He prefers no pauses, so you speak along with the native speaker. This approach is available in the English lessons on this site, as well as Language Guide and 50 Languages.

_Many people think foreign trade helps big business. Trade will also help workers and small and medium businesses if they can communicate with foreigners.

Hotels
Workers can earn money at hotels, even with limited foreign language skills, which are taught in a basic lesson for hotels.

Sales to Travelers
Street sellers and stores can sell to business travelers and tourists if the sellers learn numbers and a few other words for sales.

Foreign Trade
Many trades can be arranged through emails and web pages, which are easy to translate (Google, or Bing).

Phone Calls and Visits
Sometimes a visit or phone call will help, if you share a language with anyone at the other company. You may need to talk to a receptionist first.

Top businesses and hotels hire receptionists who speak many languages. Any business wanting to trade with foreigners needs to teach its receptionists a short list of words in all likely languages. Bosses and travelers need these same words for telephone calls so they can speak to receptionists at other companies.

"Pronunciator" teaches words for numbers, time, cities, countries, geography, government, etc., which are useful for business and news. The purely audio proposal on this site at Wordlist recommends words in those same topics which can be taught orally. "Eurotalk" has intermediate lessons for business in many languages. "FSI" teaches a few words for phone calls in a few languages, fairly late in the course. "Busuu" and "Teach Yourself Business" serve the need in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish for people who already know the language well.

Scales and standard tests for language reinforce a bias for social, rather than business vocabulary.