How to use SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY in a school where religious content would be inadvisable

    I began writing this language program in 2001 as a means of helping teach English to a group of Russian immigrants who had recently arrived in the U.S. Little did I know that by 2006, this program would have evolved into the world's most widely-distributed spoken English language course. When I was developing the lessons, I included the religious content in the Lesson Text because my students already knew the stories in Russian. Using these Lesson Text stories from a modern English translation is an excellent way to teach English because these same stories have already been translated into more than 2,250 languages of the world.

    Today, however, SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY is being used in many secular schools in other parts of the world because the new Feedback Training Method used in this course is so effective. Its religious content, however, may present a barrier to its use in some countries. Consequently, even though it has not yet been written,[1] a similar course using the Feedback Training Method without religious content is needed. Unfortunately, my age and health prevent me from doing any further development work. Furthermore, since this course is offered free of charge as a service for many who cannot afford to purchase an expensive language program, there is no income available for paying others to write and record a new English study program. Consequently, until other courses become available, I have included this page in order to show how it is possible to substitute other material already included in the course to take the place of the religious content in the Lesson Text sections.

  1. SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY was designed as a free course for students who have little money for English instruction, yet want to improve their opportunity for better paying jobs. However, because it is downloadable, it must be protected through the Terms of use agreement which prohibits any change in the course.[2] No teacher or school may add or remove any lessons, or parts of any lessons, from the downloadable material provided by www.FreeEnglishNow.com. Neither may any lessons be rearranged on a CD so that the suggestions given on this page are used in place of the lessons as they are written. Of course, anyone may produce their own material as they wish, but it cannot be added to a SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY CD or printed as a part of the SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY lessons.

  2. The Lesson Text portion of each lesson helps the student to speak English in complete sentences and paragraphs. Each lesson containing a Lesson Text also includes an English Fluency Exercise. These exercises are included as a part of Lessons 2 through 16 with the exception of Lessons 1 and 5. For an example, see Lesson Text 6 and English Fluency Exercise 6.

  3. Three lessons already have a non-religious text which the students may study. They do not have recorded audio, but the students may read them aloud until they are able to read them smoothly with good pronunciation. These three texts are:

  4. For the remaining lessons, the students may read selected portions from the book Learning Spoken English. The page numbers are given from the PDF downloadable version.

  5. These substitution sections replace only the religious Lesson Text at the beginning of the lesson. The remainder of the exercises should then be used beginning with:

  6. When using the lessons in this way, there will be no religious material in the lessons even though the content is taken entirely from the SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY website or CD. All material except the newspaper articles in Lesson 16 can be printed from either the CD or website.

  7. Because there will be no audio recordings for these exercises, the second rule "To learn to speak English fluently, you must think in English" which prohibits reading the exercises will need to be relaxed. In these exercises where there are no audio recordings, the students will need to learn to read each sentence out loud once, and then repeat it out loud a second time without looking at the text.

Lynn Lundquist, author of SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY      

[1]This is true as of 2008 when I added this page to the website. It is my hope that the Feedback Training Method will soon be applied to many more English and other language courses because it works so well. I recommend reading the free downloadable book Learning a Spoken Second Language. See the page Special information for university and college language instructors for my personal perspective on the need for one individual to initiate a new idea while allowing others to complete its development.  Back

[2]Since I permit free downloading from the website, I have far less control than if I sold the course. The course was carefully designed with many factors in mind. The Lesson Text portion was purposely included because I wanted its content as well as its universal availability in other language translations to be available to almost anyone using SPOKEN ENGLISH LEARNED QUICKLY. I also know that many using this course in school instruction want to add grammar sections to the lessons because they do not understand how this new method works. I have denied that request whenever I have been asked because I believe it hinders the students' progress. Therefore, the best way to maintain the effectiveness of this course as it was designed is to restrict any change in its content. I believe that there will be improvements made to the Feedback Training Method in the future, but they should be made in new spoken English courses. Again, the need for that improvement will only come as others take up the challenge Special information for university and college language instructors.  Back


              

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