I got him to put down his pen and sit down for a chat. I engaged him in a discussion around what he actually experienced in Fiji when he was there that he really enjoyed. He immediately launched into a vivid description of a shark diving event underwater in the ocean. He excitedly recalled the events with gestures and descriptions so that it was like watching a mini pantomime.

We then talked about how we could write about the event without writing the word shark, jellyfish and coral. He then came up with wonderful figurative language – “sly as a shadow”, “beady eyes following me” “rough as sandpaper”, blobs of jelly pumping like hearts, underwater flowers that bit my hand, ribbons of red dripped down (blood) and so on. His story started to take shape from “I saw a shark and touched some coral that made my hand bleed” to a vivid mosaic of underwater life that ended in suspense. Of course I was leveraging off his first language (Maori) which is very metaphorical and full of imagery!

It was quite thrilling to see a young learner get so excited about the writing of a story! While I got him to begin taking brief notes of our discussion, he paused and said, “Aunty, creative writing is like art – you just need to write your pictures on paper rather than draw them”. What a neat way to sum up an activity that he initially thought was quite simply going to be “stink”!

1. The conversations should be short (no longer than 4 minutes on a given topic)
2. The conversations need to be real-life and authentic, just as if they were spoken by native speakers
3. You should be able to read the conversation you hear so that you can become familiar with it before listening
3. You need to listen to the same conversation as often as possible, over and over again until you feel confident that you know it well
4. You can add conversation after conversation on topics you enjoy

You should begin to see results after one week and amazing results after one month if you are consistent.
The best time to listen is when you wake up and just before you go to sleep.

You can walk around with conversations playing through your earphones all day if you want! If you want to try it, I can send you MP3′s and the written conversations (transcripts) to try.

Contact me now to receive free audios and conversations.

One day Sione was cudding the grass when all of a sutten da
ampulance went going by. Sione straight aways drop his
sapelu and run after da ampulance.

Da ampulance driver look to his side mirror and see a man in
a lafalafa running after him. Afraids for his live becos he
was in Otara’s, da ampulance tryver stepped on da cass.

His ampulance go very, very farce. But Sione farce too.
Sione loose one chandal, but he keep runnings, Sione’s
lafalafa starting to falling downs but he keep runnings.

Da ampulance tryfer look in da side mirror and he is amaze
dat da man wiff da falling down lafalafa and one chandal is
not giffing up!

Da ampulance dryfer is now concern finkings Sione chase him
because he need medical asistance. Sione, was please to see
the ampulance was stoppings for him.

About 3 minute later, Sione catch up to da ampulance.
The ampulance dryfer open da backs toor and say to Sione,
“What is da matters? You needs help?

Sione with his hands on his knees, buffing like hell looks
at da ampulance tryfer and say. “I haff da one snow-cone
wiff da chocolate flakes

It takes years of practice to sound like a native speaker and you would need to immerse yourself in the language. The easiest way to do this is to live in an English speaking country, live with an English speaking family and “hang out” with English speaking friends. What is more achievable is to be able to speak English well enough to be easily understood by any English speaker whether they come from the USA, England, Australia, or New Zealand. The key to communication is being able to express yourself so that you are understood and being able to listen to a range of accents and understand what is being said.

That’s why it is important for you to speak to a range of different native English speakers from different English speaking countries, from different backgrounds, ages, and interests. Once you are used to a certain teacher and their native spoken English, try your skills with another teacher.

Having a variety of English speakers to converse with will greatly assist your English and this is the most natural way to learn. You will, with consistent practice, begin to speak more naturally and make yourself understood. This is a far easier goal to reach when you are learning English than spending hours trying to pronounce words and sounds exactly like a native speaker. However, you will probably find that your pronunciation will naturally increase anyway especially if you practice regularly with English speakers.