Hello this is A.J. Hoag. Welcome to the Effortless English show, the show that teaches you to speak English

powerfully.

Today our topic is the silent period.

Should you avoid speaking English for several months?

Now... English for several months. Now, I remember when I was sitting in a class in Bangkok, Thailand.

There were two teachers, and they were telling a funny story.

One of the teachers was like a stand-up comedian.

He was pacing, walking back and forth in the class,

doing all these crazy faces, running around,

acting like a crazy man, like a madman.

And the whole class was laughing. We were laughing and laughing for an entire hour.

It was like watching a stand-up comedian perform. It was very enjoyable, extremely entertaining.

But the amazing thing was, it was 100% in Thai,

meaning in the Thai language.

This was a very unique, very different experience for me as a language learner and as a language teacher. I was a student

in the AUA Thai Language Program in Bangkok. and the special thing about this program is that

they use a listen-only approach meaning there's a long silent period for the students.

Students do not speak tie for many months.

Instead, what the students do is they go and they just listen to teachers, tell jokes, tell stories, play games, just basically entertain you and have fun in Thai, in simple

Thai.

And this was, this had a big effect on me. I realized that this had some great advantages.

There were many things about this kind of approach that were good.

...