One of the best ways to learn English is to practice! Sounds simple, right? But practicing English a few minutes each day will help you improve your English consistently. What happens when you stop practicing? You start to speak English like I play guitar: you are stuck at the same level and you never progress! Practice makes perfect, but practicing English a little bit every day will keep it fun and engaging. It will also help you sing the lyrics to those songs you love to play in...

What happens when someone learning English makes a terrible mistake or mispronounces something that results in a tremendous social disaster? Does it make people laugh or does it make them run away in embarrassment? According to cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker, “...you and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability: we can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision. That ability is language. Simply by making noises with our mouths, we can reliably cause...

Discover the POWER of reading in this episode! When my students ask me how they can improve their English quickly, I always tell them to read! Read as much as possible, but not just any book or any article in any newspaper. No, read Graded Readers - specially edited books designed to help English students learn English. In this episode I read three versions of the same book called “The Lady, or the Tiger?” written by American author Frank R. Stockton. I read the first paragraphs from the...

In this podcast I will show you how you can talk about yourself in the past tense using natural and colloquial English. You will learn different ways to talk about your life experiences using the past tense, how to talk about where you are from, where you went to school, things you did when you were younger, how you felt. You will also learn a little bit about me, maybe too much for your (or my) own good! During the podcast, pay attention to all the different irregular verbs that I use and...

Fluency is a combination of that comfort level and a relatively high degree of accuracy or precision in using the language. Fluency exists on a spectrum of communication, from the simplest, most basic phrases, to the most complex and sophisticated combinations of language. In this episode on fluency, we’ll talk about HOW to reach fluency, what steps you can take to get closer to a place where you feel comfortable communicating with others. Spoiler alert: it’s not easy. Big surprise,...

What is fluency? What is accuracy? What is precision? How do you become fluent? Do you need to become fluent? Who cares if you are fluent or not? If academics knew the answer to this question, don’t you think they would have already solved the problem of teaching people to speak English fluently? English learners would cease making mistakes and no one would ever have to point and mime and gesticulate to get their point across. But no. Academics and grammarians and linguists have not answered...

In this episode, learn how the noun "Gratitude" can be used correctly to show your thanks to the people you care about, especially your family, friends and, in my case, my wonderful English students. So, to you, my most amazing English learner, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to you for being my student! Enjoy the podcast!

This is simply an introduction to the Learn English With Josh podcast, to introduce myself and explain what my intentions and objectives are with this podcast.

Amanda Gorman's recital of her poem "The Hill We Climb".