Effortless English: Learn To Speak English Like a native

 
HOW TO LISTEN TO POINT-OF-VIEW STORIES
To get the most out of a point-of-view story, do your best to focus on the story and imagine it in your mind as
you’re listening to it. Turn off that part of your brain that labels the tenses or thinks about grammar. Instead, think
of a line going through your body. Behind you is the past. In front of you is the future. Imagine now that the story
you’re hearing is inside a box or radio. As you hear the past version, try to imagine that box sitting behind you,
back in the past. When you listen to a future version, picture the box in front of you, up in the future. Imagining
where you would put this box or radio on the line gives the story a visual component, which will help you to
more intuitively understand the grammar.
While it’s easy to understand this idea by reading sample point-of-view stories, it
is essential that you use audio versions. Remember Rule Three: listening is the key
to speaking. You not only want to learn grammar intuitively, you also want to learn
spoken
grammar. That means, just like vocabulary, you need to learn grammar with
your ears.
Learning grammar with audio point-of-view stories develops your “feeling for
correctness,” the same skill used by native speakers. Each repetition and each
variation develops this feeling. Eventually, you will instantly know correct grammar
because it will sound right to you. No need to think about linguistic terms. That’s
when you know the point-of-view stories are working.
Remember that true grammar skill must happen instantly. In a real conversation,
you must produce the correct grammar without hesitation. There is no time to think
about rules. This instantaneous grammar skill can only be developed
subconsciously and point-of-view stories are one of the best ways to do this. By
using these stories, you skip the unnecessary step of thinking about abstract rules.
You produce correct English grammar intuitively, without conscious thought. In this
way, you use grammar like a native speaker. It takes time and repetition, but point-
of-view stories give you the most effective training for spoken grammar mastery.