How Adults Really Learn English: The ESLPod Method Explained

By Dr. Jeff McQuillan, Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Education, University of Southern California

This page explains how adults become fluent in English, and how our ESLPod lessons work.

Dr. Lucy Tse and I started ESLPod in Los Angeles in 2005. She writes and produces the lessons, and I host them. Since then, more than 15 million people in 189 countries have used them. The method behind those lessons rests on more than 40 years of research on how the brain picks up a second language, including research the two of us published ourselves.

The method is based on the following idea: You become fluent in English by getting "input" through listening and reading that you can mostly understand (Krashen, 1982, 1985).

"Mostly" here means that the English you listen to still has something new for you to learn, but you can use the parts you understand to make sense of the parts you don't understand. We call this kind of language Rich Comprehensible Input™.

What is the ESLPod Method?

The ESLPod Method is a way of teaching English built on the many scientific studies on how adults learn a language by understanding messages (“comprehensible input”). Every lesson gives you comprehensible input, spoken slowly and clearly, with the difficult words explained using easier words.

The method has five principles.

1. Rich Comprehensible Input™. You listen to and read English you can mostly understand. This is called Rich Comprehensible Input™. Your brain learns the words and grammar without consciously studying them. More importantly, you learn words you may know well enough to read and listen to but not well enough to speak.
2. Slow, clear speech. We speak slowly and clearly. Slow speech lets you hear each word as a separate word instead of as one long sound.
3. i + 1 Leveling™. We explain every difficult word using easier words. We do this by making sure to use words you are likely to understand already to explain the ones you don't understand yet.
4. Slow-Explain-Fast™. Every Daily English lesson includes a dialogue or story spoken slowly so you can understand it. The dialogue/story is then explained completely using comprehensible English. Finally, the dialogue/story is repeated at a normal rate of speech at the end. You will see for yourself how the English you didn’t understand at the beginning of the lesson is made comprehensible by the end. This new comprehension is evidence of your immediate improvement.
5. Listening before speaking. You listen a great deal before you speak. Speaking ability is the result of all the English you have understood.

Dr. Lucy Tse and I published research on these ideas with Dr. Stephen Krashen, the University of Southern California linguist whose Input Hypothesis started this entire line of study (Krashen, Tse, & McQuillan, 1998). If you want the deeper science, more data and research footnotes, read our research page.

What is comprehensible input?

Comprehensible input is language you hear or read that you mostly understand. Research going back to the early 1980s shows it is comprehensible input that actually causes language acquisition (Krashen, 1982, 1985).

When you listen to something in English and understand the message, your brain unconsciously learns the words and the grammar that were used in that message. Your brain does this while you are simply listening and understanding, without deliberate study.

English you cannot understand does not help you. When you listen to English you cannot understand, your brain has no messages to learn from. A movie you understand at only 50 percent does very little for your English.

How much do you need to understand? Some research suggests that you need to understand at least 85 to 95 percent, which is enough to understand the message comfortably and still meet a few new words in a clear context. That small difference between what you know and what is new is what helps you learn the language.

The number of times you meet a word also matters. You do not learn a word completely the first time you meet it. Instead, you learn a small part of its meaning with each encounter. Ana Pellicer-Sánchez and Norbert Schmitt found in 2010 that you need to hear or read a word 10 to 15 times before you recognize it reliably. Being able to use the word yourself takes even more encounters. That is why the amount of English you hear matters so much, and why we made more than 1,800 lessons, with 700 hours of audio and more than 15,000 pages of text.

Why do we speak slowly on ESLPod?

We speak slowly because you must understand what you hear before your brain can learn it. Fast speech prevents intermediate learners from understanding. If you cannot hear a sentence clearly, your brain learns very little from it.

Native speakers say words very close together, leave sounds out, and speak in short, fast groups. If your English is at the intermediate level, English at natural speed often sounds like one long sound. You already know many of the words inside it, but you cannot yet hear where one word ends and the next one begins.

Slow, clear speech solves that problem. When Lucy and I read a dialogue slowly, you hear every word as a separate word. Your brain can then connect the sounds to their meanings, and that is the learning step that fast audio does not give you.

Then, at the end of each Daily English lesson, you hear the same dialogue again at normal, native speed. Because you now understand every word in it, the fast version becomes comprehensible, too. You are learning to understand real American English at natural speed, using material your brain already understands completely.

People sometimes worry that this method will teach them "slow" English. But this has never been a problem for our learners, and research studies using similar comprehension-based methods have shown that they are in fact more effective and efficient than other approaches. You understand first, then you understand faster.

Why does ESLPod explain difficult words with easy words?

We explain a difficult word using only words that you are likely to already understand. In our lessons, the explanations use mainly the first 2,000 to 3,000 most commonly used English word families, which are the words people use most often in daily conversation. When I explain what "to procrastinate" means, I use words like "wait," "later," and "should," which you already know.

The explanations themselves are comprehensible input. While I explain one term, you are hearing dozens of common words used naturally in real sentences, and those common words are usually the ones intermediate learners "half-know."

Stuart Webb found in 2008 that learners recognize far more words than they can actually use, especially among the words of everyday conversation. Our explanations give those "half-known" words the repeated encounters in real sentences that make it more likely you can eventually use them yourself.

Nothing gets translated, ever. We explain words in simple English so that you keep listening to and reading English while you learn.

What is narrow listening?

Narrow listening means listening to a lot of material on familiar topics, in familiar voices, at a familiar level, instead of changing to a different source every time. When the topic and the voices are familiar, you understand more, and the more you understand, the faster you learn (Krashen, 1996).

Think about reading a news story in English about your own country. It feels easier than other articles, because what you already know helps you understand what is new.

We designed our lessons to use what you already know. You hear the same two voices in every lesson, so you never waste effort adjusting to a new accent. The lessons follow the same structure every time, so you always know what's coming.

A word takes about 10 to 15 encounters before you recognize it reliably (Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt, 2010). We use the same vocabulary again in many later lessons, on everyday topics such as work, food, travel, health, and money. After several lessons on the same topic, you have met the same word several times, and each of those encounters makes it more likely you remember it and can use it.

Should I practice speaking to become fluent?

Get more comprehensible input first, because speaking ability is the result of all the English you have understood. Krashen (1998) noted that forcing yourself to speak before your brain is ready teaches you very little.

You can only say words you have already understood many times. Webb (2008) found that learners recognize many more words than they can produce. It is productive vocabulary, meaning the words you can use in real time, that predicts speaking fluency (Uchihara and Saito, 2019). The way to increase productive vocabulary is more encounters with those words in comprehensible input.

Intermediate learners who stop making progress usually think they need to speak more. But the more likely reason is that they are not getting enough comprehensible input, because they are not listening to and reading enough English they can understand. They have heard enough English to understand a slow, careful speaker, but they have not heard enough English to speak in real time.

Hundreds of hours of listening to what they can understand will change that.

You will begin to speak, and you will say words you never practiced. I have watched this happen to learners for more than 35 years.

How do I actually use an ESLPod lesson?

Whether you listen first or read first depends on how much of the audio you understand. If you can understand 85 percent or more of the audio, then listen to the audio first (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013). After you listen, read the Learning Guide to find what you missed.

If you understand less than 85 percent of the audio, then read the Learning Guide first. The reading gives you enough background on the lesson so that the listening becomes comprehensible input instead of English you cannot understand. Read the Learning Guide at your own speed.

You can also read the transcript and listen at the same time at any level.

Every Learning Guide contains a complete transcript of the audio, a glossary, and new sample sentences, and all three help you understand the audio. Each lesson also includes a cultural note related to the general theme of the lesson.

You do not need to memorize the glossary. Read the definitions quickly, read the sample sentences, and start the next lesson.

If you're at A1 or A2 (beginner), you may want to listen to each lesson more than once. Every time you listen, you get another set of encounters with the same sentences. Beatrice Dupuy (1999) at the University of Arizona found that listening to audio again improves comprehension.

At all levels, you should choose lesson topics you actually enjoy. Interest is what keeps you listening, and the hours of listening are what make you fluent. When a lesson interests you enough that you forget you're listening to English, you're getting the input your brain needs to learn.

What should I stop doing?

Stop trying to memorize word lists and grammar rules.

Deliberate study feels productive, but the research shows it does very little for your English. A written definition gives you one small part of a word's meaning, without the context that real sentences give you, and studies show this kind of memorization does little for your ability to understand or use the language (Tuinman & Brady, 1974, Pany & Jenkins, 1978, Hudson, 1982, Pany, Jenkins, & Schreck, 1982, and Jahangard, Moinzadeh, & Karimi, 2011).

Grammar study takes language out of context in the same way. Knowing a rule consciously and using the language automatically are two separate systems in the brain, and the first does not become the second (Krashen, 1982). You can know the rule for the third-person "s" perfectly and still not say it correctly in conversation. Real speech happens too fast for checking rules anyway.

Listening to and reading material far above your level is another very common mistake. English you understand at 90 percent gives your brain far more to learn from than English you understand at 40 percent.

The popular approaches to language learning don't work. Stop using them. Use those hours for listening to English you can understand.

Frequently asked questions about the ESLPod Method

What level is ESLPod intended for?

ESLPod lessons are made for upper-beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners of English. Complete beginners should learn basic English first and come to us when slow, clear English is mostly comprehensible.

How long does it take to become fluent in English?

Becoming fluent in English takes hundreds of hours of listening and reading you mostly understand. The exact time depends on your starting level and your weekly hours. The learners who get past what some learners call the "intermediate plateau" are the ones who do many hours of listening.

Some studies estimate that a learner at the A2 level (knowledge of about 2,000 word families) would need to get about 1,200 hours of comprehensible input to reach the B2/C1 level (knowledge of 5,000 word families) (Green, 2022). But those hours must be spent actually reading or listening to comprehensible English, not grammar or vocabulary study.

What is the difference between ESLPod and All Ears English?

All Ears English is a popular podcast where the hosts talk at natural native speed, which suits learners who can already understand fast conversation. ESLPod uses slow, clear speech with every difficult term explained in simple English, plus a complete written Learning Guide for each lesson. ESLPod lessons are designed by two Ph.D. linguists to be comprehensible input for intermediate learners. If fast conversation between native speakers is still too difficult for you, our lessons are made for your level of English.

Do ESLPod lessons have transcripts?

Yes. Every one of our 1,800+ lessons includes a complete transcript of every word we say, inside a Learning Guide that also contains a glossary, sample sentences, and cultural notes. Reading while you listen, or after you listen, increases how much you understand, and how much you understand is what makes the listening work.

Is ESLPod good for business English?

Yes. Our Daily English lessons include a large set of business topics, covering meetings, negotiations, interviews, office life, and money, all taught through realistic dialogues with clear explanations. You learn business English the same way you learn the rest of the language, through comprehensible input.

Can I learn English just by listening to podcasts?

Yes, if you understand most of the podcast you're listening to. Podcasts made for native speakers are usually far too difficult for an intermediate learner. Listening to English you understand is one of the most efficient ways for an adult to learn a language, and the podcast has to be easy enough for that to happen.

Is ESLPod American English or British English?

All of our lessons teach American English, and our Cultural English lessons teach the history and culture of the United States while also teaching you English. The pronunciation, the vocabulary, and the spelling in our lessons are American throughout. However, British and American English have most words and all grammatical structures in common, so learning one will give you most of the other.

~ Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from beautiful Los Angeles, California