Well hello there, English speaker!

Shall we make it a habit?

Hi, I’m Derek, founder of My English Habit, native English speaker from Scotland, and Cambridge-qualified teacher since 2013.

300+ Newly Confident English Speakers

6,000+ Hours of 1-1 Conversation

7,000+ Hours of Classes

Learners come to me because they want to speak better

😟 Some have never spoken with a real person before

😨 Others have a Big Scary Speaking Situation coming soon

😫 Many are simply frustrated with their speaking ability

EH...

If that sounds like you, don't worry - we'll make the bad thoughts go away ;)

Ale

I feel less rusty and also I don't have fear to speak.

Cristina

I can communicate on all topics I want, because in the past I couldn't.

Jose

You have the ease, the fluency, which helps you outside the classes.

Francesco

He's a resourceful motivational coach. Definitely the best teacher I've had so far.

And if you are looking for creative ways to get past your speaking obstacles...

...you've come to the right place.

Our Principles

Keep it SIMPLE

Keep it FUN

Keep it CONSISTENT

Our Methodology

My English Habit exists today thanks to a career, and life-changing experience I had a few years ago in a series of online classes.

In 2020, I had the opportunity to teach Mandarin Chinese for the first time to 11 and 12 year-old girls at a private school in London.

But within the first few weeks I knew something was wrong.

The old ‘sentence building’ methods I used with my English beginners, and the ‘spaced repetition’ I used myself when learning Mandarin 15 years earlier…well…

They weren’t going to work this time.

These girls didn’t choose to learn Mandarin. Just like they didn’t choose to learn Maths, Science, or any other school subject.

The reality was they had ZERO motivation to learn.

And they had ZERO experience with the basics of the language (unlike most of my English beginners).

Worse than that, I risked making a new generation of school kids HATE languages forever, just like my generation and our terrible language lessons (I got a D in French in my high school exams, I’m ashamed to say ☹️).

To avoid this disaster, I had to try something different.

I had to find a method that…

got results in school classrooms
motivated unmotivated learners

A table comparing Comprehensible Input approaches against Grammar Focused Teaching. Comprehensible Input produces superior results in all categories for the PET English exam.

After days of reading linguistic studies and academic papers, I discovered a promising approach that I had only heard a little about before. It was called CI (Comprehensible Input).

There are a hundred different ways to teach using CI, but the principles are all the same:

Do lots of easy-to-understand listening and reading.

Speak only when you are ready.

The evidence suggested CI produced superior results in all language skills, both in classrooms and out.

I started using CI techniques immediately, and suddenly, the girls were having fun.

We created funny stories together...

A story written in a phonetic version of Chinese called 'pinyin'.

A drawing of a little girl sleeping on a school desk while sleeptalking.

A word-by-word English translation of the original Chinese story.

Class created story: 'Sleeptalking Sasha'

We invented silly songs and ridiculous gestures to remember new words…

A young girl gives a military salute in front of a US flag.

Mandarin

Oh Luòshānjī

Luòshānjī

Oh Luòshānjī

English

Oh Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Oh Los Angeles

To the tune of the US national anthem.

An extra point for saluting -

Before CI the girls were finding Mandarin difficult to process. And nothing seemed to stick.

With CI, their goal was to simply listen and try to understand more and more Mandarin every week.

And as if by magic, that’s exactly what they did.

The cool thing was that we achieved all of this…

➔ without ‘studying’

➔ without forced speaking

➔ without sentence building

As a teacher, I was convinced.

But what about as a learner?

My Personal Results

FRENCH

In 18 months of very inconsistent and relaxed reading, I went from A1 level graded readers like this…

...to native level books for young adults, like the Harry Potter series.

My listening also improved without much extra effort.

Six of the Harry Potter audiobooks in French.

My high school French teacher would be so proud!

MANDARIN CHINESE

I knew around 2000 characters when I started, but I still couldn’t read well. In 18 months I went from 450-character graded readers like this...

The Mandarin graded reader 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'

...to classics of 20th century Chinese literature.

The front cover of collected works of Ba Jin, in Chinese.

The collected works of Ba Jin. An interior page with Chinese text.

Keeping it SIMPLE

A simple plan is easier to follow than a complicated one. Right?

Fortunately, learning a language IS SIMPLE when you stick to the fundamentals.

READING

+

LISTENING

SPEAKING

+

Reading, listening, and speaking are like your 3 meals a day:

3 clocks with different times labelled 'Breakfast', 'Lunch', and 'Dinner'.

A snack is nice.

A cup of coffee gives you a quick energy boost.

But your 3 meals provide the real nutrition.

How to Get Started

First step: join our free Understand English Movies email list.

There are lots of other ways you can get involved; here is what we currently offer:

Read our blog for more learning resources, strategies, and massive motivation boosts.
Join the waiting list for our speaking training - coming soon!
Follow us on your favourite social networks.

And to get in contact with us, you can do it here.