Roleplay Reading Aloud Part 3 | This Is the Ultimate Material: Raw English Called AFN

You will be able to hear the English in movies

I cannot understand native English. Even when I watch movies, I don't understand them without subtitles. Even when foreigners are speaking in meetings, I cannot understand even half of it. No matter how many times I do TOEIC listening practice, my score doesn't improve.

I have continued studying English, but only my ears cannot keep up. For such people, today I will introduce one teaching material.

What will happen after you master this?
TOEIC listening will start to feel like child's play. You will be able to hear the English in movies. You will no longer be afraid of conversations with native speakers.

Moreover, this is about a teaching material that costs less than 2,000 yen.

To those who looked for their favorite actor but couldn't find one

I said in Part 2: Imitate your favorite actor.
Ken Watanabe's English. Rinko Kikuchi's English. Find a voice that makes you think, 'I want to imitate that,' and become them as you imitate them. That is the essence of roleplay reading aloud.

But I know there are people like this.
I looked, but I couldn't find one. The number of scenes where Japanese actors speak English in Hollywood movies is limited, and when it comes to ones with complete scripts, they almost don't exist. When I tried to look for them myself, I immediately hit a wall.

For such people, today's talk is for you.

What is AFN?

"AFN's Ultimate Raw English Listening: Spot Announcements" (published by ALC). AFN stands for American Forces Network. It is the former FEN, the American military broadcasting network. This book contains 80 audio clips of "announcements" that were actually aired on AFN Tokyo radio broadcasts.

This is hardcore native English. Because it is a radio broadcast by Americans for Americans, there is absolutely no holding back in terms of speed or vocabulary. Colloquial expressions and slang such as "gonna," "gotta," "wanna," and "ain't" fly around at natural speed. This is real English that is not found in textbooks.

The variety of voices is overwhelming. Spanning eight genres—safety, health, society, daily life, family, manners, education/career, and leisure—the styles of voice are also diverse, including announcements, monologues, dialogues, skits, and parodies. People of all ages and genders.

Among the 80 clips, there is definitely a voice you will think, "I want to be this voice."
Scripts, Japanese translations, and explanations are all included.

The design of being just under a minute is why you can keep going.

Let me mention another strength of AFN.

Each audio clip is just under a minute long.

When working on it as dictation, even if doing one a day is difficult, it is a length you can finish in a week. When imitating it as roleplay reading aloud, just under a minute is perfect. If it becomes two or three minutes, it becomes hard to continue. Because it is just under a minute, you can repeat it over and over. Because you can repeat it over and over, it sinks into your body.

Eighty 'one-minute' clips are gathered here. That is what this material is.

A story from when I used to listen to FEN

I once used to listen to FEN radio late at night. Charlie Tuna's DJing, the voices on CB radio playing in movie soundtracks. Whenever I found a voice I liked, I would imitate it like crazy.

But back then, there were only scripts for a small portion. ALC published a magazine called the FEN Guide, and some of the audio had scripts attached. But they weren't all there. I had no choice but to rely on the sounds I heard and chase them with my ears alone. I kept going anyway, simply because I loved it.

That FEN has returned as a complete teaching material with scripts, Japanese translations, and explanations.

The moment I held it, I thought, 'This is it.' I had been waiting for this. I think about how different things would have been if the me from back then had this.

I will be honest. It is hard. But that is fine.

I will say one thing in advance. AFN is too hard for beginners. It is so difficult that you might hate it just from listening to the first clip. Even for me, having listened to FEN for many years, there are still plenty of parts I cannot hear even now.

But that is fine. The fact that there are parts you cannot hear means there is still room for growth. I said it in Part 2. Failure itself becomes learning data. As a 'material where you can fail,' AFN can be used for many years.

However, it is too early for someone who has just started English to head straight here. You need a different entrance.

I will write about that next time.

What we are doing today

First, I want you to check what kind of material AFN is.
Please pick it up at a bookstore or look at the table of contents on the official ALC website. Safety, Health, Society, Daily Life, Family, Manners, Education & Careers, Leisure. 8 genres, 80 spot announcements.
Just looking at the titles is enough. If you can find one genre that you think you might be interested in, that is plenty.

By the way, I haven't received a single cent. I just purely want to recommend this material. It is that wonderful, a miraculous teaching material.

For those with a TOEIC score of around 600, I definitely want you to take on this challenge.
You have a certain level of English ability. But you are stuck. No matter how many times people like that repeat lukewarm materials, their ears will not develop. You need the experience of being beaten down by real speed, real vocabulary, and real voices.

In our company's English circle, there was a colleague in his 40s who started from the 500-point range on the TOEIC.
I believed that one should be exposed to living English as soon as possible. I recommended AFN to him. What came back was a rejection, saying it was "too difficult."

A year passed since then. He broke through 700 points. But from there, his listening stopped. He just couldn't overcome the 400-point wall.

I recommended AFN once again.

This time, he didn't run away. He completed the dictation.

One year later, his listening score exceeded 400, and his total score reached 800.

It was still too early for him when he was in the 500s. After passing 700 points, AFN had become the ultimate weapon for him.

If you have a TOEIC score of 600, I want you to take the courage to dive in. No matter how much you stroke your ears with lukewarm materials, real ability will not grow. The experience of being beaten down by real sounds and speed is what trains your ears.

I think it will be difficult at first. However, I want you to be exposed to real English as soon as possible. It's okay if you get discouraged. You can just restart once you reach 700 points.

Next time, I will introduce a material that serves as an entry point for beginners. AFN is, after all, too hard. So, where should you start?

From my experience of over 10 years as a cram school teacher and teaching English to over 30 colleagues in our company's English circle, there is one book I can recommend with confidence.

In this series, I will write down the specific methods of role-play reading aloud in order. Reading from Part 0 will deepen your understanding.

◀ Previous story: [Role-Play Reading Aloud Part 2 | Listen Before You Mimic—The Weapon Called Dictation]
▶ Read from the beginning: [Role-Play Reading Aloud | Part 0: This Is All I Do for Listening]