This website does not offer speech therapy for stuttering, as important as that is. Nor do these language drills make any pretense of addressing physiological or emotional causes.

    Our area of expertise is spoken language instruction. Nonetheless, simple language instruction may offer significant benefit to some who stutter. We developed the new Proprioceptive Language Learning Method — also known as the Feedback Training Method — in order to teach spoken English to international students. This language learning method works so well that during its first four years online as a website, it became the world's most widely used spoken English language course. Many hundreds of thousands of students have studied spoken English using our material. Each month we distribute over 75,000 CDs containing the entire course.^[1]

    The issues you face as a stutterer may be closely related to the needs of international language students attempting to learn English. Traditionally, international students have been taught spoken English by way of grammar-based instruction using reading and written assignments. Students who contact us often tell us that they can read and write English much better than they can speak it. Yet many of them desperately want to become fluent in spoken English. Grammar-based instruction is not giving them the fluency they see as their gateway to a better job or entrance into a university.

    You, as a stutterer, may face some of the same obstacles. You undoubtedly can read and write English competently. Yet, you too are desperately trying to communicate using spoken English.

    Is stuttering, however, the result of a lack of basic language instruction? For some, that may certainly have been the case if their stuttering prevented normal speech development even though their reading and writing skills were not affected.

    The English "th" is a difficult sound for many international students to make. Consequently, in order to master the English "th," they need to work on language drills until they can say, "This, that, and the other thing," as smoothly as a native English speaker can. The Feedback Training Method assumes that optimum language learning occurs only when the three components of speech are simultaneously exercised in language instruction:  1) cognitive responses (memory),  2) feedback from hearing, and  3) feedback from the nerve receptors in the mouth. Therefore, all language instruction using this new Feedback Training Method is done at full voice volume resulting in simultaneous interaction of the mind, hearing, and neurological feedback from the mouth. In order to learn a new spoken language, any student must simultaneously retrain each of these three components of speech.

    But is spoken language training your need? Of course, you already "know" English. Remember, however, that most international students can read and write English much better than they can speak it because the cognitive component of language has been emphasized in grammar-based instruction at the expense of hearing and proprioceptive feedback training. Yet, think back to your own experience. Did you develop all three components of speech simultaneously, or did your stuttering force you to emphasize your cognitive abilities at the expense of simultaneously using feedback from your ears and mouth to develop normal speech?

    An international student must go beyond saying haltingly, "Tis, tat, and tuh oter ting" by using language drills. In the same way, you must advance past, "Wh.wh.we . . . wh.wh.will . . . look at it," with the same kind of language drills. For an adult language learner, this growth in fluency requires structured audio English drills. Just like an international student, if you did not simultaneously develop all three components of speech as a child, more than likely you need to go back now and simultaneously retrain your mind, hearing, and neurological control of your mouth in order to speak fluently. Nothing will do that for you short of long-term use of spoken English drills in which you speak correct English, comparing each of your sentences with those of a narrator who is correctly pronouncing each word. This is the way in which all of us learn to speak any language, though for most, it is usually done during childhood.

    But now, say that the stutterer in the illustration above has made enough progress that he or she no longer needs to confront "we will" as two separate words. Rather, through relearning spoken English, this stutterer has now mastered the word combination "we/will" in verb drills. Each time "we/will" was encountered in the language drills, a normal range of cadence and pronunciation was used irrespective of the verb it was associated with. For this individual, "we will" can finally be said without blocking or repetitions. The cognitive "we will" of this stutterer has now been reinforced with correct feedback from both hearing, and the nerve receptors in his or her mouth. What would happen to the stutterer who was always troubled with the "w" sound if just the "we will" future conjugation of the English verb became part of a repertoire of words that could be spoken without hesitation? Then as more word groups and sentence patterns were learned with exact pronunciation and rhythm, English fluency could become an attainable goal.

    On this website, we purposely avoid all discussion of initial causes of stuttering. Nor do we suggest any kind of therapy. However, we do offer excellent language training using the Feedback Training Method. We wonder if many continue to stutter simply because — even after therapy was successfully completed — the problem of a lifetime of faulty hearing and proprioceptive feedback was never corrected. In reality, these individuals may be able to read and write correct English as only a cognitive exercise. Yet fluent spoken English is still beyond their grasp because their mind, hearing, and proprioceptive feedback from the mouth were never simultaneously retrained.

    Therapy alone can never give the required amount of correct spoken English practice. These Spoken Language Training for Those Who Stutter lessons, however, supply 31 hours of recorded audio drills — enough for over six months of intense study for an hour or more a day. (There are 14 and one half hours each of American and British accent drills. These same audio exercises provide enough material for an international student to study spoken English for two hours a day for nine months.) See How to use these lessons for a description of the four tracks in each lesson. This entire course is formatted for individual study and may be freely downloaded for your personal use. We wish you the best of success.

^[1] www.FreeEnglishNow.com is the address for this website which was designed for international professional and university students. At present (December 2009) the website distributes monthly more than 75,000 CDs containing the entire Spoken English Learned Quickly course. (That is the equivalent rate of 900,000 CDs per year. It is being downloaded in at least 204 countries.) All of the audio language exercises used in Spoken Language Training for Those Who Stutter have been taken directly from the www.FreeEnglishNow.com website. The only variation in the audio language exercises themselves is that in this spoken English course for stutterers, we do not need to be concerned with vocabulary development and can, therefore, introduce certain exercises earlier. We have also divided each lesson into four tracks which are more useful in this application. Practically speaking, the Spoken English Learned Quickly course could be used by stutterers with almost the same results as this Spoken Language Training for Those who Stutter course. Both courses can be used with prerecorded MP3 audio material in either American or British accent.             Back

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