Everything you say and do sends a message
Unfortunately, most people don’t realise this. They continue to walk around in suits, thinking they look smart and wondering why they are not getting much traction in their careers or networks.
How do we learn to speak English well?
Speaking is the most challenging skill to improve.
Why?
Because you need someone to talk to, it is not something you can pick up and do independently on your own. Many of our Chinese students’ English skills face degression once they return home for a trip or for good. Very often, they come back to us asking us how they can continue learning in an environment that doesn’t encourage them to speak English.
The real work is behind the scene
Don’t only think that you want to be him; think of what you should do to get there.
Usain Bolt, the faster man on earth, once said, “Running in competitions is the easy part; the real work is behind the scenes”.
Similarly, you don’t know what the Tiktoker has done behind the scenes to get to where he is now.
Start writing
Speaking and Writing are what we call the production part of a language.
You either produce the sound or produce the words.
Safe to say, if you can write well, you will be able to speak well. So start writing, especially if you are in an environment that doesn’t encourage you to speak English often.
But that is not all; when you write, you also need someone to look through your writing so that you can know where your mistakes are and you can improve from there. That is when an English teacher comes in, that is when we come in.
Brick by brick layer by layer to a tall and awesome wall
Imagine writing as paying builders to lay a wall of bricks. You want to increase the wall height fast, so you will need a faster builder and a lot of bricks.
You can motivate your builder by paying him more, but he has a natural physical limit. You can’t expect him to increase his production forever by paying more.
Now imagine the salary you pay the builder is the number of words you write daily. In the same manner as above, you cannot expect yourself to learn faster by just doing more.
Don’t rush to learn, take your time to enjoy the process
If you go against it and continue to push.
- You will make more mistakes and feel demotivated.
- You will think learning English is impossible for you.
- You will think you did more but still get the same results.
It is better to pay your builder an honest salary by
– Writing 150 – 300 words a day based on your proficiency level
– Reading around 30 minutes a day on things that are interesting to you.
– Practice speaking with a friend or colleagues throughout the day.
– Better still, engage an English school for help. They will provide you a proper framework based on CEFR for you to make improvement in a systematic way.
“The prize is in the process.”
Baron Baptiste
Many people make the mistake of focusing on the journey’s end and not on the process. I often get asked the following questions.
“When can I speak better English? “
“How many hours do I need to speak English?”
And perhaps the most common question and the one question that is the most irrelevant to learning
“Will I receive a certificate at the end?”
Finding where you are making mistakes, polishing your sentences, and asking your trainer questions improves you.
Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to ask yourself the following question. If daily exercise will make you lose weight, will you stop or continue doing it once you lose weight?
If your answer is to continue doing it, it is the same as learning. You don’t stop learning when you get there; you should continue to learn and be a better version of yourself each day. So there isn’t an end; it is a shifting journey with new milestones each year as you reach new heights.
Create a habit of doing
What happens when I speed-read?
Sometimes when I read just to get to the ending, I lose the gist of what the author is trying to tell me.
I didn’t learn more from reading more but instead learned less.
I realised consistency is the real key.
It is not more and more but doing and repeating the same process daily until it becomes a habit.
The habit to improve is a good habit to have.
Consistency is the key to success.
So, can you speed up learning a language?
Yes, you can if you are consistent.
By the way, speed is subjective.
Someone who drives a Ferrari will think he is the fastest man on earth.
But try saying this to a pilot in an F16 fighter jet.
Don’t believe in ads saying doing this or that will get you there faster.
It takes time and consistent effort.
Grammarly is not the silver bullet
Some people use apps like Grammarly to improve their writing, but it is not a silver bullet for improvement simply because you are not learning.
You write better as you get suggestions from the app and click a button to accept it. There isn’t much learning involved, and so mastery of Grammarly doesn’t mean you will speak well in real life. So you might write well, but what is the point if you can’t speak English well?
If only that is true
How we can help you?
Continue to provide feedback and suggestions to improve you speaking and comprehension skills.
Feedback and explain your mistakes in your writings.
We set you up with a proper framework to give you consistent practice and improvement.
We are just like a football coach, even when the Argentina won the the 2023 world cup they don’t fire him or give the players more than a week rest. They still need the coach around to continue to give players feedback and suggestions for improvement because if you are not making progress daily you are regressing.
At English Express and other Crystal Learning language schools, we see language, first of all, as a tool.
Every small improvement makes a difference immediately. You may never be perfect, and that’s ok. Even native speakers make mistakes. But as you become more confident in your ability to communicate in English, you’ll see the benefits.
We strongly believe that confidence is built through doing. That’s why our teachers will always encourage you to take the next step. Speak out, and try to speak out faster.
Practice and application are more important. To improve your conversational skills in English, you need to “do more” and “understand less”. That’s why we focus on practical topics that you can apply at the office the next day.
Ready to start?
Take our English level test
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