It’s a question most students of English as a second language eventually ask:
How do I achieve fluency?
There’s no potion you can drink that magically has you speaking English flawlessly. There are, however three “secrets” that every student who achieves fluency not only knows, but used.
Not surprisingly, the three methods are related. Putting these into action takes time, energy and patience, but as a serious student of English, you’ll be fluent in no time.
1. Think in English
Many students hear this secret and immediately make excuses assuming this is beyond their level of competency. If you feel like this, then why not wade into this immersion a few words at a time. But it’s even more effective if you start off with several words or entire phrases at a time. Eventually, you’ll slide into thinking in English more and more.
Some students start off by identifying the objects in a room in English: chair, couch, desk, laptop, cat, dog, bird . . . you get the idea.
From there you can easily kick it up a notch. As you go about your day, narrate your actions silently in your mind. If you’re making breakfast make yourself identify your actions in English. Of course, it won’t be easy the first time you do this. You may find yourself out of your English-thinking mindset. That’s natural – especially at the outset.
When this occurs, simply step right back into it. Don’t berate yourself. Don’t blame yourself for not being diligent or disciplined enough to continue it for a longer period of time. It happens. We all know that.
Merely, start thinking in English again. What you’re sure to discover is that the more you do this and the longer you think in English, the quicker you’ll be fluent.
2. Speak As Often As You Can
Just like with the previous secret, you may throw up a fence, immediately saying, “There’s no way I can speak in English to others.”
Who said you had to speak to people? Of course, that’s optimal – to shed your fears and speak to others. But, if you merely start talking out loud to yourself, narrating your day as you go. No one has to know. When you make a meal, for example, imagine you’re on a cooking show and you’re detailing your steps to the audience.
Hokey?
Probably, but it will help you develop a fluency in the English language.
Another way, which not seem quite as crazy, is to talk to your pets. Dogs are particularly good listeners. If you don’t have pets, get in the habit of talking to yourself.
When students of ESL start exercising this secret, many unintentionally throw a roadblock in front of them.
What’s that?
They immediately complain English is a “weird” language. Don’t you think that native speakers already know this?
Accept that it contains nearly as mainly as many exceptions to the rules as the rules themselves. The only way to “learn” them is by stumbling along them, and correcting yourself.
This is precisely the reason the best way to master fluency is through talking with other people. Especially those you trust. They can gently help you through those less-than-normal English rules.
The result?
Before long, you’ll be able to detect when you’ve broken even the strangest of rules – and that’s when you know your fluency in English is growing by leaps and bounds.
3. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
The fear of “misspeaking” in front of your friends can be strong, if not overwhelming. Until that is, you confront your fear head on. That’s when you realize that the anticipation of making mistakes is actually worse than misspeaking itself.
The only way to conquer this complicated language and to gain fluency is to speak it, as often as possible. If along the way, you fumble a few pronunciations, use the wrong form of a plural or two or even get sentence structure wrong, that only means you’re learning – stop calling these incidents as “mistakes.” Rather, they are a necessary step in learning.
This may be a bit surprising, but you must stop identifying these incidents as mistakes. They’re merely ways to help you learn faster. One of the quickest ways to identify problem items is by speaking the language. If you talk with your friends you can trust, rest assured they’ll guide you to speaking with more confidence.
There you have it: think in English, speak in English, shed your fear of making mistakes.
As you probably have noticed, these really aren’t secrets at all.