3 Best Fluency Tips For English As A Second Language Learners

My students often tell me, “I need to speak English fluently for my job. But I’m not able to do it.” Before we get into the course, I spend time with each student to understand what’s preventing them from speaking the language fluently. Some of the standard replies I’ve received from new students are:

• I feel shy speaking in English. I’m worried I’ll make a mistake and the other person will think poorly of my communication skills.
• I cannot describe my ideas and points clearly when I speak in English.
• People get confused. They don’t understand what I’m saying.
• Though I can speak English, my accent and pronunciation are completely different from others.

These are some of the common challenges faced by those who learn English as a second language. A second language is a language you learn apart from your mother tongue. Your mother tongue – Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, or Hindi – is the language you and your parents speak at home. It’s your native language. English is our second language as we learn it apart from our mother tongue.

One of my students told me, “I’m able to put my points clearly and concisely in my mother tongue. But when I speak English, the ideas are all jumbled and messed up.”

I like to call this the “Lost in Translation” syndrome. What the student is doing here is thinking in his mother tongue and then converting each phrase into English. This is a huge NO as it prevents him from speaking English fluently.

The best way to speak English fluently is to start thinking in English. Hesitancy, mumbling, wrong word usage, and wordiness are some of the biggest problems that prevent second language learners from speaking English fluently. In my spoken English lessons, I train you to converse confidently with fluent English speakers. In this post, I share a few strategies I use with my students to improve their fluency.

1. Do Not Be Scared To Make Mistakes

Think of children learning to speak their mother tongue. They aren’t worried about grammar, vocabulary, word choice, or tenses. Instead, their only goal is to – get their points across. For example, when toddlers learn to join words together to form phrases and sentences, they make mistakes with their tenses. But they still go ahead and tell what they want to communicate.

Similarly, the first and foremost thing you need to do as an English as a second language learner is to let go of your ego. Speaking in a second language is a huge achievement – and you cannot learn it overnight. You’re bound to make mistakes along the way. Focusing on your mistakes or how you sound limits you from exploring the beauty of the language.

Remember, you must let go of your inhibitions, fears and shyness to master the language. Nobody cares about your mistakes as much as you do. Once you let go of your worries, it’s much easier to speak English fluently.

2. Practise, Practise & Practise

Now that you’ve overcome your fear of making mistakes, the next step is to get started with spoken English practice. The more you speak, the faster you’ll become fluent in the language. There are several ways to practice speaking the language.

• If you like to learn on your own, you can check any of the several websites to speak English. There are tons and tons of sites, apps and tutorials that help you learn independently. While this is an effective strategy, the drawback of this approach is that you receive no feedback from an experienced tutor. There’s no one available to correct your mistakes. As a result, you might continue making the same mistakes over and over.
• Working with a tutor helps you improve quickly, as you receive one-on-one attention and immediate feedback. This also enables you to enhance your confidence and fluency.

The better alternative is to join online classes for fluent English.

3. Watch Movies With Subtitles

Subtitles are a great way to immerse yourself in the language. This is a fun way to improve your English fluency. Watching English movies or dramas is an excellent choice as it helps you hear the language spoken by a native speaker. Initially, you might have a hard time following the accent. This is why you need to turn on the subtitles. When watching a movie with subtitles, you’re listening to the language and reading it. This helps you improve your fluency.

Here are a couple of tips to help you learn more about subtitles:

• Have a notebook with you and jot down words that you’re unfamiliar with. Try to decipher the meaning of these words based on the context of what’s happening on the screen. You can later refer to a dictionary and check if you got the meanings right.
• Pronounce these words. Copy the accent of the actors. Try using these words in new sentences, and see if you can use them in daily conversations.
• Finally, turn off the subtitle and watch the movie again. Check if you can understand the accent better this time, as you’re already familiar with the dialogue.

Wrapping Up

Fluency is one of the biggest challenges for second language learners. Often, new learners know words and their meanings. However, they lack the confidence to string the words together and form sentences without mistakes. This is the difference between a fluent and a non-fluent speaker.

Learning spoken English is no easy feat. You’ve got to stay focused and disciplined to gain mastery. One of the biggest mistakes new English learners make is the lack of consistency. They practice once a week or once in a blue moon and hope to become fluent speakers.

This is a huge NO-NO!

To gain fluency and speak confidently, you must practice the language daily. This is why experts highly recommend joining a 1-to-1 English-speaking course online. This way, you can regularly engage in English conversations with an expert tutor, helping you develop fluency fast.

Connect with our team to learn more about my fluency training courses and become an expert English language speaker over a few weeks.