How can I speak English fluently in 3 months?

Following up on my earlier post here.

Two points here:

1. Can you speak fluently in 3 months?

Fluency in 3 months is definitely possible.  My experience as a teacher with over 17 years’ experience in teaching English Communication skills proves it.

2. Do you need to?

Now, this is THE question. If you don’t need to learn English or even be fluent in it, you could keep learning for years on end and not reach anywhere.

So, to answer this question more clearly, yes you can, provided you need to do so.

Now on to a related point:

What is fluency?

I’ll tell you what it isn’t:

1. 1. Speaking like a native speaker
   2. Speaking with an artificial accent
   3. Speaking accurately
   4. Speaking fast
   5. Using heavy words and less understood slang

So, what is fluency? To me, it is being able to:

1. 1. Speak continuously
   2. Pause only at punctuations
   3. Speak with reasonable accuracy
   4. Use appropriate signposts, linkers

So, when you are fluent, you speak naturally. Not like a native speaker, but like you speak your mother tongue.

And how do you achieve that?

By drawing the picture and describing it.

Ok, now, what does that mean?

We do this in our mother tongues every time. We don’t even pause to think about the accuracy. We have the thought / content. And we simply describe the picture we have in our minds. Note that for the cast majority of us, communication is pictographic. We think in pictures, not words. Take one example. When someone asks your mother’s name, her face floats into your mind first, and then her name.

We simply apply this technique to learn a foreign language. At the end of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) level B1, you have enough language (both vocabulary and structures) to help you talk about almost all familiar topics. Still, I find so many students struggle with simple thoughts. Because they don’t relate the picture and the words. Let me illustrate this point.

One of my students said in the last class,

I: When are you going on holiday?

Student: I didn’t know the schedule yet.

What she meant was:

I haven’t made the schedule yet.

Was her sentence wrong? Well, for one thing, she lurched on the timeline. We were discussing her plans (therefore, the future) and she spoke in the past. So, grammatically it was incorrect.

It also killed communication. How?

She didn’t describe the picture correctly. Earlier, when we covered the present perfect, we drew the timeline and learnt how to draw the picture, when we learnt the whys and wherefores. She made presentations and conversations using this structure perfectly. So, what happened now?

She failed to apply that principle – draw the picture and describe it – this time round.

Five steps to achieve fluency in 3 months

To be sure, these are not the only steps. There are many more where they come from. But these will definitely take your fluency to the next level in 3 months.

1. Follow the basic English word order – Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)
2. Use simple sentences. Don’t mess up with complex and compound sentences just to impress.
3. Use simple words. Avoid heavy words.
4. Use the links as you speak to allow for fluency.
5. Use signposts, linkers
6. Above all – LISTEN carefully before you speak.

Why three months? Because that’s what I have seen my students achieve fluency in. If they can do it, so can you.