What is the most common objectives my clients have?

They say: I want to speak English – I want to speak English FLUENTLY.

So, what is a definition of FLUENCY:

FLUENCY is an ability to speak a language comfortably and confidently. Fluent is related to the word flow, so fluency is the ability to continue the flow and the ideas of the conversation.

Fluency is: continuous, clear, ideas communicated simply in the language

Fluency is not:  stopping and starting, distracted and confusion, a translation of another language

OK. That is the definition. So…

Fluency: How can we get it?

let’s imagine you are a profession in Barcelona. It’s December 2008. You have personal and work responsibilities. You don’t live with an English speaker. Maybe you have almost no contact at all with this wonderful language.

What can you do?

1. Love speaking this language.

Or learn to love it. If you don’t really love it, then you aren’t really ever going to be motivated to speak it.

2. Think and speak to yourself in English.

You must guide yourself though. Let’s take some contexts:

Context 1: you are on the metro… you look at a person and think: Who is this person? Imagine, where did they grow up? What did they like doing as a kid? When did they move to Barcelona? How old are they? What kind of job to they have now. describe it. imagine. imagine. Where are they going now? Where will they go later? Be silly, funny, have a sense of humor and “morbo” even for a person who looks like they have neither.

Context 2: you are in the shower. the bathroom door is closed. or almost closed. You start talking to yourself.  What did I do yesterday? where did i go? Where did my Mom/Dad/brother/sister/… go recently? stay in one time zone if you like. don’t move too much between tenses. remember, you are going for fluency

3. Record yourself speaking on an iPod or MP3.

Listen to it 1 time. then delete it. Make a few observations:

What is the thing you like the most about your Engish?

What is one thing you can change?

4. Write. Write. Write.

Write for 5 minutes without stopping. if you are writing and can’t think of what to write just start writing “i don’t know what i want to say…. i don’t know what i’m writing about…. i only know i’m writing because Rachel says write for 5 minutes per day.” That was at least 1 minute.

5. Video yourself speaking on you digital camera.

Look at it one time with the sound off. What do you look like speaking English? Do you have an image of yourself as an English speaker? What is it?

Do at least one of these at least once a day. Give yourself 1 month of consistancy. Then start to evaluate your change in Fluency. I use a scale of 0-10. 0 is no fluency. 10 is a non-native English speaker who can communicate ideas comfortably, consistantly, confidently.

Ask yourself, “Which one works for me?”

Then try it, and send me your observations, feedback or comments.