4 Steps To Become Fluent In English 2020 Goals
Hello I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
If becoming a fluent English speaker is part of your
plan and you want to make it happen next year in 2020,
then you need to keep watching this video.
I’ll be sharing four things that you need to do
in the coming year if you’re planning to become fluent
in English within twelve months.
And it starts today right now and I’m going to warn you
that there’s going to be some tough love happening here
some strong words. Perhaps ones that you don’t really
want to hear or ones that you’ve been
pretending that you can’t hear for awhile
but these are words that you need to hear.
If you’re going to make English fluency your goal
for the year ahead, you need to change
the way that you’re acting.
You need to change your behaviour, do something
differently and that’s what we’re talking about today.
This lesson is sponsored by The Ladies' Project,
a unique online community for women learning English
as a second language. We help women to transform
their relationship to English,
to become more comfortable,
more courageous English speakers.
Enrollments are open now but they’re closing soon.
Membership costs just thirty-four ninety-nine a month
and the link is in the description
if you want to find out more.
If you’ve been telling yourself that the only way
to become fluent in English is to live
in an English-speaking country,
well, you just need to stop that. It’s not true.
It’s simply something that you’ve been telling yourself
to make an excuse for why you’re not already fluent.
That’s the tough love right here.
Right now, it’s completely possible for you to
create an English life for yourself,
no matter where you are in the world
and I’ll talk about that a little bit more later on.
Let’s get started on the four things that you need to do
to become fluent in English within a year.
Find motivation.
Get really, really clear on why you want to be fluent,
so clear that you can actually see and
feel what it’s like to be there.
What are all the awesome amazing things
that you’ll be able to do when you become fluent?
Imagine yourself there.
Feel it.
Smell it.
This is your motivation,
the fuel you need to keep practising, to keep learning
and keep reviewing,
to keep putting yourself in situations
that are outside of your comfort zone.
I mean, let’s not kid ourselves. There are
and there always will be days when you feel
frustrated with English and you feel like giving up,
you can’t be bothered,
you just want to make a new plan, right?
One that doesn’t involve English at all.
But this is the reason why so many of us fail at things
that we try or we don’t get as far as we want to
because we don’t have enough fuel to get there.
Without a really clear motivation, it’s
easy to get distracted, to lose focus
and to let your attention be
taken away from your English practice and put onto
something else and that is absolutely fine
as long as you’re not bothered about being
fluent by the end of the year.
If you’re happy for it to take longer,
for it to be a slower process,
well that’s fine
but we’re talking about making this happen
in the next twelve months, okay?
So we need to take drastic action.
So I want you to take this opportunity now to declare
your motivation here. Tell me in the comments
what is your fuel that will help you to keep your English
goals as a priority throughout 2020?
Tell me down in the comments.
The second thing you need to do is financially commit
and that means putting some money on the table,
putting some skin in the game.
So in my experience, money is a huge motivator
for me, for my students, for my friends and family.
For some people money is the biggest motivation right?
Putting your hand into your pocket or your wallet
and pulling out some of the money that you worked
so hard for, doing that
almost instantly changes your mindset about
your English practice.
It certainly changed my mindset when I paid for my
Spanish classes with Lingoda. I had to go
because I had paid for them so I did way more practice
during that period because
putting money on the table forces you to commit, right?
It makes you show up.
If you financially commit to your English,
you will probably go much further and you will
get to fluency faster.
Now let’s talk about this a little more because I know
what some of you are thinking.
Yes, there are things that you can’t afford
but there are options that you can afford.
You can hire a local non-native English teacher,
you can invest in an online English program
that you can take yourself through at your own time,
at your own pace.
This is a much cheaper option
than paying for a teacher’s time.
You can financially commit a little or a lot
and what might be a little to some,
might be a lot to others.
But if you do that, if you invest in yourself,
it will help you to get to your goals faster.
Now if you don’t have the money now,
make a plan and save for it. Sacrifice something else
in your life to get ahead in your English.
How badly do you want to become fluent?
And I know the other thing that you’re thinking too.
Yes, you’re right. It’s possible for you to learn
on your own but you will have more success
and you will make more progress if you have the
support and guidance of a good English teacher
or a language program.
Now if you really, really, really can’t invest any money
in your English training this year,
then you’ll need to compensate by investing
more time and more focus in your studies.
You’ll need to create a learning plan
and you’ll need to keep yourself motivated all the way
throughout the whole year, you need to be active.
And this is a much bigger challenge
than finding some money to invest in your training.
That’s my take on the situation.
If you want serious change and serious results
in the year ahead, decide what
serious action you’re going to do now
and get ready for it.
The third thing you should do is create a learning plan.
Even if you’re going to regular classes or you’re meeting
your tutor often, you still need to create your own
learning plan
to help you practise outside of your lessons.
You might think this sounds boring
but it doesn’t have to be.
Your formal classes are just part of your learning plan
and you need to make sure that you’re developing
all four language skills, right?
You need to spend a little bit of time on each of those
skills each week.
Like you need to read to broaden your vocabulary.
Learn and experience
how new words are used in context.
Become familiar with the different use of
phrasal verbs, learn common collocations
and informal language by reading.
You need to write.
You need to practise expressing your thoughts and
your ideas in a controlled way.
If you create a habit around writing in English,
it will start revealing where there are gaps
in your knowledge and that will allow you
to build your vocabulary further.
And here’s the thing about writing,
when you write your own experiences and your own
opinions and ideas, it increases retention.
It helps you to remember new words and expressions
because you’re associating them with your own ideas
and experiences.
Starting and then committing to a daily journal practice
is going to do amazing things for your language skills.
You need to listen to different accents,
you need to study the way that native speakers
link words together and they reduce sounds.
Watch movies, listen to podcasts and audiobooks,
all of those things.
I’ve left some recommendations in the description
below if you’re interested.
But try to give yourself some of the real listening
practice as well, you know,
in real conversations.
And of course, you need to speak as much as you can
to yourself, you can read aloud to your classmates,
your teacher, your online friends,
your colleagues,
but make sure you’re constantly pushing your
comfort zone further.
Chatting on Whatsapp doesn’t count here okay?
You need to create the space and the opportunity
to practise your speaking skills in real conversations.
A community like The Ladies' Project
is the perfect place to get regular
informal speaking practice.
There are group conversations almost every day
and unlimited one-to-one chats that you can have with
other members.
Lastly, you got to do it every day.
You’ve got to do something every day to practise.
And this is not really something that you can question
okay?
It’s just something that you need to do
if you want to create change in your English
and create it quickly.
Doing fifteen minutes of practice every day is
much better than doing four hours of solid
English practice on a Sunday afternoon.
Doing it daily allows you to build a great habit
and it brings English into your life every day.
Now this doesn’t mean that you need to sit down
and study every day right because
there’s always going to be days where you just
can’t be bothered and you don’t feel like it.
What it means is you need to expose yourself
to an English activity every day, listen to something
in English, read something in English,
watch something in English, write or speak
or sing in English. Anything, right?
To become fluent within a year,
you need to do something daily.
Now it could be simple and mundane like writing an
email or writing in your daily journal
but on Sundays it could be completely wild.
It could be exhausting, it could be like
attending an international conference
where you listened and network to people in English
all day.
But your daily practice does need to be balanced.
If you’re going to make it through a whole year,
it needs to be balanced.
Burying yourself inside a grammar book
for fifteen minutes every day for a year
is not going to make you fluent.
it’s going to make you awesome at grammar.
Your learning plan really should be a combination of
fun and passive English experiences with
active and deliberate practice.
So a good example of active practice is writing.
Okay you sit down and you spend some time creating
sentences and expressing your own ideas.
And maybe the following day you review your work.
You use a thesaurus to upgrade some of the words
that you used or maybe check some of the grammar
in a little bit more detail.
Now this is not as fun or as easy as watching
an English movie right?
But you need to do this type of practice too
so you can reward yourself the next day by watching
the movie, right?
This is the balance that I’m talking about.
You do some grammar practice and some writing
practice and then reward yourself with a podcast
or a movie.
So now it’s up to you.
What are you going to do to put your
plan in action for 2020?
I want you to tell me about it in the comments below.
I’d love you to set your intention for the year ahead
because I truly, truly believe that you can do this.
And if there’s a lesson
that you need me to help you with,
let me know that in the comments as well.
If you want me to be with you all the way through
next year, make sure you’ve subscribed to the channel
just down here. Turn on the notifications so that you
find out whenever there’s a new lesson waiting for you
and to keep practising with me right now,
check out this lesson here.
I’ve picked it especially for you.
Have a wonderful end to 2019 and I’m so excited to see
where your English takes you in 2020.
Best of luck!