The One Thing To You Have To Do To Become Fluent

All across the land in every country and every city, wherever a teacher and student of language meet, there’s a very familiar conversation going on. It’s sometimes more than a conversation, it’s a negotiation between the two. This topic is very popular with the learner and is a taboo subject for teachers. One of the jobs of a teacher or mentor is to steer you clear of a path even though it looks like it’s paved with gold.

I have chosen to avoid this topic generally at all costs because it usually puts me in a spot. It challenges me to tell the truth and risk offending some people or making my advice look unattractive to them.

In fact it’s actually a great myth, one that is echoed through the chambers of a learner’s mind and that gives them belief  and the excuse to procrastinate.

Today I’m going to face this myth head on and tell you what I think and why.

Here’s the myth in a nutshell: ‘Hey teacher you know maybe  if I just go to an English speaking country and live there I’ll become fluent’. It’s almost right up there with thinking you have a good chance of winning the lottery.

‘Err.. no!’ is the answer almost every teacher thinks but they can’t tell you that. Why?

You’ll think they are trying to stop you from your dream, so you can still keep paying them for the lessons right?

Wrong!

There’s an aspect of language learning we are all afraid to admit because it’s a turn off for students. Anything that looks or sounds too hard is to be avoided if you want a student to take lessons with you.

It’s not that we don’t want you to travel to an english speaking country and become a fluent speaker by doing so…it’s just that we want you to go prepared.

Otherwise you’ll spend a long time fumbling (like someone blindfolded in a dark room looking for the exit door) before you work out what you need to do to become fluent. For some when it takes too long they eventually give up.

After having listened to this idea lots of times ( really), I finally understood what it is the students were actually really trying to tell me.

What they were saying was that if they go to the English speaking (or target of ) country, they would have everything done for them automatically and they would click into place straight away and the something in the air would make them speak fluent with the greatest pronunciation..all without any effort! Now that would really be winning the lottery.

I realised the number thing most students and people don’t want to do is a dirty six letter word.

C H CH C-H-A-N-G-E!

Change!

No one wants to make the effort to change for anything. Admit it you know it’s true.

Well I’m here to tell you the number 1 guaranteed thing to happen when you master a language and become fluent is that you will change. It’s a transformation that is inevitable.

Here are 3 things that happen if you change:

1. the people close to you have to adjust to this ‘New you’. If it’s close people who love you then this could work out well.If it’s friends who don’t want to see you getting ahead of them, then it makes your relationships uncomfortable.
2. You have to let go of past Ideas and Ideals..about the people and places whose language you have now become fluent in. This is because
3. learning a language reveals who these people really are and forces you to let go of all the stereotypes you had about them before you understood them. It exposes you to different way of living.It teaches you to ‘walk in the moccasins’ of others and understand they are the same as you and want the same things as you. This is sometimes hard for some people to deal with.
4. You appreciate that it took HARD WORK and EFFORT for you to grow. You had to go through periods of low self confidence and  doubt but you did it anyway and now you have arrived to the destination. That’s why I really appreciate anyone who does some kind of sport because they understand straight away that you cannot get fitter without putting in the work.

…so by all means please travel and pay a visit to the English speaking country (or even you can decide to live there too.) But don’t expect to be fluent anytime soon if you don’t go prepared.

Let me end this post with an a quote :

‘Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything’ – George Bernard shaw