How to Learn English and Speak Fluently

By Smart and Easy English

There is a right and wrong way to learn English. The “wrong” way will cause you frustration, kill your motivation, and drastically slow your progress. The right way will make your learning much smoother, easier, and more enjoyable. This book comes from thousands of hours of talks with English learners & teachers all over the world - interviews, research, and experience in language learning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Smart and Easy English
• Release date: May 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215169971

Smart and Easy English

Smart and Easy English is an online English learning community of over 200,000 members. We are best know for doing live, interactive English "radio shows" running 24-hours/day, and have since expanded to YouTube and Instagram. You can learn more about us on our website: smartandeasyenglish.com.We believe that the way to creating better English speakers is to de-emphasize traditional classroom learning and emphasize acquiring English in a natural way, the ONLY way to produce a more natural and native-like way of speaking.To that end, we published books of super-short stories that are both enjoyable and educational, and an amazing way to learn and properly use vocabulary. We also published a book with secrets on how to learn English and speak fluently. This book is culmination of thousand of hours of conversations with English learners and teachers from all over the world, including interviews, research, and shared experiences in language acquisition.We look forward to future books and hope to reach even more people all over the world this year and beyond!

Book preview

cover-image, How to Learn English and Speak Fluently

How to Learn English and Speak Fluently

by Smart & Easy English

Copyright 2023

Smashwords Edition

Preface

There is a right and wrong way to learn English. Okay, maybe wrong is too harsh but the point is that if you follow the tips in this book, your English learning journey will be that much smoother, easier, and more enjoyable. The wrong way will cause you frustration, kill your motivation, and drastically slow your progress.

This book is a synthesis of thousands of hours of conversations with English learners from all over the world, including interviews with them, research, observations, and shared experiences in foreign language learning.

This book aims to help you not improve your English, but also to shift your mindset and your perspective on the process.

Remember to ENJOY THE JOURNEY!

Contents

The Difference Between Learning and Acquiring English

The ONLY Way to Acquire English

The 3 Things That Block Your Brain From Acquiring English

Your Environment Affects Your English

Is Studying Grammar a Waste of Time?

Age Affects Your Ability to Learn English

Tips for Beginners Learning English

How Long Does It Take To Become Fluent in English?

The Way to Faster Fluency

How to Succeed in Learning English

How Many Words Do you Need to Know to Be fluent?

The Best Ways to Learn Vocabulary

Learn the American Accent

Tips to Sound like a Native

How to Be More Native-Like (Beyond Accent)

Proper Word Stress & Intonation

The CH-Sound to Sound More Native

Active and Passive Listening

Tips for Improving Your Listening Comprehension

Get Over Your Fear of Speaking English

How to Improve Your Conversation Skills

Why Your English Isn’t Improving

Which is Better? - Native vs. Non-Native English Teacher

How to Use Video Streaming Services to Become Fluent in English

The Difference Between Learning and Acquiring English

There are two distinct approaches to acquiring a new language. The first involves developing the ability to interact with foreigners to understand and speak their language. The second involves receiving information about the language, transforming it into knowledge through intellectual effort, and memorizing it. Renowned American linguist, Stephen Krashen, introduced these distinct concepts to the language world through his theory of foreign language acquisition known as the Natural Approach.

The first concept is referred to as language acquisition, while the second is called language learning. Language acquisition refers to the process of natural assimilation, involving intuition and subconscious learning. It is the result of interactions between people in environments where the target language and culture are prevalent. In this methodology, teaching and learning are viewed as activities that occur on a personal and psychological level.

Language acquisition is similar to the way children learn their mother tongue. It produces functional skills in the spoken language without theoretical knowledge. It develops familiarity with the phonetic characteristics of the language as well as its structure and vocabulary. Language acquisition is responsible for listening comprehension, the capability for creative communication, and for the identification of cultural values.

The acquisition approach emphasizes the act of speaking and develops self-confidence in the learner. Adolescents who have lived abroad for a year in an exchange program often attain near-native fluency through second language acquisition, yet know little about the language. They have good pronunciation without any notion of phonology, do not know what the perfect tense is, or what phrasal verbs are, but they intuitively recognize and know how to use all the structures.

On the other hand, the concept of language learning is linked to the traditional approach to studying languages and is generally undertaken in high schools worldwide. The focus is on the language in its written form, and the objective is for the student to understand the structure and rules of the language, which are dissected and analyzed. Speaking ability is de-emphasized, and understanding the form of the language becomes the emphasis. The teaching and learning are technical and based on a syllabus. The student studies the theory in the absence of speaking practice. Error correction is constant, leaving little room for spontaneity.

Language-learning inspired methods are progressive and cumulative, normally tied to a preset syllabus that includes memorization of vocabulary. It seeks to transmit to the student knowledge about the language, its functioning and grammatical structures, its contrasts with the student's native language, knowledge that will hopefully produce the practical skills of understanding and speaking the language. However, the effort of accumulating knowledge about the language with all its irregularity only causes frustration.

I have spoken to numerous graduates with degrees in English who are classic examples of language learners. They are certified teachers with knowledge about the language and its literature but are only able to communicate in English with poor pronunciation, limited vocabulary, and lacking awareness of the target culture.

Learning is inferior to acquiring a language if you want to be a better speaker of the language because languages are complex, arbitrary, and irregular phenomena, full of ambiguities and constantly evolving. Therefore, the grammatical structure of a language is too complex and abstract to be categorized and defined by rules. Even if some partial knowledge of the functioning of the language is reached, it is not easily transformed into communication skills.

What happens in fact is the opposite: to understand the functioning of a language with its irregularities is a result of being familiar with it. Rules and exceptions will make sense, and grammar, word choice, and pronunciation will be appropriately employed if it sounds right. Language analysis and the deductive, rule-driven study of grammar are not only ineffective in producing good speakers but also frustrating. It is much easier, more enjoyable, and more durable to acquire a language than to learn a language.

If you remember nothing else from this book, remember this very important bit of advice: If you want to be a good speaker of English, you must acquire the language, not learn it.

The ONLY Way to Acquire English

We all acquire language the same way. There are some things we all do the same. For example, digestion - we all digest food the same. There’s no significant individual variation. First you put it in your mouth, then you chew it, then it goes down your throat and into your stomach. That’s how it's done everywhere - that’s how it's done in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa. That’s how it's done everywhere in the world.

What does this have to do with language learning? In this chapter, I’m going to talk about what is comprehensible input and how it’s the one and only way to acquire a language?

Language acquisition is a fascinating process that has puzzled scholars for centuries. While there are countless theories out there, Stephen Krashen's theory of comprehensible input has gained significant attention in recent years. Krashen, a renowned professor and linguist from California, argues that the one and only way to acquire a language is through comprehensible input.

So what is comprehensible input? Essentially, it is the input we understand. In other words, we acquire language when we understand what people tell us. It's not about how they say it, but rather what they say. Comprehensible input is the cornerstone of language acquisition, and it has been the last resort for language teaching professionals after years of trying different methods, such as grammar teaching, drills, and exercises.

The beauty of comprehensible input is that it can come in many forms. Anything that helps make input understandable, such as pictures, knowledge of the world, or even your surroundings, can aid in language acquisition. However, one important corollary to this theory is that talking is not practicing.

While it may be tempting to speak English out loud in the car or to yourself in the bathroom mirror, the truth is that this won't help you acquire the language. Instead, it's more effective to have someone speak English to you in a light and lively manner for a couple of weeks, an hour a day. This way, you'll start to acquire English naturally, and your speaking ability will gradually emerge over time. This approach has been backed by a significant amount of evidence in professional literature, books, journals, and papers.

Imagine attending a language class where you didn't have to say anything unless you wanted to. Sounds amazing, right? This ideal class would allow you to talk only if you volunteered, and no one would put you on the spot. Moreover, if the input is incomprehensible, it's the teacher's fault, not yours. This approach, if implemented correctly, can lead to significantly better results than other language acquisition methods.

Of course, speaking is not entirely useless in language acquisition. However, what counts is not what you say, but rather what the other person says to you. When you engage in conversation, what's important is the input that you can get from other people. Speaking to others can help stimulate them to provide you with the input you need to