High Achievers: if You Want To Improve Spoken English Skills Avoid These Three Big Mistakes

Why You Will Fail to Improve Your Spoken English Skills

If you’re a high achiever chances are you will fail to improve your spoken English skills. 

Why? 

Because you are used to achieving goals, you aim big, put in the work and you succeed at most things but when it comes to improving your spoken English  skills you’re going to make these three mistakes:

Aiming at the Wrong Target

You’re going to focus on the wrong things and set the wrong goals.

When you speak English you get stressed because you can’t find the right words and there are embarrassing silences as you convert the long eloquent sentences from your mother tongue into English. You’re going to assume you need to learn more new words. You’re convinced this will solve the problem. 

It won’t. But, learning how to professionally use the vocabulary you already know will.

Learning additional words when you don’t know how to use the words you already have is only going to make things worse and make you feel like a failure. Short accurate sentences will make a better impression than a long confusing one and build your confidence and self esteem.

Boring English Classes

You’re going to sign up for classes that are too long and too boring. 

You think it’s a good idea to have a 90 minute English class. It’s not. 

It’s mentally tiring and hard to retain focus.

If the material is boring and does not interest you then you are going to forget it instantly. The research is clear on this.

 No interest = No learning.

Unrealistic Expectations

You’re going to set the bar too high and focus on the result and not the process. As a result you will lose motivation and give up on your study.

Say you’re an intermediate and you want to be advanced. Someone has told you that you’re a B1 and you want to improve and reach level C1. 

You’re going to start off with enthusiasm and then lose interest because the classes are boring or you have to miss one or two which increases to 3 or 4. Before you know it the goal of C1 is no longer achievable and you become demotivated and give up. 

Lower the bar. A 1% improvement everyday is 37x better at the end of the year.

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Never Underestimate Mini Habits

So what should you do if you want to build a good English habit to help you improve? 

It’s not what you think but I guarantee it will lead to improvements. Here’s how you start:

• Listen to one 5 minute podcast a day on a subject you like.  5 minutes a day is 1825 minutes a year of focused listening. That beats 90 minutes of 1 unfocused lesson. It builds consistence and trains your brain to study.

• Choose one new word to use each month and use it in 3x a week for one month. At the end of 3 months you will have acquired three relevant new words that you can use with confidence. This beats writing down lots of new vocabulary which you put in a book and never look at again.

• Choose one idiom to use each month and use it three times a week until you can use it confidently without hesitation. This beats using idioms badly because you are not sure of the context. 

Follow this system for 12 weeks and you will have easily improved your vocabulary and developed good English habits that will help you excel. 

Stop focusing on the big goals and never underestimate the power of developing small habits.

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