hi there I'm Drew Badger the world's number one English Fluency Guide and in
number one English fluency guide and in this video I'm going to help you
understand the big picture of fluency
and also if you struggle to speak what
exactly you should be doing to become a
more confident fluent English speaker
well in this video I'd like to do a
couple of things so number one I'm going
to explain what I call the English
fluency profile and talk about what
fluency is as well and we're going to
talk about the difference between
natives and learners or most people who
fall into these two categories and then
we'll talk about what this means and
then what you can do to improve the
system for you specifically now I know
this kind of looks a little ittle bit
technical hopefully it's not too
difficult to understand but basically
the idea of fluency is that it's really
a collection of different skills or
habits that you have so it's not the
knowledge in this we can really prove
this very easily because there are so
many learners who know a lot of
information but and actually can't
communicate fluently so they know what
they want to say but maybe for some
reason or another maybe they're too shy
or they worry about you know their
pronunciation or making mistakes or
something like that so they can't
express themselves so just to go over
very quickly these things are starting
with the top up here we have just really
the ability to communicate with natives
so the English that you might learn in a
classroom is really quite different from
what's spoken on the streets so can you
meet natives can you have conversations
with them can you continue conversations
with them next we have conversational
speech
speech
speech so that's your ability to understand and
use conversational speech these are
things like slang and idioms phrasal
verbs next we have your ability to use
grammar then we have your listening
ability and kind of general fluency
skills these are things like just being
able to communicate automatically
without having to think and translate in
your head before you speak next we have
pronunciation and finally we have
confidence up here so really all of
these different things are coming
together to create a whole system which
allows you to communicate without
thinking and the ones up here really
will just kind of contour
the native speaker versus the non-native
speaker working outwards from the
beginning usually the the English
fluency profile if we were to talk about
maybe a baby it'd be something like this
where you know we're just starting out
and we have a fairly low level in all of
these things but myself or any adult
native speaker who can communicate just
fine as they develop and be become
better at maybe feeling more confident
or they're able to have more
conversations with people they improve
their vocabulary their use of grammar
all of these things increase until this
whole thing is completely filled it's
kind of hard to do that but basically
this entire thing is completely filled
when you're a fluent conversational
speaker now this is also a little bit
different because maybe if you're just
thinking about passing tests you don't
need to have all of these skills but
this is for the people who want to
communicate fluently
communicate fluently so the English fluency profile of a
native speaker is someone who has all of
these things filled in completely now
this isn't going to be the best picture
of that but the point is that it's all
filled in because they have all of these
skills developed to a high degree really
to the maximum degree they can be now
the difference here we're going to look
at what a non-native speaker most
learners look like and if we just look
for example at some of these maybe
listening is you know pretty good we're
just looking at like an adult native
speaker or excuse me a non-native
speaker here so maybe they're listening
is pretty good maybe their understanding
of grammar is okay we'll just put that
maybe here and again these are just
general things we don't have to think
about you know seventy-two percent or
something like that but the general idea
is that it's not filled completely and
even more than that is these things are
filled to a different degree for a
non-native learner so we might have
something like the ability to use
conversational speech might be very very
low so this might be a person who
understands a lot of textbook English
but they don't really understand so much
about being able to communicate well
using regular English they would be
spoken on the street
now the also ability to communicate with
natives might also be incredibly low
maybe they have no one around and they
can practice with or even if there are
they're very nervous about approaching
these people and they don't know how to
communicate with them and also
confidence might be very low as well
next pronunciation maybe it's okay let's
just say this person has you know maybe
slightly below average pronunciation
maybe they worry about their accent or
something like that and in general their
fluency is really very low so if you
look at the difference between this not
only do we have different levels for
each of these things often because
people are learning in a classroom their
listening is quite good but their
speaking skills are not very word about
not very well-developed so this is where
we get number two here the contrast
between the two so essentially there are
two different ways of learning English
you have the kind of second English
second language learning way of learning
the language where you're really only
studying a language to pass a test
there's very little practice with
speaking and you don't really learn a
lot of the conversational vocabulary or
develop all of the habits that you need
to express yourself so again this is
different from a native speaker who's
really developing the whole system as
one thing and just so you understand
this each of these parts affects the
other and this is really I'm going to
talk about if if this is you down here
and again it doesn't have to look
exactly like this maybe your grammar is
better than your pronunciation or maybe
you have great pronunciation but you
don't know very many conversational
words it doesn't really matter but the
point to understand about all this is
that number three what this means that
when you're communicating really we look
at your your fluency level is actually
the lowest level that the the weakest
habit you have is so it's actually your
weakest habit that determines your total
level of fluency so we can even have
maybe a really strong listening ability
here but if you're maybe a village to
actually communicate in a conversation
is really low then this level here is
what really determines your total level
of fluency so it's a funny thing that
even though you may have these skills
your actual ability to communicate
looks more like this now this is a
really interesting idea because it shows
you that most people they kind of want
to work on something that they're
already good at so people tend to work
on the things they're already good at
you know students are already good at
listening so they want to watch more
videos or something like that and just
develop their listening more but this
isn't actually improving their overall
fluency because they're still stuck down
here at the level of their weakest habit
now I really want to make this point
clear because it's very important if you
don't improve your weakest habit then it
doesn't matter if you improve your
listening to 100% because if I can
understand everyone but I'm too scared
to speak or I just really can't
communicate in a fluent way so I have to
think in my head and translate all the
time
time
time then I'm going to be stuck in
conversations so what this means is that
if you work on developing your weakest
habit then this is what actually expands
your ability for all these things to
improve and once you do that like this
like maybe my confidence over here I
learn how to develop that a little bit
more so now I feel a bit more confident
that also improves my fluency it
improves my pronunciation because I want
to get out and speak more so this is one
complete system and instead of trying to
learn just one of these things right
here the important thing to do the way
to actually get fluent especially if you
are not you know like a native speaker
already is to focus on your weakest
habit so that's the most important thing
I want you to understand from this
remember that fluency is a collection of
habits and if you just try to improve
one of them especially if it's something
you're already good at you're not going
to notice any improvement in your
overall fluency and again the reason is
because you're not focused on the thing
that's going to give you the most
improvement and that's your weakest
habit does that make sense
so hopefully this does again the idea
here really is just to remember that
fluency is it's not the vocabulary that
you know so you could maybe know 10,000
English words but that doesn't matter if
you actually can't communicate and this
is a way of judging or checking your
fluency level even if you don't you know
have this exact again it doesn't matter
about if it's you know 22 percent or 23
percent this is really something more
that you feel so you know when you're in
a conversation like I know this
vocabulary but I feel too nervous about
speaking so if you feel that then you
have a pretty good idea which of the
habits you should be working on so it
might be confidence for you or it might
be your pronunciation
whatever the thing that is stopping you
from reaching this level here don't work
on the thing that you're already good at
work on the thing that you're struggling
the most with because number one it's
going to be the easiest thing to improve
it's like if you're a student and you go
from a grade F to a grade D it's really
just a tiny amount of work to improve
you know a whole grade level but if
you're already an a up here trying to
get to an A+ that's a lot of work for
not real not really a big benefit that
you would notice so remember think about
this idea the second part here is that
each of these things is connected so
number one again because you're going to
get a lot more improvement if you focus
on the weakest habit and then number two
because your weakest habit is what
controls your actual total value of
fluency or your total ability to
communicate because it's kind of like
the the weakest chain in the link or the
wink leke weakest link in the chain and
this just means like if you have a chain
like this the strength that the total
chain is really the strength of just
this weakest one here so if this chain
link is really weak then the whole thing
breaks it doesn't matter that this other
chain chain link here is incredibly
strong does this make sense so when you
understand what your weakest habit is
you improve this one and it
automatically improves all the others
and then it's it stimulates your your
idea or your desire to go out and
improve and to practice and speak more
so once you raise this one up then you
find the next one that's like a little
bit lower and raise that one up too and
they continue to keep working out and
that's how you become fluent now just to
make this point like I want to kind of
draw it in a different way just to make
sure it's easier to understand this is
kind of like a pipe you know just a
really simple diagram if you can imagine
your ability to communicate here this
total area here this is like the
potential you have and this is what you
actually do so if you have like a really
good potential to speak here then this
kind of opening here is what allows you
to express all of this and so you become
or you speak really well so this is what
a native is over here but the problem
with the non-native for most people who
are learning the language again because
they're stuck here by their by their
weakest habit this is what's
constricting them down here so they
actually have the potential to become
really great speakers just like you if
you're watching this right now and
you're really not a very good speaker or
you're not very confident or you're
worried about your pronunciation
whatever that thing is you have the
potential to become a fantastic speaker
you really do but you're just stuck here
and that's why your output the actual
ability to communicate that you have is
very weak because again you're stuck
here by your weakest habit it's the
weakest link in the chain and that's why
you need to make this chain link
stronger so that you make the whole
thing stronger understand so it's all
one complete system and once you learn
how to improve each one of these things
especially focusing on your weakest
habit that's really the skill to or the
secret to becoming fluent much much
faster does that make sense well if you
have enjoyed this you can click on the
link in the upper right of this video
because I have a free personalized
fluency guide that I'd like to share
with you if you've not down low down
loaded that already and I have one guide
for each of these covers all of these no
matter what your particular problem is
just answer five quick questions and I
can show you exactly what to do for your
particular situation so you can start
seeing more improvement and really
improvement that others will notice as
well in your fluency today so click on
the link in the upper right-hand corner
of this video or in link in the
description below this video if you'd
like to download your free guide you can
do that after just answering a few
questions just to tell me which one of
these things is the thing that you're
struggling with the most if I can help
you fix this I know you're going to see
a lot of improvement in your fluency
have a fantastic day and I'll see you in
the next video bye-bye