Unlocking Fluency: Mastering Excellent English Through Slow Practice

There are problems with your English pronunciation, so people don’t understand you. You can’t remember words when you’re talking. When you listen to English audios, it’s difficult to understand. You feel frustrated.

Consequently, you try to speak faster. You try to listen to faster audios. You push yourself to understand, speak faster, read faster, and write faster. This creates more stress and frustration.

If you want to speak English fluently and quickly, you want to understand instantly. But most importantly, you want to feel relaxed and confident every time you speak English.

If you try to go fast constantly, you can’t concentrate on details. When you listen to audios that are too fast, you don’t actually hear or understand many words. If you don’t hear and don’t understand them, you won’t be able to learn them. Speaking too fast is also problematic. When you speak too quickly, your pronunciation often gets worse. You speak faster, but no one understands you. Communication gets worse, not better.

It was hard to understand a Thai student once who was constantly focused on speed. Although he wanted to speak faster (be more fluent), his pronunciation was bad. It was hard for me to understand him even when he spoke normally. However, when he spoke quickly, it became impossible for me to understand him.

To solve these issues, it is important to take a slower approach rather than trying to speed up. As the English saying goes, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” This means it is beneficial to begin by practicing a skill at a very slow pace. Pay close attention and observe all of the details. Deeply learn and practice everything, repeating frequently. Instead of opting for faster audio, listen to slower ones carefully. Notice each word and phrase, along with the speaker’s pronunciation. Rather than trying to speak English at a quicker pace, speak deliberately and slowly. Take your time and carefully select your words to ensure clear and understandable pronunciation.

Slowing down helps you develop good accurate habits. You train your brain to notice the details. You train your brain to do things correctly. With repetition, the correct skills become stronger and stronger. Eventually, everything becomes automatic. You understand automatically. You use proper grammar and vocabulary automatically. You speak with good pronunciation automatically.

You will then automatically speed up. You will find that you can listen to faster audios and still understand them. Your speed will increase effortlessly. Then you will begin to speak more rapidly, but with good pronunciation and accuracy. Smooth is fast. Slow is smooth. When you reach this point, you can try to go faster. But wait until you have already spent a lot of time practicing slowly.

I have so many students that follow this method. They listen to slow mini-stories and point-of-view stories over and over. They “shadow” my speaking. They do a lot of repetition. They learn everything thoroughly and completely.

When you listen to my VIP members speak, for instance, you notice how natural and fast their English is. They become fluent.

You will improve much more quickly if you slow down when you are stressed about your listening or speaking speed.

You will speak English quickly and effortlessly when you join my VIP program (below the video).