Do you feel fear of English day in and day out? Do you take back seat whenever you are in a group where people normally speak in English? Does fear of English haunt you all the time, and indirectly keeping you away to reach to your potential?
So many students/colleagues have approached me with their issues of communicating in English, and asking me for advice how to improve it.
My guess is if you’re reading this blog then most probably this is the case, first of all I want to say you are courageous and bold to admit that you are weak at English, not everyone is that bold, and secondly you are making sincere efforts to work on it that’s why you are here so you can convert this so called weakness into one of your major strength. I will make every sincere effort to help you here, if you follow the steps, that I have described below, diligently then trust me you will find yourself on other side of the table leading every talk/debate/interview in English.
What you can learn here?
Imagine the journey of a person who couldn’t utter a word in English in his first interview, struggled a bit initially in his career to become one of the successful professional who worked in the world’s top 10 companies like Oracle, Intel etc., leading every possible talk/discussion/interview he attended. I will detailed about his journey in some other post but in this post will explain the methods that he invented or used to become successful in communicating effectively and confidently in English.
Steps to become good/best communicator in English
DRIVE
You need to have the solid drive to become the best English speaker, it should be that strong that every time you close your eyes you see one and only one thing that you are speaking flawlessly in English.
SPEAK
Initially you will feel shy to speak with anyone in English, so where to start?
Start by talking to yourself first, it’s as simple as that and this is one of the best thing you can do to yourself, its benefits are abundant. This will help you a lot down the road to overcome any challenge in your life.
How to do it? Initially you just need 5 minutes in front of a mirror
You might feel uncomfortable initially but with continuous practice you will get used to it.
What should I talk to myself about? Talk anything e.g. talk about your room, weather, mess in your room 🙂 , food you ate etc., anything that comes to your mind no barrier here just talk. Only condition is you need to look into your eyes while talking.
Remember, initially you need to get comfortable with yourself while speaking English before you can get comfortable with others.
There will be times when you will get so used to talking in front of mirror that your family members might label you a mad guy, but trust me this will be your first win to conquer English. Behind the scene, while you are talking in front of mirror, you are changing your though process to think in English than your native language, this is mandatory to be fluent in English.
The more you speak to yourself your confidence level will grow more, you will notice suddenly once in a while you might start speaking with your family and friends in English. As we say in science it’s directly proportional 🙂 . I went nuts when I saw this theory is working for me, within in a span of few months people started complimenting me how come your English is so good.
I went to that level where I could talk to myself for hours in front of mirror, and that’s where I started cracking every interview I went to, technically I was/am (Hello) very strong but I needed a channel to express that knowledge in front of the interviewers. I stated practicing my interview questions & answers in front of the mirror, that way I was more prepared, my answers became more effective. I might write a post on how to crack interviews, let me know if you need one.
READ
This might sound boring a bit, plus most of the time people complain about we don’t have time to read. Fair enough, but 15 minutes a day initially should be good to start with, rest choice is all yours. I firmly believe in the quote that goes something like:
“Make your own circumstances, else circumstances will make you”
How to generate that time slot of 15 minutes? If I were you I will move my alarm clock 15 minutes early, that’s pretty much. Not sacrificing much on sleep plus now I have my 15 minutes to read, you can read any of below:
- English newspaper of your liking
- Sports Magazine
- English Novels
- Read while travelling as long as you are NOT driving 🙂 , suddenly you will find lot of time for reading.
- Basically read anything in English that you like
Don’t read it on the screen, get a paper book. Join a library and get the loads of anything you want to read. Just stop making excuse of not having stuff to read.
Initially start with reading material of your liking this will feed your motivation to continue.
LISTEN
Listening to English communications help a lot, you can do the following:
- Listen English radio
- Watch English shows, I love watching interviews of greats like Ex US President Obama, Bill Clinton to name a few. Shashi Tharoor is hell of a speaker, you can listen to him also.
- On YouTube there are so many English interview playlists you can pick/subscribe to any, listen to them whenever you could.
- Make a group of trusted friends to do some English talks like group discussions or so
- Basically find any opportunity where you could get a chance to listen to some good English conversation.
THE MENTAL ASPECT
Nobody will tell you about this but for me this was the game changer. Normally, people who are weak in English tell themselves or anyone that “I am weak in English”, they might say this statement tons of time throughout the day, correct? I was one such noble personality 🙁
Now imagine if I repeat this statement “I am weak in English” thousands of time a day then how my subconscious will anticipate it? Remember, whatever goes to subconscious part of your brain becomes permanent, so what will get/become permanent? That I am weak in English, correct?. And then whenever you have to speak in English a signal goes to brain, and subconscious side of brain kicks the panic button “I am weak in English” and accordingly it will start sending safety signal which are normally in form of fear to speak in English. That’s it, it’s as simple as that. I hope I am making sense.
You can use the same analogy to describe stage fear. But if you send a toddler on a stage he doesn’t feel any fear or so, why? Because by that age nobody told him it’s hard to be on stage, he goes fearlessly on the stage will make few rounds and will finally search for his parents 🙂 , but as he grows he will hear a lot about stage fear from family, friends or so accordingly his subconscious will store that information and will send him to safety/fear mode when on stage.
Why I am describing all this? Because in order to get fluent in English we need to store good/positive data in our subconscious, accordingly it will send positive/confident signals back to you instead of safety/fear ones when we get opportunity to speak in English. To do that just change the statement “I am weak in English” with “I am excellent in English”, do this repeatedly in addition to above steps trust me you will easily overcome the fear of communicating in English.
Use can use below affirmations before you go to sleep:
“I am excellent in English”
“It’s easy for me to communicate in English”
“I am fluent in English”
Plus you can add more affirmation if you want.
Try this out and share feedback via comments.
Good and easy tips
This article is very well explained in simple words. Public speaking especially in English language is a phobia for many of us. “Talk to your self first in the mirror” followed by other baby steps and positive affirmations will definitely gonna boost one’s self confidence and shape one’s personality eventually.
Your writings are very creative. ?
Thank you Gurvir for the words of encouragement!
Mirror technique is efficacious for developing confidence.
I want to raise a question here, that 5 mins for a newbie is too much can he start with 2-3 mins for speaking in front of mirror?
By the way, Thank you for sharing such valuable techniques. And, do write about cracking any interview.
Thank you Devmani!
You can start with 2-3 minutes if that works for you, there is no hard and fast rule to keep it for 5 minutes, what I observed was 5 minutes give you enough time to have a small dialog with yourself as you have to think on the fly and speak. Do use the timer to keep track of your time when you speak in front of the mirror, this is must initially.