By the way, I am not an English Teacher. I am an Engineer by profession. I did not have the privilege of studying in English medium schools or English convent schools. No. My entire schooling was done in government schools. That too, in a rural village in Tamil Nadu. The curriculum and medium of instruction was in Tamil.
One can imagine how difficult it would be to learn and speak in English, especially in rural India. I did not have an environment to speak in English. My father, mother, teachers, relatives, friends and everyone else around me did not know English. Quite obviously they could not speak in English. So I could communicate with them only in my mother tongue Tamil. Later I joined a college located in a small town. The same story repeats. The curriculum was in English but medium of instruction was in Tamil. In a nutshell, there wasn’t any environment which was conducive to speak in English from my 1st class till my graduation.
The importance of speaking good English struck me when I first appeared for the interview. As expected I struggled a lot to answer the questions in spite of knowing the answers. I knew the answer but I was not able to speak in English. The gentleman, who interviewed me was kind enough to understand my struggles and had the patience to get answers from me with my broken English. He would patiently repeat the question if I fumble at times. But he understood what I was trying to communicate. Eventually I got the job that is a different matter. Because that interview was held to test my technical skills and not to test my English proficiency. But I felt really bad that I could not answer properly even though I knew the answers. It bothered me a lot that I was not able to speak in English.
Only after this incident, my quest for mastering spoken English started. I wanted to speak good English, whatever it takes. I bought lots of English grammar books and read, attended spoken English classes, watched tons of YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, news reading, interviews, etc…Nothing helped much!
Well all these activities had increased my skills in written English. Yes, I slowly became good in written English. But my spoken English was not improving. It had improved a little, but not to that level, where I can convey my thoughts freely in English. I could not communicate in English with ease. No, it did not happen. I was wondering, why the hell speaking in English is so tough? Why am I not able to speak in English in spite of putting this much effort? Spoken English was so elusive despite these genuine efforts.
Finally I understood, after many years of struggles, where I was going wrong. All these years I was teaching only my brain. I had not taught my tongue at all. I had spent hours together in teaching my brain but I hardly spent any time in teaching my tongue. That was the sole reason why I was not able to speak in English. At last, I felt relieved that I was able to find a solution to my problems. And the solution I found was “Teach your Tongue”
I found the solution. But how could one teach his or her tongue? I found a very simple method of reading newspapers aloud. Yes! I started reading newspapers ALOUD. I would sit inside a room and lock the door because I did not want someone to hear my pathetic pronunciation and laugh. So I used to lock the door and read the newspapers aloud. Initially I found it really difficult to utter words freely. My tongue and other organs of speech were very reluctant to yield and utter the words freely. But I did not give up. I kept on reading newspapers every day. I used to spend at least 45 minutes daily to read English newspapers.
After few days, I found myself reading newspapers with some ease. My tongue and other organs of speech slowly started to yield. I was not having the difficulties of uttering words and word combination . I started reading newspapers quite comfortably. But soon I found out that newspaper reading would not give the right kind of training that is required to speak English spontaneously. Because newspapers have articles which are not written in everyday spoken English style. They are of written English style.
I understood that newspaper reading is not the best method if your goal is to improve spoken English. You need a special training material that gives exposure to spoken English. Yes. You need a training material that is written in spoken English style and not in written English style. I started exploring training materials and I stumbled upon spoken English producing structures and started reading them aloud. This practice brought in revolutionary change to my spoken English proficiency. At last, I found a very simple but very very effective method of improving spoken English. I continue to practice these structures even today!
What I am sharing with you is nothing but my personal experiences. What methods I had followed to improve my spoken English skills will be shared through various courses in this website. Become a member and learn to speak English fluently and confidently. Happy Learning!