Why you’re not Fluent in English? Identify your challenges using the Fluency Wheel

Welcome to the InFluency Podcast. I'm Hadar, and this is episode number 26. Today we're going to talk about the Fluency Framework.

What is the Fluency Framework? Let's begin with what is fluency? You know, when people come to me and take my course Accent Makeover, and by the name you understand that it has to do with the accent, but of course I'm not training you to be and a flawless English speaker because that's not the purpose.

But I want you to be confident and clear because you want to communicate your message clearly and to have people understand you. Um, but a lot of times people think that they need to sound like native speakers because of a whole lot of reasons. And I've listed a lot of them in this podcast before.

And the thing is that a lot of people come to work on their accents, not because they just want to lose their foreign accent, but because they think that that's the vehicle for them to become more fluent. And from my experience, it is. But we all understand that the ultimate goal is to minimize the gap between who you are in your native tongue and who you are in English, the way you express yourself and how fluent you are.

So at the end of the day, it really is all about fluency. And fluency, when I ask my students, what does it mean to be fluent for you, they usually say, "Well, to get stuck less, to sound clear, to not have an accent". So it's a bunch of things, but that's just the results that they're describing.

So what is it that you need to do for you to become fluent? What I'm going to share with you today is a recording of a video that I created called the Fluency Framework, which is basically how I list the ingredients of fluency. What are the elements that need to be complete for you to be 100% fluent. What are the ingredients that you need to master for you to achieve fluency.

So, it's not just this one thing, it's a bunch of things that put together. So I'm going to list those things, I'm going to introduce you to the Fluency Wheel, and we'll give you a different angle as to how to look at your English or to observe your performance of English. And help you focus on what are the things that you need to work on to achieve fluency.

Because when we see those ingredients, we see that some of them are really easy for us and are a no-brainer, and others are very challenging. And if you invest more time in the things that are easier for you, you won't achieve fluency because you're weaker in other aspects. And that's where you're lacking. And when you're lacking that area, you'll still get stuck, right? You'll still not become fluent.

So if you really want to be fluent, you need to master all those areas. And if you know that, you know clearly what those areas are, it's a lot easier to move forward and to become more fluent. So I'm going to share that with you, and I invite you to come back and share with me your experience and tell me what are the areas that you still need to work on or that you need to improve in order for you to become more fluent. Okay?

So, I actually have a PDF sheet for you to download with this episode. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. So you can download it and do that exercise that I share with you there. Okay? And then come back to me and tell me where you position yourself on that Fluency Wheel that I share with you. So let's listen to the Fluency Framework.

Hey, it's Hadar. Welcome to my channel. If you've been struggling with fluency and you feel that you don't know what else you need to do to improve, but you're still stuck, you still get stuck and you still work on so many different things, but you don't see the results that you want to see, than stick around.

Because today I'm going to map out how I see fluency, I call it the Fluency Framework. What are the ingredients inside the fluency that you need to improve that together they will get you to where you want to be in terms of your fluency in English?

A lot of times people come to me because they want to improve their accent, and they believe that that will get them into the level of fluency that they want. Which is true because working on your pronunciation, your intonation, all of that stuff that are related to spoken English is extremely valuable and extremely important in helping you become more fluent.

However, it is not enough. Because it's not enough just to learn how to pronounce certain words. It's not enough just to know how to put the words together. So you need to know a bunch of different things in different areas to be able to put it all together.

So while some things are connected, for example, working on your accent can boost your confidence, but it won't boost your grammar necessarily. It's a byproduct, but it's not like in-depth work on your grammar. And of course, just working on your grammar won't boost your fluency.

So fluency is comprised of different elements where you need to be able to master all of them at the same level to be able to be fluent. Because you can be lacking in one area and then to be really good in another and still be fluent. All of them need to be kinda like on the same level.

Now, I know it still sounds vague. So let me introduce you first to the Fluency Wheel. I based this Fluency Wheel on the life wheel where you want to observe your life in terms of where you are at in different aspects in your life: spirituality, family, relationships with friends, hobbies, work, so on and so forth.

And then you need to kind of like rate yourself and say where do you position yourself, between 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. And then you know what areas in your life you need to work on. Because when everything is around the same level, it's a more complete wheel. And that's what we're looking for in fluency as well.

In order for you to really get the best out of this lesson, I highly recommend for you to download the PDF that I prepared for you with the Fluency Wheel and a few questions that will help you walk through that and identify where to position yourself in each and every one of those areas.

Now, the Fluency Wheel, the way I see it, has six different ingredients, six different areas. One of them is confidence. Okay? And I decided to start with that because confidence is the ability to take everything that you know and to put it out there without giving a damn what other people think about you. Okay.

It's being able to speak and speak up, and giving yourself the permission to make mistakes. Because that is, my friend, essential if you want to improve your fluency and if you want to be able to communicate clearly and confidently. Okay?

So, confidence and mindset is one of the elements. And when you look at that wheel, you want to rate yourself and say where do you position yourself in this area.

Then we have accent. Here, it's not about sounding American or sounding British or Australian. It's really about being clear and understanding how the spoken language works. Okay? Because if you, you'll give yourself a 10 for everything else, but 1 when it comes to accent, then probably people won't understand all that beautiful English that you have. And it will affect your confidence and it will affect your communication skills and abilities. Okay.

So this is why working on your accent is basically working on the performance of your English. And here we break it down into pronunciation, forming the actual sounds. And again, like when I teach my students, I teach them to find that place of conflict - only the sounds that don't exist in your language, only the sounds that are making you sound unclear. This is what you need to focus on. Not learning all sounds of English that's boring and redundant for some people.

And when it comes to intonation is the same way. What are your tendencies that prevents you from sounding clear in English? Because to sound clear in English, you need to use some rules that are related to English.

And if you rated yourself really low here, then know that I have a program called Accent Makeover, and we're just about to open doors for this program. You can find out more by clicking the link below. And it's my most comprehensive program to help you boost your pronunciation, intonation, confidence, and of course, fluency. Because everything that I talk about here I put to practice there. Just so you know, so put it in your calendar. Anyway, let's move on.

That was accent. Then we have grammar and syntax. Grammar is all the rules, all the grammatical rules, all the tenses, the prepositions, all of that that you learn first when you learn a language. And syntax is how you put all the words together in a sentence.

So, that's essential, but it's not just to know that English grammar, it's basically how to use correct grammar when you speak. Now, here I feel that it's not the output that matters so much as the experience of expressing yourself. What does that mean?

It's not so much about whether or not you made a mistake, a grammatical mistake, but it's not letting grammar be an obstacle. So you'll know enough grammar and enough syntax to be able to communicate your thoughts clearly. To confidently structure a sentence and to know how to put it out there in an intelligible way.

So it's not like, "What did he or she say?.." It's going to be, "Okay. It's clear, I get it". Maybe you added an S there, but it doesn't matter so much. It doesn't matter as much as putting it in a clear way. Which means that when it comes to grammar, it's less about how it should be, but more about where your struggles are.

And that comes from the place of conflict between the grammar of English and the grammar of your native language. Okay? When you understand what are the things that exist in English but don't exist in your native language. And these are the places that you might slip, and that you might want to say something, but it's going to feel awkward and you'll get stuck there - that's what you need to resolve, okay, those issues.

So, your understanding of the grammar conflict will help you become more fluent, okay. It's not about solving a bunch of questions about grammar. It's not about knowing how to fill in all the 'on' 'in' an 'at' in a quiz. It's not about the written or the output of what you know. It's how you think about English, and how you organize the thoughts in your head.

Then we have active vocabulary. I've already shared with you my view on vocabulary, that you don't really need to learn a lot more words to boost your fluency. But you need to focus on your active vocabulary, or actually focus on your passive vocabulary, turning it into active vocabulary.

What does that mean? Active vocabulary is basically the words that you constantly use without thinking about it. You retrieve them rather easily without a lot of thought: 'house', 'share', 'kids', okay? These are easy words for you to use and you don't get self-conscious about using them.

But then there is the passive vocabulary, that is words that you know, but you don't really use because you're afraid of, um, using them incorrectly, or maybe you're not sure about the pronunciation. And all of that causes you to keep them stuck back there in your subconscious. And it's only triggered when you hear those words, but you don't use them.

And what a shame, because you can use them, you know those words, right? So basically, you would rate yourself in this area based on the level of your active vocabulary. And if you feel that you're not very strong in that area, then it means that you need to work on turning those passive words, the words - that you know but never use - into active words.

Then we have listening comprehension. This is the only area that is English input, intake, that you are hearing other people rather than speaking. Now, I always promote speaking and turning your passive practice into active practice. But improving your listening skills is also really important for your fluency.

One, because it affects your confidence right away if you can't understand someone. And if you can't understand someone, you won't speak back to them. So you practice less, you communicate less, and you feel crappy about yourself.

And also the more you're comfortable with what you're hearing, and you kinda like understand everything, you start noticing the nuances: ways that people speak, pronunciation, expressions. You're not so occupied with analyzing and understanding, so you notice the richness or the variety of the language. And that's really great because you start absorbing it, and then you can start executing it with the right practice.

Lastly, it's all about your speaking time. You can call it practice, you can call it speaking experience, but you have to be actively speaking to become more fluent. And if you don't have a lot of opportunities to speak, if you would rate yourself really low here, then I would say focus on that.

Get yourself into a lot more speaking situations - online, offline, get a teacher, get a friend, get a student in English and start speaking to them in English, but do something to boost and to enhance your speaking time.

Because at the end of the day, that's the only way that you can put all the other areas into practice. It's all about practice and speaking. So you need to identify where you are positioned in each and every one of those areas. But at the end of the day, you need to get yourself to speak as much as possible to be able to put it all together into practice.

Okay, that's it. Don't forget to download the PDF that we've prepared for you with the Fluency Wheel and a few questions that will help you understand how to position yourself in each and every one of those areas.

Also, I'm inviting you to join Accent Makeover because there we will help you tackle each and every one of those areas. There is going to be a lot of practice time because we have Fluency conversation groups. I'm definitely going to talk about everything you need to know about the American accent. We will practice comprehension skills.

I will talk to you about the mindset, the fluent mindset, we have a specific workshop for that. And it will boost your confidence. Also, I'm going to give you some grammar hacks and how to tackle your grammar studies. And finally, we will learn how to boost your active vocabulary.

So, I think that this program, if you struggle with fluency, might be the solution for you. Join the wait list to find out when we open doors, cause we only open Accent Makeover twice or three times a year. It's theaccentsway.com/join.

Now let me know in the comments below in which area you get the highest score, and in which area you get the lowest score. Okay?

Thank you so much for watching and have a beautiful week and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.