For the lucky ones, learning English feels like a steady climb – their English gradually improves in step with the hours they put in. For others, there comes a time when no matter what you try, improvement fails to follow. It feels like you are just slamming your skull against a stone wall. That’s exactly how Mariam felt before surrendering $50 and booking a private lesson with me.
Mariam’s story mirrors many of the students I mentor. She had lived and worked in the States since 2015, settling in a suburb of Orlando and working at a local pharmacy. Three kids and a mortgage later, she sought to become a licensed pharmacist and earn the pay bump that came with it. Everything was in order. She filled out the paperwork and passed all the tests except one, the TOEFL. All she needed was a 26 on the TOEFL Speaking to become a licensed pharmacist. She assumed it would be easy. Why not? She had been speaking English every day for a decade, living and working with no trouble at work or at home. But when the results came back, her confidence collapsed: 21.
After shaking off the shock, Mariam rekindled her motivation. All her life, nothing had come easy. She had already fought through doubters at school, bullies at home, criminals on the streets, pushing forward, clawing her way to America, where she earned a Master's Degree from the University of Florida. She thought her student days were over until she saw her TOEFL score. No stranger to adversity, she rolled up her sleeves, set up her schedule, and started to seriously study.
Two months later, she earned a 23. All the other sections were fine, she just needed three more measly points in the Speaking.
She shifted tactics and consulted with a few of her co-workers at the pharmacy. They were all from Egypt, like her, and had already passed the TOEFL, so she trusted their advice.
“Just keep taking it. Eventually, you will get 26. It took me a few tries, too.”
Money was tight. The test cost $300 a pop, but the pay raise made it worth the risk. She planned to take the test once a month until she got her score. 23. 20. 24. 22. 22. 21. 23. It is only after nine failed attempts and nearly a year of self-studying that Mariam broke down and booked a session with me.
Failing a test hurts. Repeatedly failing a test infects the mind. You question your confidence, even your intelligence. Worst of all, it strains relationships. People count on you. You would rather take a knife to the heart than let a loved one down. So you carry on, failure turning into a parasite, eating away at your insides, polluting your thoughts, your actions, your attitude. Everyone wants to help, but no one knows how. The burden turns unbearable and, finally, you book an appointment with someone like me, a stranger on the Internet who claims to be a TOEFL expert. That’s how I met Mariam.
“I feel like something’s wrong with me,” Mariam confessed.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I saw one of your YouTube videos. I read the comments. Everyone was thanking you for helping them get their score. It looks like the test is easy for everyone but me.”
“Mariam, do you remember how many views that video had?”
“I don’t remember. It was a lot.”
“Most of the videos get around 20,000 views, some more, some less. But do you know how many comments there are?”
“No.”
“Fewer than 100. Out of 20,000 people, fewer than 100 leave a comment. Believe it or not, most test-takers are in the exact same position as you.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Look, this test is hard, especially if you want a 26 on the TOEFL Speaking. I know you know that. I know you have worked hard. But it takes more than just effort. It requires smart, specific, purposeful practice. I can show you how, but you must be patient and willing to work.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Mariam said.
We talked through a plan. I told her it would take time. We’d meet twice a week for at least two months, and every day she would commit to at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted, purposeful TOEFL Speaking practice. We agreed she’d practice in the morning, before her kids woke up, so she could study without distractions. She missed a few days at first, adjusting to the new habit, but she soon settled into the routine. Mariam had moments of deep doubt, but she decided to trust the process, the Speaker Habit.
After two months, she took the TOEFL again and earned a 24, still two points short, but something had shifted. The test no longer felt like a mystery. She knew why she had failed to earn a 26. Her weaknesses were no longer dwelling in the dark because she had confronted them daily through the Speaker Habit. Her anxiety eased. She relied less on my words and more on her actions. In Mariam’s mind, the TOEFL test score she craved no longer felt like a possibility, but an inevitability. After four months of consistent, purposeful practice, she earned a 27, adding her own success story to the comments.
Meeting me was not enough for Mariam, just like reading this book will not be enough for you. No one can give you better English. It requires intelligent effort. I have had many private students who fall into this trap. They pay for lessons, show up for classes, and expect their test score to improve. They treat the transaction as the solution, the same way booking a hotel room solves the problem of accommodation. But classes alone won’t solve this problem. I know you know it takes work, Dear Speaker, but it bears repeating. I can only show you the path to native-level English, you must walk it.
It’s natural to doubt if English improvement is even possible since it has taken years to reach your current level. Some of you may have given up already, resigned to the idea that there is nothing left to do but accept your lack of progress as fate. No. No. No. This is a belief, not a fact. There is no limit to your potential to speak better English. You may find that hard to believe. You may carry self-fulfilling doubts that whisper you’ll be stuck forever. Let’s address a few of the most common objections I have heard from other frustrated language learners.
“It’s too late to change my accent.”
You don’t need to change your accent to reach native-level fluency. Again, you do not need to change your accent. If the way you speak is an issue, the problem is intelligibility, not accent. In other words, people should be able to understand you easily. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t sound like a native speaker, but his English is intelligible. I’m not telling you to imitate Schwarzenegger – though that would be a hilarious goal – but that you aim to speak English clearly enough that it does not act as a barrier to being understood.
The Speaker Habit is not a routine to reduce your accent. We’re not going to overhaul your voice until you sound as if you were born and raised in Texas. That would be a painful waste of time. Accents are beautiful. They make language more interesting. More importantly, accent accounts for a small portion of your score on an English proficiency test like the TOEFL. Intelligibility matters much, much more than accent.
So let’s adjust your objection to the more accurate, It is too late to sound intelligible.
No, it isn’t. It just requires purposeful practice with patient attention.
Have you ever heard the expression The squeaky wheel gets the grease? It means you notice what makes the most noise. The loudest kid in class gets attention. The customer who keeps complaining gets a refund. This unfortunate truth applies not just to annoying people, but to language learning. We notice unknown vocabulary, proper grammar, and correct answers. And overlook details in our spoken English because the message matters most. As long as the listener understands us, we can skip over little mistakes. Who cares if when I asked the waiter for ice it sounded like eyes? The message was understood. I didn’t end up with a glass of water full of floating eyeballs, so my brain just filtered out that information. Our clever mind has limited space, so it ignores these speech hiccups. They seem unimportant.
That ends with the Speaker Habit. You’ll bring your spoken English into the light. You’ll record your voice, listen to it, analyze it, identify weaknesses, and construct strategies for improvement. It’s not too late to speak native-level English. It just requires a shift in attention, turning mistakes into a squeaky wheel for your mind to prioritize.
“I’ll never speak as well as a native speaker.”
Comparing yourself to a native speaker is problematic on multiple levels. First, most English language users are non-native speakers. It’s estimated that non-native speakers outnumber native speakers three to one. That’s over 1.5 billion non-native speakers2 – that’s billion with a b. When you communicate in English, it will most likely be with non-native speakers, just like you.
I’ll let you in on another secret: the phrase native speaker is kind of a dirty word among English teachers. For years, many schools required teachers to be from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or the U.K. That meant millions of qualified English teachers from other countries were shut out—it was blatantly discriminatory. Just because you are American, for example, does not mean you are qualified to teach English. Teaching credentials should hold the same weight, regardless of whether the teacher is from Australia or Ghana.* Most in the English Language Teaching community (ELT) agree that native speakerism is both discriminatory and pedagogically unsound. Being a native speaker says nothing about your ability to teach.
Even the term native speaker is relative. Most Singaporeans speak English as their first language, but that is probably not the first population you think of when you hear native speaker. Instead of worrying whether you’ll ever sound like James Bond, worry whether you’ll ever reach native-level fluency. That’s a realistic goal we can actually measure:
Duolingo English Test - 130
CEFR - C1
IELTS - 7.0
TOEFL iBT - 98
Sure, a test score does not sound as sexy as I speak English like a native, but it can get you a job, an education, and even a pay raise. Saying I speak English like a native gets you a part-time job serving fries to tourists at the local McDonald's.
“Some people are naturally talented at learning and speaking English. I’m not one of them.”
It can certainly feel like some people are naturally gifted language learners. Scroll through any social media feed and you’ll find an army of language wizards who can teach you to speak Elvish in 17 hours, which is just one of the 679 other languages they supposedly speak fluently. Even though our language learning skills feel meager when compared to the awesome power of the influencer, research in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) largely fails to support the idea that learning a foreign language is a genetic gift.
In researching the field, I found one study suggesting that the amount of white matter in the brain correlates to language learning aptitude, and another hinting that genetic factors play some role4, but the evidence was sparse and unconvincing. There are indeed factors that contribute to how well and how fast one can learn a foreign language, but they aren’t genetic. Much stronger evidence points to motivation, environment, and practice, with decades of research backing them up. The SLA field is dense with literature on the power of motivation (championed by Dörnyei), the need for environmental input (made famous by Stephen Krashen), and the importance of proper practice (with Paul Nation being the most well-known researcher in this domain).
Motivation. Input. Practice. If someone appears to be an apt language learner, it is most likely due to these three factors. And the good news is that you have at least two already.
If you’re reading these words, you’re motivated. You wouldn’t be reading a book like this if you weren’t.
The Speaker Habit is recommended for English Language Learners at a CEFR B2 level, so you have already been exposed to thousands of English words and phrases, acquiring the input needed to use English at a high level.
The missing piece is practice. That’s where the Speaker Habit comes in.
“I’m shy. I don’t like to speak.”
Being shy is not a fluency death sentence. Do you believe every bilingual person is outgoing? Plenty of shy people before you have learned to speak fluent English. That said, personality does play a part in your progress. Shy students speak less. Fewer chances mean fewer learning opportunities. The opposite holds true for talkative folk. If you are confident and enjoy small talk, you will expand your vocabulary and improve your fluency at a faster rate. But don’t let personality serve as an excuse for your spoken English. Speaking softly or disdaining group discussions doesn’t doom you to the basement of English aptitude. Even stars like Emma Watson or public figures like Bill Gates – both self-proclaimed introverts – have thrived. You don’t have to love to speak to be good at it. You just need to adjust the way you practice, which makes the Speaker Habit a perfect pick for the shy.
“I’ve tried everything. Nothing is going to work.”
Doubts are natural. Your journey to these words has already been long, much longer than you expected. You did what you were told. You went to class, got good grades, hired tutors, bought books, sacrificed free time to improve your English, and it still isn’t enough. I can only imagine how infuriating it feels for you.
Know that you are not alone. Tens of millions of other English language learners are just like you: unsatisfied with their current level. This is why there are thousands of schools, apps, and sites promising to deliver English fluency. It’s easy to forget because we are bombarded by success stories. Just open your preferred social media you’ll see a sea of smiling young faces, untouched by time or stress, claiming to have learned to speak perfect English in six days. Bookstores brim with books by hyperpolyglots who learned to speak 287 languages in 21 days.* Society sells fast and easy, but reality comes slow and steady.
We all have an inner voice, and it has tremendous power. If you truly believe you’ve tried everything and nothing will work, that belief will become your reality. You picked up this book because you still hope that native-level fluency is possible. And it is. I have witnessed it firsthand with not just one student, but many. Protect your thoughts and approach the Speaker Habit with a positive mindset. It will serve you well on the slow, steady journey ahead.
“Do I really need to speak native-level English?”
For many, native-level English isn’t a practical goal. Most English language learners eventually stop at a level that is good enough. That might mean enough English to travel, watch movies, or even live in an English-speaking country. My wife Naomi, for example, speaks English as a second language. We communicate mostly in English, sometimes in Japanese. She can tell me when she likes my haircut, when the kids don’t do their homework, and when I need to make more money. We can make plans for the future and share memories from the past. We’ve communicated this way since the day we met 14 years ago. But if Naomi were to take the TOEFL today, she’d score around a 22 in the Speaking section. Most test-takers who need a professional license must earn at least a 26. Think about that. Naomi has spoken with a native speaker every day for well over a decade, and she’d still fail to meet the requirements for a pharmacist license in the States.
At first glance, this may not seem fair, but consider the role of a pharmacist. They fill prescriptions for the sick. Some patients rely on the correct medication to live. The consequences of a misunderstanding at the pharmacy are far greater than those at the MacPherson household. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are required to prove English fluency because the stakes are extremely high.
The Speaker Habit is for motivated English language learners who find their current level unacceptable. That could come from an inner desire to improve or from external pressure, like a licensing board. I wouldn’t recommend the Speaker Habit to my wife. The internal motivation and external pressure are absent. She needs English to communicate with her family, and she can do that quite well. Her English is good enough.
I don’t know your situation, Dear Speaker, but reaching native-level fluency requires strong motivation to endure the process. This isn’t a weekend hobby. It’s a daily practice you must commit to. Whether it is due to external pressure or internal desire, identify what fuels your drive for native-level fluency. It will keep you pushing forward.
I’ve mentioned the Speaker Habit in passing, but have yet to define it, which I’ll do shortly. But before we discuss the Speaker Habit, you must understand the problem with the way you currently practice speaking, and why it leads nowhere.