Many people who ask how to overcome difficulty speaking English first blame their small vocabulary or poor grammar. We counted pre-learning surveys from 1200 active Campus Top students, and found that 82% of users who are too nervous to speak have a vocabulary of over 3500 words, which is enough to handle 90% of daily and workplace communication scenarios.

0190% of Your "Speaking Block" Is Not a Competence Issue

Karen, Teaching Director of Campus Top, once said: "90% of adults are afraid to speak English not because they speak badly, but because they fear being laughed at for 'not being perfect'."

One of the core logics of Karen Methodology is "allow mistakes first, pursue accuracy later". Most people get stuck when speaking not because they are not capable enough, but because they set too high a threshold for themselves:

  • You always translate what you want to say into Chinese first, then find corresponding English words one by one, so your reaction is naturally half a beat slower
  • You are afraid of being laughed at for wrong grammar or inaccurate pronunciation, so you swallow the words on the tip of your tongue, wasting all practice opportunities
  • You have memorized lots of words, but never used them in real conversation scenarios, so you can't recall them when you need them

I have met many office workers who have passed CET-6, but still practice greeting foreign clients three times in their mind before speaking. It's not that they can't speak, it's that they don't dare to.

02How to Overcome Difficulty Speaking English? Solve the Problem of "Not Being Able to Stick to It" First

To put it bluntly, the reason you can't stick to learning is not poor willpower, but that many course designs are inherently anti-human.

For example, Xiao Lin, who works in cross-border e-commerce, signed up for an offline large-class course last year, twice a week for two hours each time. It took him 40 minutes to get to the classroom after work, and he couldn't keep up after the third week - working 8 hours during the day, sitting in class for two hours taking notes at night, and doing homework after going back, it's hard for anyone to stick to it. Later he switched to Campus Top's 25-minute high-frequency short courses, taking 25 minutes during his lunch break every day to chat with Filipino teachers, 10 minutes about work and 10 minutes about daily life, no pressure, he stuck to it for 5 months without noticing, now he basically doesn't need a translator for weekly meetings with European and American clients.

If you are wondering which oral English training class is better, I personally recommend you first check if the class length fits your fragmented time. A two-hour class sounds cost-effective, but the persistence cost is too high for office workers. We tested several ways to learn English in fragmented time before, you can check How to practice spoken English: Maximize your fragmented time for working adults to triple efficiency for details.

032 Practical Methods Ordinary People Can Copy Directly

To be honest, I don't really agree with the saying from many bloggers that "you should memorize 10000 words first before speaking", it's completely against the law of learning. You didn't wait to memorize 3000 Chinese characters before you started speaking when you were a kid, right?

The first method is "small-step high-frequency output": take at least 4 25-minute one-on-one foreign teacher classes a week, no need to memorize scripts in advance, say whatever comes to your mind. Our foreign teachers based at the physical campus in Manila, Philippines have all received special training, they won't interrupt you for making mistakes, nor laugh at you, just build the habit of "daring to speak" first.

The second method is "wrong sentence review 3 times method": after each class, read the wrong sentences marked by the teacher 3 times, deliberately use the correct expression in the next class, you will remember it completely after at most 3 times, which is much more useful than memorizing 10 pages of grammar notes.

Actually, how to overcome difficulty speaking English is not as complicated as you think. You don't have to force yourself to read thick textbooks, nor stay up late memorizing words, finding the right rhythm and practicing slowly will lead to faster progress. If you are interested, you can book a free trial class to experience the relaxed feeling of 25-minute short courses.