Few speak English well.

Far fewer write well.

That’s what I’ve seen time and again among people from multiple walks of life.

(Note that speaking here refers to regular conversations we hold and not to public speaking. And writing doesn’t mean SMS or quick 2-3 line emails. It means writing paragraphs, essays, reports, proposals, and the like.)

I’ve spoken to and reviewed application essays for international MBA programs from people working in reputable organizations, including multinational companies. I found most to be fluent speakers, but, by and large, only few could write well. And here I’m not talking of people working in any random organization. I’m talking of top-notch organizations, where we expect employees to have impeccable speaking as well as writing skills.

Attaining proficiency in English takes time. In your journey, you’ll face several dry spells of little to no progress. You’ll face frustrating times. Little wonder, many quit.

You can improve your odds of success by starting with a mindset based on following fundamentals:

All of us read something or the other every day. Can we make use of a small part of that reading to improve our English language skills – mainly written English, but to some extent spoken English as well – at a much faster rate than we currently are?

Yes, we can. (The similarity of this sentence to Mr. Obama’s 2008 election slogan is purely coincidental.)

Through reading slowly and attentively, crawling in other words. (After writing this post, I came across the concept of intensive and extensive reading. Crawl method in intensive reading taken even further, more granular.)

If you can make crawling a regular habit, you’ll improve your English language skills at a much faster clip than your peers.

There are four kinds of skills in any language – reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Reading and listening are passive skills in which you absorb the input (text or voice) passively. Writing and speaking, on the other hand, are active skills in which you produce the output, and therefore are more challenging to master.

Little wonder, most people are looking to learn speaking and writing when they express desire to improve their English. In this post, I’ll cover how to improve speaking and writing for people at two different levels: beginner and intermediate.