It’s almost impossible for humans to walk in a straight line.

Over a short distance, there should be no problem (unless you’ve had too much to drink). And if you’re following something, you should be ok too.

But over a long distance, the body tends to move towards one side and, slowly but surely, after a while you’ll be completely off course. You may even complete a full circle.

One of the reasons for this is that we all have a dominant leg. This means that the other leg is slightly weaker.

When one leg is stronger than the other, this changes the way you walk ever so slightly, and without a reference point to walk towards, you end up walking in circles.

In sports and exercise, many injuries result from similar muscle imbalances, when one muscle or muscle group becomes stronger than its opposing muscle.

The sad thing is, we tend to put the blame on the dominant, stronger muscle. But really, we should be focussing on the weaker counterpart.

Is the problem the fact that one leg is stronger than the other, or that one leg is weaker than the other?

This happens in language learning too.[thrive_leads id=’1049′]

The majority of the practice that most English learners do is input, and very little output.

What does this mean?

It means that most learners receive English, but rarely produce English.

Most learners complain that they find it hard to improve their speaking skills, and say that their comprehension skills are pretty good.

Think about your own learning for a moment.

Of all the hours of contact you have with English, how many do you spend listening and reading, and how many do you spend speaking?

If I had to guess, I’d say around 90% reading and listening, and 10% speaking.

When you look at it like that, it’s not very surprising that you find it difficult to speak fluently, but not so difficult to read or listen.

Just like a muscle imbalance in your body can stop you reaching your full potential in sports, an imbalance in language skills can slow your progress down horribly.

If your speaking skills were as good as your listening or reading comprehension, would you be happy?

Probably, yes.

English learners need to think about how much contact they have with each skill, and adapt their practice plan accordingly.

In tennis, you can find players in the top 100 that have an extremely good and dominant strength, like a formidable serve. However, unless the other aspects of their game are similarly good, they will never make it into the top 10.

The only players you find in the top 10 are the all-round great players.

You can be good at a skill by focussing on one or two aspects of that skill, but you can never be great. If you work on improving all aspects of a skill, you will be great.

How can you become an all-round learner then?

A large part of the practice you do, or the contact you have with English, needs to be producing English, practising what you know.

This is where most people go wrong, spending huge amounts of time reading or listening for general understanding, but rarely producing anything.

Why is it always this way? Why is it always easier to find time to practise listening and reading than it is to practise speaking?

The easy answer is because it’s incredibly easy to improve these skills with little or no effort.

You can literally sit on the sofa with your feet up doing nothing, and be practicing your reading or listening skills. All the information comes in. There’s no need to produce anything.

Tempting, isn’t it?

It’s much easier to allow language to come in than it is to produce language.

To listen or read you don’t actually need to do anything. With speaking (and writing), you have to do something. It’s not a lot, but when the brain has the choice between zero effort and some effort, it will always prefer to take the easy option.

However, easy doesn’t often lead to much in life. Embrace what appears to be difficult, because that’s where all the good stuff is. And the truth is, it’s not even difficult to practise, it only seems that way.

This is mostly why your speaking skills improve when you’re in an English-speaking country, because you’re forced to speak more.

And when you’re in a situation in which you’re forced to speak, well, not surprisingly, your speaking skills improve.

So what do you need to do to improve your speaking skills?

“Erm…speak more?”

Yep!

Instead of spending 90% of the time listening and reading, and only 10% speaking, slowly move that percentage towards the 50/50 mark.

And the good news is that you can still do this while sitting on the sofa with your feet up.

Happy now?

The number one priority for most English learners should be to make their speaking skills as strong as their comprehension skills.

Remove these imbalances in your language skills, and you will start making progress again, and will feel much more confident with your English.

So start looking at avoiding skill-dominance and become a great, all-round English speaker.

While you’re at it, think about strengthening your weak leg too. You never know, it might come in handy the next time you’re lost in a forest or desert.

I wrote an ebook on how to improve your speaking skills. You can download it for free and start improving your speaking skills today.

Just leave your email address in any of the boxes that appear on each page on my site, and I’ll send it straight to you.[thrive_leads id=’1049′]