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Do you know what your English level is? Are you a beginner, an intermediate or an advanced English speaker?
If you have any interest in the language you probably have an idea
of which category you fall into, and thats what you tell yourself
and other people, right?

fall into a category

collocation: to be classified into a

category.

a whole lot

Intensifier: whole makes this construction sound more emphatic.

significant

important or noticeable.

What you see above is a proficiency level chart with the corresponding scores from International tests. We need it because we
absolutely love classifying stuff in our brains. Thats how we classify
our own and other peoples competence in the language.
But, theres also another way we can classify ourselves as English
learners that is a whole lot more significant and that gives us a

clearer and deeper perspective into our learning journey.

I call it the commitment scale.
But before we get into it

commitment

a willingness to give your time and

energy to something that you believe
in, or a promise or firm decision to
do something.

get into it

Whats the proficiency level chart for?

Classifying peoples English levels as beginner, intermediate, and
advanced has some practical purposes:
You want to know where youre at in your learning process.
English schools and teachers use these different classifications to

organize their teaching material.

Its used to sell! Editorials and internet companies like Duolingo
or English live will sell you a different book or course for each
individual level.
Its used as an official document to prove someones level of
command in the language. American universities will take in foreign students if they have a certification by International tests
like IELTS or TOELF. In this case its a score, but you get my
point.

The Commitment Scale

While the proficiency level chart grades our skills, the commitment
scale describes our attitude, dedication and determination to improve.

Start discussing something.

where youre at
= whats your level.

get my point

= understand what I mean.

As it name suggests, the commitment scale tells us how committed a learner is to improving their skills in English. It answer the
questions of whether someone is really into English or if its just
an afterthought.

afterthought

Something not consired very important and therefore overlooked.

Think of the commitment scale is as spectrum, in which the lowest

end represents indifference and the upper end represents the utmost interest in the language.

drive
If you sit in the lower end of the spectrum in the commitment
scale, you cant expect much improvement beyond the beginner level. If you are in the middle section, you may be able to
achieve an intermediate level. But, if you have a lot of drive and
enthusiasm youre going to be the type of learner thats in the upper end of the spectrum, and whom will become an advanced English speaker really fast.

The 4 Types of Learners

In the same way the proficiency level chart breaks down students
levels into beginner, intermediate and advanced (and all the other subdivisions), the commitment scale broadly distinguishes four
types of learners:

The determination and ambition of a

person to achieve something.

break down
Divide.

broadly

In general and with the exception of

minor details.

Type
Type
Type
Type

1
2
3
4

Learner:
Learner:
Learner:
Learner:

the
the
the
the

casual learner
student.
professional.
fluent English speaker.

According to the type of learner you are in the commitment scale,

you will have a different level of drive, energy, and motivation to
learn English.

reside

To live in a place permanently or for

an extended period.

move forward

Advance, either phisically or on the

pursuit of a goal.

From Beginners Town to Advanced Town.

Look at it in this way: Say classifications like low intermediate,
intermediate, and advanced are the locations where your English resides at a specific point in time.
Of course, the beginner location is closer than the advanced
location. When you learn English, you move forward and want to
go as far as you can possible go. After some time, you will visit the
beginners town, and if you keep moving forward, youll bump into
the intermediate town, and so on.
The type of learner you are dictates how fast youre going to become fluent in the language. To put things into perspective, the
advanced town would take the casual type learner more than a
lifetime to get to. But, the professional type gets there in a matter
of months.
Lets break down below each type of learner according to the commitment scale.

bump into

To unexpectedly find something.

and so on

Paraphrase = Along with other things

of a similar kind.

lifetime

he duration of a persons life.

The Casual Learner

dont get too far

People who learn English with a casual attitude, obviously dont

get too far. If they maintain this predisposition for long enough,
they may be able to accumulate some vocabulary to express some
basic ideas in the language, but never reach fluency or even good
enough proficiency to do anything significant with their English, like
like forming meaningful relationships through English, having a
job in English or traveling and confidently getting by in English.

predisposition

Having said that, this is a lot of times the starting line for a lot
of people who then go on to become fluent in the language. How
come?
Well, not everybody falls in love with English overnight. Theres
usually always a period of time where you warm up to the idea
of learning English before you go all in. Being a casual type is the
bridge between being totally indifferent and becoming fluent.
It happened to me. Before getting serious about becoming fluent in English, I was a casual learner. I would pay attention to song
lyrics, I would look some words up on wordreferece.com every
now and again, I would try to internalize the grammar and learn
how to pronounce some words.
There was some proactiveness, but not enough to make any
breakthroughs with my English.
I was a casual learner 7 years ago. If I had maintained that disposition, would have I become as fluent as I am now? Not at all. I
wouldnt have even come close.

dont make much advancement.

an inclination beforehand to do
something in a particular way.

meaningful

having a meaning or purpose.

getby in (in a language)

to be able to communicate basic

ideas in a language.

overnight

happening for the duration of a night.

warm up to the idea

start to accept an idea and take action.

get serious about sth

start doing something seriously.

look some words up

search the meaning of a word on the

dictionary.

every now and again

sometimes.

breakthrough

a sudden advance especially in

knowledge or technique.

Its natural to start with a casual predisposition to learning English,

but if the learner never makes it past this casual approach, fluency becomes a far-fetched dream.

make it past sth

If someone tells me he or she has been learning English for 10

years, but never become fluent, this is the first thing that comes to
mind. 10 years of not real commitment.

not likely to happen or be true.

Not everybody is that persistent though. A lot of casual learners

go back to being indifferent, and many with the same old excuses like: Im just not good for languages, I dont have money, I
dont have time. What theyre really saying is I didnt want it
badly enough.

want (sth) badly

Lets look at this as a numbers game for a moment. I dont have

any hard numbers, but lets make a ballpark estimate (I am a
very analytical observer anyway). I would say that out of 10 casual learners 8 go back to being indifferent; 1 settles in as a casual
learner forever and 1 makes the cut to move on to the next stage
in the commitment scale.

overcome a difficulty.

far-fetched

same old (sth)

repetitive, recurring.

to want something very much.

numbers game

a situation in which the most important factor is how many of a particular

thing there are.

hard numbers

concrete or verified calculations.

ballpark estimate

a very rough approximation.

One out of ten casual learners, eventually. advances to the student

stage.

settles in

The Student

makes the cut (to sth/to do

sth)

When youre a casual learner and are determined to become more

proactive, you become a student of the language. This doesnt necessarily mean being a school student, but someone who takes interest in the language. Some common activities students do are:

to become or help to become adapted to and at ease in a new home,

environment, etc.

to succeed at something or meet a

requirement. >> He made the cut to
the main team.

Watching teaching videos on YouTube.

Setting Facebook, your cellphone, etc. in English.
Watching movies with subtitles in English.
Reading in English.
Writing more in English: in Facebook groups and on the internet
in general.

At this stage, a pattern becomes noticeable. People know that they

love English and that they have a strong desire to speak fluently,
but theyre not so clear where to begin. So, thats when the English school comes into play.
But, alternatively, Ive also seen learners follow other more creative
learning strategies, like a mix between note-taking and watching
TV shows in English, creating a strategies and methods to learn
through music, reading books for English learners, etc.
Whatever the path they decide to go down, the idea is the same.
You become a student, and in doing so you move further up the
commitment scale. Going from casual to student is a big deal.
It shows youre willing to make English a concrete part of your
life.
Now, of course, just like many get stuck in the casual stage, many
get stuck here, in the student stage. Those who have chosen to
take English classes encounter the following problem: English has a
learning curve, and it requires that you build strong habits if you
want to achieve true results.
A lot of people get frustrated because they feel that at some point
along the way it suddenly stopped being fun. Weve said that fresh

pattern

Recurring characteristic that identifies of a phenomenon, problem or

the behaviour of a person.

to be clear (on/about sth)

to have no problem understanding

something.

comes into play

to start to have a use or an effect in

a particular situation.

to be willing (to do sth)

to show you want to do something.

get stuck

to stop learning because you cant

understand something.

a learning curve

If something has a learning curve, it

is not so easy to learn. The learning
curve refers is to the time and study
that it takes to develop knowledge or
skills relating to a particular subject
or task.

out of the casual type youre now more motivated take it to the
next level. However, at English schools sometimes you feel youre
being chocked on theory. Plus, it might start to feel too much like
a responsibility because now you have to take exams and on top of
that theyre mostly on grammar.
Having said that, I still believe English schools can be good place to
learn English at this stage because it will force you to go through
the growing pains faster, whereas if you study on your own youre
more likely to put off the more difficult aspects of the language
(this is where many self-taught learners get stuck at). Procrastination becomes stronger when you dont have people to hold
you accountable for your learning.
Lets draw an analogy with an activity that Ive picked up fairly recently: cycling. I have been cycling for almost a year now. But,
exactly 50 days after I got myself a bicycle, I decided to compete
in a race. At this point, I had gained considerable endurance from
commuting to work and riding long distances every now and then.
But when I put myself next to more experienced riders, I realized
I didnt belong with them. They were so much faster, stronger and
seem to have lung capacity for days!
This goes to show I was a casual rider. If I wanted to be able to
hang with those riders, I had to get more serious about my training. Clearly, commuting wasnt enough. So, I started training more
consciously. I got a bit more into cycling because I was motivated
to ride faster. This made me a student.
Some key activities that show youre a student is not only how well
you perform on the bike as a result of more training, but just taking

fresh out of sth

recently having completed a phrase

and being enthused about an upcoming challenge.

chocke on

to get overwhelmed by something

because its more that you can take.

on top of that

= in addition to the bad thing already

mentioned.

growing pains

Literally, this means the pains someone experiences when physical

growth takes place. But its also used
in a figurative way to refer to the
difficulties from evolving in any other
aspect.

self-taught learners

someone who learns on his own.

procrastination

the practice of cronically postponing

completing important tasks.

hold you accountable

to remind someone of what they

need to do.

more interest in general, which gets reflected in things like following a dozen cycling pages on Facebook, watching videos on Youtube, reading about bicycles on the internet, etc. The same applies
for the English learner. Not only do you know more English, you
also become a fan of it.
Im not a casual type cyclist anymore, and to prove it Im going to
show you this video I got featured on. This video is from the single
most popular mountain bike channel on YouTube.

a dozen (sth)

a lot of (sth). Literally a dozen mean

12 units of something, but this is
informally used to imply a large
amount of something.

critical

very important.

heavy lifting

Serious or difficult work

You might ask What does that exactly prove?.. Well, If I was a casual type cyclist, I wouldnt even had been following that channel to
begin with. Also, I wouldnt had been interested in making a video
of myself riding my bicycle. I wouldnt had thown myself down that
trail!
Think about it yourself. Whats something other than English
you were a casual learner and then became a student?
The student stage is critical in the sense that its here where you
have the most heavy lifting to do. If fluency is what youre after,
it cant be all fun and games all the time. Achieving fluency is
achieving excellence, and unless youve lived in an English speaking country for quite some time (which is not a guarantee youll
become fluent if youre casual about it), becoming fluent means
breaking out some sweat and really making an effort.
When youre on the student stage, youre midway between people
who dont speak English at all, and people who are fluent. Youve
come a long way already, but theres still some ground you need to cover to get to the next level.

not all fun and games

if an activity is not all fun and

games, parts of it are difficult.

break out some sweat

to start to sweat (also often used in

a figurative way).

come a long way

make significant improvements.

If you dont get frustrated, give up to resistance and quit because

the race is harder than you thought, you will be on course to fluency.
I would say the same numbers from the casual type repeat itself
here. 8 out of 10 people settle with what theyve learned so far, and
go back to being casual learners. 1 stays as a student forever, and
1 moves on to the next stage: the professional.

The professional learner

The professional learner doesnt have anything to do with making a
profession out of English or making money. As defined by Steven
Pressfield in The War of Art the professional is someone who
shows up everyday and is committing over the long haul. A professional dedicates himself to mastering the technique because he
wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills.
While for the student type the biggest benefit of attending an English school is surrounding himself of an English environment that
helps him be held accountable for his learning, the professional
doesnt need accountability anymore become English is just another part of his everyday life. Long are the days when you studied
the language, now as a professional, you live it.
When youre a casual or student type, youre still an amateur. But,
when you turn pro, you really set yourself apart from the pack.
As a casual or student learner you fantasize with fluency because
you know youre still not giving it your all. When youre a professional you dont think about it anymore because you know English

give up to (sth)

to accept that you have been defeated and stop trying.

resistance

the negative force that arises whenever we try to move from a lower
level to a higher level.

show up

to be present in the moments that

matter.

over the long haul

over an extended period of time.

accountability

the quality or state of being accountable.

turn pro

collocation: become a professional.

set yourself apart

become better than the everybody

else in a group. set yourself apart
from the pack is a collocation that
means the same thing. Literally a
pack is a group of wolves.

give it your all

make your best effort.

is already a part of your life and fluency cannot not come.

I have met a lot of professional type learners, and Ive had conversations with all of them. One of the biggest obstacles to fluency is
the classic I dont have anyone to speak in English with. This is
a sign the learner is not yet in the professional stage because the
professional doesnt just stop there, he creates his opportunities
and goes out of his way to assure hes speaking the language. After all, thats the whole point of learning English, and he knows
it.
Back when I was a translation student, I realized I wasnt getting
enough exposure to the language in class. So, I took the initiative to form a conversation group with fellow university students.
We would meet up every Saturday at 10 am and speak English for
2 hours nonstop. I would also connect with exchange students and
tourists. I also created a facebook group to organize Google Hangouts in English. To drive home the previous statement I made about
the student needing schools to insert himself into an English environment, by being this proactive creating opportunities to speak
English I myself was the English environment. So are all the professional type students.

The Fluent English Speaker

As I pointed out before, professionals know fluency cannot not
come, so they stop daydreaming about it. It actually comes pretty
quick, because with a professional predisposition results come incredibly fast.

assure

make sure.

the point of (sth)

the reason for something.

take the initiative

to be the first to do something everyone else didnt want to or didnt

think of.

point out

to comment something.

daydream

to fantasize with something, especially something that you cant

achieve.

The fluent English speaker has absorbed so much English that it

just becomes indistinguishable from his native language.

set the bar high

set high expectations for yourself.

The result is in our case fluency. From this point on, its all about
perfecting your skills.
English is like any learning discipline. If youre really into it, youre
looking for perfection. When I played basketball, I wanted to be as
good as an NBA player. Even though I knew I wasnt going to be
able to get that good, just from aspiring it I was setting the bar
really high, and that pushed me to make the most out of every
opportunity to get better.
The same goes for English learners. Setting the bar high in this
case is aspiring to be as proficient as a native English speaker, even
if thats ultimately not possible. You will get to a point where you
can fool someone youre a native English speaker if they hear you
speak for a few minutes, but anymore than that and your native
language will show up in some way.
But, thats not an absolute requisite to achieve this stage in the
commitment scale. Of course you can be a fluent speaker with a
strong accent. Accent reduction has a lot to do with identity, and
some people dont feel comfortable losing their accent. Thats totally okay.
Needless to say, fluent speakers (and professionals to some degree)
dont attend English schools anymore because they now can see
the limitations study programs have, and the disassociation these
have with real life English. While schools can often be really helpful
for the student type, a professional or fluent learner has no busi-

make the most out of

to make something as benefitial as

you can possibly make it.

to fool (sb)

to make someone think something

thats not true.

ness taking English classes. Hes taken responsibility for his own
learning.

Lets Recap the Big Ideas

When youre casual, youre yet not fully committed to learning.
When you finally are, you become a student, which is the stage
where the majority of the heavy lifting happens. Once youre over
that hump and make English an indistinguishable part of your
life, you become a professional. As a professional youve hit your
stride as an English learner. You learn faster because you already
know a lot, so it easier to build on your existing knowledge than
to acquire completely new information. This learning is concentrated on improving the skills that makes an all-around good English
speaker. The professional soon gives way to the Fluent English
speaker.

have no business (doing

sth)

to do something you should not do,

because it does not affect or involve
you at all.

take responsibility for (sth)

to accept that youre responsably for

something and stop expecting other
do something for you.

hump

a difficulty in a discipline youre leanring.

hit your stride

to start to do something confidently

and well

build on

to add to something by constructing

an extension.

all-around good (sth)

to be good in all aspects of something.