IICE GATE Students’ Felicitation Programme — Speech

Good morning friends,

Recently, on a result day, I heard two students talking. They both got above 90 percent marks. One said to the other, “Congratulations”, and the other said, “Shame to you”.

Suppose someone comes to you now and points at a chair near you and tells you, “Can I shit here?”, what will be your response? I suggest you change your place.

Well, I come across hundreds of such sentences. They prove that most people need to improve their English. Some more examples. 

• I go for a morning walk in the evening.
• I take breakfast in the evening around 5 and then go for a morning walk.
• He returned back at 6 o’clock.
• I asked a student at a school, “Where’s the principal?” He said, “He has just passed away.” Actually, the principal was having tea in his office.

Well, coming to the point, let me thank ICE team in general and Dr Bhavin Desai in particular for inviting me and my Fluentlingua team.

I have come here to have a tête-à-tête, a heart to heart talk. I have come here to tell you three things.

Well, I am an engineer, I have worked in industry, I have trained hundreds of engineers in different corporate houses, so I guess you can safely accept what I say.

I started learning English systematically very late in my life. I spoke my first sentence, my own creation, at the age of 23. I studied in Gujarati medium schools. I never knew that English would be so important in my engineering profession. But during my work in GNFC and then in LnT, I realised that English is like a passport to success. I saw many engineers whose content and skills were good, but they did not grow as much as they should because of their poor command of English. So after 4 years of industry life, I left it and started learning English. Of course, I acquired all the qualifications necessary to become a teacher of English. Can you imagine, a person who spoke his first sentence at the age of 23, became, at the age of 40, a National Vice President in English Language Teachers’ Association of India.

Now you might ask: how did you do that? My answer is simple. You need three things: hard work, hard work and hard work. There is no shortcut to success. You need to improve seven areas of English: four skills and three systems: LSRWVGP. For a detailed study of what to do to improve each aspect of English, please visit our website www.fluentlingua.com and use the material available under the link “Free Material”. Moreover, Please remember the golden rule of learning English: when in doubt, check it out. DON’T ask anyone.

If you ask me, “I am convinced that English is important for my career and anyone can improve it, but what how should I go about learning it?”

Well, the sequence is very simple.

Fore more detailed guidance, please visit our website.

Well, thank you everyone for listening to me.

Best wishes,

Dharmendra.

[PS. My actual speech was markedly different from what is written above. I will post a video link later, if possible.]