How long does it take to learn English?
Understanding English language progress and levels
Learning a language is a wonderful journey. Most students, understandably, want to know how long the journey will take. How long will it be before I am fluent? When will I reach Advanced (C1) level? How long will it take to reach the next level? I will try to answer these questions in this blog by looking at what normally happens for students at ELC Bristol.
At ELC Bristol (the joint #1 English Language School in the UK) we have 6 levels which relate to the European Framework (CEFR). The levels are:
Elementary (A2)
Pre- Intermediate (A2)
Intermediate (B1)
Upper-Intermediate (B2)
Advanced (C1)
Proficiency (C2)
There is also a beginner level (A1) in the CEFR.
How long will it take to reach the next level?
According to Cambridge University *, it takes 100-150 hours of instruction to go from A1 to A2 but it takes 180 -260 hours to go from B1 to B2 level. This fits in with our experience at ELC Bristol when typically it takes 12 weeks of full time study to reach the next level. Full-time study is 21 hours a week. So, if you are lucky enough to study English full-time for one year you could improve by four levels. You could go from B1 to C2 or from Elementary A2 to B2. This is the quickest way to improve your English; enrol on a full-time course at ELC Bristol and you can improve by one level each term (12-14 weeks). You could take our level test to see what level your English is now:
Everyone is different
Students are all different, that is what is fascinating about teaching English. But this means that everyone progresses at a different speed. If you already speak another language, you should progress more quickly. If you speak a European language that shares the same roots and alphabet as English, you will probably learn more quickly. Students at a young age sometimes learn more rapidly than people my age (40+).
Becoming fluent or reaching Advanced (C1)
When students reach B1, they are often fluent. They can speak well and get their point across; they can communicate pretty much whatever they want to say. They make a lot of mistakes but everyone can understand what they want to say. To become fluent then, you will need to reach B1 from your current level. To reach C1, you should follow the same process; take our level test then calculate how many levels you need to complete.
Explore our courses
What are you waiting for? Find out your level, book a course and come and study with us.
https://elcbristol.co.uk/courses/
* https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2018/10/11/how-long-learn-language/