This is from my free monthly email.
Hi there,
How is everything? I hope the crazy weather this week didn't disrupt you too much! We had -2 and snow. Unbelievable, right?
In this month's newsletter, I want to talk about fluency.
Of course, everybody wants to be fluent. But what is fluency? See, that's the problem. "Fluency" is totally subjective - it means different things to different people. For some, it could be handling customers in English and for others, it could be understanding movies in English. It depends on the person.
The first step to solving this problem is figuring out what fluency means to you! However, I don't really suggest this solution because I think there is a better way.
"Really?", you say, "What can be better than fluency?" Well...
How about being highly functional and comfortable in every situation? Now, that is something we can aim for!
This is something you can measure and it is a concrete goal that you can hit. On top of that, you already have a good idea in which areas you need to be highly functional and comfortable.
A good idea would be pick the three most important and common situations for you and understand what do you need to have to be highly functional and comfortable. Once, you have achieved this, pick another three situations and continue.
What you will probably find is at you become "fluent" much faster learning this way :)
If you want to travel, learn the three most important situations for travelling. For example, accommodation, restaurants and transportation.
If you need English for work, learn about meetings, giving your opinion and phrases for telephone and email communication.
If you are taking an exam, learn key phrases for speaking, writing and vocabulary for reading.
Fun Fact: Researchers say that in order to be fluent, you need about 2000 words and to be functional in a language, you need 1200 words. Which means if you learn ten words a day, you can be functional in English in less than 6 months and more than fluent in one year!
Not bad at all!
I hope this helps. If you have any questions, please ask :)
By the way, I'd love to know what you think of this article! Leave your opinions in the comments below

Summer is almost over and autumn will soon be here. As we say goodbye to the nice weather, we can also say hello to a usual period of good learning because of the longer evenings! To get you started, here are some very useful online tools for helping you with English:
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• http://www.wordreference.com: This is a personal favourite of mine. I recommend it because it is very reliable and the forums are great. 
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/: A great resource for improving all aspects of your English while becoming more familiar with British English.
• http://www.humansofnewyork.com: This is something a little different. I am sure you have already heard of it. It is an excellent resource for seeing modern English and improving your vocabulary. Also, the stories are normally quite engaging.
• http://www.voanews.com: Interested in the news? If yes, this website will help you greatly because you can both read and listen to graded news stories. There is also an integrated dictionary.
• http://www.thelocal.de: This is another news based resource but the difference here is that you can read news about your country in English. Some of the countries covered are France, Germany, Italy and Spain.  
• http://www.ozdic.com: This is an online collocation dictionary so you can discover what words and phrases go together which will make you sound more natural! 
• http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/listen-and-watch: Another great resource for listening and watching English. They are a little more difficult than BBC 6 Minute English, if you have ever used that website. 
• http://context.reverso.net/translation: Not sure if you have the right word? That is where this website can help. It is translation in context! This is really really useful.  This one I have started to use more because of Matteo. 
• http://www.podclub.ch/: This is another podcast website but you can learn English through French, German and Italian. It also focuses a little more on grammar than the other podcast websites.  
• http://www.vocabulix.com/online/Learn/Languages: Your one-stop website for all your vocabulary needs. A truly great resource for building vocabulary!

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I left YouTube off the list because I think nearly everybody is already familiar with YouTube but please use it if you find it useful. I have tried to include something for everyone so hopefully I haven't missed too many good resources.

But if you know of any more, please tell me and I will add them in next month's newsletter.

All the best,
Jay

*Please note that these tools are not placed in order of importance.