Your sound a lot like my school English teachers. Unfortunately even though I was an all-time excellent student in English, I walked out of school speaking barely a few English sentences in confidence. Now I can speak well, pronounce well after my own effort, though I do make mistakes here and there under the scrutiny of a linguist per say.

Let's face it. Wish your word of advice be heeded by people still in China. Chinese immigrants in the hot sea of language won't go back to your path of novel reading and hope to become a linguist someday. Listening to radios, watching TVs, talking to people in English, these are the effective avenues for our immigrants to get over the immediate language barriers in our day-to-day life.