Ways to Improve Your Skills in English Speaking
Almost everyone wishes to improve their speaking skills whenever they are asked about their goals in learning a complex language. While learning a foreign language, one will find themself talking with all kinds of native speakers – their teacher, servers in taxi drivers, restaurants, and their landlord, so it’s vital that they feel comfortable. Like improving their listening, writing, or any other skill, there are methods and techniques one can use to improve their spoken English in a targeted way.
Here are few favourite suggestions:
Try to Imitate A Native Speakers:
This is an efficient way to improve not only speaking skills but also grammar skills, listening, and Vocabulary as well.
It works like this (LRRC):
Listen – start by listening to a phrase or sentence in English
Repeat – pause the complex audio part and repeat a phrase or sentence
Record – while reciting the sentences or words, record themself
Compare – this is the final part of this process.
Listen to the original audio, then compare the two by listening to your recording. Here, one will notice what one needs to improve, what one can say and able to understand precisely, and the changes one needs to make.
What one should be doing is imitating an English speaker AND correcting themself to become more accurate.
Once a person can accurately repeat the original audio, it’s time to get lots of repetition.
Work on accurate pronunciation:
Learn the accents of English and learn how to make them accurately. One has to learn the proper way of speaking, use of stress, use of intonation, informal pronunciation etc.
This is going to make an immense difference to the way one speaks. People will understand a person much better when their English will be more accurate. And things will just start to flow for them.
One should think about a situation when they last spoke English. Did they have to concentrate on how to make the sounds of English? If so, then the individual needs to work on this area. One wants to reach the stage where the right sounds come out of their mouth without thinking about making them.
One might be thinking, but how?
Try Doing this:
use a program or a site like this to see what one need to do to get the correct sounds
record yourself while saying these sounds
get feedback from others
get long-term repetition once you get it right,
This is just like improving the golf swing of a person. Or the way one plays the piano. Or kicking a football perfectly inside a goal post.
One learns the skill, practice, changes after getting feedback, and then contracts as many repetitions as possible.
Take English Speaking Courses/Classes:
Speaking with associates might be the most and best enjoyable way to learn. One should talk to their companions in English and have fun while studying!
One should take English lessons with a teacher or also find a language exchange. These would present a person with the safest environment to learn because one will know that their mistakes will be corrected. One can dramatically develop their speaking by having a natural conversation with a friend, colleagues or a language exchange.
Working on English at home is excellent. But to put it all together, one needs some real-life practice.
English Shadow Speakers:
This is all about a person working on English fluency. It’s more challenging associated with the first two methods. In shadowing, one has to listen to the audio first and repeat what one hears without pausing it. The rule should be no pauses, no stops! It is also essential to choose an audio piece that one can follow.
This is key: one can easily repeat this; only by practising this with audio.
Students usually do this wrongly. They choose challenging audio to repeat and end up mumbling.
One should take their time to find audio that is easy for them to repeat. Doing this will help a person to improve their fluency. One should take a good test to see if they are doing it correctly and evaluate their progress and is to record themself and listen to it.
Expand the Vocabulary but always be specific:
Learn more phrases and words that one is going to use while speaking English.
Make this specific to learn words or phrases one need to talk about a particular subject. It is so essential to learn by sentences, complete chunks or phrases of sentences. This will help with their grammar and so that one knows precisely how to use these words.
Expand the Vocabulary by getting lots of input. Here’s the video with the complete lesson about input:
Start Listening As Much As Possible:
I have a video about Always Be Listening.
Making a habit of listening all the time and getting as much practice as possible of listening will dramatically help their speaking. Of course, speaking and listening are two different skills. But in order to have one in a conversation, they need to understand the person they are talking to.
Always remember, it isn’t just about speaking while having a conversation.
Additionally, when listening to somebody while having a conversation, one can borrow phrases that they use. But one can only do this if one work on their skills of listening.
Listen to various conversational English.
Listening is also considered a vital input. It will help one increase their Vocabulary, and it will also help their pronunciation. Listening to the sounds or pronunciation of English will help one better make the sounds of English.
The good news is that while doing other things, one can listen.
Consistent is the Key:
The methods of speaking English that have been described above only work if one uses them.
Here’s what recommended:
Practise a little every day.
Stay committed to 5-10 minutes every day; if one can do more, great! Some days one might do 2-3 hours. But make sure that one does the minimum every single day.
This implies that even if one becomes tired or really busy, one still has to commit. Everyone can always find 10 minutes a day to commit to something specific or complex skill. One can do as much as the individual can, but make sure to do this every day. Remember, consistency is a vital key in learning a complex skill, like the strength to speak English with confidence and at a high level.