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Ask yourself with confidence “Can you speak fluent English”? All students do dream about improving their spoken English firstly because such skills can help in getting enrollment in the university of their dreams and get excellent performance there. Of course, there are many more possibilities to handle all of the college assignments and score high grades, but one can achieve the best results if the person is fluent in the training language!
If any person is reading this article, then you want to find out how to speak English confidently and fluently. We have tried to provide a list of effective tips that will come in handy for every student, which will assist you in training English speaking at home with ease.
Gather Information Regarding Basic English Skills and become proficient in the language and speak fluently with confidence. Try the Tips over here and Improve your English Writing and Speaking Skills.
How to Improve Spoken English (Without a Speaking Partner )
In this article, I’ll cover several steps you can take to improve your spoken English when faced with this situation.
This article is divided into three sections:
Part I: General tactics if you don’t have a speaking partner.
Part II: Have occasional conversations with others.
Part III: Unique challenges solo practitioners face.
Everyone is looking for a shortcut to English fluency. But this post is here to tell you that it isn’t – as long as you have the right strategy. We don’t provide tricks that will give you perfect English by practising five minutes a day. Instead, we provide solid tips that will help you learn how to speak English more fluently, in less time.
Part I: General tactics if you don’t have a speaking partner:
The Possibility of Learning The Language Alone
What is the first thing that probably comes up in your mind when you ask yourself the question like “How will I improve my spoken English?”. The majority of people start thinking of hiring a tutor or attending some classes, which both are good ways to your goal, but your chances to succeed do not get lower, if there is no possibility to do this!
Then how is this even possible? The answer is straight and simple – even the best tutor can’t help you speak a foreign language without mistakes and fluently if you do not practice these skills regularly.
Read aloud!
The majority of students can-not understand how learning English with books can help them master this language or have certain doubts. For conversational practice, an interesting text can be an excellent help. You will surely get an excellent chance to practice your language skills besides will also gain some valuable knowledge, if you choose some good book about self-improvement. For the speech apparatus, reading aloud is an excellent simulator. Try to devote each day at least 60 minutes for this exercise. By the way, another obvious plus point of this exercise is that you will be instinctive retain the most common phrases that are used while speaking.
Associate the language with music:
Try to sing songs in a foreign language for adopting the dialect. Sing when you are taking a shower or in the car. People memorise phrases and words much faster and better if they can associate the language they are learning with music. Find songs in that language that you like the most, search the lyrics of the song, and try to memorise them; also, it will be more effective if one spends some time in translating each song!
Work on The Pronunciation and Intonation
Record your voice while speaking. This one can seem one of the peculiar ones among the other. At first, it will be bizarre to perceive your own speech in English, but you will get used to it, and this exercise will help you reach excellence in pronunciation. How to do it? Please try to take the recording of the native speaker in a short audio file, listen to them, and then try to repeat his pronunciation and intonation with possible accuracy. Then it would be best if you try to re-record yourself and compare the two records to find the differences, eliminating the mistakes that you have done previously.
Watch More and More Content
Watch movies or videos. Watch some videos available online or offline, pause and repeat what you heard. Without a tutor or speaking partner for the improvement of your spoken language at home, this process is considered as one of the best tools for it. Facilitate people with the process of getting the first results, and it is better to start with short video clips. Still, later one should be able to practise the same exercise with longer videos and even movies.
Analyse and Work On Your Mistake
One should always work on their mistakes. First, find out what are the typical problems and most familiar with the pronunciation of Language English, so that people can analyse and face their current level. Focus on working out the pronunciation as well as the dialect of problem sounds, and one should significantly try to increase their chances of correct speaking.
Speak to yourself
Speak to yourself whenever possible. Practice your speech standing in front of a mirror. This exercise does help you in getting over the fear or anxiety of talking in a foreign language, hear your own speech, and observe your mimics while making a conversation. Thus, this is another excellent tool that will help you master it!
Imitate and Repeat
When it’s about learning English, most people think of memorising lists, studying with cards and piles of books. All of these are obviously helpful in their own and every way and shouldn’t be ignored by any learner. However, many people shy away from – or forget – the active side of language learning – playing, listening, exploring and repeating them.
Studies tell that one of the best ways to improve your language skills is through imitation. Listening and repeating to others on what they say and how they say it – even choice of words, emotion and intonation – is one of the most powerful and fun ways to make progress.
Imitation and repetition are among the oldest and are frequent second language teaching approaches used in language therapy, despite posing some heavy criticism—the neural mechanisms underlying imitation and repetition to be examined through current neuroimaging techniques. The study examines the influence of verbal repetition and imitation on network configuration by fMRI.
Try To Follow And Be An Actor:
All Actors have one goal: of studying a text and then making people believe that text is actually real. They do that by using exaggeration, repetition, emotion and a lot of practice. So why not be inspired by the acts of your favourite actors and do the same?
Here’s a game for you. When you are solo or alone, take a piece of paper and write down an English expression – any expression you really want to learn. Now, try to read it without looking at the paper, keep trying until you achieve this skill. Then, the next step is trying to say that expression with different emotions. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate! Eventually, you will get used to the sound of the expression without even having to think about it.
Phone Conversations Helps:
Most people find phone conversations with known or unknown people, particularly challenging. Why? Because on a phone call, we can’t observe or see the body language or watch their mouth movements of the other person, both of which are important tools that really help in communication. To feel and be more confident on a phone conversation, start small conversations over a phone with friends – then move on to more challenging calls like making inquiries and appointments. (This is a great time to use this tip, and prepare a list of questions and useful vocabulary to help you during your call!)
Prepare Cheat Sheets and Reflect Your Conversation
The feeling of not knowing what and when to say is a part of nervousness around speaking. Prepare a cheat sheet to combat this. If you are going to the doctor’s, before you make your appointment, research the vocabulary related to your condition and some common phrases that you will probably need while making conversations. Know and use the technique before going to job interviews, pay a bill, eating at a restaurant, making a complaint, or for any other situation that might make you anxious.
After your conversation is over with someone, don’t forget to take a moment to reflect. How much do you think you understood? How did it go? How comfortable did you feel with that subject matter? Did you encounter any unknown words? The mere act of thinking about it in this way will increase your confidence for the next time you speak (and give your targeted things to work on, for example, vocabulary you didn’t understand).
Part II: Have occasional conversations with others.
English is an exciting language to learn (here are fifteen reasons why it rocks), and even though it’s considered an accessible and relatively easy one to learn, with a lot of different words and spelling that can throw off even the most skilled learner, learning English fast can seem impossible.
First, Find Your Motivation:
Is it about succeeding at job interviews? Is it about creating a good impression on others? Or, Is it to be socially mobile and enlarge your network?
By finding the ‘why’ of your pursuit of spoken English, you will find your motivation. It would be best if you asked yourself the reason why you want to learn Spoken English. Whatever reason is, always remind yourself that how remaining average will adversely affect your life conversely how getting better at the language will improve your life. This will help you keep going in frustrating times, which will be quite a few.
English is the language of arts, science, computers, aviation, tourism and diplomacy. Knowing the language increases your chances of getting work abroad or an excellent job in a multinational company within your home country. English is the language for international communication, the media and the internet, so learning English is essential for socialising and entertainment as well as work!
Read, Read And Read:
If a person wants to improve your skills in speaking, then they should start to read, as well! It is not possible to improve particularly at one area of a language (like speaking) if one doesn’t improve and practise other areas, as well.
Reading helps a person to enhance their speaking skills because it makes their brain work. When you are reading, you probably do listen to your inner voice or your head pronouncing the words that you read. Apart from that, you’re able to learn new words in context that you can use later in your conversations.
Newspapers, Classic literature, paperbacks, emails, websites or even your social media feed, cereal boxes: read it if it’s in English. This helps you build on quickly, as re-exposure to learned vocabulary gives you new examples in context, therefore reinforcing those words in your mind.
The more you read, you’ll mostly have contact with correct, well-structured English and the faster your brain will start recognising groups and patterns of words that usually go together. When those patterns are already set in your head, you can use them in your conversations without hesitation.
Talk To Yourself:
You can enhance your English speaking whenever you’re at home (or alone somewhere else) with you’re the favourite person that is: you-yourself.
Try speaking your thoughts out loud if you’re already thinking in English. Readout loud, too. The practice is practice, and even if you don’t have anyone to correct your mistakes, just the act of speaking out loud will help you become more comfortable speaking English.
What is the value of a language if you can not communicate? Sure, without even opening our mouths, we humans have become experts at communicating – thanks Whatsapp! – but when push comes to shove, speaking a language indeed far better than only reading or writing it, helps it stick in your head.
Just think of the number of times you’ve heard people saying that they “do understand, but can’t really speak English.” A huge barrier which is insurmountable has only served to psyche them out has let a lot of would-be English speakers have turned talking into. Don’t be like that. For an informal language, exchange seeks out native speakers, enrol in a course, or take classes online.
Always Try To Think In English:
When someone thinks in English (without translating), this also helps them internalise the particular language. When you internalise information, it means you learn it so well that you no longer need to think
about it.
Depending on a personal level of understanding, right now, one might first think of what he\she want to say in their native language, and then try to translate it into English. By thinking in English first, you omit the time to translate—which in the long run will help you become more fluent in the Language, English.
Additionally, thinking in English is an excellent way to build your vocabulary with words you actually use. It’s important to know many words, but it’s even more important to know words that you’ll use in everyday conversations.
The solution to always think in English:
You can practice this anytime, anywhere. When you’re thinking about your day, try to use English, or when you decide what the food to order. Even an English-to-English dictionary to look up the words that you got stuck. That way, you never have to translate words or use your native language. You’ll notice that it’s easier for you to speak in English when you think.
Be A Creative Speaker:
If we pose a little bit of creativity, then improving our English speaking skills can be fun. Always use it to your advantage whatever “fun” means to you, and include the language in it.
For example, try looking around, sitting on your couch. Find an interesting object to describe in English. If you’re just starting, you might use short sentences and easy vocabulary. But the better you get in describing, the better you’ll get at this small exercise!
Creative journaling in English is something you can try to improve your spoken English. A lot of people think that journalism and journaling are the same as keeping a diary, but it’s actually so much more!
Finally, always try to make your own life a little difficult. No, I’m not crazy. Have you ever been in a situation where you got stuck because you couldn’t remember a word while trying to say something in English? Do that on purpose! Try to talk about anything without using particular words. It’s almost like a real-life game of “Taboo,” but you make the rules.
In other words, be as creative as you want, and use English all the way.
Focus On Twisters And Fluency:
How often do you stop when you speak in English?
The more you stop while speaking, the less comfortable you become and the less confident you sound. Try challenging yourself to speak without stammering (taking pauses between your words) or stopping the entire time.
This might mean that your whole sentences won’t have to be always grammatically! If one focuses on speaking fluently instead of correctly, the person will still be understood and will sound better. One can fill in the correct word rules and grammar as you learn them better.
Tongue twisters are a series of specific words that are mostly tough to say quickly. One example is: “Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?” Try saying this several times! It’s not that easy.
Such word games help you find the right placement for your tongue and mouth, and can even help your pronunciation.
Dive Deep In The Language:
Unfortunately, English has just as many exceptions as there are rules in English. If a person tries to find a reason for everything, it’s easy to get stuck on learning how to speak English properly. Sometimes English can be weird and inexplicable, so instead the best thing to do is just memorise the strange exceptions and move on.
The best way to quickly improve and learn your English is to spend at least a few minutes practising every day. Usually, it isn’t enough if you are studying English only for an hour or two once a week to make any real progress.
Every time you study to try to immerse yourself as much as possible and challenge yourself to listen to, read and even say things in English that you think might be too difficult for you. One needs to make English an essential part of your everyday life to speak the language fluently.
Form An Immersive Environment Around:
Learning a new language for a person can be often fun or frustrating. More the reason why it’s so crucial for the person makes the process more natural, immersive and intuitive and possible so that you can keep it enjoyable and fun. It provides incredible results as one progress through their language learning journey.
Of course, visiting the country where your target language is spoken is one of the best ways to go about learning any language. Not only it forces you to get out of your comfort zone but also increase your exposure to the language. This process is the perfect way for you to get in some much-needed conversation practice by socialising with the locals.
Creating an immersive language learning environment is not as hard as you may imagine. It just requires a little bit of experimentation so you can determine how everything fits into your daily schedule and what works for you. By creating an immersive language learning environment from home, you are essentially giving yourself the means to maximise exposure to your target language at any given moment and make the most of your language learning.
Be Ready To Accept The Mistakes:
What if one leaves a bad impression? What if one says something wrong? What if one uses the wrong term by mistake? What if one forgets the specific word at the worst possible moment?
No one wants to fumble over words or make mistakes.
Thoughts like these are common, especially among those of us who have been taught English with a little emphasis on actual talking and a heavy focus on grammar.
Yes, everyone – even native speakers make mistakes. Think about it! Even when we are in our comfort zone, like for example discussing our primary field of expertise, sometimes we just “lose” the right word and must search for it.
The key to becoming more fluent in spoken English is to get those good discussions under your belt to bolster your confidence. The more you use English (or any foreign language, for that matter), the easier it becomes.
Narrate Your Own Story In the English Language:
If you apply new vocabulary to your own life and make use in as personal as possible, then your brain is more likely to remember it. For that reason, it’s smart to ask yourself “How would I use this in my personal situation?” and take an expression you have recently learned. If you ask me that in which contexts can you see yourself using this, then.
This has two potential benefits: first, you will make your life easier. Secondly, you will feel like your learning is useful and avoid frustration because next time you have to talk about yourself, your experiences and memories, will be ready because you have already practised!
For example, when someone narrates you a sad story, you do feel sad. If they tell you a happy one, you feel happy listening to the story. And we remember things much more easily when we are emotionally engaged.
With all that in mind, narrating will help you learn English through reading or listening to stories. A dramatical improve in your ability to have conversations is through listening to English. Also, if you listen and read to stories at the same time, you’ll learn how to pronounce words in English (and sentences!).
How well your spoken English has developed can be tested in a fun way: Choose a story and tell it in English that you know really well. Instead of speaking correctly, focus on fluency. Say every sentence out clear and loud to yourself.
You can still build confidence and master in fluency on your own time even if you have nobody to talk to in English.
Part III: Unique Challenges Solo Practitioners Face
This tip is a classic one for all good reason: it works! A new word or phrase we often enjoy so much that forgetting it seems impossible, whenever we are learning. But not everything sticks the first time, trust us!
To fight this, carry around a funky notebook or using a tool like Evernote. One must write it down in a context, whenever they hear or read a new word or expression: in a sentence and with its meaning noted. This saves you the time you won’t return to that word in searching again.
On increasing your vocabulary, you will be able to communicate (speak and write) more clearly and using fewer words. You will understand more and people will understand you more easily. Learning new words is an exciting activity — and one you can even practise with the people being around them. Challenge a friend, members of the family, or roommate to learn new words with you.
You will hold the key to a better vocabulary. Such practices help you discover and learn new words to strengthen your use of the English Language and expand your vocabulary.
Finally, remember that one must practice putting their new words into your speaking and writing so that one continues to remember them.
Learn Forms and Phrases of Words
It is always essential to know the correct way to use a word in any kind of sentence. This knowledge will help while you speak. You won’t have to pause and think for different words—you’ll know exactly when it would help if you used that word while speaking.
Some practice comes much before someone even open your mouth. Learning the different forms of any words make speaking easier by you learn. One should practise while they are learning a new vocabulary. For example, if one has just learned the word write, you should also learn some other forms like wrote and written.
Another critical part of improving English is to learn word phrases, not just words. Beside common vocabulary, common phrases are one of the most important factors that decide whether or not you can speak a new language well in a short period. If a person wants to improve their skills in English speaking quickly, they must learn the way native speakers speak, learn the phrases they often use.
You might be using correct vocabulary and grammar, but it’s still not how a native speaker would say it. For sounding more natural when you speak, one must take help from expressions and phrases.
Practise To Listen to More
Listening is an important factor in learning spoken English. Through listening, you can learn these nuances and calibrate your own speech. Spoken English has a rhythm – the pauses, the emphasis (speaking more loudly) on certain parts of the sentence, and the pace (fast or slow). You will spot pronunciation mistakes you’ve been making for years.
One must practice sounding natural by following along with YouTube videos, TV shows or other natural English speech.
Repeat a short clip that you like line by line, or that uses words that you’d use in real life. Try to match the speed, tone and even the dialect (if you can). It doesn’t really matter if someone misses a few words, the important thing is to keep talking. Try or imitate to sound just like the native speakers.
Spoken English can be somewhat different from the more formal written English. You’ll often encounter slangs, contractions, fragments (of sentences), and bruised grammar rules in spoken English. For example, ‘are you gonna come to the college tomorrow’ would be sufficient in spoken English, but would be too informal in most writings.
By the way, listening, like reading, too provides you with the opportunity to improve your vocabulary.
Join An Online Course
You may not have a partner to speak, but guess what now you have free online speaking courses of English!
Learning online is becoming quite popular. Besides, the offer is sometimes is so huge (very big) that many times the course fee is actually zero.
Learning English online is an excellent idea since being able to speak, write and understand English is such an important skill. Interactive and in-depth online classes and modules make learning English online easier.
Whether someone is interested in learning how to speak or expanding your career opportunities, read and write English for educational purposes, learning English online is an excellent way to develop a valuable, important new skill.
There are literally hundreds of courses online that can help you improve your English speaking skills. I’ve mentioned three that I’m sure will help you with that:
- English For Asia: Many of us don’t need to do business in continents like Asia, but unfortunately, Asia is just the setting. The certain course focuses on speaking and business English and has a primary goal to teach a person about how to deliver the perfect oral presentation.
- Professional English Speaking: If you need to improve your conversation skills for work, this is the perfect course for you.
- Effective Speaking And Writing English: Boost your writing and speaking skills thanks to the techniques included in this amazing course.
Learn To Make Use Of The Exceptions
You probably know that Language English is full of exceptions to its rules if you’ve been learning English for a while.
A lot of learners will get annoyed at this, but here’s a suggestion on what you can do: Make use of those exceptions in order to speak better English!
It would be indeed impossible to learn all the exceptions of the English Language, but one can definitely focus on groups of exceptions and should learn groups of one or two every week.
The next step is to use the exceptions you’ve learned while you speak. Just take the exceptions and try to use them as much as possible in your conversations, and soon these exceptions will become so common for you that you’ll just naturally start using them.
Learn The IPA Chart of Alphabets:
If you want to pronounce the poem “The Chaos” perfectly then, you may have to take help from a great tool called the International Phonetic Association (IPA) alphabet or, to be more precise, the IPA chart.
A chart where all the sounds that exist in all the languages in the world are included is known as the IPA alphabet. Needless to say (of course), you only have to learn the sounds of English, but once you do that, you’ll be able to pronounce without hesitation every phonetic transcription you see.
Ideally, before we learn how to read and write, we should learn how to speak a language well first. We can then more easily attach writing and spellings conventions to words that we already know and understand how to pronounce them. However, in practice, we will inevitably get a mix of written and spoken input alongside each other, especially as adult learners. While to immerse ourselves in our target language, reading can be a wonderful way, and it comes with a probable problematic side effect: we can do pick up bad pronunciation habits especially when we think a word is pronounced in a way, but it’s actually pronounced in another.
Mostly everyone has a few embarrassing pronunciation mistakes, created when we’ve only encountered a word with our eyes and never our ears.
Learning the IPA alphabet can seem very difficult, but it is totally worth it. Next time you see the transcription [trænˈskrɪpʃən], you’ll just know how to pronounce that word perfectly.
Listen and Use Whatever You Have Learned:
It is feeling useful, is the one thing our brain enjoys. Our brains being smart dislike wasting time with information we don’t use and crave to evolve. (Maybe that’s the reason behind why you keep forgetting the words of English learned the day before!)
Here’s a tip to practise: the first thing you should do even if you are alone in the room when you see a new phrase or expression in front of you and immediately is reading it out loud. Repeat it many times until you’re able to remember and say it without looking at the paper if you write down three sentences using that new word, even better. This is the moment when you stop memorising and start using English!
Many English learners struggle with speaking mainly due to three reasons: they don’t remember keywords when they need them, they are embarrassed by their foreign accent, and they can’t really understand which leads to awkward situations when people reply back to them.
Solution available is: expose yourself to as many series, documentaries, songs, conversations and accents as possible. This will help you understand how different people speak it and how English sounds in different countries. A foreign accent isn’t the end of the world – it is just proof that you were brave enough to learn something new!
Learn Phrases and Not Just Words
Learn word phrases; not just words is another better idea to improve spoken English. You might be using correct vocabulary and grammar, but how a native speaker speaks, you still not be the same.
For example, a native speaker might say “how’re you doing?” or “what’s up?” while you say “how do you feel today?” instead. For sounding more natural when you speak, phrases and expressions can be helpful.
Learning the sorts of idioms, adages, figures of speech is context-based and cannot easily be learned by studying lists, definitions, etc. you only learn them by listening and speaking. If you don’t know some of these informal figures of speech, it is really hard to communicate in another language. Just think of how often you use phrases that add colour and interest to speech but require familiarity with the language, culture and the particular group you are speaking with.
You can get a lot of practice in another language by listening to audiobooks or switching your DVDs to an alternate language, aside from great forms of practice by joining a language club.
Finally, many words don’t have one to one translations that you learn them by speaking to native speakers of the other language. So, there you are, back to context.
Avoid Learning Word By Word
If do feel like you still can’t speak confidently and you are tired of memorising lists of verbs? Then, it’s time to change your strategy of learning. This time, learn full expressions – which is called chunk-based learning.
Think of new and innovative expressions as a single unit that one can’t separate. Repeat listening to it. For a moment, forget about the meaning of each word or grammar or until the expression starts feeling natural.
Instead of replacing the tough and problematic words with an easier one, be crazy to learn new words. Start playing with different words. Don’t disregard a new word, or use some replacement whenever you find it, learn that strange word and wherever you find it appropriate use that word. Without putting in much effort, this method will create a world of vocabulary for you.
Be practical and “copy paste” what you hear without creating unnecessary obstacles. This would mean learning an expression like “I need water” as a whole, rather than translating word by word and learning how to conjugate the verb “to need” before you do it.
Bring a little change in your choice of entertainment to improve your vocabulary. Movies, TV Series or Songs whatever you like, watch or listen with English subtitles. At a rapid rate, it will boost up your communication skills. In simple words, immerse yourself in the English Language as much as you can.
Final Words
You are or can be your best helper or even your worst enemy while learning to speak fluently! We know it’s not an easy task, but one should try not to worry about how they sound while the person speaks. Just relax!
If you are confused or get stuck, just take a big breath in and start all over. Speak slower if you are required too. Take your time to pause and think about your next sentence.
If one will not postpone it for tomorrow and will continue practising regularly and honestly, then these tips can help you reach significant progress in the shortest terms! One of the main things behind success is the attitude of not to give up! It is much more challenging than it may appear when it comes to communicating in a foreign language, and thus, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication. If one devotes enough time every day for improving and working on their skills, they will surely be surprised by the surprising result, so go ahead and start trying!