“Speak Up! Improving your spoken English” By Pete Mann

Speaking is one of the most importantlanguage skills. However, it can also be one of the most difficult aspects ofthe language to improve and master. But, do not let having a fear of makingmistakes or a lack of confidence hold you back!

Here are five tips to improve your spokenEnglish. Five simple things that you can do on a daily basis that will help youimprove your spoken English.

1 HOW TO LEARN SPEAKING

Learn speaking by listening! In the past,there was little access to a native speaker’s voice. We have been speaking for10,000 years, but we have only been writing for about 4,000 years, thanks tothe Egyptians and the Sumerians. However, people still use books to help themlearn to speak!

Learning by listening means that youlearn natural spoken English. The language is spoken, rather than written. Youcan also improve your pronunciation and get the context of the language used.We are surrounded by native speaker texts, such as videos, Netflix and YouTube.There are audio options available at the click of a button, so make good use ofthem!

2 HOW TO AUTOMATE VOCABULARY

How can you access vocabularyautomatically without thinking? Repeat and juggle! Find something to listen toand then repeat a useful phrase or collocation. For example, “I love London!”Next, you change a word in the phrase. Using the last example, you say “I loveNew York!”, “I love Los Angeles!”, “I love Rome!” and so on. You could changethe tense of the phrase through juggling, For example “I love London!”, “Iloved London!”, “I’m going to love London!” and so on. It’s a very simpleformula; listen, repeat and juggle! This procedure gets you automatically usingthe vocabulary. This makes the speaking process more active, too.

3 HOW TO INCREASE FLUENCY

Focus on chunks. Chunks are pieces oflanguage; two, three or four words that typically go together. For example, acollocation like “a small village”, an idiom like “out of the blue” or a fillersuch as “in addition to that”. You then don’t then have think before using thechunk because you have learned it as a whole piece! This will speed up yourfluency.

“Shopping” can collocate to “weeklyshopping”, “online shopping” and “late-night shopping”. If you learn chunks oflanguage like these, you can use them flexibly and without thinking. Your dailyconversations will now become more fluid and sound more natural.

For example, when somebody asks “What didyou do this weekend?”, you can simply answer, “I did my weekly shopping onSaturday morning.”

When you learn chunks, you don’t have tothink about putting the words together. You can just focus on putting thechunks together! Using chunks, you will be more accurate and soon communicatemore quickly and become more fluent.

4 HOW TO IMPROVE CONFIDENCE

Improve your confidence by going outsideyour comfort zone! Watching a film or reading a book is within your comfortzone. Why don’t you try recording your own voice speaking on a given subjectfor two minutes? Why don’t you get a speaking partner on Facebook? Why don’tyou start a conversation with a new student at break time? Get used tointeracting with other people; being nervous and making mistakes is perfectlynormal. Just get used to it! To improve your confidence, you must practicespeaking the language, especially with other people.

5 NATURAL SPOKEN ENGLISH

Get used to natural spoken English, usedby native speakers and proficient level speakers. The real world is a bitdifferent to the classroom. People won’t correct you. They will speak quickly.They will expect you to understand them. However, you can become more familiarwith natural spoken English by immersing yourself in videos, podcasts, newsbroadcasts, chat shows, interviews with people, TED talks and films. There is alot of choice out there!

TO FINISH

With these tips, you will begin to speakmore fluently and confidently in English on a day-to-day basis.  Remember that it is okay to make mistakes andthe only way you will improve is through practice. Find some new speaking partnersand enjoy improving your spoken English today!

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