From being unable to speak to speaking fluent English: How to improve spoken language quickly?

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This post was last edited by The sound of the waves remains 8228 on 2015-12-26 08:35. Those who read this article are encouraged to share it so that more people who enjoy English can see it. Spoken English can be said to be a major challenge for me in learning English. I have spent over a decade studying English and taken countless small tests, yet I still find it difficult to speak English accurately and fluently; I can’t even engage in simple conversations. (This is a typical characteristic of Chinese English learners: they are decent at reading, poor at speaking, have weak listening skills, and their writing is just passable.) This situation has greatly diminished my enthusiasm for learning English, and I can no longer experience the sense of achievement that comes from communicating with foreigners in English. How can one effectively improve their speaking skills in a short period of time? Let me share my personal experiences with you here~ 1. Changing an introverted personality and overcoming the “face issue”: Often, Chinese people spend a long time learning spoken English but make little progress. The reason for this is often our personality traits. Chinese people are generally modest, which means there are many introverted individuals. Yet this introverted nature greatly hinders our ability to learn English, as introverted people are not good at communicating and worry too much about maintaining face, fearing that they might say something wrong or inaccurately and be laughed at by others. As a result, they hesitate to express themselves. To make progress in spoken English, one needs to speak more and improve through practice. As the old saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” (Hehe, I translated it myself; it’s often translated as “Skill comes from practice” in China.) If one doesn’t practice by speaking, it’s really difficult to make progress in spoken English. Therefore, to improve spoken English quickly, one must first get rid of concerns about face and develop the habit of expressing oneself in English – this is the most crucial aspect of learning spoken language. Also, when communicating with foreigners, one must be confident and not nervous. Many people get nervous as soon as they start talking to foreigners, and when they’re nervous, they can’t say many things or make many mistakes. There’s no need for that; it’s important to be confident in front of foreigners. After all, they’re on our territory, right? 2. Seize every opportunity to practice speaking: Take every chance to converse with foreign friends or colleagues; never waste such opportunities. Many of my students have told me after class, “Teacher, our foreign boss is here in China for another inspection. He spent over an hour in our company today. I wanted to go and talk to him, but I was afraid because my English isn’t good enough.” Please don’t let such a tragedy happen to you. You could also find an online tutor for one-on-one speaking practice, just like I did; after all, no one knows each other, so it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. There’s a free trial class available – you might want to give it a try. In short, one needs to be brave enough; it’s okay to feel embarrassed if you make a mistake, but you should still speak up next time and seize every possible opportunity to do so, so that your spoken language skills can improve. 3. Correct yourself and improve accuracy: Pay attention to the importance of being accurate while speaking; try to avoid making grammatical mistakes. Although it’s generally possible to communicate with foreigners using just words, it’s still important to speak as accurately as possible. By setting high standards for ourselves, we can improve our spoken language skills more effectively. To ensure accuracy in our speech, we should speak slowly at first, giving ourselves more time to think and organize our sentences. This may mean speaking more slowly at the beginning, but once the habit is formed, speech will become both fast and accurate. For example, it’s like learning to swim – it may take more time and effort to master the correct swimming technique at first, but once learned, one can swim quickly and skillfully. During this process, there may be mistakes that you are unable to detect on your own; it’s best to find a friend whose English is better than yours and practice together once or twice a week. Ask them to point out your mistakes so that you can correct them, as there are some errors that you simply won’t be able to notice on your own. Also, when communicating with others and encountering words you don’t know or sentences you’re not sure about, make sure to find the correct expressions (by using Google or asking friends), and try to remember them as part of your own active memory – so that you can recall them immediately next time you need to use them, rather than saying, “Ah, I’ve seen this word or memorized it before, but I’ve forgotten it.” 4. If there is no environment, create one: Many people say that their companies don’t have foreign colleagues or few opportunities to speak English, and students don’t have a language environment to practice speaking. It’s okay; if there is no such environment, we can create one on our own. Please remember, a method is just a method; it cannot ultimately replace hard work in learning. Therefore, if you want to master fluent and authentic English, use an effective learning method that suits you and keep practicing step by step! (1) The purpose of learning *spoken English is to communicate with others, so the order of importance of the key elements in spoken English should be: fluency, accuracy, and appropriateness. In other words, we must place more emphasis on practical communication skills rather than simply focusing on grammatical correctness. (2) Find study partners to practice *spoken language together. The English Corner is a great place; there we can not only practice speaking, but also exchange experiences in learning English, broaden our horizons, and increase our interest in learning the language. (3) If you can’t find study partners or have few opportunities to join English corners, you can sign up for one-on-one online tutoring with a foreign teacher just like I did, and learn from foreigners every day*; this can lead to significant improvements in speaking skills. The website is shared below. My previous problem was poor memory; when it came to repetition exercises or memorizing texts, I often found it difficult to cope ； Or perhaps because their vocabulary is too limited and they find it difficult to do interpretation directly; I later discovered an effective way to solve this problem: first learn the English portion, understand it thoroughly, then look at the Chinese translation, and only at that point interpret the Chinese translation back into English. Doing this is equivalent to both practicing repetition and practicing interpretation, killing two birds with one stone! The benefits of such training are evident in the following seven aspects: 1. I can practice spoken language anytime, anywhere, and for as long as I want. 2. There was always a senior teacher who pointed out my shortcomings and mistakes — original English text. 3. The range of topics for training is extremely wide, which allows me to break free from the limitations of my own thinking. For example, I used to prefer talking about topics I was familiar with, so I kept practicing the same language, which naturally slowed down my progress; now, however, I can consider a much wider range of topics. 4. Choosing to read novels, humorous stories, or good short essays gives me enough interest to keep going. 5. Some authentic English expressions that I overlooked while directly studying *English texts can be discovered through this method. This is very important. 6. Deeply impressed by what was learned and the mistakes made. It’s as if I’ve been constantly practicing translating from Chinese to English; many of the English translations were the result of a lot of effort on my part, so they left a deep impression on me. This has a much stronger impact than simply studying English texts.