Knowing English has its own perks. You get to communicate with people all around the world and connect better. That’s one thing. If you are a citizen of India, you know beyond just connecting with people, knowing English is a necessity. When you sit for an interview, you are supposed to express what you know in English. When you give college presentations or even talk to professors, you are required talk in English. With so much of focus on our English speaking skills, there is a definite need to improve English. If you already know a bit of English, it is really easy to practice and improve so that you can speak confidently.
There are four acts you carry out when you know a language- you read, write, listen, and speak. And similarly, when you learn a language, these four acts can help you improve. Here’s how to improve English speaking fluency.
Make Sure You Are Good With Grammar
The first thing you need to master is grammar. And yet, for so many people grammar is the hardest thing to get hold of. The best way to improve English grammar is to go one by one. English grammar is really simple and a few lessons will help you understand how it works. And to achieve that, you should make a slow progress.
- English has 8 parts of speech- verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Deal with them one at a time.
- Instead of going through rules all the time, take help of as many examples as possible. Examples make the usage very clear and obvious.
- While you read through books to get the concepts right, don’t forget to practice and implement them practically.
How Can You Improve English By Reading?
While it might seem otherwise, but reading works like magic in helping you improve your English.
- If you are a beginner, pick a book that is easiest to read and is not stuffed with complex words. But if you are intermediate, try finding one that’ll help you make a progress.
- Every time you find any word or phrase that is new, note it down so that you can find it whenever you need the word.
- Read Aloud. When you listen to yourself reading in English, you get to know what you are saying. And it enhances your pronunciation and boosts your confidence.
- As you start reading aloud, after a few days of reading, you’ll find that it gradually becomes an effortless task.
Writing To Improve English
Reading is a part of the exercise and writing completes it. When you write, you first think. And when you do so, it establishes the rules very strongly in your mind.
- Maintain a journal. English shouldn’t be a machine language for you. When you fill your diary at the end of the day and record what you did all day and felt like all day, you become better at expressing.
Watching TV Series Or Movies
One of the perks of improving English is- you get to watch amazing movies in the name of improving your English. but while you do that, make sure you intently listen to what is being said in the movie or series so that you become better at listening skills in English.
- Always watch movies and series with subtitles in English. This will help you understand better.
- You can even note down if you find good expressions that you might like to use.
Have An English Companion
After reading, writing, and listening you have to start speaking. It is obvious you can’t just randomly start talking to anyone. So for that, you need a dedicated companion. You can ask someone to help you improve your speaking skills and help them in turn. The best deal is when you and your English companion both want to improve your English. That’s when it works the best. You can ask your English companion to give you feedback and be honest about your progress. Also, you can correct each other when you make mistakes.
Record Yourself And Listen To Notice Mistakes And Your Progress
Recording yourself is even a better option of being able to review your efforts and progress. When you speak to someone, many a time your companion might miss some of your mistakes. But when you record, you get to know the exact places where you made mistakes. What’s even better, you can get an English expert to review your recordings and make corrections. You can store them all with you and go back to the old ones and find out you’ve made amazing progress.
You can record anything. It could be a good idea to choose a topic and record what you think about it. For example, you can talk about “impact of technology on the younger generation”. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy recording. Recording for 2 minutes will be good enough. If you are trying to improve your pronunciation, just read out a piece of text and listen to your recording to know how you speak.
A lot of people know the rules and can write well. But while speaking, what pushes them back is lack of confidence. When you stay in your comfort zone and avoid talking in English because of lack of confidence, you won’t be able to make a progress. In order to become proficient at speaking, you have to step out of your comfort zone. Once you start trying to speak up without caring what others would think, you become more confident.
While you follow all these tips to improve English, there’s one important ingredient that you just can’t do without. You have to persevere and be very consistent in your efforts. The progress will be slow yet evident. You can even use different kinds of Apps to improve English. Some of the apps will help you connect with native English speakers to help you learn better.