How to practice speaking English is a question that I have heard probably over a million times throughout my career. Now, I have 3 great tips for you but as just in case you don’t know, I’m not really a “sane” English teacher and my interest in teaching the language, specifically speaking, listening and pronunciation is nothing short of…well “insane”. It’s the insanity of a scientist spending days and days in the lab experimenting with ideas and hypothesis, or of a writer locking himself up in his room like a hermit to free his imagination from the worldly distractions, or of a…no I think I’ll stop here, you’ve all got the point.
I’m only saying that because the 3 tips I’m going to suggest might seem a bit crazy to many of you, but hey, sometimes, the craziest ideas are the only ones that work. I suppose many of you know Galileo who got accused of “insanity” for saying “hey guys, check this out, I’ve just found out that it’s the earth and the other planets that are revolving around the sun! How cool is that?”, but they all went “Dude, you’re a nut job! You belong in the can!”, but I digress…
Ok, so here are the three tips for practicing speaking English and getting fluent:
1-Lie!
Yes, you heard me. Lie. I guess i should elaborate a bit more on that before you get yourself in trouble. Now this tip is ideal for someone living in an English speaking country trying to improve his or her English but still hasn’t had the chance to make any native speakers friends. What would you do? Would you wait until they came knocking on your door? It ain’t going to happen. 95% of the English learners I taught were hanging out with other learners whose English was not that great either. So what would you do? You still need to practice. Now don’t tell me I’m talking to my English teachers in the classroom, those guys usually speak with you as if they were speaking with a 3-year-old child and they strip their language of all the fun and “colorfulness” because they know you couldn’t keep up.
So, where does “lying” come in? Ok, so, for example, you hit the streets, you find someone who doesn’t seem too busy, and you pretend you’re lost, now strike a conversation! What else? You know those annoying telemarketers right? Now it’s your turn to bug them! Mobile phone companies are a terrific target. Ring the sales department, they’ll never let you get off the phone, they’ll ask you all sorts of questions just to keep you on the phone, as long as you “lie” and make them believe that you are a genuine client. You’re looking for a job? Don’t spare a store, pop into each store and ask them if they have any job openings etc. LIE LIE LIE. Tell LIES, ANY LIES to practice speaking English because practice is the only thing that can make you fluent.
2-Be your own self’s best friend, talk to yourself in the mirror.
Desperate needs call for desperate measures right? It doesn’t matter what you say or talk about. You could just be thinking out loud, it really doesn’t matter. In front of the mirror, you’ll see your face muscles and mouth muscles when speaking English. Ideally, you should look weird. If you look as you look everyday, you know you suck at it. You’ve got to act different to feel different. You’ve got to create a different persona in front of the mirror. You can correct yourself as you do that. It’s a fantastic way to learn the language visually.
3-Pick one song and one movie.
You’ve got to put a sample of the language you’re learning under the microscope and then try to extract all the properties of that language from the sample you’re working with. Most songs and movies (as long as you choose a decent movie) contain all or most the general properties and characteristics of the language. By listening to the same song and watching the same movie over an extended period of time, you start to see patterns and connections that you wouldn’t see otherwise. If I display 5 pictures on a table in front of you and then, five seconds after that, I turn them over and ask you “what did you see?”, you’ll probably give me a very vague or broad even perhaps inaccurate description of what you saw. If I give you a bit more time, you might remember everything you saw in the foreground but not in the background. Now if I hand over to you one picture and force you to look at it for half an hour, you’ll start to see details and elements that you couldn’t have noticed the first time. That’s what happens when you listen to same song or watch the same movie over and over again.
Look, I know that’s a bit too eccentric but it works. Trust me, it does. Try them out if you dare! And if and when you do, let me know how you go. Until then, feel free to share, like or comment. I’d always be delighted to hear from y’all!
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