Tips for Speaking English or Any New Language

hi there everyone let's talk about how to improve your speaking in a new language i want to review with you some of the important things i learned when i was studying to become a language instructor and i think that they're very helpful especially for adults who get nervous about making mistakes when they speak a new language and that's almost all of us almost all adults have that okay so i want to help you understand why these mistakes are sometimes a good thing all right so here we go the first thing to understand when you are trying to improve your speaking in a new language is that there is a difference between accuracy and fluency accuracy is about how correct you say what you say correct like grammatically correct okay and fluency is about how much you can say and how smoothly you can say it without pausing or waiting when you're fluent you are not always accurate or correct or sometimes you are it depends on if you're a beginner or more advanced accuracy is hard to have when you are just learning a language and i want you to understand that it is not real realistic to think you will speak accurately every time you talk okay so when we teach speaking we really want to focus on fluency because when you can practice practice practice practice practice you have more of a chance to improve the mistakes or errors you make when you're speaking inaccurately okay and i'll talk about this a little bit more in my next point but you want to speak a lot and you want to speak smoothly and without pauses and to do that you need to practice a lot and you can't practice speaking if you only focus on the grammar rules okay yes grammar is important the rules are very helpful they are important but you will break the rules and that is normal and when you break the rules you learn from breaking them how i will talk about that in a second okay so first thing is try not to worry about accuracy all the time try to just speak fluently you know you made a mistake it's okay if the people you speak to understand you they understand if they don't understand you they will tell you and that's how you know you have to say it a different way okay all right so fluency fluency fluency accuracy is important but fluency for improving your speaking is more important the second thing is understanding what comprehensible input is comprehensible input is just the information you get when you read or listen to people when they speak a new language so comprehensible means that you can comprehend or understand that input that information so when you are a beginner of a new language you don't want to listen or read input in the new language at a very very advanced level because you will get discouraged you will get confused and it it doesn't help you very much when you have um information that you can understand that is at your level okay beginner intermediate then you can understand you feel more motivated and you can actually learn more because language learning is about building from what you already know so if you understand 70 of what someone says when they use a new word that you don't know you probably can learn that new word because you understand the other things so you can actually learn when you don't know something because the input the information around what you hear or read is comprehensible but when you jump too high for your level you can't build off of anything okay and then you get discouraged so my second point for improving your speaking is to try to access information that is at your level and maybe well actually one step above your level not below your level not really at your level one step above not 10 steps above one step above so you understand most of it not all and can learn new things okay so how do you do that well you can that's for reading it's a little bit easier to find reading that is at your level you can find books that are simplified for people learning new languages of course if you're taking an esl class all of the input you receive will be uh at your level and one step above if you are placed in the right class and if you are speaking then that's hard right but i actually think in order to get comprehensible input at your level and one step above it really helps to talk to people who are also learning english or any language right that you're learning so people who are also learning the language like you are great people to talk to because they're at your level or one step above or around that okay so you can learn from each other without going so quickly okay number three and this is related to comprehensible input try to work with people who are also learning the language why because when you work with people who are also learning the language you engage in this thing we call negotiation of form what i mean is you will be confused okay often when you are learning a new language and that's good and it's even better when you are confused with other people who are confused why because then you can try to figure it out together okay and that process of figuring out what is being said or talked about actually can help you learn how to say things in new ways more clear ways more accurate ways more fluent ways and can also help other people understand you of course so you are finding a solution together you're basically figuring out how to say what you need to say in a way that makes everyone around you understand okay and it also works with you know native speakers of that language if i talk to you and i can't understand you i just say i'm sorry i didn't understand that can you repeat that and then you have to try to say it in a different way because when i say i don't understand you know that you want to say it in a different way and by re-formulating the way you say it you get to practice saying it in a way that is comprehensible to others okay being confused and having to negotiate the form with others is a good thing so talking to people who are learning the language like you is a great idea you do not need to talk to native speakers of a language to learn that language best you should know that you can talk to people who are also learning that language and learn a lot okay all right another thing that's important to understand when you want to improve your speaking skills is to force yourself to talk there's a lot of different theories about this and it does make sense to go through a silent period for a while when you're new but it also is important to know that the more you force yourself to produce or push output out output is language speaking writing when you push push it out when you speak okay you get the opportunity to hear yourself make mistakes or other people get the opportunity to hear yourself make a mistake and tell you they don't understand you right that is so important because that's what language is is real conversations if you don't understand someone you can say i'm sorry i don't understand when someone tells you that that's so important don't don't feel bad if they don't understand you that gives you the signal that you get to try again okay but you don't get to do that or learn that if you don't push yourself to talk try not to worry about accuracy we all make mistakes it's normal we all are making mistakes okay and then and then second when you make the mistakes because you're pushing yourself to talk you get the information the feedback from the people you are talking to and they say yeah i understand or i don't that is so important that is so helpful for you okay you do not need a teacher every single time to tell you you made a mistake you made a mistake you made a mistake you don't you can just talk to anyone if they don't understand what you're saying you know that you can re-formulate to try to help clarify what you're saying okay and that brings me to my last thing my last thing is you do not need people to correct you okay when you're talking people always say oh i need a teacher to correct me no i understand what you're saying i do i i learned spanish it was very helpful when someone would tell me that what i said was wrong but it's actually not helpful for someone to stand there and just correct you when you're talking because yes you're learning a new language but to learn the language you need a lot of things fluency practice you need to know the forms and the rules a little bit right but you need to have the opportunity to make mistakes and fix those mistakes on your own now if somebody is standing there telling you no that's wrong that's right no then you will not want to talk you will be afraid to talk you will feel nervous and you won't want to talk okay and second when we talk we don't talk for accuracy we speak for communicating ideas we speak to solve problems to communicate information when we focus on if you're right or wrong then that's not the point of communicating so i hope this helps you to improve your speaking over the years bye

Channel: Breaking English

Views: 517

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: learn english, language, speak english, learning, language learning, how to learn a language, english, how to speak english fluently, learn languages, speaking, american english, american english pronunciation, speak fluent english, comprehensive input, comprehensive input english, comprehensible input, negotiation of form, accuracy vs fluency, accuracy vs fluency in speaking, how to learn a language on your own, how to learn a language for free, how to learn a language faster

Id: AcZcmCEVuoI

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021