How to Improve Your Spoken English Naturally

To improve your English naturally, efforts in the right direction have to be made. Here’s how…

Do you often find yourself in an embarrassing situation where you know what to say but not how to say it? Did you ever feel that if English was not a barrier, you could express yourself better? Well, if your answers to both these questions is ‘YES’, trust me, you are not alone. I have been in your shoes and I tried to figure out how to get myself out of it.

One problem that I faced while trying to find a way to improve my English is loads of information around me. We have so many sources that we get confused and tired while choosing the best method for ourselves. But, don’t worry about it. I tried to find some handy solutions for myself and I want to share my experience with you. This article is not about another set of tips and tricks. Instead, I am going to give you a solid process that works. It worked for me and it will work for you too!

English is, after all, just a language, and like any other language, it needs an environment to develop. Before you start learning English, ask yourself – how did I ‘learn’ my mother tongue? You’ll find that we actually did not learn it. We heard it around us everyday. We repeated what we used to hear. Be it English, Hindi or any other language, what we need is an environment where that language is used in a natural manner. Now, this environment for learning English language is unfortunately not provided to us in school where English was taught as a subject, not as a language. So, we lack practice in speaking English, though we can read and write in it. Basically, we still fumble and hesitate because we do not know how to speak English fluently. I realized that efforts in the right direction have to be made and here is the process that I was raving about earlier.

1. Listen first so that you can speak later

We all learn a language by listening to it. If you wish to improve your English, you can try to listen to podcasts when driving or sitting idle. When I was myself struggling with learning to speak the language, I started enjoying my favourite genre in English. I really liked listening to adventurous stories in my free time. It was not only informative but pretty entertaining as well. You can pick anything – Sci – fi or comedy – and stick to it. The idea is to immerse yourself in English. Focus on activities interesting to your brain and you will see how you would slowly begin to feel a little confident in the presence of people who speak English confidently.

2. Cultivate interest in English language

Learn it because you want to and not because you have to. Remember when you were a child and would get curious looking at anything new or interesting. You would try to name those things in your mother tongue. Try to become that curious person again! This time, this curiosity is to be for finding names for things in English. Look around yourself and you’ll see that there are so many things in your kitchen, your neighbourhood garden or your favorite mall that you can’t name in English. Train your mind to start taking mental notes. I used to carry a small notepad with me to keep a checklist of new words handy. You too can probably give it a shot. I noticed a significant improvement in myself when I continued to do it for weeks.

3. Let us do some thinking in English

I talk to myself a lot. What about you? I’m sure you also find yourself lost in some random thoughts in your free moments. Try to make these free moments a platform to improve your language skills. Challenge yourself a little and start talking to yourself in English. I am not telling you that you would be doing it all correctly. I myself made many mistakes. But, at this juncture, let us not bother about grammatical errors. Ignore it for a while and focus on flow of the language. You will begin to feel a little confident just as I did. And now, you need someone to correct you! While I was struggling at this moment in my learning curve, I desperately needed someone to guide me on how to speak English, not only fluently, but correctly. And that is when I discovered my next step which was like a touch of perfection to my practice.

4. Seek an Expert’s guidance

After having practiced with my own self for a considerable time, I felt that a professional guidance will now help me become my best version. I came across this absolutely wonderful app called EngVarta. The experts here talk to you on the topics that you like to talk on. They observed me while I was struggling with my sentence structures and gave me valuable feedbacks. Personally, the feature that attracted me most is the recorded calls feature. I could listen to those conversations over and over again to compare my speaking skills with that of the expert. You can try imitating them, and slowly you can talk just like them! They also give you assignments after every call. I used to look forward to the topics assigned and prepare them well before making my next call. This exercise took my practice to another level. The experts are skilled and patient enough to understand your areas of improvement and help you with solutions and guidelines. Overall, you’re practicing under someone who’s perfect but is not judging you. You get your feedback and you feel positive and confident after every call. Isn’t it simply amazing!?

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So, these are the steps that helped me in becoming a better version of myself. I am so glad that I didn’t give up and got the guidance from some of the most dedicated and committed experts at EngVarta. I wish you all the very best in your learning journey and hope that you could also learn something meaningful from my step-by-step guide to improving your spoken English.