8 Exercises To Improve Your English Speaking Alone

Aw yeahh! What's up everybody? I'm Ollie  your RealLife English Fluency Coach. 

As a portuguese learner I'm  lucky enough to live in Brazil,  

so I get to practice my speaking every day. However I know for a lot of you that  

for various reasons you are unable to  travel to an English-speaking country. 

So you might be a little frustrated  that you can't practice your speaking. 

That's exactly why in today's lesson  I've got some tips so that you can  

practice your speaking at home alone. Yeah, that's right, at home alone.  

It sounds impossible but believe me it's not. I use these tips so I don't forget my  

Spanish while living here in Brazil. But before we get started I want to tell you  

that every week we create lessons just like this  one to help you understand fast native speech,  

be understood by anyone and connect to the world! Just ask Moumoita, who says that our channel  

not only teaches English but helps to  teach skills and keep you motivated. 

So don't wait to join our Global Community. It's  really simple: all you need to do is hit that  

Subscribe button and the Bell down below,  so you don't miss any of our new lessons.

So this lesson is divided into two parts: First, I'll show you some exercises to  

train your muscles, your articulation  and the sounds of English, so that you  

sound and feel more natural when you speak. Then, I'll show you how you can mock real  

and natural conversations in a fun way, so  that you can step up your speaking skills.

Are you like me and are so focused on  using the correct words when you speak  

that you forget that there are some other  aspects of communicating and speaking here? 

I thought so! Speaking is so much more than just  using the correct words. For example speaking is  

about reacting, using body language, turn taking,  using informal and formal language, pronunciation,  

articulation of words, use of discourse markers  (which will help you sound natural) and thinking  

on your feet, which means to think quickly. So we're going to look at some different  

exercises that you can use so that you are  using these aspects when you speak English.

Alright, let's start with some exercises that you  can do on your own. The focus here isn't so much  

on speaking, it's more about getting used to the  rhythm of English and the sounds that you're going  

to hear. In particular with connected speech. So the first exercise is a listen and repeat.  

Choose your favorite song or an audio from  YouTube, listen to it a few times reading  

the words. After listening to it for a few times  try and speak at the same time and finish with  

the person who is speaking or singing. When you're listening try and focus on  

the words that connect as this will help  you to understand fast native speech. 

Alright let's do an example together. Listen to this sentence: 

I bet you're gonna like  what I've bought for dinner. 

I'll say it again: I bet you're gonna  like what I've bought for dinner. 

Okay let's have a look at the places where  I connected. Often words that end in a t  

and the next word starts with y, they merge  together and the sound becomes a ch sound. 

I bet you I betcha. And you can also see  

that the t in what becomes a flat t sound, which  sounds like a d as it is surrounded by two vowels. 

Let's try and say the sentence  one more time. You say it with me: 

"I bet you're gonna like  what I've bought for dinner" 

"I bet you're gonna like  what I've bought for dinner" 

How did you go? Let me know in the comments below.

Another example is: "would  you like a piece of cake?" 

"Would you like a piece of cake?" Try and think about the  

words that I connected here. Now let's take a closer look. 

"Would you like a piece of cake?" Did  you notice how of sounds like a schwa?  

"A cake," "would you like a piece a cake?" "Would you like a piece of cake?"

Okay so you've mastered the listen and repeat. 

Now it's time to move on to the next exercise. So another way of keeping your speech going  

is by activating the right muscles  and working on individual sounds. 

I often tell my students who don't like  the th sound to simply put their tongue  

between their teeth and practice that sound. It seems hard but it's actually really simple.  

Tongue in between the mouth and  then you can say the th sound.

You can continue to practice that at home. When I was at university my professor  

loved for us to practice tongue twisters. Tongue twisters are great because they will work  

on individual sounds and train your muscles. Here the focus is not on the meaning,  

but it's on preparing your muscles  to practice those sounds in English. 

Okay, a tongue twister that I  love: "Which witch is which?"

Listen and repeat: "Which witch is which?"

Okay I'm gonna say it at a normal  speed and I want you to repeat:  

"Which witch is which?" Your turn.

How did you go? Okay I'm gonna  say it a little bit faster  

and you try and say it a little bit faster too.

"Which witch is which?" "Which witch is which?" Your turn.

How did you go? Let me know in the comments  what your favorite tongue twister is.

Another activity which you can  do at your home on your own  

is what we call shadowing which basically means  reading aloud or reading with an audio book. 

I really love to do this when I want to  practice my Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation. 

I'll read the book and at the same  time I record myself on my phone. 

Once I've finished I'll then listen to the  audio and see whether my pronunciation is okay. 

A good way to measure your pronunciation  is by listening to the audio book.  

Once you've listened to yourself, listen to the  audio book and then see whether your pronunciation  

is similar to that in the audio book. The important part is not to be too  

critical but to learn from your experience and  improve your pronunciation, and your speaking. 

In addition to this you can also listen to  the audiobook and read aloud at the same time. 

And if you don't want to do that you can  even pretend that you're reading aloud to an  

audience in your bedroom or in your kitchen. Another exercise that you can do at home  

is singing and personally this is my favorite.  Because learning with songs is natural,  

it's fun and it's full of repetition! One of the things that I like to do is  

either singing in the shower or karaoke. Find a song you like on YouTube, get the  

words up and then just sing along to it! By  singing in the shower or singing to karaoke  

you're going to have lots of fun. If you like listening to podcasts then  

you're going to love the episode Ethan  Andrea and I made on this exact topic. 

We detail even more hints and tips on how  you can practice your speaking at home  

alone. To listen to it next, I'll  link it down in the description below.

Okay so you've done the prep work. So part  two is all about developing conversations. 

It's time to actually challenge yourselves  in activities that will likely help you to  

have better conversations. These activities  are designed to help you think on your feet,  

react more naturally and think outside the box. So a great activity you can do on your own at home  

is working with a scene. Everybody has a favorite  TV series or movie. So use them to your advantage. 

What you can do is pick out your favorite scene  and watch it on mute. And as you watch it narrate  

the scene. For example: "It was a cold dark  night, the moon was shining bright in the sky,  

as he drove down a narrow dark road." So this is great because you can  

practice vocabulary but you can also practice  narrative tenses, which are super important  

in telling stories in the past in English. Another thing you can do is watch a scene in  

your first language, so for example you speak  Indonesian. Watch that scene in Indonesian  

and when the scene finishes pretend to  explain the scene in English to a friend. 

Note here that you don't want to translate  word for word you just want the person you're  

explaining to to understand the context and  the idea of what is happening in the scene. 

So basically you're summarizing  what happened in that scene.

So another activity you can do at home  is called fake it till you make it.  

So here you need to choose a  setting, whether it be a hotel,  

a restaurant or in the supermarket,  and you're going to write a script. 

So let's use the restaurant as an example.  We have a customer and we have a waiter.  

What you'll do is you'll write a script  using these two characters and once you  

have the script it's time to act it out. This is great because here you'll be able  

to speak about the skills that we spoke about at  the start of this lesson, particularly reacting,  

body language, turn taking, using informal  or formal language, and things like that. 

The last one is called show time, so here  you need to find your favorite TV series  

or movie and find a scene that you really like. Find the transcript online (you can either  

print it out or look at it on your phone) and  then pretend to be one of those characters. 

Reacting, turn taking and using body  language to get your message across.  

Make sure you focus on intonation and  connected speech when you say the dialogue.

So I've spoken about recording yourself a  lot in this lesson and although you might  

feel a little bit uncomfortable to listen to  yourself back it's really efficient and brings  

a great level of awareness to the things you're  doing well and the things you could improve on. 

So use recording to your favor. For example  you could write down a list of real life  

situations on a piece of paper, whether  it be a job interview, at the doctor's  

or even having coffee with a friend. So let's take the job interview for  

example you can type into Google: "10 common job  interview questions," write the questions out  

and then practice saying them in front of the  mirror while recording yourself at the same time. 

Once you're finished, listen to yourself  back and see if you are intelligible,  

if you use the correct register (that is informal  or formal language) and check your pronunciation. 

You can do this exercise with a number of real  life situations, so you'll never get bored.

Everybody today uses WhatsApp, and a great feature  of WhatsApp is the voice recording feature. 

If you have a friend that speaks English  don't write to them, send them voice messages!  

And if you don't have anyone that you can  practice with, simply create a group with yourself  

and each day send yourself a voice  memo of one minute or two minutes long. 

And then in a month's time or six  months time listen to yourself back  

and check your pronunciation, see if you  were intelligible (if you made sense)  

and check your register (whether you're  using formal and informal language)  

and then you can learn from this situation  to take your English to the next level. 

Speaking of taking your English to the  next level, I highly recommend our FREE  

3-Part Masterclass. To try today simply click  up here or down in the description below!

Another great way to practice your English  at home is by using pictures. Pictures are  

great because they often say a thousand words. I actually use pictures in all of my lessons and  

my students love using them. So here what  you need to do is find a picture online,  

it could be of anything, then set a timer  for one minute or one minute and a half. 

In this time write down on a piece of paper  all of the keywords that you see in that  

picture. Write down literally everything  not just the key features of the picture. 

Then once the time is up, set a timer for  one minute or two minutes and in this time  

you are going to invent a story. A way to see  if your story makes sense is to record yourself,  

so when you're telling the story  record yourself and when you finish  

listen to yourself back to see if you  are intelligible or understandable. 

Here is also a good chance  to check your pronunciation.  

The overall goal here is to make sure that your  story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Another way you can develop conversational  skills without leaving your home is online,  

through meetups and online gaming. There are lots of online meetups where you  

can connect with people with common interests.  So for example you're interested in gardening,  

if you join an online meetup group you'll  be able to find someone who lives on the  

other side of the world where you can  share ideas and practice your English. 

Online meetups are great because you  actually get to connect to a real person  

about a topic that you're really interested in. When I meet an English learner for the first  

time I always ask them "where did you learn  English?" and I'm amazed at how many people  

tell me that they learn English by online gaming. There are lots of online games whether it be Among  

Us, Chess or Fortnite. And it's really a great  place to practice your English skills, because  

gamers tend to use fast informal speech, but  there are still visual supports there to help you.

So in summary what you've learned today is  that repetition is a part of the process  

but it actually doesn't improve your speaking. It is just like the prep work. 

Real speaking involves much more: it  involves body language, it involves reacting,  

it involves turn taking, the  use of discourse markers,  

connected speech and great pronunciation. If you do the activities mentioned in this  

lesson I'm sure that you're going to feel  confident when you need to speak to others. 

A fluent speaker isn't afraid of making  mistakes and learning from others!

If you enjoyed this lesson be sure to  subscribe and hit that bell down below,  

so you don't miss any of our new lessons!