How to Practise Your English Speaking

If you don't live in an English-speaking country, and you don't have friends or family to speak English with, where can you practise your English speaking skills?

It's easier to have a conversation if you have a reason to speak - something to talk about. These ideas all give you a reason to speak with another person.

Start a film or book club
Invite people to discuss a film that you all watch together, or a book that you are all reading. Prepare questions before, to help people talk about specific aspects.

Volunteer to help other people
Does your town or company often welcome foreign guests? Can you offer to translate for them? Or perhaps you can offer to help children or students with their English homework.

Take part in a film conversation
Watch a film on DVD, and decide in which part you can speak with the film character. Listen to what the character says (and the reply) then rewind, and either mute or pause the DVD after the film character speaks. Take the other character's role, and reply to the first character. You can also find film scripts on the IMDb site. Print it out, then practise taking a role in the film.

Use Skype
Chat with other people in a penpal forum via Skype. You can get to know them first by writing to them, then invite them for a conversation.

Take English lessons
This is the most expensive option, but paying for private or group lessons is a good way to regularly practise your English. If you have a job, maybe your company can also arrange lessons for you.

Before you start speaking
- Try to plan what you want to say. Make sure you know the most important words or technical terms that you'll need.

- Practise standard expressions. For example, "Pleased to meet you", or "How are you?" Getting these expressions right makes you feel more confident to continue the conversation.

- As well as concentrating on what you want to say, also concentrate on listening to the other person. Give your full attention, and make sure you understand by using clarifying expressions such as "Sorry, do you mean..." or "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Can you repeat that please?" Don't forget: being a good speaker also means being a good listener. People will want to have conversations with you if they know you're interested in what they say!

See our page Better English speaking skills for more tips to improve your fluency and your confidence!

108 thoughts on “How to Practise Your English Speaking”

  15. Eric Roth

    Excellent list of practical tips. I would also add try to interview a native English speaker. I would also suggest - and I know this sounds weird - but talk to TV characters and try to guess the conversation. You can compare your response with the TV character's next line. This game can be fun - but it also helps you understand conversation patterns better too.

  16. tadesse mayet

    i want to learn English. i hop will talk excellent English when i connect with you.

  18. Manal

    I wish I can speak English very fluently and I get the Ielts to study at the Uni this September...

  26. rexii.

    before I see the website m very shy to speaking English but now a day I'm very cofidencialy speak

  27. saiful islam

    lot of gain by using this concept of us. every should practice this way, i beleive that all of student and people take better result,.

  41. Diana

    Thank you guys for the good options, I really want to speak english very flawless, well, actually many people told me that i am good at pronunciation so i fell happy about that, but i need to practise my vocabulary, so here we go! <3

  44. Belinassi

    My goals is speaking English as a native speaker, for that I need to learn many phrasal verbs

  46. naniss

    actually used to speak english with friends.. but now, i'm kinda tongue-tight due to my poor vocabulary.. huhuhu...

  48. Adin

    I really want to go around the world with speaking English fluently. But, I need a friend to practice my English everyday. Actually, I have memorized lots of vocabularies. Unfortunately, they really useless cause I can not practice them in speaking. My big problem is I do not have a friend to speak.

  49. Rajeshwari

    My enormous goal is will speak English fluently at least five whole minutes. so now i hope, i will implement that.

  66. Tracy D

    These are good advices to improve our speaking skills. I wanna have a foreign friend to practice speaking with! :)

  67. dev

    Nice guidlines I got lot of idesa how to I can improve english .but I have some problam to speaking reading tolking I can not fast tolk speak nd reading how to.imporve plz.guidn

  69. Krishna

    Advice is useful to me.it gives me confidence,and clear my doubts,thanks a lot and I will follow, and I will practice.

  70. Raginee chaudhary

    thanks for telling me. and i will try how to speak english very well .thanks !

  75. sidhu

    It's really helped me to be good fluent English speaker.but some time I do wrong pronounciation while talking and get disappointe so help me out plz

  76. Talish Mirza

    Thanks for those tipes i will try to use those tipes as you as mention and speak english as well as i want to speak...

  79. Clare Post author

    You can try Google+ hangouts for language learning communities where you can practise English with other people.

  92. Ravikant singh

    I have no comment Bcz I have no idea but I want speaking English learn more
    If you don't mind

  94. Ahamad Fawad Mahmoodi (Ramaki)

    really, you ensured me that i can speak English like mediocre speaker. thank you from your suggestions and reliable advices.

  102. Ken

    Keep it going guys! You should never give up on your aspirations and dreams. Keep practicing the English language and it will naturally show its results. Read English books/novels, watch English movies, etc. it will help you a lot.

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