This question came up in our discussion group on LinkedIn this week. And the answer basically is practice, practice and more practice.
Practising Spoken English
There are several ways you can practise your spoken English:
1. Find someone who is a native English speaker and ask if they will chat with you.
2. If you can’t find a native English speaker then find another person who needs to practise their English and see if you can practise together.
3. Failing finding someone to talk to, then specially made recordings (like the ones we provide with the Business English course with Spoken English) can help you listen and repeat conversations which will help with your understanding and pronunciation. This is also a great way to build your confidence in speaking English before you approach people to ask them to practise with you.
Listen to Improve your Spoken English
I find one of the hardest parts of speaking a foreign language is understanding what the person I’m talking to is saying to me. This can be very embarrassing. When I go to France I can ask for things but as soon as I’m asked a question back I’m stuck. So, you need to get your ear tuned into the language you’re listening to.
A good way to help with this is to watch English language films and TV or listen to English language radio. The BBC World Service is great for this. It’s full of interesting and topical programmes and it’s mainly talking, not music.
If you don’t use it, you lose it
Once you have built up your fluency in English you need to continue to use it. My problem with French is that I have very little need to use it apart from when I’m on holiday – and even then I don’t really need it as my husband is a fluent French speaker. He learnt his French when he lived in Belgium, but now he’s back in the UK he is losing it. So, to keep up his understanding and fluency he listens to a French radio station every day and buys a French newspaper every week.
The main thing is to enjoy using your new language, enjoy meeting new people, and you’ll learn lots of new things which all make your life more interesting.
Practice and Practise
Finally, a quick note on why these are spelt differently in British English.
You spell it practice when it’s a noun – practice, practice and more practice.
You spell it practise when it’s a verb – to practise something.
In American English both the noun and the verb are spelt practice.
