How to Improve Your Spoken English

Aptitude

First, let me be frank. There is no magic formula to become a fluent speaker

of any language. One of the reasons this is so is that each individual is

unique. Students learn differently. Moreover, just as some students are

better at basketball or math than other students, some students are better at

studying foreign languages than other students. One’s natural ability to learn

another language is called language aptitude. The higher your language

aptitude; the easier it will be for you to learn a foreign language. The lower

your language aptitude; the harder it will be. However, no matter what your

language aptitude, everyone is able to make progress.

Motivation

Motivation. The reason why we study. Though researchers describe

numerous subtleties, two types of motivation reoccur throughout the literature: instrumental and integrative motivation. Instrumental motivation

is one in which the learner desires to use the language as a tool to achieve

some desirable ends. In contrast, an integrative motivation is one in which

“learners may choose to learn a particular L2 because they are interested in

the people and culture represented by the target-language group” (Ellis,

1997, p75). In various contexts, both motivations have proved important. Of

course, students can have both types of motivation at the same time.

More Than Diligence

Everyone believes that one must be diligent to learn English well. However,

in my research I found that the diligence of the student is not as great a

factor as one would expect. In fact, there was little difference between the

diligence (according to their own perceptions) of successful and non-successful

English students

COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT

 A Brief History of Linguistic Theory

For much of the 20th century in the West, language researchers thought that

children learned language simply by forming habits, by imitating what was

heard. In response to this, Noam Chomsky declared that language was too

complex to be learned simply through imitation. Furthermore, if children

were simply imitating what they heard, how could researchers explain the

mistakes of children? It appeared that children were making mistakes

because they were applying “rules” where they did not belong, producing

speech like “you hurted me.” A phrase they would never hear in their

environment. Apparently children did not simply imitate speech, but were

actively constructing “rules” in their mind from the input they received to

govern their speech. More importantly, they did not receive enough

information about language in their environment to give them all the

knowledge they needed to know the things that they knew about language.

How could children do this? Chomsky hypothesized that humans are born

with a “language acquisition device.” This device is a part of the brain

designed specifically for language acquisition and is separate from its other

parts. He believed all that was needed to get this device to start working, was

input, exposure to language.

Listening

Stephen Krashen (1985) proposed the Input Hypothesis. The Input

Hypothesis claims that learners make progress in English acquisition

through exposure to comprehensible input. Comprehensible input is defined

as “understanding input that contains structures at our next ‘stage’ –

structures that are a bit beyond our current level of competence” (Krashen,

1985, p2). This is often designated with the equation “i + 1”. The “i”

represents the learner’s current competence in the second language; the “+ 1”

symbolizes the features of the input that are beyond the learner’s

competence, and which he is developmentally ready to acquire. Accordingly,

input that is either too simple or complex will not help a learner make

progress in spoken English.

Gaining Access to Comprehensible Input

The Internet

Radio

TV/Movies

Crazy English

A Word of Caution

Strategies

Strategies are helpful for comprehending a listening passage. When you are

listening, try the following:

Before Listening:

1. Look at the title of the passage and any pictures.

2. Ask yourself questions: What do you know about this topic? What do

you think this passage will be about? What information do you hope

this passage will tell you?

During Listening:

1. Focus your attention on what is being said.

2. Listen for the main idea.

3. Listen for key words and ideas.

4. Relate what you hear to what you already know. (Amato,1996, p55)

After Listening:

1. Ask yourself: a) Did the passage match my guess? b) What did I

learn from this passage? c) Summarize the main idea of this

passage in 1-2 sentences.

2. Write down any new words you feel are important.

THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION

Listening to English will help everything. Listening will build your

vocabulary, improve your grammar, and even help your speaking. In fact,

there are some who believe that listening to comprehensible input alone is

sufficient to develop complete oral proficiency, as mentioned before. However,

though that may be possible, I do not think it is likely. On the contrary, I

believe that using the target language (English) to communicate with

another person greatly helps students acquire the English language

Why is Communication Helpful?

 Many scholars believe that interaction, the act of communicating with

another person, plays a significant part in second language learning. First,

Michael Long believes comprehensible input is of great value, but believes it

is best received through interaction. This is because when a fluent speaker

and a less fluent speaker interact, they enter into a negotiation of meaning.

As they use the situational context, repetitions, and clarifications to

maximize comprehension, the more likely the learner will receive input just beyond his present competency, the i + 1 input

Whom Will I Speak With?

I also asked students how much time they spent each week using English to

communicate with highly fluent non-native speakers or their classmates.

Finding Opportunities to Interact

 • Speak with Fellow English Language Learners

• Speak with Non-Native Speakers Who Speak English Well

• Speak Over the Phone

• Read Outloud

Strategies

• Do not be afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes are normal.

• Realize you will not always be understood. When you are not

understood, you may use the following strategies:

o repeat yourself

o use gestures (hand movements and body language)

o say the same thing in a different way

o use examples

o give definitions or synonyms for words

• Realize you will not always understand what the other person is

saying. When you do not understand, you may use the following

strategies:

o Make guesses about what is being said.

o Check these guesses by asking questions.

o Check your understanding by restating what you think the

person means

Saving Face

Perhaps you know you should speak English in one of the above ways, but

you do not dare because you are afraid of “losing face.” This is a big problem.

In fact, I asked students the following question about face.

LEARNING GRAMMAR

I believe grammar study should focus on two areas: 1) making input

comprehensible and 2) developing awareness to help the learner notice the

grammar of the input.

First, a little knowledge of grammar can make input a lot more

comprehensible. For example, when I studied Chinese, I had great difficulty

with the passive voice. When I first heard it in a listening passage, I had no

idea what the sentence meant. It was completely incomprehensible to me,

and therefore simply noise. Now, if I listened to hours of input, I might have

been able to eventually learn the passive voice. But that is too long and

difficult. Instead, the textbook gave me a little information on passive voice

sentences using “ba” and “bei”. After reading the explanation, I could

comprehend these sentences. A little knowledge of the grammar made the

input comprehensible. I went on to learn the passive voice very well and

much quicker than if I had not studied any grammar.

Second, when learners are concerned only with communicating their

meaning, they often do not need to be grammatically accurate in order to

accomplish their goals. For the passive voice, I needed to know the grammar

in order to understand what was being said. But for other aspects of language

this is not the case. For example, in English, subject-verb agreement is

completely unnecessary to comprehend the meaning of the sentence. Thus,

because a student can subconsciously ignore the grammar, he may not learn

to speak accurately. This phenomenon is called “fossilization.” Fossilization is

when a student, though he may speak fluently, continues to make the same

mistakes over and over again even though he has heard the correct way to

say them a thousand times.

Tips for Grammar Study

 • Study grammar to help you understand input.

• Study grammar to help you notice grammatical features in

input.

• Do not be frustrated that you can not apply the grammar rules

you learn in spontaneous speech. This is perfectly normal.

Continue to notice these troublesome features in input.

source : http://www.gdyzy.edu.cn/yxx/DocLib16/How%20To%20Improve%20Your%20Spoken%20English.pdf

summary : Do not be afraid of mistakes do not be afraid to talk, Do the best that you can !! Speaking aloud Standing and learn English with the right attitude in the right way!