How can I practice Speaking English Alone at Home ‘ is the most asked question in the class. 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 this article, I’ve got some tips so that you can practice your English speaking at home alone. Yeah, that’s right, at home alone. It sounds impossible, but believe me, it’s not.
How Can I Practice Speaking English Alone – 8 Exercises
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.
Do you focus on using the correct words when you speak so 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.
Part 1: Prep Work (Getting Used to the Rhythm)
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.
Exercise 1: Listen and Repeat
So the first exercise is a listen and repeat. Choose your favorite song or audio from YouTube, and listen to it a few times reading the words. After listening to it 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. Suppose we are listening to this sentence:
“I bet you’re gonna like what I’ve bought for dinner.”
Okay, let’s have a look at the places where you can connect a few words. Often, words that end in a ‘t’ and the next word starts with ‘y,’ merge together, and the sound becomes a ‘ch’ sound. “I bet you,” “I betcha.” 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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
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 be-cha gonna like wha-di bought for dinner]
Another example is: “Would you like a piece of cake?”
Now try and think about the words that where you can connect words. Let’s take a closer look.
“Would you like a piece of cake?” Say it loud. Did you notice how ‘of’ sounds like a schwa?
“Would you [Woul-ju] like a piece of /e/ cake?”
Okay, so you’ve mastered the listen and repeat. Now it’s time to move on to the next exercise.
Exercise 2 – Muscle and Sound Training (Tongue Twisters)
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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
Okay, a tongue twister that I love: “Which witch is which?”
First, say it at a normal speed: “Which witch is which?”
“How did you go? Okay, now say it a little bit faster too: “Which witch is which?”
“How did you go? Let me know in the comments what your favorite tongue twister is.
Exercise 3: Reading Out Loud (Shadowing)
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 audiobook. 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 an audiobook. Once you’ve listened to yourself, listen to the audiobook and then see whether your pronunciation is similar to that in the audiobook. 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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
Exercise 4: Singing
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 sing 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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
Part 2: Prep Work (Developing Conversations)
Okay, so you’ve done the prep work. So part two is all about developing conversations. It’s time to challenge yourselves. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
Exercise 5: Working With a Scene (Narrations)
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.
Working with a Scene
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.
Watch a Scene and Explain
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.
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Fake it until you make it
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 you read about at the start of this lesson, particularly reacting, body language, turn-taking, using informal or formal language, and things like that.
Show Time
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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
Exercise 6: Recording Yourself
So I’ve written about recording yourself a lot in this lesson, and although you might feel a little bit uncomfortable listening 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.
Real Life Situations
So use the recording in 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 in several real-life situations, so you’ll never get bored.
Whatsapp Voice Messages
Everybody today uses WhatsApp, and a great feature of WhatsApp is the voice recording feature. If you have a friend who 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.
Exercise 7: Using Pictures
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.
Trending Stories
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 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.
Exercise 8: Meetups and Online Gaming
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, if 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.
Conclusion:
So in summary, what you’ve learned in this lesson 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. [How can I Practice Speaking English Alone at Home]
A fluent speaker isn’t afraid of making mistakes and learning from others!
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