바쁜 사람이 할 수 있는 영어 스피킹 How to improve English speaking skills (for busy people)

How to improve English Speaking skills if you're busy so I was just on a Skype call with a student of mine. I asked him, well, what are you doing right now on a day to day basis to improve your English speaking skills? He told me that he watches YouTube videos, news, and he listens to podcasts and radio. If you constantly expose yourself to the English language, your listening skills will will improve and you'll be able to build your passive vocabulary. Now notice I said passive vocabulary. A passive vocabulary are the words that when you hear them, you understand, but you don't know how to use them yet. Eventually you want to make those words your active vocabulary, which means the words you know how to use. If you passively consume information on YouTube or podcasts, your listening skills will improve, but it doesn't mean your speaking skills will. If you want to improve your speaking, you have to speak. The best way to get you to speak is to live in an English speaking country and interact with the native speakers. You'll have no excuse and will have to speak in English. The next best thing is to make English speaking friends. They don't have to be native speakers, you just have to speak in English with them. If you don't have the time to make friends, then you can take a class or use an app like Cambly to talk to English teachers. I have also recommended the shadowing technique. The shadowing technique is when you watch a video like a TED talk and repeating what the speaker says very quickly. Interpreters use this technique to practice speaking. Having casual conversations with your friends will help you develop your social skills, but I think shadowing helps if you want to be able to hold a sophisticated idea in your mind and construct sentences that are longer than just three or four words. Of course, it depends on the material you're using, but for those of you who want to go from, let's say an intermediate level to an advanced level can certainly utilize this technique. In my opinion, there are three ways to approach the shadowing technique. Number one, Listen and mimic the sound. Your focus is on pronunciation, accent and intonation. You're not thinking much about the content, but you're training your mouth and lips to move quickly. Number two, if your focus is on constructing longer and complex sound sentences, listen to the native speaker and use the same expressions and words and phrases they use. You want to shorten the time it takes for your brain to come up with a thought and get the words to come from your mouth as a sound. You won't be able to come up with a thought if you don't have large enough vocabulary and expressions, thinking and speaking go hand in hand. Let shadowing help you train for that. Number three. The third way involves doing both one and two automatically and at the same time. You understand what the speaker is saying, and you're able to say it exactly the way the speaker does. You're able to mimic the intonation and express the right emotion. Many smart professionals, including the student of mine that I mentioned earlier, share this problem. Their listening and comprehension are pretty good, but when it comes to speaking, it takes them too much time or there are long pauses between words. Let's talk a little more about shadowing, since it's something you can do alone and it doesn't cost you much time or money. Let's practice speaking with me right now, so please repeat after me. The apple is red. Ready? Go. The apple is red. That was pretty easy, right? You were able to construct the same sentence in your head and reproduce the same sound. How about this sentence? The other day I went to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Ready you go. The other day I went to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet. How did you do? It may have been difficult to keep up with my speed. That's okay. There are two reasons for it. Your mouth and lips are not used to reproducing those sounds at that speed. In other words, you need to work on your pronunciation, accent, and intonation. It'll help you speak faster and more smoothly. Number two, it took some time for your brain to process the information and construct the identical sentence and then out from your mouth. How can we make this process faster? When you learn a sentence, what do you do? I've seen many students learn a phrase or sentence and they repeat once and they're done with it. Understanding the meaning of a sentence and being able to say it are two different skill sets. For example, if you listen to a song once, will you be able to play it on the piano on your first try? Most people can't, unless you're Mozart. The same goes for your English speaking Don't just say it once and be done with it. Repeat it several times until you can say it without pausing and hesitation. If you're struggling to speak English smoothly at your workplace, my suggestion is that you start thinking about what to say in the situations you can predict. Since you can predict most of the business interactions and the purpose of having those conversations, you can prepare ahead of time. You can write out the script for each scenario, or you can speak out loud in your car and enact the situation during your commute. You have to exercise your brain and facial muscles. That's the only way to speak more smoothly. Start with short sentences and then move on to longer, complex sentences. Speak out loud and go an extra step and repeat it several times until you can say it naturally and flawlessly. That's how you become fluent in English. I actually offer a course on shadowing. If you'd like to join my shadowing course to improve your speaking skills, click the link and I'll talk to you soon.