hello everybody my name is emma and in
today's video i'm going to talk to you
about how to become a more fluent
and more fluid speaker before i begin
talking about this lesson
i just wanted to thank my friend eduardo
from www.teacheremma.com
eduardo recommended this video idea and
i think it's a great one
so thank you for this recommendation
so what do i mean by how to speak more
fluidly
or fluently what do i mean by those
words well
when i'm talking about fluid i'm talking
about the flow
of english english should sound almost
like
how water flows language flows so we're
talking about
the speed of the language am i speaking
english
too fast am i speaking english way too
slow
maybe there's a lot of pauses or
moments where i don't say anything maybe
i don't pause enough maybe i don't
breathe when i'm speaking
i try to get everything out as quickly
as i can
maybe i use words like um ah way too
much
so these all impact the
fluidness or the fluency of
our language so i'm gonna teach you some
tips in order for you to become a more
fluid speaker
this will help the people who listen to
you speak
understand you better and make it easier
for them to
to understand your message so let's get
started with some of my favorite tips
the first tip happens to many learners
of english
when they're talking they're trying to
think of a word
in english and they can't remember the
word so what do they do
well sometimes they pause and they say
hmm what's that word
uh and they stop talking and they become
so focused on remembering
that english word that the listener
might get annoyed or
bored and the person just tries to think
think think it's not coming
so this impacts our fluidness as well as
our fluency
so what can we do in order to speak more
fluid
well if you can't think of a word
describe it so imagine
i can't think of the word knife
what would i do i might say oh well it's
the thing
you find in the kitchen and you cut
vegetables with
it a lot of the times it has a handle
and a silver blade
oh i know the word knife so you see what
i just did i talked about
what it is used for i talked about where
we might find
this object i said it's in the kitchen
thinking about these things
can really help you to remember the word
um or maybe the listener will know what
you're talking about and will be able to
tell you the word
and guess what it is so this is one way
to
help you when you get stuck on a word
sometimes you might be stuck on a word
and this doesn't work
you might just want to move on then okay
think about is this word really that
important to this conversation
can i still get my message across even
if i can't remember this word
a lot of the times it's better to just
continue talking
than to get stuck on the word
my second tip is
if you make a mistake in english it's
okay
native speakers make mistakes all the
time
what a lot of students do or learners of
english do
is they get stuck on the mistake
they'll say for example they'll be
trying to use the present perfect
and they might say i have got the book
oh wait is it got
is it gotten oh and then they become
very focused on the mistake they made
and then they forget what they're
talking about
and the listener sort of stops listening
or is not able to follow
the conversation that well so if you
want to
improve your fluency and your fluidity
of english
it's okay to make mistakes the main
thing is
if it's a little mistake that you can
fix really quickly
fix it but if it's something that's
going to take some time to fix
or you need time to think about how to
fix the mistake
just keep talking leave the mistake and
move on
this will help the listener understand
you better
so if you make a mistake continue
or if it's a small mistake that you can
quickly fix
fix it and continue
my third tip is probably the hardest tip
on this
list at least it's hard for me
and that is think before
you speak so a lot of the times
our fluency or our fluidity or our flow
of the language
uh we don't have a good flow because
we don't know what we want to say we
start talking
and then as we're talking we realize oh
i don't know what i'm trying to talk
about i
i don't know what i'm gonna say next and
then we start hesitating we start saying
um
um uh we need to backtrack sometimes
we get confused so sometimes it's a good
idea to just
take a breath and think about what do i
want to say
what's my main idea this will help you
with your
fluency and fluidity although i
understand it is hard to do this for
some people like myself
i also wanted to point out that i used
this word before
i've written just a b and a four this is
what we use in text messaging
this means
before the reason i
put this is i wanted to tell you that
sometimes
if you are doing an interview or maybe a
presentation
and you need to speak speak fluently you
might want to take some notes on what
you're going to say
and so if you're writing notes down just
write the key ideas
and that will help you speak more
fluently too so if i was writing notes i
might use
short forms like this instead of writing
the full word
so now let's look at some other tips
that can help you with the flow
of your english and will help you speak
more fluently
okay so i just mentioned about how it's
good to think about what you want to say
before you say it my next tip has to do
with this
the next tip i wanted to talk about is
the importance of using words like
well let me think about it
that's a great question we often use
these
when we're talking because they give us
time
to think the whole purpose of these
three
well let me think about that
or let me think about that for a moment
or hmm that's a great question
it allows us to think before we speak
so i would recommend memorizing some of
these expressions and
practice using them they will give you
more time to think
and then you'll be able to speak more
fluently saying something like this
is better than just standing there
silently using these
is also better than just jumping into
the topic and then
realizing i don't know what i'm going to
say and then
really confusing what you're trying to
say so these expressions are really good
to use
my fifth tip is it's a great idea to
learn
common expressions well like
memorize the common expressions know
them so well that they just
automatically come out by having
language come out automatically you
don't have to think so hard about what
you're trying to say
and that gives you a chance to think
about your message
so which expressions should you try to
learn automatically
well that's a great question oh look i
just used this one
to give myself more time to think so
what
like i was saying what are some great
expressions
that reminds me is a good expression to
use
if you ask me we use this one when we
want to give our opinion
if you ask me i think blah blah blah
blah dogs are better than cats for
example
as far as i'm concerned again this means
in my opinion by memorizing this
expression and getting used to it
it just comes out naturally and it will
become a lot easier to speak
fluently here's another expression
speaking of so there are many functional
expressions in english that we use a lot
in conversation
i recommend choosing some of these
expressions and learning them well
so you can use them when you speak
okay my sixth point has to do with pace
what do i mean by pace
well i'm talking about the speed of the
language
for this point i think it's really
important to know yourself
do you speak too fast many students from
i've noticed many of my students who
speak spanish italian
portuguese when they speak english
sometimes they speak
faster than native speakers or then i
might have students from other countries
where they speak very slow so it's a
good idea to think about do you speak
too fast
or do you speak too slow or just right
it's also a good idea to know is your
language choppy
what do i mean by that i'll give you an
example of choppy language
i like pizza
notice that's choppy it sounds like i'm
cutting each word
versus i like pizza
that has a nice flow to it so it's good
to know
what your language sounds like
another point with this is also do you
have a lot of
music or rhythm in the way you speak
or does your voice sound very flat does
it sound like a robot when you talk
it's good to know these things about
yourself because once you know this
then you can find ways to fix these
issues
and by fixing these issues you will
improve
the flow of the language your fluency
and your fluidity
okay and this is another point pausing
it's also good to know do you pause
too much or too little some people when
they speak
they don't breathe enough so what they
do is
they take one breath and then they try
to talk a lot
and then it's hard because they're not
getting in
enough oxygen and we need oxygen when we
speak
um so are you pausing too much
or too little that's another question to
ask yourself
if you don't know the answer to these
questions i recommend recording yourself
you can use your phone and listen to how
you sound
so now let's look at some other tips on
how to sound more
fluid so like everything in life
the way to get better at something is to
practice
so if you want to become better at
speaking fluently
you need to practice this so how can you
practice well here's my tip for this
i think it's very good when students
time
themselves speaking so for example
um you can take a topic
maybe you want to talk about your family
or a movie you saw
and once you choose a topic what you can
do is take your phone
and time yourself for 30 seconds
for those 30 seconds you need to keep
talking
you can't stop you have to just keep
going and going and say whatever you can
on the topic once you're able to do 30
seconds
you can start to try to increase the
time you talk for
maybe the next time you will talk for 45
seconds
and then maybe you can do a minute so
you can start small
and work your way up to more time
if you're trying to figure out where you
can find
topics for you know to help you think
about things to talk about
you can go to goodluck ielts.com if you
click on the speaking tab
they have many different topics that are
on the ielts
but that are also interesting topics
just to talk about in general so i
recommend
practicing and speaking for periods of
time
where you try not to stop and you really
focus
on being fluid in your speech
my seventh tip is related to this
it can also help to practice speaking in
front of a mirror
i think that when you actually watch
yourself speak sometimes this can make
it easier
it's also important to focus on your
body language
sometimes when we're hunched like this
and our head is down
we're more likely to make mistakes and
to feel uncomfortable
and to not speak as fluidly versus when
we're standing up tall and straight
and our shoulders are back and we have a
good posture
it's easier to speak fluidly and part of
that is because
we're helping our lungs get out more
breath which helps with speech
but it's also standing up tall makes us
feel more confident
so that can help you with the flow of
your language as well
my next tip is the importance of
thinking about what do you talk about
a lot in english or your own language
once you think about this you might
realize hmm
every day i talk a lot about the weather
or i talk about school or my family
or my pet dog or my job
or my plans for the weekend once you
start really thinking about what do i
talk the most about
you can focus on building your
vocabulary
in that area this will give you a very
focused goal and by doing this it will
help
the flow of your language because you
won't get caught on words or you won't
get stuck
trying to think of a word you'll know
the word because you'll have practiced
and you'll have thought about what you
can talk about about the subject so it
will help you with your flow
my final tip is know yourself
what do i mean by this well
when i'm talking i find that
i speak best in the morning
so anytime i teach i try to pick the
hardest part
of what i need to talk about and i try
to do that first in the morning because
i know that's when i am the most
fluid that's when i can speak the
clearest
and the best now after
lunch i know my english goes down
okay after lunch i'm tired i start
making a lot of mistakes with what i'm
trying to say
i can't think straight the time i'm the
worst
at talking is 3 p.m
i found this out because i'm always the
most tired around 3 p.m
this is the time i really need a nap so
if i need to talk to somebody on the
phone fluently
i'm not going to call them at 3 p.m
because i know that's when i'm going to
make a lot of mistakes
and i'm going to say um uh
a lot so i might save those calls or
those presentations or whatever it is
those speaking tasks for when
i know i'm going to be more alert and
when it's easier for me to speak
um this also nervousness or anxiety can
also
impact or affect the flow of how we
speak
when we're really nervous about
something we tend to
hesitate a lot more we tend to say um
a lot more frequently so one thing you
can do is
you can learn how to be less nervous
about something
there are different strategies to help
you with being nervous
so i have other videos on this topic and
i highly recommend you check them out
but knowing that you get nervous at a
certain time
even with an interview for example again
practice makes perfect so that might be
a way to help you
speak more clearly in those situations
sleep it's important to get a good
night's sleep that will also help the
flow of your language
when we're well rested it's easier for
us to speak
so thank you so much for watching you
can
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so thank you for watching and until next
time take care