Hey,
it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's Confident
English lesson.
Have you ever left a comment on a YouTube video or a blog post and wondered if
anybody reads them? Well,
if you've ever wondered that about Speak Confident English,
I can tell you that I read every comment on Youtube.
My team and I read all of the comments on our blog and emails and recently I saw
this comment on a Youtube video.
I need to learn English urgently because it plays a very important role for me
and for my career growth and it always is an advantage I need to improve my
English skills,
especially in speaking because I have not enough practice in my everyday life.
Do you have the same challenge?
Is it hard for you to build the confidence and the fluency that you want either
because you're too shy to communicate, which is totally okay,
or you don't live in an English speaking country and you're not sure where you
can get speaking practice?
I definitely remember when I was learning French that I had the same struggles.
I was very nervous communicating in French.
I was a shy language learner and I had no idea where I could go to get effective
speaking practice that supported me and gave me the tools to become more
confident in fluent. So in this lesson today,
I want to share the best ways that you can get speaking practice in English to
build your fluency and your confidence no matter how shy you feel now or no
matter where you live.
So let's get started right away with my top five places to get speaking practice.
Number one is meetup.com have you ever heard of that site before?
Honestly, it's fantastic and here's why.
English speakers are everywhere in the world.
We're either traveling or we've moved to a new country and we want to practice
the local language where we live. As a result, there are clubs, associations,
language exchanges, and more all over the world.
This website makes it really easy to find those opportunities and most countries,
all you need to do is enter your location,
then click language and culture to find a list of any exchanges or clubs where
you live. In fact,
this website is where I found my favorite language exchange while I was living
in France.
It gave me the opportunity to meet native speakers from all over the city.
I got to practice my French and they get to practice English.
Option number two is Toastmasters.
This is an international organization that helps people improve their public
speaking and leadership skills,
so if you want to practice skills such as networking, small talk,
presenting information or communicating effectively in a business meeting,
even with no time to prepare, toastmasters is a great way to do that.
Option number three is one on one classes online, and honestly,
this is one of my favorite ways to help students build fluency and confidence
quickly, especially if there's something specific that they want to focus on.
The awesome thing about doing your lessons online is you can be anywhere as long
as you have a good Internet connection.
One place I can definitely recommend is lingoda.com.
Lingoda makes it so easy because you can schedule classes anytime you want.
All of their teachers are qualified native speakers and they follow the CEFR.
That might be a new acronym.
C E F R is the Central European Framework of Reference for Languages.
You can even start with a free trial class to get an assessment and get
comfortable with their platform.
Now the reason I can recommend Lingoda is my husband recently needed to pass a
German speaking exam so he needed to improve quickly and on some specific
speaking skills. Not only did he successfully pass his exam,
but he also felt supported and enjoyed working with the professional staff so
you can do exactly the same in English.
Option number four is very similar.
You can also find small group courses online that are designed perfectly to fit
your needs. For example, at Speak Confident English,
we have our Fluency School course.
That course was designed specifically for non native English speakers who feel
really shy and stuck in English at an intermediate level and what they want to
do is overcome their fear,
communicate with confidence and advance their skills.
So whatever your needs are in English,
there are small group courses available for you online.
When you find a course that supports your needs and you get to work with someone
who encourages you and supports you in all the right ways,
it's amazing how much progress you can make. And finally,
option number five is for those of you who really can't find any speaking
opportunities where you live and you're not ready to commit to an online class.
It involves my favorite strategy: recording yourself.
When you speak and record yourself,
it gives you the power to identify what you're able to do well in English and
which areas you need to improve.
And as you continue the practice of speaking and recording,
you can make the changes that you want.
It's one of the strategies I use with all of my students and it's extremely
effective. Now if you want to learn more about that,
I also have a free two part training that you can download on my website that
gives you the step by step of how to record yourself and use it for effective
practice so that you can overcome some of your fears, build your confidence,
and improve your fluency. Plus,
I have several other videos here on Youtube that you can use to advance your
speaking skills and build your confidence.
So don't forget to check some of those out and be sure to subscribe to this
channel so you never miss a future lesson. Now, before you go,
I'd love to hear from you.
Do you have a favorite website or resource that has helped you to get some of
the speaking practice that you need? If you have,
be sure to share it with me and the whole Confident English community.
You can do that by sharing in the comment section in the online lesson or just
below this video.
Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next time for
your Confident English lesson.