Resources To Help With Your Speaking In A New Language

When it comes to language learning there are plenty of good resources to help you along the way, however, that can’t really be said about the skill of “speaking” and the number of resources is quite limited for this.

Speaking is really just practiced through speaking more and I will go through what I can below. Of course speaking is closely linked to other areas of language, such as reading and listening, which I will also touch on below.

You should really see language learning as a holistic thing, so the fact there are not really many great speaking resources is not a problem, because like I said, it is closely linked to the other areas, which do have lots of resources.   

Use Tutors To Help With Your Speaking

Tutors cost money, but they are an excellent resource and can really help you with your speaking. You are paying for their skill, knowledge and guidance and it can be a very good investment.

You can have practice conversations and really focus on certain topics to help you master your weaknesses. A good tutor is going to make sure you are able to flourish and really push you to make good progress and become comfortable with talking.

Using a tutor is a very safe environment as they are not going to stray off and talk about something you don’t understand or speak too fast, they are also going to give you real time feedback and advice.

A tutor really can be one of the best resources for helping you speak better, especially early on in your language learning journey. 

Use Language Exchange Apps

Language exchange apps are an amazing free resource to help your speaking skills, but they are not perfect.

These apps are just full of random language learners, who are just like you. The problem is that they are not qualified teachers, so they are not going to be as knowledgeable as the tutors, however, they can still be really useful and it’s a lot of fun.

You can meet real natives, who speak the language you are trying to learn, but who are also learning your language.

The conversations you have are very informal and you can take turns talking each others language. This is a great way to make new friends, but more importantly you get access to native speakers without having to leave your house.

Language exchanges can really make the difference when you are learning a language. They can really keep you motivated and they really do not seem like learning, they are just a great way to meet new people and practice.   

(You can read more about – What Are The Best Apps For Language Exchanges?)

Record Yourself

I’m not really sure if the microphone on your phone is classed as a resource, but I’m going to go with it.

Basically if you can record yourself speaking and then listen back to it, it can be extremely helpful. It is also going to be extremely cringe, but you just need to see past that.

Listening to yourself is really going to give you a feeling of where you are in the language. If you are not sure, or you don’t know how to evaluate yourself, then you need to send your recording to a friend or a tutor and get their honest opinion on it.

I think for most of us we will be able to tell if we are dreadful or not, you just have to ask how you compare to a native and be honest, you should be able to spot the areas you not quite there. It will probably be your speed, pronunciation or just depth of your words.

It’s hard to evaluate yourself, but you need to be honest.

Don’t Use Voice Recognition

You have probably heard about the voice recognition stuff, but honestly, I would avoid it. There are a number of different language learning apps that incorporate this technology into their lessons and it can seem pretty cool and a great way to practice your speech…

However, its ability it detect correct speech isn’t great. I’ve just grunted into my phone, sort of sounding like what the app is looking for and it has recognised my speech as “correct” …Literal grunts.

Basically I do not trust this software’s accuracy as you may be totally wrong but the app tells you that you’ve got it correct. This isn’t helpful for anyone. 

If you want someone to judge your speaking, make sure it’s a human not a computer. This is the only way to insure you are getting accurate feedback.

Listening Resources

If you want to get good at speaking, you need to make sure you are on top of your listening. Speaking and listening are very closely interlinked, so it is essential that you focus on this too.

Listening resources are also going to give you audio that you can shadow. Shadowing is when you just copy what you hear. You just repeat back exactly what is in the audio. This can seem a bit strange, but it is helpful.

It doesn’t help you produce any language, as you are just copying, but it does get your mouth moving and helps you get used to speaking in your new language. You are going to pronouncing things correctly and are going to be at the right speed, so while it doesn’t directly make you better at speaking, it is very beneficial for the general process.

(You can read more about – Is Shadowing Useful For Language Learning?)

Reading Resources

Reading resources are also important for improving your speaking. Reading is pretty similar to listening as it will benefit your speaking if you do enough of it.

Reading resources are going to give you material that you can read out loud, this is also like shadowing, where it isn’t really going to help you produce the language yourself, but it is going to get your mouth moving and get it used to producing the sounds.

Again this is going to help with the general process of speaking, so it should not be overlooked, it really can be quite a helpful resource for speaking.

(You can read more about – What Are The Benefits Of Practising Your Speaking Skills In A Second Language?)

Conclusion

As you can see there not many resources to help you speak, but the ones that are available are extremely useful.

Speaking is all about practice, so you don’t really need many resources, you just need someone to talk to, but even this is not that important when you are learning as you can talk to yourself.

Just keep practicing and you see results!

(You can read more about – How To Improve Speaking In A New Language)