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How to be better at Speaking.

1. Change your smart speaker settings

Do you have one or more smart speakers at home? Did you know that some of them will allow you to talk to them in two languages? If yours lets you do this, change its settings so that you can give instructions in English as well as your mother tongue.

Once you’ve changed the settings, you can have a lot of fun talking to your smart speaker in English. For example, if you have an Amazon Alexa speaker, this page has lots of funny things you can ask it, such as:

  • Alexa, give me a kiss!
  • Alexa, do you know the muffin man?
  • Alexa, can you sing in autotune?

Similarly, if you have a Google Home speaker, there are also lots of entertaining things you can ask, including:

  • What language do you speak?
  • Do you have an imagination?
  • What is the meaning of life?

Of course, you can still use English to get useful information from your smart speaker, such as the daily news, weather and delivery status of your online orders. Be creative!

2. Talk to yourself!

You don’t need an audience to practise speaking English. You can talk to yourself at any time!

The big advantage of talking to yourself is that you can choose whatever topic or theme you like. For example, one day you could decide to speak using the present tense. The next day you could switch to the future or past tenses, and so on.

One top tip is to speak to yourself while standing in front of a mirror. That way you can see how clearly you are pronouncing words and phrases. An even better alternative is to video yourself as you speak in English. This lets you play back the footage and get a more objective view of your pronunciation and fluency.

3. Narrate your everyday life

If it’s difficult for you to dedicate time to speaking English, why not narrate your everyday life? As you walk to the shops, take the bus or train, go for a run or do any other activity, try describing in English what you see around you. How many people are walking ahead of you? What different products are on sale in the shops? How many stops has your bus made on the way to its destination? What would advertising posters say if they were written in English?

Of course, you may not be comfortable speaking out loud when there are other people around. But if even if you narrate your day silently, you’ll be thinking in English – and that’s the main skill you need in order to speak fluently.

4. Try shadowing

This tip is great for polishing your accent, as well as improving your familiarity with spoken English. All you need to do is watch an English-speaking film or listen to anglophone radio or podcasts. When someone speaks, try saying exactly the same thing immediately afterwards. By doing this, you are acting as an ‘echo’ or a ‘shadow’.

For shadowing to work best, don’t stop the audio before you repeat the words. Try to keep up. Why? Because this is the technique developed by linguist Alexander Argüelles, who can ‘read about three dozen languages and speak most of them fluently‘!

5. Read aloud

You probably read a lot of English to help improve your language skills. Whether you’re interested in online articles, novels and short stories, magazines or anything else, make a habit of reading them aloud whenever possible. That way, you’ll not only become familiar with the written words, but you’ll get valuable practice of speaking them.

6. Practice speaking with friends

It can be incredibly motivating to learn with friends. So, if you have friends who either speak English or are learning it, be sure to create opportunities to talk to each other. Whether you arrange regular English conversation sessions, decide to speak English when you meet up for a drink, or have regular video chats via WhatsApp, Skype or Zoom, you’ll be helping each other to practise and learn.

7. Play online games

We’ve already blogged about how online gaming can help you improve your English. Games with online text and audio chat are great because they allow you to communicate with native English speakers as you play. You’ll also learn some really fun gaming slang along the way.

8. Take online classes led by an expert English speaker

The very best way to improve your spoken English is to spend time learning with an expert English speaker. That way you can get instant feedback on your spoken English, learn lots of idioms and useful phrases, and ask for help when you need it. These days you can access online courses led by English experts, wherever you are in the world. For example, live online classes with English Online give you the opportunity to take part in small-grouptutorials led by an English speaker. Alternatively, you can sign up for one-to-one tuition with a personal English tutor.

Practicing your spoken English needn’t be difficult, and it can often be fun. Be creative, make use of what resources you have available to you and – if possible – try and spend at least some time talking with native speakers. One thing we do know: if you make speaking English part of your daily routine, you’ll learn to speak more fluently, much faster.

Source: https://englishonline.britishcouncil.org/blog/articles/8-practical-ways-to-practise-speaking-english/

How to get your English to B1 level

1. Understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.

For B1 level, you should read and listen to English as much as you can. You can take English lessons, listen to English language songs, watch films and shows in English, read documents in English for your job or search for articles and videos … all of these will help you to improve your reading and listening skills.

Choose texts about things you already know. For example, read English-language websites or tourist information about your country, or watch a show or film again that you’ve already watched but this time with English audio or subtitles. Don’t worry if you don’t yet understand all of it. Focus on understanding the main points, and note down new words to increase your vocabulary.

Also, choose texts at the right level for you. On this website, for example, do readings and listenings that are marked A2 or B1. Don’t choose texts that you find too difficult, as you might feel frustrated.

2. Be able to deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken.

If you have any opportunities to travel, take advantage! Use your English to do things like buying tickets, ordering food, shopping and taking public transport.

Even if you can’t travel, there are still things you can do to improve your skills. Travel topics are usually included in English coursebooks and learning materials, so use them to prepare for these situations. A good way to practise is to first learn useful words and phrases for a situation, and then do a role play.

3. Produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest.

How often do you speak and write English? Try to do both regularly.

For speaking practice, try to find some English speakers in your workplace, school, local area or online, and talk to them about your interests, family, work and so on. You can also try recording yourself speaking or posting a voice message in our Learning hub. For writing practice, you might like to write a diary or blog, or write comments on the LearnEnglish Facebook page or social media.

For B1 level, you should speak and write more at length. Use words such as therefore, because, first of all and on one hand … on the other hand … to connect one idea or sentence to another.

4. Describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

This skill is about expressing your thoughts. Practise putting your thoughts into English.

You can try talking about your past experiences. What memorable experiences have you had, either recently or a long time ago? You might need to check some vocabulary to talk about them, so use a dictionary or translator. Then think about what you can say and practise saying it until you can describe your experience smoothly and in detail. This is also good for your vocabulary: it’s usually easier to learn vocabulary when it is personally meaningful.

Try talking about the future too. What do you plan to do this week, this year or in five years’ time? Do you have any hopes or dreams? Put these into words. If you don’t know what your future plans are, it’s fine – you can still talk about different options that you are thinking about. You can also say why you plan to do things.

As suggested above, keeping a diary or blog and having regular English conversations are good ways to practise these skills.

Good luck on your way to B1!

10 Childhood Benefits Of Being Bilingual

By Nikita Gupta / July 12, 2021

10 Childhood Benefits of Being Bilingual | Multicultural Kid Blogs
Good morning in different languages | Benefits of Being Bilingual | Multicultural Kid Blogs

Photo credit: www.growingupgupta.com

“Having your child learn two languages at the same time will confuse them, won’t it?” “You know that teaching your child multiple languages is just going to cause a speech delay?” 

Have you heard these assertions too? These are common questions that many of us raising bilingual kids hear. The answer is “No” to all of the above. Learning two languages at the same time does not negatively affect speech development. On the contrary, it might help the child overcome the problem faster. To give you some assurance, here are ten benefits of being bilingual.Photo credit: www.growingupgupta.com

Benefits of Being Bilingual from a Young Age

1. Better concentration

When a bilingual child tries to speak, both languages compete to be spoken. The child has to quickly pick and suppress the other and switch between them in a second. This ability helps kids to focus better in a noisy class and mute all other irrelevant sounds.

2. Arithmetic and problem-solving

Bilingual kids have better mental alertness, which helps them to solve problems much easier. A study by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin, shows that bilinguals have an easier time dividing objects by shapes and colors than their monolingual peers.

3. Creativity and ability to hypothesize

Since their brains are used to decoding and interpreting two or more languages, bilingual kids have an easier time coming up with and explaining scientific ideas.

4. Better language and vocabulary

Bilingual kids do better in word reading and spelling because of their understanding of sounds and tenses. This gives them an advantage over others when they start learning languages in class.

5. Brain exercise

In a bilingual child’s brain, both sides are always on alert and active even when they are speaking one language. The brains work a little bit more than a monolingual brain, which enhances their cognitive abilities.

6. Better communication

Multilingual kids have mastered the art of interpersonal understanding and listening, which makes them better communicators. This is more of a benefit of growing up in a multilingual environment where you have to listen to other’s perspectives and understand them.

7. Better memory

Learning two languages means you have to retain a lot of information and be ready to produce it at will. This helps kids with memory in school work as well as other important stuff like directions.

8. Faster response

Have you ever noticed that children take a while before responding to a command or an incident? Learning multiple languages forces the brain to quickly switch from one language to another, depending on who is speaking to you. As a result, the brain gets used to quick response and shorter reaction time.

9. Improved social life and better family connections

Speaking a second or third language opens up a whole new world out there to enhance your social skills. Being able to communicate with people from different cultures is a confidence boost and an ice breaker. It also helps to relate better with family members from that culture.

10. Open-mindedness

Multilingual kids are more open-minded and adaptable because you have already exposed them to a different level of tolerance. They are also more accepting and understanding of others, which translates to compassion and empathy.

At a young age, bilingual acquisition is as natural as learning how to walk or crawl. Kids who learn decoding skills in one language will easily translate to English or any other language. Multicultural parenting may not be the easiest, but it comes with many benefits for the children. As we have seen, there are multiple benefits of being bilingual.

A step-by-step guide to learning English with songs

Whatever type of music you’re into, learning English with songs will help you improve your listening and speaking skills, vocabulary and pronunciation.

1. Choose a song that’s in English

It can be any song at all. A song that you like, that you’ve listened to several times before. Have you found it? Great! Now …

2. Listen to the song

Do you understand all of the lyrics? 

Probably not! But don’t worry – people hardly ever understand every word of a song the first time they hear it. The words have to fit the rhythm of the music, so they are often difficult to understand. 

3. Read the lyrics

Find the lyrics online. Many music streaming services have a setting where you can listen and read the lyrics at the same time.

Listen to the song again while you read. Now it starts to make a bit more sense!

Make a note of new or interesting words and phrases. You don’t have to look up every single word in the dictionary. Try to learn five to ten new words per song.

4. Notice pronunciation

You may notice some strange-looking words! Some words in songs are written as they are pronounced. 

‘Wanna’, for example, is an informal spelling of ‘want to’. 

What about ‘gonna’ and ‘gimme’? What are these informal spellings of?

As you listen, notice how phrases are pronounced. This really helps you understand people when they’re talking fast.

5. Listen again and join in

As you listen, start to join in with the easier parts. Sing as quietly or as loudly as you want!

The chorus – the part of the song that is repeated several times – will probably be what you can sing along to first.

6. Sing along

Listen to the song a few more times, and each time join in with a little bit more. 

By now the song is really in your head! You’re really feeling the rhythm of the music and the lyrics. 

Tomorrow, next week or whenever you feel like learning a new song, do the same thing again. But don’t forget to come back to the old songs, especially your favourites.

Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-levels/improve-your-english-level/power-music-how-learn-english-songs?utm_campaign=english-all-learnenglish-global-newsletters&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=71246861&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9zBsn9PRGm9twSw32xawc2IRwzktX0lZ7xe9VDfleLLK0eZY4T1Tcxo0A4HD5z6-m7OeHaN_YH6LlWileAbj6I0o0tlA&utm_content=71246861&utm_source=hs_email