Speaking skills are possibly the most desired element of language use. People wish to communicate with others and build relationships. It is essential to understand that speaking needs to be learned through trial and error. Making mistakes is a natural part of language learning and they are necessary to become fluent in a language and later master it.
Think in English when you speak: to be fluent in a language you must be able to speak in a flexible way. It is very difficult or even impossible to translate all the time as it takes too much time and also leads to errors. Use the English that you know and try to use that as a base to improve.
Talk to yourself: a great way to improve your English is to practise and speak every day, if you do that you will improve. If you have noone to speak to, you should speak to yourself when you are alone to achieve fluency. You can also record your own voice and listen back to it.
Shadowing: shadowing is an excellent way to improve your pronunciation, intonation as well speaking level. The activity consists of listening to phrases or simple texts and repeating them. It can also be done simultaneously (speaking as you listen).
Listen all the time: speaking and listening skills are interrelated. So much so that they are really one and the same. Speaking is the active part in which you produce language, listening is the passive part in which you receive language. To improve your speaking, you should listen, take notes and also imitate other speakers.
Get a language learning partner: speaking is about conversing, giving and receiving information. It requires the learner to listen to information and use this information to respond. There is no valid substitute for speaking to a real person and therefore all language learners should have a language learning partner to be able to practise with.
