Living in the UK: Learning English Part 2: English speaking practices - the fun way!

Welcome to the second part of the series! There is so much more to learning English than attending classes. In fact, attending classes is probably the easier part, the more difficult part is to keep practising English constantly. So, in order to help us to keep practising, let’s try to do it… for fun! 

In this article we will introduce some interesting resources and ways to practise speaking in English. The goal of this series? That no one will feel like they are performing an additional chore when practising English. Better still, hopefully no one will quite remember that they are practising English when they are doing these activities! 

Free conversation cafes and clubs: Unlike other aspects of the English language skills, which you can practise on your own, speaking is a social activity. You can join a conversation cafe or online conversation group organised by local support services or churches, where you can have a cup of tea or some snacks, and chat with people there about anything under the sun. (You can find out which church in your neighbourhood is offering conversation cafes and/or English classes here.) You can even make friends and connect with people in your neighbourhood! 

If you cannot easily find any groups in your neighbourhood, you can join Barnardo's monthly Online Conversation Club, in which you can practise discussing in English about a specific topic every time you meet. Find out about the national and regional conversation clubs and how to register for a place here.

Form an ESOL group: Similarly, if you are attending an ESOL class, you can meet your classmates online or in-person outside of class. You can organise regular English discussion sessions about topics of common interests like food in the UK, local childcare services, or healthcare services. You can also arrange English-speaking outings to the nearby park or the local places of interest, or have a meal together. 

Volunteer or join a hobby group: If you are looking for more opportunities to practise speaking, why not volunteer at a local charity or join some hobby groups? Volunteering will help you to build social networks, conversational skills and local workplace experience. While being in hobby groups can teach us something new about what we are passionate about, and connect us with fellow hobbyists. 

If you feel a bit anxious about speaking with native British speakers, you can prepare by learning about the charity and terms about their services, or looking up relevant terms about your hobbies in English before attending the group meetings. 

Want to find out about the culture of volunteering in the UK, and volunteering opportunities? Find out here!

Spot a strange bird or a lovely flower in a local park? Talk about this encounter as if you are narrating for a nature documentary! Or talk to an invisible friend through what you are seeing, as if you are on the phone with them. (If you are in public, you can speak in your head too.) 

Role-playing: If you are looking for ways to get more confident about speaking on your own, you can play some games with yourself. One possible game is to narrate what you are doing or feeling, or muse about something out loud, as if you are explaining your thoughts to a friend. Think of it like a narrator’s voice-over or a monologue in a movie or a show - tell the invisible audience about the scenes outside your window, your activities, or the stories behind a certain object. You can also make up stories, introduce local places like a tour guide, pretend to be performing a stand-up comedy, or to craft a response to some current affairs as if you are being interviewed. The possibilities are endless! 

Shadowing / echoing: You can also practise speaking English by repeating what you hear. When we are watching a film or listening to the radio, the British Council suggests that by repeating the same line immediately after we hear a sentence being spoken, you can become more familiar with the spoken language and the accents. If we do this often, we will even learn idioms and expressions and get a feeling of the contexts about where and how we can use these expressions in our own conversations. 

But if shadowing a radio programme or a film is hard because the sentence structure and the length of the show might be longer than we can handle at this point, why not find some English songs with catchy tunes to sing along? The shorter lyrics and the repetitive chorus will give us an easier time to follow, not to mention it is great fun to dance along! 

Question: If my grammar and vocabulary are not correct, would I risk reinforcing the mistakes by speaking repetitively on my own / in a situation where no teacher is there to correct me? 

While using correct grammar and vocabulary are important, the goal is to be able to use English as a tool to communicate with other English speakers successfully. So, getting too worried about grammatical correctness to the point of not practising will be self-defeating. Additionally, practising speaking in English (or even thinking in English, no matter how brokenly) can actually help us to readily substitute any word or expression we do not know how to say with some other words, or even hand gestures, to communicate our intentions. So, the more practice, the better!

Can you think of any other fun (and free) ways to practise speaking in English? Email us and let us know! In the next issue, we will introduce resources and tips about how to practise listening, reading and writing. So, stay tuned for more fun activities and resources we can improve our English competency with!