Here are some tips to improve your English speaking skills, so you can apply them to improve your grammar and vocabulary. Remember, your improvement will come from addressing your linguistic issues outside of class. Re-training your muscles and mind takes awareness, practice, and perseverance. If you put in the hours and the work, you will see positive results.
Learn and become aware:-
After learning the various rules of English, you must become aware of the errors that you make in your speech. Keep an organized list of your corrections that have come from being monitored by other speakers, preferably native English speakers. If you don’t have a native English speaker to monitor you, simply listen and repeat with the Elemental English pronunciation and speaking lessons, and take note of how your pronunciation differs from mine.
Monitoring:-
Any time you are corrected, write down the correction that you were given on a special “monitoring” list. Constantly update this list, and keep it organized. This is extremely useful because the errors that you produce are usually not random mistakes that come from “a slip of the tongue”. Most errors are part of a pattern of mistakes that you repeat again and again.
Repetitive Review:-
Consistently review your monitoring list of errors. You should start to notice a pattern and then be constantly aware of that pattern of what you need to correct.
Repetitive Practice:-
Now that you are aware of your errors, you need to routinely practice the corrected pronunciation (or correct syntax, vocabulary use, etc.). Practice again and again. I suggest that you practice out loud at home. Listen to the sounds that you produce, and compare these sounds to native speakers.
Self Correction:-
With practice, you can develop the imperative habit of self-correction. Be so aware and in tune with the sounds of English that you can notice and hear your own errors. This ability to self-correct can only come from the above steps of monitoring and awareness.
Write down your questions
There are plenty of times when all of us wonder how to express something in another language, but then do nothing with those questions. When you are unsure of how to say or ask something in English, write it down so that you can ask a native speaker.
Keep a running vocabulary list
Be organized. Write down vocabulary that you want to look up but don’t have time to at that moment. Make a habit of reviewing vocabulary. If you do not do this, you will easily forget new words before they are locked into your long term memory.
Think in English:-
A huge mistake English language learners make is to think in their native language and then translate into English in their heads. This is a mistake because English syntax and word order is typically something that cannot be translated from another language.
Talk to yourself out loud at home
Talking to yourself out loud will help you in the process of thinking in English instead of translating to English from your native language. Get in the habit of speaking freely without the worry of criticism.