Do you have problems when learning English? Mostly English learners have difficulty at speaking. The are some reasons why they get that obstacle such as unsupported environment and lack of confidence. Indonesians who learn English sometimes get English Shaming from environment that is usually this notion "SOK ENGGRES" which means you are too obsessed with English or they do not like you speak English and ENGGRES refers to English itself. Tons of English learners in Indonesia typically express their feelings or activities in social media using English. Unfortunately, they often get hate speeches regarding the use of English. For instance, "You are not loving your own country, love your mother language if you live in Indonesia, not English. On the other hand, some your neighbors judge you by saying "MAKAN TAHU TEMPE SAJA, PAKEK SOK-SOKAN NGOMONG BAHASA ENGGRES". This sentence can be interpreted as "You are not rich people; you are not precise to speak English." In addition, they lose confident to speak English because they are afraid to make mistakes such as grammar or pronunciation error while speaking where they are worried to get insult or judged by others. However, making mistakes is a conventional thing because we still learn English. Another problem is they have no speaking partners to practice English. These problems lead to difficulty to upgrade your speaking English skills. The best way to improve your speaking skills and make you confident to speak English is by listening to spoken English and having speaking partners.
First, listening to spoken English. Practicing your listening is one of the most important and first steps that you have to do in developing your speaking skills. There are a lot of benefits of listening to spoken English such as it enables you to pick up new words, phrases and sentences in conversation. Moreover, listening is an excellent way of understanding how grammar is used, the word pronunciation, words are omitted in a speech, how rhythm, intonation and language sounds. There are many resources to practice your listening skills. Choose your favorite English television program or YouTube channel, and start by putting up English movies, TV shows, podcast, music. Listen to the recording and look closely at what is said by the characters. Repeat any dialogues phrases that you are interested in. Replay the same clip until you understand every word. You could also turn on the subtitles or look at the transcript of the video to practice saying the dialogues with the characters. The most important way is imitating how they pronounce words or sentences properly. You will begin to remember the words and phrases by practicing very often and make it easier to remember the patterns of word in sentences, and how certain words connect with each other. In addition, you can use some apps such as Elsa Speak, Duolingo to check the correction of your pronunciation and grammar.
Second, having speaking partners. You are a foreign language learner and have been repeatedly taught to practice English every day for the purpose of becoming fluent. If you are living in a place where English is not the first language it will not be easy to use it frequently to get your fluency. Why do you need speaking partner? You are not going to be able to become fluent in English by studying the grammar, memorizing vocabulary and looking at TV shows. You will need to what you have learned in conversation and need an English-speaking partner to practice with, in order to train your vocabulary, grammar and improve your speaking skills. You can talk with them about a wide range of topics so that you can be confident in speaking. Also, they will correct your pronunciation and grammar that will assist you to understand cultural and context of the language. You wonder: where can I get a talking partner? You do not need to spend your money to move abroad to live in English-speaking country to have partners. With the Internet, it makes you easier to connect with English native speakers as partner speaking. You can use social media such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube, or Hello Talk, Mondly, Andy to connect with your speaking partners. The are a large number of English learners looking for speaking partners as well. Moreover, some apps provide you discussion forum or group call with people from different language where you can practice your speaking.
Speaking a language is a skill that is like driving a car. You need to practice driving to be a good driver. You can read a guideline book of car mechanics and study the rules of the road. However, nothing is as good for practicing driving as spending time behind the wheel of a car instead of driving. It is the same with speaking English. It is hard to be fluent in English, no matter how much you study grammar and vocabulary, if you do not practice speaking the language.
