Help! How can I improve my speaking?

[salma]

dear teachers,
how to improve my speaking
thanks

[Tdol]

How much do you actually speak? Do you have contact with English speakers? Do you speak it in class?

hello salma
first, i want to tell you my english speaking is also very poor. The crucial reason i think is that i dare not to speak if somebody is looking at my eyes.Maybe i'm a little shy ,but i'd better say that i'm not enough confident.so if we are brave enough ,we will make a rapid progress in the near future. The more we practise our oral english, the more comfortable we get and the more likely we are to make progress.

keep in touch
pine

[Reemani]

hello Salma

As tdol said, You have to find a native speaker of englidh in order to have a chat with and in that way, you will improve your speaking and add new vocabulary in your list. I truly believe you will be able to do so also if you have any of your friends who might help you improving your speaking, try to urge them for everyone's sake, and I wish you all the luck.

Be cool

[salma]

hello thanks all of you tdol,pine and reemani.
i'll tell you that i'm actually a little bed good in english especially in grammar .
but bad in speaking and listening which are ,i think, related to each other because they depend on the accent of the english native speakers . i believe that the reason is my teacher in high school. believe it or not we were not speaking english in the ENGLISH class . you may say so how could you called it an english claaaaass?
but this is the truth we were shy and our teacher did not force us to speak she was just giving us grammar...grammar....grammar...grammar..
and the result is ; gooood students in grammar and can arrange the sentence and analyse it but could not pronounce most words of it !!
to imagine what my level in speaking is i'll tell you ;i almost always take 13 out of 20 and my friends do .
actually our teachers in the university are not native they are arabs , indian and 2 or 3 are american our british but those teachers who are not native can speak english with the american or british accent because they studied abroad.
i really want to improve my english and i'll do my best
thanks for advice.

[mykwyner]

My best advice, as an ESL teacher, is practice, practice, practice. Don't worry about making errors. Most native English speakers speak non-standard dialects which are easily understood even though they are full of errors. Here are some tips: Don't worry too much about subject-verb agreement. Plenty of native English speakers get this wrong all the time. We is here, he is here, they is here, you is here. If you always use the singular verb, people will understand you. You can add -ed to any verb (except is ) to make it past tense. Plenty of English speakers say I thinked about it, then I catched the ball, then I throwed it back. Even pronunciation isn't that hard. Many English speakers say wit or wiff instead of with, or a chair could be a chay-er or a cheer. Remember, no matter how bad you mess up your English if an English speaker understands what you were trying to say then you were successful.

[salma]

Originally Posted by mykwyner

My best advice, as an ESL teacher, is practice, practice, practice. Don't worry about making errors. Most native English speakers speak non-standard dialects which are easily understood even though they are full of errors. Here are some tips: Don't worry too much about subject-verb agreement. Plenty of native English speakers get this wrong all the time. We is here, he is here, they is here, you is here. If you always use the singular verb, people will understand you. You can add -ed to any verb (except is ) to make it past tense. Plenty of English speakers say I thinked about it, then I catched the ball, then I throwed it back. Even pronunciation isn't that hard. Many English speakers say wit or wiff instead of with, or a chair could be a chay-er or a cheer. Remember, no matter how bad you mess up your English if an English speaker understands what you were trying to say then you were successful.

thanks teacher . i did not really know any thing about these uses .
but i'm not sure that i would use them especially at speaking class because if i do i'll get a big ZERO because my teacher will consider that a silly mistake to make .
but do you mean that these uses you wrote are made always and i can go over that by practicing OR you meant that they are acceptable in english language either formal or informal !
please tell me because i would not use them unless i make sure.
thanks again.

[HaraKiriBlade]

I'm an ESL student just like yourself. I've been living and studying in Canada long enough to speak daily English with relative fluency. But I've been there. (And I'm still there in a sense) It is quite painful not being able to fully convey what you mean. And yes, broken English works, but you can't stay there forever.

Here's what I suggest:

Say you spoke with a native speaker and you thought you messed up really bad. You wanted to say something but words didn't come fast enough, or didn't know what to say. Go home, sit at your desk with pen and paper handy, and try recreating the instance in your head. Write down what you wanted to say or should've said but couldn't at the time. Then post them all here and have them corrected by the experts. They'll be more than glad to help you. (ri~~ght??)

Once you have the corrected version, memorize it. Read them aloud. And when you run into similar situation, use it. Not only will you learn some really neat expressions, but you'll learn when to use them.

Just my 2 cents.

[salma]

Originally Posted by HaraKiriBlade

I'm an ESL student just like yourself. I've been living and studying in Canada long enough to speak daily English with relative fluency. But I've been there. (And I'm still there in a sense) It is quite painful not being able to fully convey what you mean. And yes, broken English works, but you can't stay there forever.

Here's what I suggest:

Say you spoke with a native speaker and you thought you messed up really bad. You wanted to say something but words didn't come fast enough, or didn't know what to say. Go home, sit at your desk with pen and paper handy, and try recreating the instance in your head. Write down what you wanted to say or should've said but couldn't at the time. Then post them all here and have them corrected by the experts. They'll be more than glad to help you. (ri~~ght??)

Once you have the corrected version, memorize it. Read them aloud. And when you run into similar situation, use it. Not only will you learn some really neat expressions, but you'll learn when to use them.

Just my 2 cents.

thanks dear teacher
that was nice advice i really appreaciate yourhelp . i 'll try to use it .
i really did since i entered this helpful site
i had asked about some expresions wich i was not sure about and got the answers .
and i use them (the prpporiate expresions) in the right situations in speaking todays .