Difficult Solution

LISTENING Here are two simple solutions to this problem:

when you’re having a conversation, you’re
only talking about 50% the time – the other First, practice some listening EVERY DAY. All
50% is spent listening to the other person you need is 10-15 minutes per day to develop
speak. If you don’t understand what the other your listening skills. You can get free English
person is saying, it’s difficult to reply. podcasts on websites like ESLpod.com and
listen to them while driving, taking public
transportation, exercising, or doing housework.

Next, memorize these phrases that you can

use in conversation when you don’t
understand something:

I beg your pardon?

I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.
Could you repeat that, please?
Could you say that again, please?
VOCABULARY
Sometimes when you’re speaking English, you
have a sentence in mind, but you’re missing The solution? Learn more vocabulary words!
two or three important vocabulary words – and But there’s a good way and a not-so-good way
then it becomes difficult to say what you’re to learn new words. The not-so-good way is to
thinking. read lists of words and definitions and try to
memorize them.

A good way is to learn words in “families.” For

example, imagine you’re in an airport. Do you
know the words for everything you see?
(luggage, check-in desk, travel agency, flight
attendant, boarding pass) If not, look for the
words you don’t know in a dictionary. Now
think about what kind of conversations you
might have in an airport. How would you ask
for help if you can’t find the gate? What would
you say if you missed your flight? How about
going through immigration?

Create conversations and write them down in

your vocabulary notebook. This will help you
learn useful words that are all related to each
other, so the next time you’re in an airport, you
won’t have problems with missing vocabulary.

PRONUNCIATION There are two things that can help you

English words can be difficult to pronounce – improve your English pronunciation. One way
and when speaking English, you have to is to take a pronunciation course. Another way
consider not only the pronunciation of the to improve your pronunciation is to keep
individual words, but also the connection practicing your listening. The more you listen
between the words in the sentence. There’s to English, the more your pronunciation will
also the “rhythm” and intonation of the naturally get closer and closer to native
sentence to consider – and sometimes your pronunciation.
mouth gets confused!
A good way to practice is to get an audio
sample with transcript. Listen to one or two
sentences (while reading the transcript), then
pause the audio and try to repeat the
sentences exactly as the person said them.
Practicing pronunciation like this will help you
improve very fast.

CONFIDENCE
If you feel nervous and are afraid of making a There are three things that can help increase
mistake while speaking English, then your your confidence:
problem is confidence
First, don’t worry too much about grammar!
Just do your best to communicate, and you’ll
“I’m Too Embarrassed to often be successful even if you do make a
Speak” small grammar mistake. Also, remember that
the grammar of spoken English is often more
If you don’t use it, you lose it. All the embarressment
or laziness that prevents you from speaking will result
“flexible” than the grammar of written English.
in the forgetting of everything you´ve already learned
up until that point in the process. This is the big Second, keep a positive attitude. Think of
problem with a lot of English schools. They don´t yourself as an English speaker (because you
create enough opportunities to speak in authentic are!) and focus on celebrating what you know,
situations.
not being frustrated about what you don’t
If you don’t use the basic stuff you learn, no amount of know.
advanced grammar is going to help you remember
what you superficially learned and forgot because you Third, practice speaking English as much as
didn’t apply it.
possible in low-pressure situations. Here are
Furthermore, not speaking contributes to the two examples of low-pressure situations: Talk
psychological blockage of your whole process.  to yourself! It might feel ridiculous, but it really
helps! Talk to your teacher and your friends in
English class. If you make a mistake, they can
correct you. It’s extremely important to practice
in low-pressure situations as much as possible
to build your confidence so that you will be
comfortable speaking English in a more “high-
pressure” situation (like a teleconference,
presentation, or job interview).

So what’s the best advice? Open your mouth.

Whether it’s in the classroom, alone in the shower,
with friends who speak a little or a lot, or even
foreigners in real life or on Skype, just stop being
 embarrassed and OPEN YOUR MOUTH.

 A lot of students tell me their biggest difficulty is speaking English, and why speaking is so
hard. It’s actually a combination of different difficulties 

The different between real English and textbook school English

We used normal textbook we taught the English that was in the textbooks. For example, in
those textbooks always at the beginning the first lesson of the first book basis beginning
English. Sometimes they have it on CD. There’s always a little conversation and it says
something like this:
A: ”Hello”
B: ”Hello. How are you?”
A: ”I’m fine, and you”
B: ”I’m fine, thank you”.
That’s the kind of English that schools are teaching and of course it gets more advanced and
more advanced but the problem is nobody speaks that way. You will not find any or almost none
real Americans who will actually speak that way in real life, in real conversation when you
talking to a friend, to a customer, to a business partner. Natives speakers meaning people who
are born speaking English, they learned it as a baby. They don’t speak that way; it’s too formal,
it sounds very strange, so what’s happening is that in fact in school you are learning formal
written English. They are teaching you the style of English that we use when we write and that’s
fine when you want to write letters and school essays because they’re really teaching you the
kind of writing we use for school essays, school paper, academic style. That’s what you learn I
school and if you’re going to go to a university I the United State and you need to some kind of
academic English. That’s fine. We do use it in that kind of situation. The problem is we don’t use
it in normal speech. We don’t use it on the phone, business meeting, at parties, talking to friend,
in the bus stops, restaurants. For example, at the bus stop, a person would say:”Hey, how’s it
going? What’s up?” and they would be:”Whoa What What’s up? How’s it going? Huh that’s not
my textbook”. That’s a very simple easy example which you might already know but then they
start talking more and more fast, using a lot of idioms, slang, putting words together. For
example, using the future, in school you learned “going to”. I’m going to go to the store. In real
conversation, native speakers almost never say that. They say is “gonna”,”I’m gonna go to the
store”, “I’m gonna go to the movies”, “I’m gonna get a haircut”. “Gonna” means “going to”. You
don’t see “gonna” in many textbooks; you don’t learn it in many school and yet thet is what they
use 90%of the time in real conversation. Real conservational English is a totally different style.
Using very different vocabulary sometimes, definitely using a different way of pronunciation,
speaking, speed. So this is why you can understand your textbook but then you watch a movie
in English and you really can’t understand it. There’s so much slang, so many idioms, they’re
pushing words together, the pronunciation is different, the speed is faster. There’s so different
between real English and school English
Many English words are pronounced different from the way they are written
Eg: Laugh, thought, honest (These words have silent letters in them which aren’t pronounced
while talking, making it difficult to pronounce them if you are not used to hearing enough English
if you are a non-native speaker.)
Also, the same letter can be pronounced different in different words. Eg: E in egg is a short “eh”
sound.., E in eat is a long “eee” sound
When native speakers talk they connect the words together..so individual words aren’t
pronounced clearly.  This sometimes makes it difficult for English learners to understand what
they are saying. For example: what are you doing today sounds more like “Whatcha doing
today” when a native English speaker says it. So, therefore, it’s difficult to understand