Solo speaking practice

You want to improve your English speaking skills, right? But you don’t always have somebody to practise with.

Of course, it’s a great idea to find people to talk to but it’s also possible - and beneficial - to practise speaking on your own.

Keep reading for some ideas on how you can do this.

​Conversations with other people are definitely the easiest way to practise speaking but there are good reasons to practise speaking on your own too:

1. Maybe you haven’t found anyone to practise with yet.

2. Perhaps you meet a teacher or a practice partner once a week but you know it’s a good idea to practise speaking every day.

3. Solo speaking practice is really good if you want to practise a specific grammar point or some new vocabulary. In a real conversation, you don’t know what direction the conversation will take, and you might not get the chance to use the language you want to practise.

So here are a few things you can do to practise speaking on your own.

Send yourself a voice message
Most people have WhatsApp or something similar these days. Did you know that you can send yourself messages?

So how about sending yourself voice messages to practise speaking in English? Open WhatsApp, click “new chat”, find yourself in the contacts list, then click and hold the microphone icon to start recording your voice.

You can talk about anything you like but if you need some ideas, try describing your day, summarising something you’ve read or talking about a film you’ve just watched.

This might feel uncomfortable the first time you do it but that’s actually a good thing! If you can speak under pressure while recording yourself, you’ll also be able to deal with the pressure of real-life conversations.

Read something out loud
If you usually read English in your head, try reading something out loud.

First, understand that reading aloud is good for pronunciation practice and confidence building. Some people also find that reading out loud helps them remember new vocabulary better.

But it’s not a substitute for conversation practice. In a real conversation, you have to be able to make your own sentences spontaneously. That doesn’t happen when you read aloud.

Also, reading aloud is not about improving your reading or comprehension skills. For understanding, I recommend reading silently. When you read out loud, you might be so focused on your pronunciation that you don’t think about the meaning of the text.

But reading out loud is excellent for getting comfortable with making English sounds and hearing your own voice in English.

Perhaps you could read a text silently first so you know what it’s about, and then read it out loud.

If there are words you’re not sure about, you can easily check the pronunciation online. Many online dictionaries give both the British and the American pronunciation. Read this post for dictionary recommendations.

Chat to an AI
The free ChatGPT app now allows you to have a voice conversation, rather than just typing your questions and answers.

ChatGPT works best when you give it specific instructions. Tell it you’re learning English and you want to practise speaking. Maybe pick a topic and get it to ask you some questions on that topic. Or tell it which grammar and vocabulary you want to practise using.

Yes, the best way to improve your speaking skills is real conversation with real people. However, if you can’t afford English lessons right now and don’t have a speaking partner, using ChatGPT or another AI is better than nothing. And even if you have regular English classes, chatting to an AI between lessons will give you extra practice.

Speech-to-text
On WhatsApp (and many other apps), you can speak and the words appear on the screen. This is called speech recognition or speech-to-text processing.

This is another way for you to practise speaking on your own. You can use it to send yourself messages or reminders on WhatsApp.  

Alternatively, you can open a Google doc or use a note-taking app and say what you want to write. You can even do this when you make comments on social media. (I do it quite often because it’s quicker than typing!)

This can be a fun way to check your pronunciation. If you say a word incorrectly, the app will write what it thinks you said. This can show you where you need to work on certain sounds.

BUT sometimes the app is wrong and it’s not your fault. So don’t worry too much when it doesn’t work!

And sometimes it’s funny too! Recently, I said “Grandma’s garden” and the words “grand Mars garden” appeared on my screen! The idea of a garden on Mars made me smile!

But even this can help you with your English because it shows you which words sound similar.

With AI, speech recognition is getting more accurate all the time. Try Turboscribe or Otter, for example. (But maybe, if it gets more intelligent, it will become less useful for checking pronunciation because it will correct your errors automatically.)

Write
Perhaps you’re thinking, “Wait! I thought we were talking about speaking?”

Yes, but writing and speaking are similar skills because they both involve producing the language. They are productive skills. In fact, practising writing is a bit like practising speaking but in slow motion!

Writing and speaking both involve finding the right words, then thinking about how to put them together in a sentence. Get good at this in writing and (indirectly) it helps you a little with your speaking.

Also, with writing, you have more time to think about what to say and how to say it. You can check the words you need in a dictionary and you can’t do that in a conversation.

And writing is something you can easily do on your own. So if you have nobody to talk to, why not try writing instead! Start a journal and write a few sentences every day. Or write posts and comments on social media.

***
Of course, if you want to improve your speaking, it’s really good to actually speak with other people as well.

But solo speaking practice can still help a lot.

So which of these ideas are you going to try first?


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