A one-stop guide to enhancing Your English Speaking Skills
No matter how much you love your vernacular, developing skills in English can help you propel ahead in your career. It is applicable to individuals serious about their career, regardless of factors like income level, location, or ethnicity. Without improved English Speaking skills, your confidence level will take a hit, your educational qualification notwithstanding. In fact, several instances of talented individuals faring poorly at the interviews are there. It is also commonplace to find people being unable to utilize their potential at the workplace, owing to a deficit in English communication skills.
Why you should try to enhance your English Speaking skills
There are many reasons to focus on improving your speaking prowess in English.
- When you can talk in English fluently, your chances of sailing through most interviews go up.
- Strong English conversation skills bolster your prospects of bagging jobs overseas, more so in Native English-speaking nations.
- Being able to speak fluently in English makes you more confident in the workplace.
- It can be a prerequisite for working in some high-profile entities, including the likes of MNC banks and IT giants operating across continents.
Various methods you can use to give your English Speaking skills a boost
As the saying goes, there is no shortcut to success and you cannot enhance your speaking skills in English overnight! It will take some time to improve English speaking skills and give your career prospects a boost. However, you can resort to some effective methods in this regard. The nice thing is you can resort to these methods without changing many things in your schedules. Using these tried and tested measures in a consistent and planned way will help you enhance your English communication skills.
Effective measures to enhance English conversation skills
These measures have been used for a long time for boosting English communication skills. Most of these can be tried without incurring much expense or making big changes in your life.
Reading English content
This is an age-old and effective method to boost Communication skills in English. When you start reading books and content in English, your range of vocabulary goes up. This is a gradual process but you will definitely experience the benefits. As you learn new words through reading, your English Speaking skills improve considerably. You do not have to search for words when making a speech or replying to anyone in English.
You can pick from a wide range of sources for reading. Reading English newspapers daily can help a lot in this context. However, you also have the option to read fiction and non-fiction books in English. If you spend some time commuting, make it a habit to read when you are in transit, if possible. In fact, reading product user guides can be helpful to improve English vocabulary, too.
Listening to English news
If concentrating while reading is an issue for you but enhancing English conversation skills is a priority, try watching English news channels. Getting access to several English news channels on TV is not a problem nowadays, anywhere. It will not only help improve your English vocabulary but you will also learn a lot about the right ways to pronounce words and phrases.
Practicing speaking with yourself and friends
It may sound a little unusual, but many have tried this method and succeeded in enhancing their English Speaking skills. This is something you can try in your spare time. Try speaking to yourself in front of a mirror for simulating real-life speaking experiences, if you wish so. You may also ask a close friend to participate in such exercises. You may talk in general or choose a certain topic to converse in English.
Trying professionally developed training platforms
It is useful to try specialized and professionally developed communication skill enhancing digital platforms. Nowadays, you can try using such tailor-made digital platforms such as PracUp to rev up your spoken and communication skills effectively.
New–era / Digital measures to improve your English communication skills
You can use various technological means to improve English speaking skills and enhance career prospects. Most of these means are easily accessible and do not cost a big amount either.
Watching English movies online
There are so many online video-sharing platforms and on these, you can watch thousands of movies, including English ones. YouTube is a good option with a huge collection of free English movies but you may also opt for streaming platforms like Netflix. Apart from movies, you may also watch English web series. It is like availing entertainment and skill enhancement at the same time! Using headphones will give you a better output in this regard. Some online video content does contain slurred speech but you can enable the subtitles, for sure.
Reading e-books
If carrying printed books (fiction and non-fiction) is tedious for you, resorting to an e-book reader can be a good alternative. The popular Amazon Kindle line-up is there and you also get many other similar devices. In fact, you are not limited to using any e-book reader for reading English content online. You may very well use a tablet to read e-books or read English content online. This will help you to boost English Speaking skills too. Online, you get resources like plenty of blogs and how-to-guides and these can be read on your devices anytime.
Giving a presentation at the workplace
This can be an effective way to enhance your skills in speaking English without taxing your nerves much. This lets you speak English, in a controlled manner, to a restricted audience. You will be speaking to your colleagues and not to strangers, for sure. You can also adjust the pace of projecting slides to suit your speaking style and speed better. This is a process you can try at home before the execution at the workplace.
Video-chatting with friends and colleagues
To improve English speaking skills you may also try interacting with your colleagues and friends using video conferencing applications. You can use apps like Skype or Google Meet, which are free and simple to deploy. This will serve dual purposes, as it is. This way you can keep in touch with friends staying in remote locations and polish your English communication skills, simultaneously.
Using the aid of digital voice assistants
The popularity of digital voice assistants needs little introduction nowadays. However, your AI-enabled digital assistant is not only useful for knowing weather updates and getting road directions. You can resort to the assistant for enhancing your English Speaking skills, too. Talking with these assistants like Siri or Google Now or even Alexa, on various topics in English will help boost your speaking skills. The good thing is these virtual assistants are getting improved with time. So, you will be able to interact with them, in English on myriads of topics.
Is enrolling in a professional course to improve English speaking skills worthwhile?
Plenty of students and working professionals enroll in English-speaking courses at various institutes with the desire to sharpen their communication skills. Doing so may fetch you benefits but you need to analyze your requirements well.
Are you planning for a career where immaculate English communication skill is a prerequisite? This can be vital for customer support-related jobs. Then, enrolling in such professional English-speaking courses can be useful. Otherwise, you may utilize online English communication courses and tutorials. You get plenty of text-based and interactive video tutorials online that are useful in this regard.
What If you are already in a job that leaves little time to enrol in regular communication development sources? Then you can look for a more feasible alternative. Opt for online communication skill development apps and programs that let you polish up your communications skills through practice with seasoned coaches, as per your schedule. You can opt for online platforms like Pracup that let you converse with qualified trainers and sharpen your communication skills, at your own pace.
Keeping things realistic is a necessity
Trying numerous measures to boost your English Speaking skills is certainly prudent. However, you should adopt a careful and balanced approach in this regard for optimum output.
- Think of factors like your lifestyle, job timing and other chores and schedules. Adopt English communication skill-enhancing measures that do not affect your primary job adversely. Do not go overboard trying too many measures as doing so will tax your brain and make you fatigued easily.
- Trying too many measures at the same time is not practical. Reading yields better results for some people while others find watching news in English or watching English movies online better to enhance English vocabulary. Figure out which method suits you the best. If you lack much spare time for reading or movies, using a practice-based digital communication skill development platform is ideal.
- It is better if you set an approximate target or time frame to measure your progress in improving your English communication skills. Again, there is no fixed formula here and you can pick a pace that suits your situation well. You can avail online communication skill boosting platforms to improve your communication skills as per your timing.
- Having realistic expectations is better when you want to boost your English communication skills. Based on your current level of proficiency in the language, you may need some time to polish up your skills in this regard. As per the methods used and your situation, you may need a little more time than others. You can use digital communication skill practising apps with modules to suit people with varying levels of communication skills- beginner to advanced.
Summing it up
There are many things you can do to enhance your English conversation skills and that can be helpful for your career. However, you should pick the apt methods from the available ones after analyzing your career needs and situations in detail. To enhance your communication skills using a balanced and effective method, trying a versatile digital communication skill enhancing app like PracUP can be quite useful.
