How to Improve Your Speaking in 30 days. GUARANTEED.

No teacher? No partner? No problem! Our speaking study plan for the TOEFL®️ Speaking will improve your score by at least one point in 30 days. No teacher required.

Pay close attention and take notes. This information is crucial for all English language learners

Introduction 

Speaking is the hardest skill to improve when you learn English. Here is why: 

• You do not know how to measure your speaking ability
• You do not feel like you are improving 
• You do not know how to use the new vocabulary and grammar you learn 
• You do not know how to assess your own speaking
• You do not know how to create a speaking routine that works

The Better Speaker Habit is your solution. 

Do these five simple activities everyday and your English speaking will improve. I guarantee it. The best part is that it will take you less than 15 minutes a day to finish.

How to Assess Your Speaking 

Before we start, however, you need to know your weaknesses. 

If you do not know where to focus, it will be impossible to improve. At My Speaking Score they use artificial intelligence software to assess your speaking.

I will not go into much detail here, just know that there are 12 speaking dimensions and they fall into three categories: Structure, Grammar and Vocabulary, and Speech Music and Pronunciation. Each day you will have to decide which part of your speech you would like to focus on. 

Use the table to get a sense of what part of your speaking you need to focus on.

Your Daily Routine: Activity #1, Set Your Intention 

Decide what you would like to focus on today. Set your goals small and be sure they align to your weaknesses. This short, simple task will help you focus. 

Structure Examples: 

• “I will begin my answer to this question with either the phrase ‘in my opinion’ or ‘that’s an interesting question, well’” 
• “I will include a personal example to help expand my answer.” 

Vocabulary and Grammar Examples:  

• “I will avoid using the word ‘good’ in my answer to help expand my vocabulary.” 

• “I will include at least one conditional sentence in my response.” 

Speech Music and Pronunciation Examples: 

• “I will pick two words with the “th” sound to include in my response (i.e. think, tooth).” 
• “I will say ‘uh’ or ‘um’ less than three times while I speak.”  

Write your intention down before you speak and try to achieve it. Make it small. Make it easy. I promise it will help.

Your Daily Routine: Activity #2, Record a 60-Second Response 

Each day you will have a question to answer. You must speak between 30-120 seconds. You will find that speaking for one-minute about a simple question can be pretty tough. Here are a few example questions: 

• Do you think social media has a positive or negative effect on people’s happiness? 
• What do you think about your hometown?
• What type of animal do you think makes the best pet? 

***The most important part of this activity is that you record your voice. This short recording is the key to your improvement. 

Here is my own example to the question, “Do you think social media has a positive or negative effect on people’s happiness?”

Your Daily Routine: Activity #3, Transcribe Your Response 

Text is easier to analyze than audio. Speaking comes and goes in a moment. The combination of recording your voice and transcribing it turns speech to text, which is how you create a powerful speaking routine.

Here is my own example to the question, “Do you think social media has a positive or negative effect on people’s happiness?”

Transcript:

Well, you know, this is an interesting question because I think social media has both positive and negative effects. Personally speaking, on the positive side I live in Japan, and, it helps me to stay close with my friends and my family. We use Facebook, Instagram to share pictures, updates, events, and just news in general about our lives and, you know, that makes me happy to see my family growing and doing things and people can also see what is going on with my family here as well. On the negative side I think there are probably more negative effects on people’s happiness for social media. Again, you know when I think about my own experience and usage of social media, when I see people taking vacations to beautiful locations and I see their nice bodies, for example, or that they are going to interesting parties, it makes me sad, makes me a little depressed. So, yeah, I think there is both positive and negative parts of social media. 

When you transcribe your response, you take a deep look at your speech. You will notice patterns and problems. This is how you know you are on the path to improvement. 

Your Daily Routine: Activity #4, Compare Your Response 

As a non-native English speaker you will always doubt your speech. 

• Is this what a native speaker would say? 

• Is there some part of my pronunciation that sounds strange? 

• Would a native speaker use this phrase in that context? 

This is usually where you will meet with a teacher and discuss your response. We do this as well at Speaker English. However, classes can be expensive. 

Another option is to compare your response to a native speaker. Here are a few things you can do with a sample response from a teacher: 

• Look for 1-2 sentences you believe sound natural and useful. Add these sentences somewhere in your own response and repeat them. 

• Read each sentence of the response aloud. Stop and listen to the native speaker say the same sentence. Listen for intonation, accent, and pitch.

• Replace ten words. Expand your vocabulary by taking the native speaker’s response and look for ten words or phrases you would like to replace. Read the new transcript aloud. 

 Try one of the above-mentioned activities with the transcript of my own response below.

Your Daily Routine: Activity #5, Repeat/Shadow/Replace/Read Aloud 

This is the very last activity and you have four options. What you choose depends on any weaknesses you would like to work on and what intention you set for the day. 

• Repeat - Do the same response again with one specific goal in mind. 

• Shadow -  Listen to the sample response. Pause after each clause and repeat. Try to match the intonation and general speech music.

• Replace Vocabulary - Choose either your own response or the sample response and replace at least five words or phrases and read the response aloud. Aim to use some of these phrases next time.

• Replace Grammar - Choose either your own response or the sample response and replace at least one sentence and make it more grammatically complex. Read the updated response aloud and/or include the same grammatical usage in your next response.

• Read Aloud - Read either your own response or the sample response aloud. Focus on your delivery, speech music, and speaking speed.

Or if you are tired, you can stop here and set your intention for tomorrow :)

Conclusion 

Do these five simple activities every day and your English speaking will improve. I guarantee it.

The core is to follow these steps every day: 

• Set your intention 

• Record a 60-second response 

• Transcribe your response 

• Compare your response  
• Repeat/Shadow/Replace/Read Aloud 

Don’t forget to analyze your weaknesses first. This step is crucial. “My speaking isn’t good” is not a valuable assessment. You can check your current speaking level at My Speaking Score, or you can decide for yourself what part of your speaking you need to improve. 

If you have any questions, I’m always an email away at [email protected].

 Josh MacPherson 

Creator of Speaker English