Here, you will find five important skills that you can improve to help you achieve this. These are some of the most important skills that you need to learn to speak English at a higher level. If you practise and perfect these skills, then you will start speaking better English.
1. Improve your pace and clarity
If you’re trying to speak better English, what you say is as important as how you say it. Improving the pace and clarity of your speaking will go a long way to improving your fluency and help others to better understand you.
2. Use fillers, connectors, linking terms & cohesive devices
These are words or phrases that connect language, they can also be used to help connect your ideas and opinions together. In addition, they help fill the silence between sentences. Native speakers use fillers all the time conversation. If you take the time to learn these words and phrases and start to use them in your spoken English, you will be well on your way to speaking better English.
3. Connect your speech.
Have you ever spoken to a native English speaker? Did you understand what they said? Sometimes it is difficult to understand them, this is because native speakers connect language together in continuous conversation. The end of one word is the beginning of a new word making it difficult for an English learner to understand what is actually being said. If you learn more about connected speech, then start to apply this to your spoken English, you too will start to sound more natural in your speech.
4. Use phrasal verbs, idioms and expressions.
Again, native speakers use these all the time in informal conversation. If you have a good understanding of phrasal verbs and idioms, then start using them in your spoken English as they demonstrate a high level of English. Make time to notice them when you are listening to or reading something in English. Write them down in a notebook and start using them.
5. Learn to paraphrase
First, what is paraphrasing? Paraphrase means to re-word something differently or tell something in a different way using your own words. We paraphrase all the time. We have all watched a good television show or an interesting news story that we wanted to tell others about. When you are explaining the show or story, you’re most likely tell your friends, your family, or your colleagues what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. In doing so, you describe things like the plot, the main characters, the events, and the important points using your own words. This skill is paraphrasing–using your own words to express someone else’s message or ideas.