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  • - Hello, listen, do you feel like, you knowyou're not making progress with your spoken  

  • English like your stuck? Well, today I'm gonna  help you. I'm going to give you five tips,  

  • right? Five simple things you can do every day  that will help improve your spoken English and  

  • help you get well unstuck. So you can do really  well on the ESL speaking test. Are you ready? Then  

  • come with me. Hello again, so my name is Keith and  I run the Keith Speaking Academy here to help you  

  • speak better English, give better answers and  get a higher score on the IELTS speaking test.  

  • So maybe right. You've taken the IELTS test  several times, but you're stuck at the same level,  

  • maybe a Band six or a 6.5. There may be several  reasons for this. And today I'm going to look  

  • at the most common problem for being stuckright? And actually, it's not that you need  

  • more technique, exam technique or tips. It's  just that your overall level of spoken English  

  • is too low. So the English in your head might be  great. But when you speak, it's just not the same.  

  • As a student, one said to me, he said, you knowwhen I'm I've got ideas in English, the English in  

  • my head it's like driving a Ferrari. It's greatBut then when I speak, it's like a car crash.  

  • Which is a great image, I  think for many, many students.  

  • So today I'm going to address that  and help you improve your spoken  

  • English with these five tips. I'm going to  look at the following, how to learn, speaking  

  • how to automate your vocabulary, how to  increase fluency how to gain confidence  

  • and how to make sure you're choosing the right  tools to help you, right? Okey-dokey, let's begin.  

  • So, first of all, how to learn speaking  or how to learn how to speak the most  

  • important tip here I think is to learn speaking  by listening. Unfortunately, many students  

  • around the world learn speaking with books, by  looking at words by reading and reading aloud.  

  • Why? Well, probably because their teachers told  them and the reason their teachers told them is  

  • because they learned that at school too. And  I think one reason is in the past there was no  

  • access to the native speaker voiceright? But the world has changed and  

  • unfortunately education has not changed  but it needs to. Why is this important?  

  • Because the speaking and writing are two different  systems, right? A bit of history to explain.  

  • I like history, we have been speaking right  for over 10,000 years we have only been writing  

  • for maybe four or 5,000 years, right? We began  writing with the Egyptians and the Sumerians  

  • with their cuneiforms in about 3000 BC. Speaking  came first. Writing was a way to capture what we  

  • say. And grammar is a way to capture what  we speak. And it does a pretty good job,  

  • but it's not perfect. And yet still so many people  choose the books to help them learn to speak.  

  • It's the other way round, right? We should start  with the speaking and the listening and the books  

  • come later. It's a bit like, right? Imagine like  Messi, the football player comes knocking on your  

  • door with his football. And he says, "Hey, Keith  would you like to come and play football with me?"  

  • And you go, "No actually, I'm just going to  stay at home and read this book about football."  

  • What? Why would you choose to read about it when  you can be doing it? Right, learning really well.  

  • I mean, the book can be useful maybe later  but start with the doing right start with  

  • the listening and the speaking. And the writing  comes later learning by listening. If I haven't  

  • convinced you let me finish with convincing you  learning by listening has the following benefits,  

  • right? First of all, you learn natural spoken  English. You know that the language is spoken,  

  • not written. You learn pronunciation, you  get the context. So you know how to learn,  

  • how to use the language when you're speakingit's a no brainer. You must begin by listening,  

  • right? And I said earlier, right? The world  has changed. We can now. We are surrounded by  

  • native speaker texts or proficient  speaker audio texts, videos, Netflix,  

  • YouTube. You can get it anywhere. Keith Speaking  Academy, if you've heard of that. There are audios  

  • all over the world at the click of a button. So  start using it. Learn your speaking by listening.  

  • Okay, number two. How to automate vocabulary.  I love that word automate. Great word, Keith.  

  • Yes. What does automate mean? It's a good  question. And I'm glad you asked to automate  

  • something is to make it automatic. Like  without thinking, do you know the phrase  

  • autopilot to do something on autopilotSometimes I'm driving on autopilot. It just means  

  • I'm driving without thinking at the same timeSo you may know actually I have a fluency course  

  • and the strong focus of the fluency course is to  automate grammar. So we look at maybe 16 different  

  • grammatical items and through practice automate  them. So you're using them without thinking.  

  • Now you can do the same with vocabulary. Automate  your vocabulary. How'd you do it? Very simple tip,  

  • tried and tested method, repeat and juggle. RightRepeat and juggle. What do I mean by that? Well,  

  • first of all, you find something to listen toright? Remember what I said in tip number one,  

  • learn, speaking through listening. You listen  to something and you repeat a word or a phrase,  

  • maybe a collocation, right? So you're listening  to something, for example an audio tape.  

  • And it says, I love Paris and you go  stop. I love Paris and you repeat,  

  • right? That's the repeat easy peasy. The juggle  is that you then change a word. What is juggle?  

  • Good question. Let me show you juggle, rightOranges, like the magician. This is juggling.  

  • Now why do I call it juggling? I  don't. Why do I call it juggling?  

  • Because you take a word and you change  it. Right, so in our example, I love  

  • Paris. I changed the word Paris. I love  Hanoi. I love New Delhi. I love Manchester,  

  • right? Easy, now you can juggle by changing  the word or you can change the tense.  

  • I love Paris. I loved Paris. I will love Paris.  I used to love Paris. I'm sure I would love Paris  

  • if I could go there, right? So you're juggling  the tense. Very, very simple, listen, repeat  

  • and juggle. And that formula starts to get  you automatically using and hd wiring, the  

  • vocabulary making it active and more automatedNow actually, as I said, education has changed,  

  • right? We are now surrounded by audio and videoThere's lots of it. And there's lots of really  

  • good tools you can use. I came across one the  other day that I thought was really really good.  

  • And I'm going to show you very briefly, how it  works gives you access to lots of audio and video  

  • and helps you do this repeating and jugglingLet me show you. So let me show you this app,  

  • right? I've downloaded it off the Apple store.  I'm on my tablet over here. This is it. Over here,  

  • Woodpecker. And once you go in there, let me  go inside the screen and show you how it works.  

  • So we've got the whole bunch of YouTube videos. If  you've got Netflix, you can go in and sign in and  

  • access your Netflix videos. You can go on the  web browser and also get some websites here.  

  • And there is a built-in dictionary. I think  now let's imagine in YouTube if you want to  

  • select by topic, you can. So if you're interested  in, I don't know, in books you can find all the  

  • videos which are related to books. You can  also choose by the channel if you prefer  

  • or choose by the teacher. So all of your famous  English teachers are on here. So let's go into,  

  • let's see how we can actually use the  repeat and juggling technique in a video.  

  • If we go into this video here, right? You  can see, you can watch the video. Great.

  • - [Narrator] When people ask me what I do

  • - The tape scripts all the way through  

  • the video is here with timestampsSo I can click on any timestamp

  • - [Man] He was very popular in its time and.

  • - Pause and I can repeat that, rightHe was very popular in his time.  

  • I can check the meaning of a word by pressing on  it. It tells me the meaning of popular well liked.

  • - [Lady] Popular.

  • - Dictionary voice. But if I press  the timestamp, it'll just repeat.

  • - [Man] He was very popular in his time.

  • - He was very popular. He was  very popular. Press the timestamp.

  • - [Man] He was very popular in  his time. He was very popular.  

  • Great and now I can juggle. I can change  the end. He was very popular 10 years ago,  

  • he was very popular two years ago, he  was very popular a year ago. And so on.

  • - [Man] He was very popular in his time.

  • - Total flexibility to be, to move around  and be repeating and juggling. Absolutely  

  • brilliant. Great, so that's it. Tip number  two. Listen, repeat and juggle. Let's move on.  

  • Right, number three. How to increase your fluency  when speaking? So the tip here is focus on chunks.  

  • So what are chunks? You ask. Chunks or pieces of  language typically two words together, or maybe  

  • three or four words that go together normally. So  your chunks may be, for example collocations like  

  • heavy rain, right? We don't say big rain. We say  heavy rain. These words go together. Like friends,  

  • they stick together. Chunks could be idiomatic  expressions like kick the bucket, right? Meaning  

  • to die. He kicked the bucket, kick the bucketIt could be a filler like on top of that, right?  

  • When we say on top of that, you don't want to be  thinking is it in top, on top, on top of this, on  

  • top of that you don't want to be thinking you want  a ready-made chunk on top of that. So you learn  

  • the chunk without thinking about all the words and  this, as you can imagine speeds up your fluency.  

  • I mean, take collocations. Let's take the word  shopping, for example, right? When you learn the  

  • word shopping you should also learn some common  collocations, right? You can go to a website like  

  • ozdic.com, brilliant website giving you instant  collocations. And you'll find things like, well  

  • weekly shopping, online shopping, late night  shopping a shopping spree or shopping hours,  

  • right? These are chunks of language that if you  learn them you can use them much more flexibly.  

  • You don't have to think, right. Somebody saysyou know, what did you do at the weekend?  

  • Or I did my shopping, you know for Monday  to Saturday, you know the shopping for  

  • the week. Oh, you mean your weekly  shopping? Yes, I did my weekly shopping.  

  • If you learn the collocation it just helps you  become much more fluent. It's very simple when  

  • you think about it, right? When you learn wordsone word you have to think about putting them  

  • together. When you learn chunks you don't have to  think about putting the words together. You just  

  • think about putting the chunks together, imagine  this, right. Imagine a builder, building a house.  

  • And he's using bricks. And he puts the bricks one  by one. He puts the bricks on top of each other.  

  • That's quite slow and takes time to build a houseBut now imagine somebody has a new invention and  

  • gives him four or five bricks in a layer glued  together. And all he has to do is put the layers  

  • of bricks on top of each other. It's much fasterAnd what's more, the house is gonna be better  

  • because it'll be more accurately aligned. It's  more accurate. And it's the same with language,  

  • right? Using these layers or chunks, more  accurate, it's faster. It's faster. You become  

  • more fluent. So when you're learning vocabulary  think and learn and use chunks Let's move on.  

  • Right tip number four, right? How to gain  confidence? While here my tip for you is push your  

  • comfort zone. Your comfort zone are, is the area  of doing things where you feel comfortable. So  

  • maybe you learn English by watching a film. You're  comfortable. You read a book you're comfortable  

  • but then somebody says, well, listen  why don't you record your voice? Oh no,  

  • I'm not very comfortable. No, no, no. Oh, why  don't you get a speaking partner on Facebook?  

  • Oh no, no, no, no, no. I'm not comfortable  with that. Why don't you go join the classes  

  • down the road? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.  I'm not comfortable with that. And so you're,  

  • there's almost a fear if you like of breaking  your comfort zone. But when you use English  

  • in the world you are going to have to interact  with other people speak to strangers, be nervous,  

  • make mistakes have other people sometimes laugh  at your mistakes. It's going to happen. So get  

  • used to it and believe it or not. When you do the  IELTS speaking test, you do it with a real person.  

  • Yes, the examiners are real people and  you will have to get used to being nervous  

  • get used to making mistakes in front of them. Get  used to those feelings of being uncomfortable.  

  • How do you get used to it? Push  your comfort zone do these things  

  • that make you uncomfortable, right? And  I think one of the best things you can do  

  • really is practice with other people. Yes, you  can practice speaking on your own. That's great.  

  • But to take your confidence up to the next level  you should practice with other people. You know,  

  • I'm a big fan of platforms like italki and  Cambly or Facebook for finding, you know,  

  • speaking partners. But by doing that you're  gonna be practicing with other people. Yes,  

  • you will feel uncomfortable. But the great news is  you will get used to feeling uncomfortable. You'll  

  • get used to feeling nervous. You'll get used to  making mistakes in front of other people. And then  

  • by pushing your comfort zone you'll be inmuch stronger position and have more confidence  

  • to face the aisles and examiner on test  date. So go out and push your comfort zone.  

  • Good talking of tools. Let's move on to the  next tip number five. It's all about tools.  

  • Right, tip number five. All about choosing  the right tools, right? My suggestion here,  

  • tip number five is immerse yourself in natural  spoken English. It's all well and good,  

  • right? Having a course book having a teacher and  practicing with English, which is for students  

  • but it's really important you don't forget the  real world and that you also engage and immerse  

  • yourself in natural spoken English, which is not  for students which is used by not normal people.  

  • By native speakers or proficient level speakers  of English. Why is this important? Well, because  

  • teachers are great, right? But teachers and  course books normally limit the language,  

  • they expose you to. They speak slowly. They  correct you. They're polite. They encourage  

  • you. It's kind of an artificial bubble where you  can build up your confidence and that's great.  

  • But also the real world is a bit different,  

  • right? People are not so polite. They may not  correct you. They speak quickly. They expect you  

  • to understand there is no mercy in the ESL out  speaking tests, you must answer straight away.  

  • So there's pressure, right? So I think having of  course have the teacher the course and the book.  

  • That's great, but also make sure you're immersing  yourself in spoken English. And this connects with  

  • a lot of things I said earlier, right? About  listening, learning, speaking by listening  

  • about using different tools. So nowadays there is  so much opportunity and I'm sure you know, through  

  • videos and podcasts that you can find on the  internet on your television or through your radio  

  • if you still have a radio. Call me old fashionedif you will. But there's lots of opportunity  

  • to be listening and watching. I think it's  great to be looking at news broadcasts.  

  • Current affair shows, chat shows interviews  with people. Great, natural English,  

  • TED talks can be great. Obviously films are good.  I mean, bear in mind, films are scripted. So that  

  • semi natural but still a great source  to immerse yourself in English. And also  

  • there's the tool that I mentioned earlier, rightWhich I think has a great balance because it's  

  • the Woodpecker Learning app. It gives you not  only access to ESL stuff so stuff for students,  

  • but also the real world stuff. You get accessthink to hundreds of thousands of videos that you  

  • can choose from on the app and be watching them  all in one place, lots of, lots of them have got  

  • subtitles, right? So that gives you the support  if you want the written support. But it's a  

  • great opportunity to submerge yourself or immerse  yourself in the natural English language. Go and  

  • check it out. I'll put a link in the notes belowYou can go and download it. It's out on Google and  

  • Apple. Go and have a look and let me know. Here  you go. Let me know in the comments below what  

  • you're watching on the app now to help improve  your English, go and check it out. It's free.  

  • Of course, lovely. Let's move on. So listen, those  are my five tips to help you improve your English  

  • speaking skills. So we've looked at how to learn  speaking by listening how to automate vocabulary,  

  • repeat and juggle how to increase fluency with  those chunks how to gain confidence by pushing  

  • your comfort zone and how to use the right  tools and immerse yourself in English. Great  

  • and I think, I mean, remember these are tips  but it needs day to day practice be patient,  

  • but be persistent. Keep practicing day  after day. That's what it's really all  

  • about because we're talking about increasing  your overall level of English. It takes time,  

  • but it's fun. It's great. And I hope with these  tips, it will help you maybe move from being  

  • a struggling IELTS student to being a successful  IELTS speaker. Now that would be nice.  

  • Wouldn't it? Great, that's it. Please do  subscribe. Remember to turn on notifications  

  • on YouTube so you can find out about my  upcoming videos. Do leave me a comment below.  

  • Let me know what you're watching or listening  to to help improve your English today.  

  • Brilliant, as always it's been fun andpleasure. Take care, my friend. Bye bye now.

- Hello, listen, do you feel like, you knowyou're not making progress with your spoken  

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