The short answer
Between classes, practice on your own most days and with another person once or twice a week. Alone, you can shadow short recordings, describe your day out loud, record yourself and read aloud. With others, a tandem partner and phrases prepared for real situations turn practice into conversation. Ten to fifteen minutes regularly is worth more than one long session, and mistakes are part of the method, not a sign that it is failing.
Why speaking needs its own practice
Listening and reading feed your English, but they do not automatically make you fluent. You can recognize a word on the page for years and still not find it when you need to say it. Speaking asks your brain to do something different: choose words, put them in order and pronounce them, all in real time. That is a skill, and like any skill it grows with practice of the skill itself.
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), the scale behind levels A1 to C2, makes a useful distinction here. Its self-assessment grid splits speaking into oral production, where you talk on your own, and oral interaction, where you talk with someone. At B1, production means you can “connect phrases in a simple way in order to describe experiences and events”, while interaction means you can “enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar”. The two need different kinds of practice, and this article covers both.
There is a second reason to speak as often as possible. The linguist Merrill Swain argued in the 1980s that producing language, out loud or in your head, makes learners notice the gap between what they want to say and what they can say. Each time you get stuck, you find out exactly what to learn next. Practice on your own is the cheapest way to find those gaps before a real conversation does.
| Method | What it trains | Alone or with others | Time it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shadowing | Sounds, rhythm, linking words together | Alone | 10 to 15 minutes |
| Describing your day | Finding words, fluency, past tenses | Alone | 5 minutes, any time |
| Recording yourself | Noticing your own mistakes and progress | Alone | 5 minutes, plus listening back |
| Reading aloud | Pronunciation, word stress, confidence | Alone | 5 to 10 minutes |
| Thinking in English | Speed, vocabulary for daily life | Alone, in your head | Moments during the day |
| Language exchange | Real conversation, listening to a live speaker | With a partner | An hour or more, weekly |
| Preparing phrases | Confidence in real situations | Alone, then with others | A few minutes before each situation |
Times are suggestions to make each method fit into a normal week, not research findings, except where the article names a source.
Practicing on your own
Shadowing
Shadowing means listening to a recording and speaking along with it at the same time, like a shadow a fraction of a second behind the speaker. The researcher Yo Hamada, who has studied the technique with Japanese learners of English, quotes a classic definition: “a paced, auditory tracking task which involves the immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli” (Lambert, 1992). In plain words, you hear it and say it almost simultaneously.
This is different from listening and repeating. When you repeat, you wait for the end of a sentence, think about it and then say it. When you shadow, there is no time to think about meaning, so your attention goes to the sounds: how words run into each other, where the stress falls, how the voice rises and falls. Hamada explains that this is exactly why it helps listening: it trains the perception of sounds, the bottom-up part of understanding.
For speaking, the evidence is smaller but encouraging. Hamada reports a 2017 study by Foote and McDonough in which advanced learners of English shadowed scenes from TV shows and improved their pronunciation and fluency. He also gives practical advice worth following. Understand the content of the recording before you shadow it, so your mind is free for the sounds. Choose material that matches your goal, such as everyday dialogue for conversation. And do not overdo a single passage: research suggests that five or six repetitions of the same text are enough.
What are you up to this weekend?
Listen for “what are you” blending into something like “whatcha” in fast speech. In German you would ask: Was machst du am Wochenende?
I’ve been meaning to call you.
The “I’ve” is short and light; the stress falls on “meaning” and “call”. German: Ich wollte dich schon lange anrufen.
Could you give me a hand with this?
“Give me” often sounds like “gimme”, and “a hand” is a fixed phrase for help. German: Kannst du mir kurz helfen?
Start with short, clear audio
One or two minutes of a dialogue or a podcast clip is plenty. Listen once for meaning, then shadow. If you lose the speaker, stop, rewind and pick up again; keeping up gets easier with every round.
Talk to yourself: describe your day
The British Council’s LearnEnglish site gives busy learners a simple tip: talk to yourself in English when you are alone, out loud at home or silently in your head, and try to use new words or phrases you have come across. It sounds odd, but it is one of the most flexible kinds of practice there is. It needs no partner, no app and no preparation.
Two easy formats get you started. While you do something, narrate it in the present: “I’m putting the kettle on, I’m looking for my keys.” In the evening, tell yourself what happened today in the past: where you went, who you met, what went wrong. The second one is close to the CEFR description of B1 production, which mentions describing experiences and events and telling a story. When a word is missing, say what you can, make a note and look it up afterwards.
I’m making coffee, and then I’m going to answer my emails.
Present continuous for what you are doing now, going to for the plan. German: Ich mache Kaffee, und dann beantworte ich meine E-Mails.
This morning I missed the bus, so I walked to work.
Past simple for a finished event today. German: Heute Morgen habe ich den Bus verpasst, also bin ich zur Arbeit gelaufen.
I need the thing you use to open a bottle.
When the word is missing (a bottle opener), describe it. German: das Ding, mit dem man eine Flasche aufmacht.
Record yourself and listen back
The second British Council tip is to record yourself speaking and then listen to the recording. Note what you do well, what needs work and any pronunciation problems to fix next time. A phone’s voice recorder is enough. Most people dislike hearing their own voice at first; that feeling fades after a few recordings, and the information you get is worth it.
Keep each recording short, about a minute, on one topic: your weekend, your job, a film you saw. Then listen twice with a different question each time. The first time, listen for the words you were missing and the places where you stopped. The second time, listen to the sounds. Hamada suggests the same tool for shadowing: record your shadowing now and then and compare it with the original. If you keep your recordings, you can hear your progress after a few months, which is one of the best motivators there is.
Read aloud
Reading aloud takes away the hardest part of speaking, deciding what to say, and leaves you free to work on how you say it. Use dialogues from your course book, a short article or the transcript of an audio you have shadowed. Read slowly first and mark the stressed syllables, then read again at normal speed.
English stress can move inside a family of words, and reading aloud is a good place to train it: PHOtograph, phoTOGraphy, photoGRAPHic. Small words such as “can”, “to” and “and” are often weak in a sentence, so “I can swim” sounds more like “I c’n swim”. Speakers of German usually need to practice the “th” in think and this, and the difference between “w” and “v” in “very well”, since German writes the v sound with w.
Think in English
Thinking in English is talking to yourself without sound, and you can do it anywhere: in a queue, on a walk, before you fall asleep. Plan your next sentence to the cashier in English. Explain to yourself, silently, what you are about to cook. Replay a conversation from today and say it in English. The aim is not perfect sentences but less translating: every time an English phrase comes before the German one, your speaking gets faster.
Every word you could not find is the next word to learn.
Not sure which level you are?
The level test places you from A1 to C1 in a few minutes, and shows the class that fits you.
Practicing with others
Language exchanges and tandems
A tandem is a partnership between two people who want to learn each other’s language: for example, you speak German and want to practice English, and your partner speaks English and wants to practice German. The Language Centre of the University of Münster, which runs a tandem program, describes two basic principles. Reciprocity: both partners are learners and both act as experts in their own language. Autonomy: each partner is responsible for their own learning and decides what and how to practice.
The same guide gives practical advice. Give each language the same amount of time, and keep the two languages separate instead of mixing them. Meet regularly; Münster suggests weekly meetings of at least 90 minutes. Ask your partner for corrections and offer them in return, and be encouraging. A friendly way to correct is simply to repeat the sentence correctly. Choose topics that interest you, from questions in your course to recipes or films, and keep short notes after each meeting to plan the next one.
Remember that your partner is not a teacher. A native speaker can tell you that something sounds wrong, but often cannot say why. That is fine: bring those sentences to your next class. The phrases below help you run the conversation, and the German versions are there in case your partner needs them too.
Sorry, could you say that more slowly?
German: Entschuldigung, kannst du das bitte langsamer sagen?
How do you say “Feierabend” in English?
There is no single word; “the end of the working day” or “after work” are close.
Is it correct to say “I’m agree”?
Your partner will tell you: “I agree”, without “am”. German: Ist es richtig, „I’m agree“ zu sagen?
Could you correct me when I get something wrong?
Agree on this at the start. German: Kannst du mich bitte korrigieren, wenn ich etwas falsch sage?
Prepare phrases for real situations
Real situations are the best practice of all: ordering in a café, calling to make an appointment, small talk at work. They are also where nerves are strongest, and preparation helps. Before the situation, write down the three or four sentences you will most likely need, say them out loud a few times and imagine what the other person might answer. The CEFR describes B1 interaction as dealing with most situations likely to arise while traveling, and that level is built one prepared situation at a time.
| Situation | A phrase to prepare | German equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Ordering | Could I have a flat white, please? | Ich hätte gern einen Flat White, bitte. |
| Making an appointment | I’d like to make an appointment for Tuesday. | Ich möchte gern einen Termin für Dienstag vereinbaren. |
| On the phone | Sorry, the line is bad. Could you repeat that? | Entschuldigung, die Verbindung ist schlecht. Können Sie das wiederholen? |
| Small talk at work | How was your weekend? Did you get up to anything? | Wie war dein Wochenende? Hast du etwas unternommen? |
| Buying time | That’s a good question. Let me think for a second. | Gute Frage. Moment, lass mich kurz nachdenken. |
Prepare the first sentence and one way to ask for repetition. Most of the rest follows from the conversation.
When you prepare phrases, check them, because a mistake you rehearse becomes a habit. These are some of the most common ones for German speakers, and each of them comes straight from German.
Wrong: I become a coffee, please.
Right: Could I have a coffee, please?
German bekommen means get or receive; English become means werden.
Wrong: I am here since two years.
Right: I have been here for two years.
For a period up to now, English uses the present perfect and for, not the present and since.
Wrong: How do you call this?
Right: What do you call this?
German uses wie (how) here; English uses what.
Wrong: Can I make a photo?
Right: Can I take a photo?
English takes a photo; it does not make one.
Wrong: I’m agree with you.
Right: I agree with you.
Agree is a verb, so it needs no am.
Wrong: Yesterday I have seen her.
Right: Yesterday I saw her.
With a finished time like yesterday, English uses the past simple.
Dealing with the fear of mistakes
If you feel nervous speaking English, you are in good company. In a well-known 1986 study, Elaine Horwitz, Michael Horwitz and Joann Cope described foreign language anxiety as a specific kind of anxiety related to language learning, and built a questionnaire to measure it. Among the 75 university students who answered it, 49 percent agreed with “I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class”, and 28 percent with “I feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students”.
The authors connected this anxiety to three familiar fears: communication apprehension, the discomfort of speaking with others; test anxiety; and fear of negative evaluation, the worry that others will judge you. They also noted something every learner knows: in a foreign language you can only show a smaller version of yourself, because you cannot yet say everything you mean. That is uncomfortable, and it is normal.
The methods in this article are a practical answer. Practice on your own lets you speak without an audience, so the first attempts happen in private. Preparing phrases deals directly with the panic of speaking without preparation. A regular partner or a small group you know well turns the listener from a judge into a familiar face. And it helps to see mistakes differently: in Swain’s terms, each one shows you the gap you can close next.
People listen for the message
In a real conversation, most people care about what you mean, not about your grammar. If they understood you, the conversation worked. Note the mistake afterwards and fix it in your next practice session, not in the middle of the sentence.
How often and how long
For speaking, frequency matters more than length. For shadowing, Hamada reports a noticeable change in listening from two sessions of 10 to 15 minutes a week over a month. That gives a realistic scale: speaking practice works in short, regular sessions, not in a three-hour marathon once a month.
A practical week between two classes could look like this. Every day, five minutes of talking to yourself, describing your day in the evening, and moments of thinking in English. Twice a week, a shadowing session of 10 to 15 minutes on a new short clip. Once a week, a one-minute recording on a topic from class, listened to twice. And if you can, a weekly tandem meeting. Before any real situation that matters, a few minutes of prepared phrases.
Do not try to do everything from the first week. Start with one habit you can keep, such as describing your day, and add another when it feels automatic. A plan you follow for three months beats a perfect plan you drop after a week.
Tie practice to something you already do
Shadow on the way to work, describe your day while you cook, think in English in the queue at the supermarket. Linking a habit to an existing routine makes it much easier to keep.
Bringing your practice back to class
Practice between classes and classes themselves work best together. Bring the words you could not find, the sentences your tandem partner corrected and the situations that went wrong to your next lesson. In a live class with a teacher and the same small group, you can use what you practiced with people you know, and your teacher can explain the why behind the corrections.
At Alimun, flashcards with the words from your classes are ready after each lesson, so you can review exactly the vocabulary you need before you say it out loud. Then take those words into your daily five minutes of talking to yourself, and you will hear them again, in your own voice.
Test my knowledge
Quick quiz on this article. Pick an answer to see why.
Questions people ask
Is talking to yourself in English really useful?
Yes. It is one of the British Council’s tips for busy learners, and it is the easiest way to practice finding words and building sentences without a partner. Describe what you are doing, or tell yourself about your day in the evening, and note the words you are missing.
Can I improve my speaking without a partner?
A lot of it, yes: shadowing, recording yourself, reading aloud and talking to yourself all train production, pronunciation and fluency. Real conversation adds things you cannot practice alone, such as reacting to someone else, so add a tandem partner or a class when you can.
What should I shadow?
Short, clear recordings of one or two minutes that you mostly understand, ideally with a transcript. Everyday dialogues suit conversation goals. Understand the content first, then shadow it five or six times and move on to a new clip.
How do I find a tandem partner?
Many universities, language centers and cities run tandem programs, and there are online exchanges as well. Agree on equal time for both languages, regular meetings and how you want to be corrected.
I freeze when I have to speak. What can I do?
You are not alone: in a well-known 1986 study, about half the students said they panic when they have to speak without preparation. Practice in private first, prepare the phrases you will need, and speak regularly with people you know, such as a tandem partner or a small group.
Sources: British Council LearnEnglish, Five tips for busy learners: listening and speaking, Yo Hamada, Shadowing for language teaching, TESL Ontario Contact (2018), Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, The Modern Language Journal, University of Münster Language Centre, The basic principles of language learning in Tandem, Council of Europe, CEFR Companion Volume self-assessment grid (PDF).
