I have come up with this blog, becasue I have been asked by ample of people, who are struggling with speaking English. So here I am,
This topic is for those who can understand English but cannot speak it. So the solution is ….
Practise! Practise! Practise! Practise! Practise! ………. ………… ………. …………
Only thing I would say is definitely the most important. It doesn’t matter you have forget everything in English that you have read in your school and college, do remember this: the first way, the last way, the never-falling way to develop self-confidence in speaking is…..to speak.
Let’s get started
Learn only Ready–made Sentences
When we speak, we don’t make sentences. We make use of ready-made sentences which are already there in our mind. Suppose you are asked to add 7 and 8. You would immediately say 15. Here you have not added the digits. Your mind already had the answer. So you have given the correct answer. But if you are asked to add 13425 and 6756, you won’t answer immediately as your mind doesn’t have the answer. If you ask a child to add 7 and 8, he would also not tell the answer immediately. He would add it on fingers or on his notebook, and then tell you the answer.
It is obvious if your mind doesn’t have the needed sentences to describe a particular scene, you just keep mum. But if your mind has the sentence, you quickly speak it out.
So one thing is very clear, our mind must have ready-made sentences which we require in day-to-day interaction or in a particular situation for speaking. It is like the cassette, you can’t play the song which is not there. Cassette doesn’t make or create song. It just stores them. Mind has the capacity to create also. But that is the different part of the mind. At the time of speaking, we just make use of stored information. Of course, there may be exceptions also. Here we are discussing the acquirement of speaking skill from a common man’s viewpoint.
Fill mind with sentences and words
Filling mind with the related sentences and words to describe any object, scene or situation is a long process that lasts for years. We continue to pick up the sentences/words unconsciously through the process of exposure, and we have been doing this since our childhood.
This is how, we have picked our mother tongue also. Even to speak the second language we need to fill our mind with the required sentences. In the case of mother tongue, filling takes place directly through process of hearing. All the time, we are surrounded by the people speaking the same language. But we can’t learn English directly through process of hearing, particularly, in India as we are not surrounded by English speaking people all the time. If you want to learn English directly through hearing process, you will have to move to England or America and live among the native speakers of English. However, in India filling is possible only through two processes as follows:
1. Hearing process
2. Writing process
Hearing process
The process of hearing does help to store the sentences in the mother tongue. We have already discussed that we have picked out mother tongue through hearing process only. This applies to Second Language also. Students should hear the native speakers and highly educated non-native speakers. The following aid may be quite useful to students:
1. English web series, ted talk and English Motivational talks.
2. Cartoons with subtitles.
3. English movies and web series on Netflix and Amazon prime.
4. English news, English match commentary and English celebrity interview.
Our mind doesn’t forget anything. Whatever it hears, it goes straight into our subconscious memory. You meet many people in a day. You don’t recall their face or names.
However, if somebody out of those people comes in front of you, you are able to recognise him or recall that you have seen the person somewhere before. It shows that the person was very much in your subconscious mind. Since we don’t have any direct method to retrieve the information from subconscious mind, we treat it as lost. We, simply treat conscious memory as the actual memory.
Writing process
The process of writing also helps to fill the mind with needful sentences. While writing, you think; you speak; and you write.
Whatever you write, it gets stored in subconscious as well as conscious mind. The following aids may be proved useful to students:
1. Letters to friends/relatives/newspaper/NGOs/government authorities.
2.Contribute article to newspapers/magazines
3. Keep a diary pen down all your experiences in your personal diary before
going to bed daily. It is wonderful exercise to fill up the mind with sentences.
4. Writing/publishing blog on internet.
5. e-Mail
Speaking-a matter of practice
The speaking skill is a matter of practice And practice is nothing but repetition of something. If you have used a sentence number of times, you will be able to speak it up quickly and confidently.
Let me tell you a story that will help you understand how?
Albert Einstein bagged the Nobel prize for his Theory of Relativity. He was invited by the scientists of many countries to speak on his theory. He had delivered the lectures many times in different countries. Even his cook who used to accompany him had mugged up the speech word by word. Once Einstein was invited to Japan. Nobody knew Einstein by sight in Japan. The day Einstein had to deliver the lecture he was taken ill. He Worried about the lecture At that time, his cook rose to the occasion and offered to deliver the speech word by word. Since nobody knew Einstein by face, he agreed to the proposal of cook. Duo reached the venue on time.
The cook got to rostrum and started delivering the lecture. Surprisingly, he was given standing ovation for the excellent speech. Of the audience, a scientist rose to his feet and put a question to ‘cook. The witty cook had no hesitation. On the contrary, he railed at the question and said that it was an easy question and even his cook siting in the front row could answer such question. And the Einstein sitting in the front Stood up and answered the question japanese were aghast at the intelligence of the cook of Einstein.
I have not yet done, go through the second part as well
and Do let me know via comment, that did I anyway help you with this blog.
