The best methods to improve conversational English

One of the factors that indicate success in ESL classrooms is students’ proficiency in oral communication. Whether the ESL class is for basic, intermediate, or advanced students, students’ ability to articulate simple to complex ideas in English can be checked, tested, and improved using various ESL techniques. Once students are comfortable using the basic approaches to communicate meaning in English, they can begin to engage in conversations in English, either through orchestrated scenarios or in real life encounters.

In any linguistic context, the conversational process involves listening, mental formulation of meaning, and speaking. Each participant in a conversation must perform all three tasks to remain an active and relevant player in the encounter. Because these tasks are not easy for most non-native speakers to accomplish, the experience of successfully participating in a full session brings a lot of pleasure, excitement, and satisfaction to ESL/EFL learners. Often, there is some kind of eureka moment when the student correctly grasps an idea expressed in English and when a native English speaker correctly and clearly articulates a specific idea that the students are trying to convey in a foreign language. Likewise, teachers of English as a second or foreign language whose students have developed conversational skills are adequately affirmed in terms of their profession as well as the learning strategies and techniques they adopt.

Obstacles that prevent full participation in conversations.

However, getting students to develop English conversation skills is fraught with challenges. The fact is that the various forms of oral discourse—light talk, role-playing, debate, topic discussion, and recitation—are viewed with dread and apprehension by many students. This results in considerable shyness or hesitancy among students to proactively articulate their thoughts in English. A number of factors have been identified that cause or reinforce students’ reluctance to speak English. These include–

1. The topic is irrelevant or totally foreign to the student.

2. The student does not have an opinion or anything to articulate on the subject.

3. The student does not know how to correctly articulate an idea and is afraid of making mistakes and being ridiculed by the class or conversation partner.

4. The student is intimidated by the higher level of competence exhibited by other students. The possibility of being compared to more articulate learners results in a persistent reluctance to participate even when the learner has valid ideas on the subject.

5. The student is aware of and is ashamed of the peculiar accent that he exhibits when speaking in English.

Removing these common obstacles is the first important step for a competent ESL/EFL educator to take. For students to develop acceptable oral communication skills in English, any barriers to active and meaningful participation in oral discourse must be addressed. Here are some common-sense, logical approaches to doing so:

1. ESL/EFL educators need to be aware of the socio-cultural contexts in which they are teaching. Aligning lesson plans that make use of highly relevant and familiar themes (common ingredients in Thai dishes or street foods, Korean TV series, and unique Borneo wildlife, for example) will help students easily form ideas and opinions. that they need to express in English.

2. To facilitate a better learning environment, English teachers should strive to get to know their students individually as much as possible. In smaller classes, learning about students’ hobbies or interests can help spark valuable conversation topics. However, this may not be possible in much larger classes. One way to avoid cases where students cannot form meaningful ideas or opinions about a topic is to assign them fixed, prefabricated roles or opinions. In this way, learners can focus on language production skills rather than forming points of view or drawing from their own personal experiences.

3. The creation of an open, tolerant and socially constructive classroom is essential to foster collaborative learning. At the beginning of the course, the ESL/EFL educator should already have established that mistakes will inevitably occur and there is no reason to be ashamed of them. The teacher may also choose to give due credit to risk takers, even when they make mistakes. This is an opportunity to correct mistakes and encourage other students to participate.

4. In some learning settings, competition is a strong motivator for success. In others, however, collaborative techniques that fully benefit the group are best used.

5. Exhibiting accents is a normal manifestation in the articulation of a second or foreign language. However, educators and linguists differ on how they view this phenomenon. On the one hand, the spread of English around the world has transformed it into a global language in such a way that no ethnolinguistic group can claim it as their own. The British and Australians have their respective accents. Why would accents indicating a Japanese or Filipino speaker be considered incorrect when the meaning conveyed is understandable to any English speaker? After all, linguists believe that language is organic and continually evolving, with different groups assimilating a particular language and imbuing it with their own characteristic nuances and accents. On the other hand, there are educators who argue that encouraging the use of a neutral accent in English is the best long-term course to follow, especially in global communication. Because some variants of English and forms of the pidgin are difficult to understand quickly, neutral accents are preferable when significantly different sociolinguistic groups communicate in English. Therefore, educators must constructively teach the globally acceptable way of speaking English without marginalizing the specific variant of English characteristic of the place in which they are teaching.

Effective aids for English conversations

Speaking and listening exercises remain by far the most effective way to improve conversational skills. However, any obstacles that prevent students from fully participating in these exercises must be immediately addressed by the ESL/EFL teacher as explained above. The use of talking reference cards that are used in role-play sessions can also help students feel less apprehensive about participating.

Transition exercises that teach students how to listen and speak about relevant everyday encounters should be an integral part of the conversational English course. Talking about the weather, grocery shopping, meeting a new acquaintance, a job interview, and offering to rent an apartment are just some of the scenarios in which potentially useful English conversation exercises can be started.

Because these scenarios are familiar, students are more likely to participate in communicating their thoughts. Once educators have familiarized themselves with and made students comfortable with the speaking and listening exercises, the class can move on to more complex activities. These include formal discussions on different relevant topics. When conducting discussions, remember that it is more important for students to focus on how to articulate than to focus on how they really feel about an issue.

To help students develop a neutral accent in English, teachers should advise them to 1) observe and imitate the mouth movements of competent English speakers; 2) use the dictionary to learn the correct pronunciations; 3) listening to audiobooks in English; 4) read books or magazines in English aloud; and 5) record their English conversations and oral readings to identify common errors and correct them.

Finally, in addition to classroom activities, ESL/EFL teachers can encourage their students to visit online portals that offer live conversations in English for foreign or second language learners. Most of these are paid services, but other websites offer free audio recordings of different situational dialogues. These audio logs can be good practice to help students improve their English conversation skills.