Factors affecting English speaking skills

How does one acquire good English speaking skills? A lot of people aim to have an American or British accent in order to impress other people, and for others to say that they are indeed good in English. However, is this really the true measure of being a good English speaker? Actually, there are several factors that affect our English speaking skills. If we can honestly assess ourselves and say we are good in all of the said factors, then we are good English speakers. (Well, that of course depends on our level of honesty to ourselves.^^)
1 Listening comprehension

2. understand English pronunciation

3. grammatical accuracy
4, accent neutralization
5 .vocabulary
6 . APPROPPRIATENES ANSWER
7.. ORGANIZATION IDEA
8..English fluency
9..speak with enthusiasm
10..self-confidence to being a great English speaker
11..The length of answers
These factors will be discussed one by one on my next posts. For those who want to improve their level of English, these are for you. I hope they could be of help. If you have any comments or pieces of information you wish to add, please feel free to do so. Thank you!

1 Listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is a very basic skill one must have in order to be a good English speaker. Why? One of the most common and critical mistakes non-native
speakers of English make is focusing their time and effort in improving their English speaking skills without first assessing and practicing their English listening comprehension skills. A lot of them actually know grammar rules pretty well and can construct even complex sentences. Surprisingly, just when you thought they can communicate well in English, they suddenly come to a halt when asked questions.

Some non-native speakers cannot understand the question/s, because the one asking speaks too fast or because of the speaker’s accent (in case of an Australian or a British speaker for example). They would often ask the speaker to repeat the question several times or request the speaker to speak more slowly, before they finally understand the question. Some, on the other hand, answer the question/s impressively (with not many mistakes in grammar and pronunciation; good explanations and examples; amazing fluency) just to find out in the end that he or she misunderstood the question, and therefore gave an inappropriate answer.

So, how can one’s English listening comprehension skills be improved?

Listen! Listen!! LISTEN!!!
Listen to dialogues in English TV programs and movies. Avoid looking at the subtitles (translation of the dialogues in your mother tongue). Focus on understanding what the speakers are saying without reading the translations.

Parrot
Listen to an English News Program or Disney cartoons or an English conversation/lecture audio and repeat the sentences you hear. It might be hard at the beginning but when you do this often enough, you’ll find yourself being able to repeat longer and longer sentences. Try to parrot not only the words but also the way the words have been spoken. Be careful though in choosing the audio you will try to imitate. Make sure they are clear and easy to understand.

Catch the Main Ideas
It’s not necessary for you to hear every single word for you to understand a dialogue, lecture and the likes. You just need to listen carefully for the words that will give you the main idea of the topic discussed.

Watch Out for Homophones
At times, you might encounter words that sound like other words, such as homophones (words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings). In these cases, you should not rely just on the sound you heard, but the context on which the word was used. For instance, the words “bare” and “bear” have the same pronunciation, so you have to listen for context clues. If the words “zoo” and “furry” were mentioned for example, you could already guess that it was the word “bear” which was mentioned, not “bare”.


2. understand English pronunciation
It is quite common for non-native speakers of English to mispronounce English words. However, it is not something we have to be ashamed of, but something we ought to understand. We have to get to the root/s of the problems, in order for us to improve our pronunciation. Here are some tips I hope could help you understand English pronunciation better.

English is not phonetic
Unlike other languages, English is not phonetic. What does that mean? It means we don’t always say English words the way we spell them. Let’s compare two languages as an example.

Ex. The Japanese word “honto” (really) is pronounced the way it is spelled.
The English word “really” is not pronounced as "re-a-li" or "re-a-lai", nor is the word “really” spelled as “rili”.

Ex. Another example is the word “read”. At times it is pronounced as [red] and at times as [ri:d]. Although the spelling may not change, the way it is pronounced changes depending on the tense you are using.

That’s one of the main reasons non-native speakers of English get confused in pronouncing many English words, especially if their native tongue is phonetic.

The Sounds of -ed
The past simple tense and past participle of all regular English verbs end in “ed”. However, the “ed” added to the verbs may have different sounds which depends if the base verb’s sound is voiceless or voiced.

What is the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds?
VOICED -A consonant is voiced when it makes the vocal cords vibrate.
VOICELESS -When a consonant is pronounced without vibrating the vocal cords,
it’s voiceless.

There are three ways of pronouncing the –ed sound. /id/ or /t/ or /d/


3. grammatical accuracy
Some people wonder why there is a need to have grammatical accuracy in English, when even some native English speakers commit grammatical mistakes themselves. I used to ask that myself too, but as I listened more carefully to how both (native English speakers and non-native English speakers) express their thoughts, the reason dawned on me.

Native English speakers can say what they want without much difficulty due to their familiarity of the language. If they have difficulty expressing a certain concept/thought in a certain way, they can just use other ways of saying those things. They may commit some mistakes in grammar, but the mistakes do not distort or change the meaning of the sentences they want to convey, thus, it doesn’t give the listener much of a problem understanding them. On the other hand, the mistakes many non-native speakers of English commit are those that often change the meaning of sentences they want to express, and thus create a misunderstanding. That’s exactly the reason why non-native speakers have to study grammar more than native speakers.

Common Mistakes in Grammar

• Nouns
Ex. My neighbor has ten childrens.
(“Children” is already in the plural form, so there’s no need to add “s”.)

Ex. There are three sheeps in the meadow.
(Some nouns such as sheep, deer, salmon and trout have the same form in the singular as in the plural.)

Ex. My scissors is sharp.
(Certain nouns such as scissors, pliers, tweezers and tongs are always in the plural form and need plural verbs. So, the “is” in the above sentence should have been “are”.)

Ex. Picking the right candidate for the contest involves a lot of criterias.
(“Criteria” is already in the plural form.)

• Pronouns
Ex. Everybody have their work to do.
(The indefinite pronouns each, anyone, anybody, , everybody and everyone are referred to by singular pronouns. The sentence should have read “Everybody has his work to do.)

Ex. I watched a movie with my wife last night. He liked it very much.
(He’s talking about his wife and then he used “he” to refer to her afterwards.)

• Adjectives
Ex. She is the most fairest girl I have ever seen.
(“Fairest” is already in the superlative degree of comparison, so using “most” before it makes the meaning redundant.)

Ex. He is worst than my ex-husband.
(If only two things/people are being compared, “worse” should be used instead of “worst”.)

Ex. I met little people in the conference.
(“Little” is used to refer to noncount nouns. “Few” should have been used in the sentence above, unless of course the writer/speaker was referring to midgets or dwarfs, or if he used the word little “figuratively”.)

• Verbs
Ex. Few is expected to fail the test.
(The indefinite pronouns both, many, several and few take a plural verb.)

Ex. They hanged the old fiddle in the woodshed.
(Some are confused with hanged and hung. “Hanged” means to kill somebody or yourself by fastening a rope around the neck and removing any other support for the body. “Hung”, on the other hand, means to suspend or fasten something so that it is held up from above. In this sentence, it seems as if the old fiddle was killed, which of course doesn’t make any sense.)

Ex. I go to school yesterday.
(The word “yesterday” indicates a past event, so the verb used should have been “went”.)

Ex. She swimmed very fast the last time we were at the beach.
(“Swam” should have been used instead of “swimmed.”)

Ex. He don’t know anything about it.
(“Doesn’t” should be used instead of “don’t” because the subject “he” is singular.)


Keep in mind that it is not the spelling but the sound that is important. For instance, ‘wax” ends in x but the sound is /s/.

There are some exceptions though. The following words used as adjectives are pronounced with /id/

blessed, aged, ragged, wretched, naked, crooked

Two ways of pronouncing “the”

When used before a vowel sound, we say “the” as “thee”. Keep in mind that it is the sound we should listen to, not the letters themselves.

Ex. The apple is pronounced as “thee apple”.
The hour is pronounced as “thee hour”. (hour sounds like our)

When used before a consonant sound, we say “the” as “thuh”.
Ex. The graduates is pronounced as “thuh graduates”.
The university is pronounced as “thuh university”. (university sounds like yuniversity)



4, accent neutralization
What is accent? Who has an accent? What do we do to neutralize our accent? These questions and more will be answered by this post.

Everyone has an accent. So, when I hear some people say, “She’s good in English. She doesn’t have an accent,” I find it a bit amusing. Accent usually reflects the place where a person comes from, that’s why it’s easy to say if someone is Korean, American, Filipino, British, Australian, etc., even if they all speak in English. Accent is also one of the main reasons why people have a hard time understanding each other, and thus many people strive to change their accent. I said “change their accent” not “get rid of their accent”, because I think it’s more appropriate to say the former. People can actually change their accent by studying another accent and imitating it. When people say “neutralize” or “remove one’s accent”, what they often mean is to get the standard American English accent. So, how can we have this kind of accent?

First, we ought to study our native tongue’s vowel and consonant sounds and compare it to the Standard American English vowels and sounds. By doing this, we will know why we’re having difficulty imitating their accent and how we can succeed on doing it.
Ex. Tagalog (Philippine language)for instance have only 5 vowel sounds.

A E I O U
(as in father) (as in bet) (as in indeed) (as in all) (as in ooze)

English, on the other hand, although has the same vowels, each vowel has many different sounds.
A (as in father) A (as in mate) A (as in map)
I (as in ice) I (as in intention)
U (as in umbrella) U (as in university)

Hence, when some Filipinos speak in English, they tend to sound the English vowels a, e, i, o, u the same way they sound in their native tongue. This is what happens most of the time to other people of other languages. They carry over the sounds of their vowels when they speak in English.

Another problem is the aspirating sound of the English consonants, which is not done in one’s native tongue.

Ex. The Tagalog consonant sounds for instance need no air to be pushed out from the mouth when they are pronounced unlike English consonants.
Tunay (true) vs true
Pahina (page) vs page

For other languages, the problem is the lack of some consonant sounds in their native tongue, such as j, z, l, r, f, p.

Ex. In Japanese language, the L sound is nonexistent. Thus, when they say an English word with an L sound, they tend to sound it like an R which is the nearest sound to L in their native language.

In English, stress in words and sentences as well as intonation patterns is also a part of the so-called accent. So when we stress the words/sentences or use intonation patterns that are different from Standard American English (since we often carry over the stress and intonation patterns of our mother tongue to English), our accent would then sound different from Americans.

Ex. Remember that yes/no questions usually have a rising intonation and that wh questions usually have a falling intonation.

Are you okay?
What time is it?

Also, remember that the keywords in a sentence are the ones enunciated well while the articles are glided over, so as not to sound robotic and monotonous.

Accent is the rhythm or music of our speech. Acquiring another accent is like learning songs. When we try to learn a new song, we study both its lyrics and its melody. If we just study the lyrics (in this case, the grammar of the language we’re studying) and we just ignore the melody by using the melody of the song we are most familiar with (using the accent and pronunciation of our mother tongue), we sound different from what is expected. Each language and dialect has its own rhythm which explains why we have different accents even if we all speak in English. The key to acquiring another accent is to understand and study that language (like English) as a totally different language (new song which melody and lyrics we both have to know), thus, following the pronunciation of its sounds, the intonation and stress patterns, etc., instead of linking it to our mother tongue. Do not carry over the rules of our language to the one we try to acquire




5 vocabulary
Okay, let’s say we have already neutralized our accent. So does that mean we can already convey our messages clearly? Hold your horses! We still need to work on our vocabulary. Many people are misunderstood because of using words or expressions inappropriately. Below are some examples of the most commonly misused words in the English language. I hope you’ll find them helpful.

Accept versus Except

Accept is a verb which means “to receive”.
Ex. I accept your proposal.

Except is usually a preposition which means not included.
Ex. I eat all kinds of fruits except that one.

Also, except is a verb meaning to exclude.
Ex. Please except that vegetable from the grocery list.

Affect versus Effect
Usually, “affect” is a verb meaning to influence. Effect, on the other hand, is usually a noun meaning result.
Ex. Frequent drinking of alcohol affected his health.
Ex. One of the effects of illegal logging is flood.

Lend versus Borrow
Lend is a verb which means to let someone use or take something which will be returned later. Borrow, is a verb which means to use or take something from someone after asking for permission and returning the thing used or taken later.
Ex. Jane needed money, so she borrowed money from Ken. Ken lent Jane the money she needed.

Its versus It’s
“Its” is the possessive case of the pronoun “it”. “It’s”, on the other hand, is the contraction of the words, “it is”.
Ex. The airport changed its policy.
It's a very nice day today.

Loose versus Lose
Loose is an adjective. Lose is a verb.
Ex. If your shoelaces are too loose, you might trip and lose your balance.

Quiet versus Quite
Quiet is an adjective that means silence, and quite is an adverb that means to a great extent.
Ex. It’s very quiet in the library. The students are quite busy studying.

Raise versus Rise
They are both verbs. Raise means to cause something to move upward. Rise means to move upward or to get out of bed.
Ex. The student raised his hand to give his answer.
The sun usually rises before 6 am.





6 . APPROPPRIATENES ANSWER
I encountered some people before whom I thought spoke English very well, because they did not commit mistakes in grammar frequently. Also, their pronunciation is clear enough to understand. However, during our conversation, I realized they were not that good in answering questions, for they spoke of things which were not in line with what I was asking.

For instance:

Question: What is today’s date?
Their Answer: It’s Tuesday.
(The question was about the date not the day.)

Question: What company are you working for?
Their Answer: I am a Graphic Artist in the Advertising Department. I make layouts for brochures, print ads and other advertising materials the company needs.
(The question was asking about the name of the company. The person’s answer was about his job and his duties.)

Question: Do you have questions?
Their Answer: Yes. (when actually, what they mean is “no, questions”)

(The examples given were similar to my experiences, but not exactly the same.)
These examples clearly tell us that good pronunciation, accent and grammar are not enough to measure one’s abilities in speaking English. We have to understand the questions really well and answer them accordingly.



7.. ORGANIZATION IDEA

When you read a news article, do you read the first paragraph (also called the “lead”) first or do you read the last paragraph of the article first? I think it is safe to say that almost everyone reads the lead first before the other paragraphs in the news article. If ever there are cases where the person reads the last paragraph first, the question is, “Why?”.

News articles are structured in a way that the readers would be able to grasp the gist of the news right away even if they don’t have enough time to read the whole article. The most important pieces of information are already in the first two paragraphs of the article. So, if the readers are in a hurry, they can still understand the main idea and get the most important information about the article. If we could only air our thoughts the same way, the people we’re talking to would understand us more easily. Also, they would not get bored with our responses.^^

What are the common problems about organizing ideas when responding to questions?

Novelist Speakers
What in the world is a novelist speaker? They are the people who tend to talk so much in response to a very simple question. They have a tendency to digress from the topic and even forget what the original question was.
Repeat Again
Have you ever heard someone tell you ,” Sorry, I don’t understand the question. Can you repeat again please?” If you weren’t able to identify what’s wrong with the latter sentence, you probably have the same problem. The word “again” is the same as “repeat”, so it’s redundant to say “repeat again”. Now, the problem with some speakers is that they repeat not only the words, but also the content of their responses. At times, they have a very long response but the content is just the same as what they’ve already said before.

Story-teller Style
In some stories, you have to read the whole story first before you understand the lesson. It is the same with some speakers. It’s very hard for them to go straight to the point. You have to wait for them to finish speaking (in some cases, very long speeches^^) before you can finally understand what he’s trying to say. Many people don’t have time to listen to everything you will say, so say the most important things first. Say the main idea first before elaborating on reasons and giving examples.
Disoriented
At times, we encounter people who would talk about topic A and go to topic B and then go back to topic A and afterwards move to topic C. They have no focus of what they would like to talk about, so the people they talk to get dizzy talking to them.^^ Try to talk about topic A first and try to finish everything you have to say about it before moving on to another topic.




8..English fluency
English fluency means being able to use the language with ease. How can we assess our English fluency then? Below are questions that we ought to ask ourselves to gauge our English fluency.

Do I pause a lot when I speak?
Do I say “ahh” or “uuhmm” many times because I can’t remember the right words that would
be suitable for my sentences?
Do I often say “you know” to replace the phrases I can’t remember or explain myself?
Do I speak so slowly, because I’m too careful not to make mistakes in my sentences, that my listeners already tend to look drowsy?
Do I make the pronunciation of certain words indistinguishable intentionally, because I am not sure how those words should be pronounced?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, then you do have a problem in English fluency. In order to be more fluent in the said language, I suggest you practice speaking English as often as possible. However, it’s not enough to practice all the time. You have to make sure you practice speaking English the right way. You can do this by practicing with a buddy who can speak English well, so that he/she can correct your mistakes if you commit any.

Also, surround yourself in an all-English atmosphere. Listen to English songs, read English books, and watch English TV programs and movies. You can also try to record yourself as you speak English, and then listen to the recording afterwards. Listen for the mistakes that you commit repetitively and study the rules behind those mistakes. Be more careful not to commit those mistakes the next time you speak. If you do this regularly, your English language skills will definitely improve a lot!^



9..speak with enthusiasm
This post teaches how one could speak with enthusiasm and how this would help one become a great English speaker.

I’m sure almost everyone has experienced listening to speeches. It may be during our elementary or high school graduation given by the guest speakers or valedictorians, or during election campaign periods when politicians would recite a long list of promises to the voters, or even during special occasions like weddings and birthdays. Whatever the case may be, it all boils down to one thing...do you remember anything about their long, well-prepared for speeches? (Did you even listen?^^) If not, then their speeches were not effective. They might not have caught your attention. Most probably, you didn’t even care about what they were talking about. Most people who are asked to give speeches are those who are intelligent and those who can speak very well. So, what could probably have went wrong?

Speaking well does not only involve the right grammar, pronunciation, accent and proper use of words. A person might be good in all these aspects yet not many people would like to listen to what he has to say. Why? A good English speaker (or speaker for that matter), can catch and hold the attention of his/her listeners. How can he/she do this?

Speak up!
If you speak too softly, how in the world will people be able to hear clearly what you have to say? Do not expect the listeners to be the ones to exert effort in trying to understand you, if you’re the one who wants to convey a message.

Be a singer
Listen to songs. A good song has soft and loud parts, slow and fast parts. The changes in the volume and the rhythm makes the tune catchy, nice to listen to and even easy to remember at times. We should speak the same way. We should not speak in a monotonous tone that would put the listeners to sleep. We should sometimes speak fast, speak slowly, speak softly and speak loudly, depending on the ideas we would like to get across.

Feel it
If you can’t feel what you say, why would you expect the message to have an impact to the ones listening? Whether you’re giving a speech, or taking an English exam, or answering a question, you should not sound as if you’re reading something from a very boring textbook. You should put more feelings into it. It’s not just the content that matters, it’s the delivery!



10..self-confidence to being a great English speaker
What is the relationship of self-confidence to being a great English speaker? Read this post to find out.^^

Did you already know how to ride a bike the moment you were born? Of course not. You had to study it (by yourself or someone teaching you how to do it), practice, fall down at times and learn from your mistakes, until you finally got it right. If you just studied about how to ride a bike and did not even try it, would you learn? No. You would still probably be reading a Dummies Guide to Riding a Bike until now.^^ Learning the English language is the same thing. It’s not enough that you study about it. You should practice it! Do not be afraid to make mistakes. It’s a part of the learning process.

I’ve met a lot of people who are good in English but are not that confident to use the language, thus, they waste their talents. I also know many people who commit many mistakes in grammar, pronunciation and word usage, yet because of their self-confidence they even landed a job which is in line with English. Here’s a friendly advice to the former group of people: If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? You’ve got to believe you can do something well first before other people can start believing in you.

In my experience as an English trainer, I’ve met some people who were supposed to take English language examinations such as TOEFL, TSE, IELTS, etc.. During our mock interviews, many of them would say “I’m not very good in English”, as parts of their responses to certain questions. If I were the real examiner, why would I give you a high score in this exam if you yourself admit you’re not good in English? Why are you taking this exam in the first place if you know you deserve to fail? So like what I said, believe in yourself, and everything will start falling into place.






paralinguistic communication skills
What is paralinguistic communication skills? Does it help one become an effective English speaker? Read this post to find out.^^
“If you really don’t love me anymore, look me in the eyes and say it!”

Sounds familiar?^^ Many romantic movies and TV sitcoms have that kind of line. So, why is the person forced to look into the other’s eyes and say he/she doesn’t love him/her anymore? Why not just say it? What is the need for the eye contact thing? It’s because words don’t say it all.

Interviewing applicants is a part of my job. When I talk to them, I don’t just listen to what they have to say, I observe the manner in which they say it. I look into their eyes, I observe their gestures and mannerisms, their sitting position, everything, because those paralinguistic cues reveal more information about them than what they are saying.

To become an effective speaker, we must be able to use these paralinguistic cues for us, not against us. Whether we are going to have a job interview or deliver a speech or just plainly talk to someone we hardly know, knowledge of paralinguistic cues is an effective way of making them see what we just want them to see.

In job interviews for example, it’s just natural for applicants to be nervous. Some people unconsciously reveal their nervousness either by having too many hand gestures or being to stiff. Knowing this, we can avoid making those unnecessary movements or being dead stiff.

Also, when people talk about their knowledge and abilities, they tend to look down or look in different directions, either to avoid the interviewer’s gaze, out of shyness or to think of answers. Whatever the case may be, it shows lack of confidence and sincerity, so the interviewees ought to meet the interviewer’s gaze. (however, this depends on the culture of both). In some cultures, looking into the interviewer’s eyes is considered impolite.

One’s sitting position should also be taken into consideration. Slouching would of course reveal an overconfident personality. One should sit upright near the edge of the seat to show attentiveness in interviews.



11..The length of answers
How long should one's answers be? The length of one’s answers depends on the situation. If it’s just a conversation between friends, where you are telling someone a story which is very interesting for him/her, going into details and a long answer is okay. However, when one is in a job interview or an English examination, wherein the interviewer does not have much time to speak with you, you ought to give answers that are brief and detailed. Make sure you have already answered what has been asked, before moving on to elaborate on the details of your answer.