This is an all ears English podcast episode 2066, three ways to speak more English.
Welcome to the all ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become
fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host,
Aubrey Carter, the Isle Twizz, and Lindsey McMahon, the English Adventure.
Coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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How can you practice speaking English if you don't know anyone else who speaks it?
Today, we share three online resources that you should take advantage of to meet speaking
partners and improve your speaking fluency. Hey there, Aubrey has everything going today.
I'm great. How are you, Lindsey? I'm feeling fantastic today. Yeah, what are we getting into?
Oh, man, we got a really interesting question that I know a lot of our listeners have
about how do you practice speaking English when you don't actually know anyone who's learning
English or who speaks English, right? It's interesting. We've got some really good tips for you
guys. I'm in that boat. I don't know anyone who speaks Spanish or French who lives close to me.
So I have to get a little bit creative. Oh, for sure, for sure. We all do. We have to go one level
deeper if we want to achieve that fluency that we're looking for. Aubrey, you studied a language
in high school. Yeah, were you studying French back then? Or were you studying? Yeah, I was
learning French. And this was a real problem practicing speaking. We really didn't do it much
in class. Our teacher had us writing, like filling out worksheets and we were learning grammar.
A lot of French grammar and hardly ever practicing speaking. What about you, Lindsey? Did you practice
speaking a lot in high school? Nightmare. Yeah, when I think about learning French in high school,
I think I had to get up to French to or something. Where was that college? Well, both, high school
and college. All I think of is just conjugations on the board. Yes. I did a lot of that. Yeah, it was
terrible. It was terrible. Like students would go up, conjugate this verb, but it didn't mean anything
to me, right? And we didn't have the internet. We didn't have the resources that are available now
to find speaking partners to maybe practice speaking with someone over zoom or the apps that are
available now. There's such a wealth of information that's now there's so many resources that are
now available to help facilitate this. Oh my gosh, I'm jealous. I wish I had had these things when I
was young, when I was in high school and college to have this and also just we've become a more
globalized culture. Globalization has spread more since the 90s and the early 2000s, right? Absolutely.
We're just more connected with social media. So this is inspired today out of a question from a listener.
Aubrey, do you want to read our listeners question? Sure. This listener's name is fair and they
said, how can I practice my English if no one speaks it? I feel like I can feel the frustration
that this listener is feeling, right? It's like I would love to be able to go and chat with someone
in English, but I don't know anyone. There's nobody, right? They don't leave it live in an
English-speaking country and makes it a little more difficult. Yeah, and it can be frustrating.
Honestly, just on an emotional level, if we live in a place where people are maybe not as curious
about the outside world, right? As we are, we might feel a little isolated at times.
And so there are so many resources and that's what we're going to talk about today, Aubrey,
on this episode for our listeners to practice, but also connect. Exactly, right? We are going to
share three ways to practice speaking in a second language when you don't know anyone that speaks
it, right? Your friends, your neighbors, the people you're interacting on a day-to-day basis are not
speaking partners for you in English. That doesn't mean that there's not things you can do.
There are so many resources at your disposal. Yes, we do a lot of episodes here in all our
English. Do we have something that we released last week that our listeners should make sure
they check out? Yes, you guys. Last week, if you missed episode 2064, you missed some amazing
strategies. Our guest was Matt Abrams, and he had this episode was called How Structure and
Strategies Help You Speak Spontaneously with Matt Abrams. This is the kind of strategies you
guys need so that you're ready for the speaking practice that we're talking about today.
Yes, this is a very inspiring episode. Matt Abrams is a wonderful guy.
Connected with him, he's straight out of Stanford School, graduate school of business. So his
information and insight comes from working with graduates at Stanford, graduate students at
Stanford, and just really being involved in that academic world. So excited. Just roll up for
that episode if you missed it, and be sure to hit follow. We have four new episodes every week,
and you don't want to miss any of them. Yeah, I love it. Okay, Aubrey, let's get into the meat
of the episode today. So what is our first suggestion for our listener for fair, and for anyone else
who's feeling this sense of isolation when it comes to not being able to practice? Yes, so number one
is to keep in mind that your practice does not have to be in person. You can find speaking partners
online. There are so many platforms like Zoom or Skype, where you can speak with someone
through the internet, right? So imagine how the world opens up to you with all of the people who
either speak English or are learning English that you can practice speaking with online.
Oh my god, it's so exciting. And I love in our community at Allers English, we've just recently
added exciting opportunities like fluency parties for all of our students. We get together once
a month and we party. Yes, it's so fun. And it gives you guys that we're taking away the difficult
part of finding speaking partners at Allers English, where it can be a little tricky to join a group
and make a post that says like I'm looking for speaking partners and then maybe no one comments
like that can be tough, right? So at Allers English, we're creating the fluency party you can come,
chat, meet other speaking partners and then stay and talk, practice speaking English as long
as you can. It's awesome. And our students love the fluency party. They're hosted by you and me
these days. You and I are getting on there. We are hosting this. We are setting the tone for you guys,
you get to talk with us. But it's really about you guys. All of you, our listeners are students
connecting with each other and having a really interesting conversation. And then we also have open
conversation clubs, which are for any students in our community, our community of listeners.
Exactly. Right. You guys, anyone listening to this podcast can participate in those. We're
creating a Zoom room, making one of you the host so you can just have that opportunity to speak
in English with other speaking partners without because I know we've recommended in the past,
you know, meetups and Facebook groups. But I often in these English language groups, I'll see
that where someone will say, Hey, I'm looking for speaking partners and then no one responds.
That's the difficult part to get passed. So here at Allers English, that's our goal is to remove
that part of it for you. Make it easier where you can just join the room. We'll take care of that
for you and you can meet speaking partners in there. I love that. We start the room for you and
you take it away. Take it to connection. So good. But Aubrey, the fact is not everyone has the time,
right? Because when we have these live experiences, there's a time, right? It's a specific kind of
we choose to set up. So what if you don't necessarily have the time to be in sync with other
students or speakers? Exactly, right? If you're not able to meet up online with speaking partners,
there are other options, luckily. So our second tip here is to use apps that have voice
recognition software. Yeah, I love this. There are tons of apps that use this. But we hear it
all those English. We've both been using Rosetta Stone for this and it is amazing guys. So, Aubrey,
what do you think of the feedback on the speaking practice that's available in Rosetta Stone?
Yes, I've been really impressed actually. I feel like if my pronunciation is off at all,
I'm prompted to try again. So the way I'm pronouncing the phrase has to be pretty spot on before
I get that green arrow, right? And that's not a spying ding that lets me know that I got it right.
That's the human mind. We love that ding. We need that positive reinforcement. It can go a long
way to keep us motivated to keep learning. It's so funny. We're just motivated by that sound,
but it really works for sure. I know it works for me. We highly recommend this app for speaking
practice. It's one of the best ways to practice, especially like fair, if you don't have an available
speaking partner, if you don't have the time to come to these groups or or schedule like we know
your busy professionals, these apps are available for just a few minutes while you're waiting for an
appointment. Yeah, and sometimes it's not either or writes both. Right. So during the times when
we're waiting for fluency parties or open conversation club or other live events, we are practicing our
pronunciation with Rosetta Stone and we are understanding what is the correct pronunciation so that
when we get to that fluency party, people understand us, right? Absolutely right. It's the preparation.
You can put in ahead of time. I love that. Yeah, exactly. So guys, luckily for a limited time,
all your English listeners, that's you guys. You can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership
for 40% off. Aubrey, we love a good lifetime membership here. Don't I know, right? I'm planning on
my lifetime lasting quite a while still. So I'm very attracted to any kind of lifetime membership.
We love lifetime membership. So guys, that's $179 for unlimited access to 25 language courses
for the rest of your life. So you can redeem your 40% off at rosettastone.com slash A-E-E today,
and you can use coupon code A-E-E. Yes, that's R-O-S-E-T-T-A-S-T-O-N-E.com slash A-E-E. And we want to
thank Rosetta Stone for sponsoring all ears English. As excellent. So Aubrey, let's get into our third
suggestion. There's a third way, a third thing we can do. And again, maybe to add to our repertoire,
what is it? Exactly, right? This is a way you can meet speaking partners and also just join a
room and immediately start practicing speaking in English. And this is through social apps,
like for example, clubhouse or telegram voice chat or discord spaces. There are a lot of apps
that have started opening up these spaces where you can join a room and immediately be able to chat
with the other people in the room. Interesting. Yeah, we had a clubhouse room going on for a while.
We may still have one. Oh, yeah, we still have our group on there. You'll see all ears English on
there, right? We don't. We're starting to do these fluency parties in lieu of those clubhouse rooms.
But I still go on clubhouse quite a bit for French and Spanish. There are lots of rooms that open up
where you can either listen in the audience or go up on stage and practice speaking,
participate in. There'll be games, lots of activities. It's a really fun way to practice speaking
the language you're learning. That really was cool when we were doing that in clubhouse to hear
our listeners voices and hear those questions. It felt so just real and authentic, right?
I know. Absolutely. I miss seeing you guys. You listeners out there. I miss being able to chat with
you on clubhouse. Hopefully you'll be able to join our fluency parties so we can recreate that
really fun experience. And so did we name these apps where they should go? Do we want to say
them one more time? What are these social apps? Well, so we like clubhouse. An article called
five best apps like clubhouse for Android and iOS. So I recommend that or you can just search
apps like clubhouse. There are lists of like 10 best, 15 best. It's interesting Twitter used to
have one called I think Twitter spaces. Oh, yeah. Elon Musk took over. He took that down. So on a lot
of these lists, you'll see Twitter spaces listed. But instead of that, because it's not available
right now, you can always use clubhouse, telegram, voice chat, discord, and there are a few others
that you'll find on these lists. I love it. The point is get involved. Choose one of these things,
right? It doesn't have to be everything but choose one. However, it is that you like to practice.
There are ways to practice guys. It's just a matter of going out into the world and finding that
thing. I'll bring in my experience. People who are successful, they take it into their own hands
to find that success. They don't sit back and wait for it to come to them.
What do you think? Absolutely. And you do have to push yourself, right? It's a lot easier
when you have a little bit of free time to just throw on a Netflix show or read a book in your
first language, right? You have to really push yourself, have set goals and be motivated in order
to choose something like today's tips. I love that fair is I can tell your motivated, right?
You're planning on practicing speaking and you just need to have the resources. So now you know
what to do. You can push yourself to take that free time and use it to improve your English.
Yeah, guys. Don't let it hold you back. You could be living in the tiniest town
anywhere in the world and you have the ability now in 2023 to become as fluent as someone
who lives in the center of Paris or the center of New York City. It doesn't matter where you live
because everyone has the same technology for the most part. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Right.
If you have access to the internet, even if not in your home, I remember when when I was in Belgium
as a nanny, they didn't have internet at home, but I would go to those internet cafes. I'm like,
are you dating yourself here? I know. It's true. But that's how it was back then, right? And
there are still maybe places where if you're not able to get internet at home, see if there's an
internet cafe close by and take advantage of these resources. Oh, for sure. For sure. Any final
message to our listener before listeners, plural, before we finish up today, Aubrey. Yeah.
We just want to make sure like you were saying, don't let a lack of English speakers living near
you. Hold you back from practicing speaking, right? So there are many ways to practice. We shared
three today, finding and speaking online with speaking partners, language apps like Rosetta Stone,
and social apps like Clubhouse, Telegram, Discord, take advantage of all of these resources.
Yeah, and we want to remind our listeners about the special deal available to you all today,
go and grab it, right? You can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 40% off. Again,
$179 for unlimited access to the 25 language courses. The way to get that is to go right now
to rosettastone.com slash A-E-E and use the coupon code A-E-E. All right.
Um, double, Aubrey. Thanks for hanging out today.
We'll see you next time. Yes. All right. Talk soon. Take care. Bye.
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