Understanding the Speaking Challenge in English Learning
Many English learners can comprehend movies, podcasts, and books but struggle with speaking due to the imbalance between input and output:
- Input: Listening and reading activities where you receive information.
- Output: Speaking and writing activities where you produce language.
Strong input without balanced output leads to freezing when speaking despite good comprehension.
Writing Skills Improvement: Four Practical Steps
1. Share Thoughts in Comments
Engage by typing your opinions on videos or articles to practice informal writing regularly.
2. Keep a Daily Journal
Write 5–10 sentences about your day each day. Focus on fluency over grammar initially to build the habit.
3. Write a Paragraph on Simple Topics
Choose easy subjects (e.g., "What makes me happy?") and write about 100 words, then use AI tools like ChatGPT to receive grammar and vocabulary feedback.
4. Compose Full Essays
As your skills grow, write multi-paragraph essays on more complex topics (e.g., "Is technology improving education?") and use AI for detailed feedback on structure and coherence.
Speaking Skills Enhancement: Six Effective Techniques
1. Read Aloud Regularly
Train your speaking muscles by reading books aloud to develop muscle memory and confidence.
2. Read While Moving
Stand and walk while reading aloud, imagining presenting to an audience to connect reading with spoken output.
3. Shadowing Technique
Select a native speaker’s video, listen carefully, pause, and repeat each sentence to mimic pronunciation and rhythm. This technique is explained in detail in Mastering Language Learning: The Simplistic Approach to Fluency.
4. Talk to Yourself
Simulate conversations by speaking aloud alone or in front of a mirror to improve fluency and self-confidence.
5. Practice Speaking with AI
Use voice-enabled AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to converse, obtain feedback, and practice without social pressure. For more strategies on overcoming speaking anxiety and structuring your speech, see Mastering Spontaneous Speaking: Anxiety, Structure, and Engagement.
6. Engage in Real Conversations
Join communities of learners to practice speaking with peers, participate in live lessons, and develop interpersonal communication skills.
Leveraging Community and Technology
Joining platforms like PC English Academy offers:
- Access to structured courses
- AI tools for writing and speaking practice with detailed analytics
- A vibrant community for peer interaction and live sessions
For guidance on powerful and persuasive speaking techniques, consider 10 Secrets to Speak Powerfully, Persuasively, and Profitably.
Final Tip
Start your journey today by sharing your thoughts in the comments section to begin activating your output skills immediately. Consistent practice and real interaction are key to overcoming speaking hesitation and achieving English fluency.
Do you ever feel like you understand everything in English? You can watch movies, you understand podcasts, and you
can read books. But when you want to speak, you freeze. That is one of the most common problems
English learners have. Let me tell you why this happens and how to fix it. Understanding the problem. There are two
things that you need to know. Input, output. Now, what is input? Input is whatever goes in. Whatever you put in is
input. Such as listening and reading. Because when you listen to something, you're putting information in. That's
input. Or when you're reading something, you are reading the information and you're putting that in. This is input.
You're receiving. But we also have output. Output is what you put out what comes out of you that is speaking or
writing that is when you produce information. Now the biggest problem is students have good input very strong
input but their output is weak. Why does this happen? Think about it. How do you learn English? You read books, you're
watching movies, you watch YouTube videos or you listen to podcasts. All of these are different forms of input. So
it makes sense that your input is great but your output is weak. It makes sense that you understand English but you
cannot speak. So what's the solution? The solution is to improve your output. That means you need to work on your
writing and speaking skills. And that's what we're going to do right now. Let's start with the first one. Writing
skills. Four ways to improve your writing skill. Let's start easy. I want you to share your thoughts. What does it
mean? Right now, you're watching this video on YouTube. So, I want you to share your thoughts. Go to the comments
section and start typing. What do you think about this video? Do you like the teacher? Do you like what you're seeing?
Do you like this lesson? What would you like to see next? What do you want to see more of? Share your thoughts. For
example, I loved this video. Best video ever. I learned why I cannot speak or write because I have never practiced.
I am going to practice more. Thank you for the video. This is a very simple but very effective
writing practice. Do this for every single video you watch online. You're watching a video on YouTube, go to the
comments section and share your thoughts. What do you think about that video? Share your thoughts. That was a
very easy activity. Basically, that's a warm- up. Now, what's next? Let's make it more challenging. I want you to make
a daily journal. Every day, I want you to write down five to 10 sentences about that day. What did you do? How did you
feel? What are you going to do tomorrow? What happened to you yesterday? Write five to 10 sentences every single day
about that day. And listen, you don't have to worry about grammar. It doesn't matter if your grammar is right or
wrong. At this stage, we don't care about grammar. Our only focus is on getting your output to work. Okay? So
start writing five to 10 sentences every day about that day. Today I watched a YouTube video.
I realized my problem isn't grammar, it's writing and speaking. So, I am
going to write in my journal every day. This doesn't take much time, but you
have to do it every day. Try to make this a habit. I know it's difficult. It will only take probably 5 to 10 minutes
of your day. Please do it. It's going to help you a lot. Okay. So far, we started easy. As a warm-up, you're going to
share your thoughts in the comment section, and then you're going to write five to 10 sentences every day about
that day. Now, this third activity I want you to do may be a bit more challenging, but it's very good. I want
you to choose a very simple topic, very simple topic, and then write one paragraph about it. The topic should be
simple. For example, what makes me happy? Or what was the best advice I ever got? Or my biggest dream or my
dream house or my perfect holiday. For each topic, you're going to write at least 100 words. One paragraph is
enough. But listen, the important thing about this activity is that now grammar is important. Your grammar and your
structure, they matter. How can you check your grammar? After you have written the 100word paragraph, I want
you to go to chat GPT or any other AI model, Gemini or whatever you have, and use this prompt. Paste it in chat GPT to
get feedback. Here's the prompt. I am trying to improve my writing skill. Find my grammar and vocabulary mistakes.
explain why they are wrong and show me the corrected version and then paste your writing. In this way, you're not
only writing one paragraph about a simple topic, you are also correcting your paragraph using Chad GPT or any
other AI model and you're getting feedback on what you've written. So, your mind starts thinking about accuracy
and structure. Okay, now you have practiced writing one paragraph. Let's go to the final level. At this level, I
want you to write a full essay about a topic. Start with familiar topics and as you get better, get to more complicated
topics. Now, here you're not going to write one paragraph. You're going to write at least three to four paragraphs
about that subject. The topics can be more challenging. For example, is technology improving education? This
forces you to think and to produce more and more and more content. It's not just about sharing your thoughts anymore.
It's about structuring that text. It's not just one paragraph. It's about three to four paragraphs. And again, at this
stage, grammar and structure, they are very important. So again, I want you to use the prompt I gave you and ask Chad
GPT or any other AI models to give you feedback. And if you don't like Chad Gupt, we have built something
fascinating for you. When you join the PC English Academy, you will have access to our latest AI tools. You can practice
your writing. When you write for our AI model, it will start processing your answer. It will show you your mistakes,
how to correct them, why you made those mistakes, and what was wrong with those sentences. And it also analyzes your
overall text and gives you four scores of grammar, vocabulary, coherence, and cohesion and one overall score. This is
very helpful. I highly recommend joining the PC English Academy by clicking on the link above this video. Go ahead,
check it out. And now the writing part is over. What should we do for our speaking skill? Six ways to improve your
speaking skill. Again, let's just start easy. The first thing I want you to do is a very basic exercise. I want you to
open a book and start reading loudly. You're going to read the book aloud. Now, you might say this is reading. This
is not speaking. But let me tell you one thing. This is improving your speaking muscle. Yes, speaking is a muscle and
you can train it to have muscle memory. Think of it as a warm up. You're warming up your speaking muscles. This is a very
important activity. Don't underestimate it. Open a book, start reading loudly. U one of the best ways to improve your
English is to join the PC English Academy. You will have access to four complete courses, AI tools to practice
speaking and writing, a student community to make friends and find study partners, and daily live lessons on Zoom
every day. Wow. See, that was very easy, but it's highly effective. I want you to do it. Now, let's go to the second task.
I want you to do the same thing. I want you to open a book and start reading loudly. But this time I want you to
stand up, walk around the room as you are doing it and imagine that you are presenting this information to an
audience. But how does this help? Again, you are improving your speaking muscles. You're trying to train muscle memory.
But at the same time, you're doing a trick in your mind. What's the trick? You are turning a reading activity which
basically is input into an output activity. You are training your mind to not only read but also try to deliver.
You have an imaginary audience. You're reading this aloud but you are trying to read this to them. That's the trick. You
are working on the muscle memory here. And you're also imagining delivering information to others. That is the first
step of improving your spoken output. Okay, enough with the easy steps. What's the third step? The third step is the
shadowing technique. It's very simple, very effective, and very fun to do. In the shadowing technique, you're going to
choose one person that you really like, a native speaker with a great accent. Now the accent can be American, it can
be British, Australian, whatever you like. Choose one person with a very clear accent. And then find a video on
YouTube of that person. And this is what you're going to do with that video. You're going to play the video. Listen
carefully. Pause after every sentence and repeat. Play. Listen. Pause. Repeat. Play. Listen. Pause. Repeat.
Play. Listen, pause, repeat. That's what you're going to do. Let me demonstrate. One of the people that I really like in
terms of their English is Barack Obama. The way Barack Obama speaks, I I don't think I've ever heard anyone as clear as
him. So, I've selected one of his videos and I'm going to play it. Listen carefully. Pause and repeat. This is
what I want to do. Let's go. >> I wanted to be a basketball player. I wanted to be a basketball player,
>> uh, you know, architect, >> an architect. >> There there were a bunch of different
things. >> Uh, politician, >> there were a bunch of different things.
>> Politician was not on the list. >> Politician was not on the list. >> Um,
the way I came into it, >> the way I came into it, >> I was inspired.
uh by social movements. >> I was inspired by social movements. Do this every day. It's a simple activity.
You don't have to do a lot. You don't have to talk to other people. If you are shy, don't worry. Just play the video on
your laptop, on your phone, and then listen and repeat. That's called the shadowing technique. Now, step four.
This is something I used to do as a child and this is something that I would probably say helped me the most. Talk to
yourself. Now, this is a gym because as an introvert, as a person who is very shy, I could not easily speak with other
people. I was mainly at home in my bedroom. How could I improve my fluency? How could I improve my speaking skill? I
couldn't. The only way for me to improve my fluency was to sit down and talk to myself. Imagine a situation and imagine
that I am talking to an audience or I'm talking to a good friend of mine or a teacher or a coach or to my imaginary
girlfriend back then. You know, I think the reason why people are struggling nowadays is because the economy is bad.
It's harder for people to make money. What do you think? Mhm. Mhm. Totally agree with you. Yes. Yeah. I think
you're completely right. Totally agree with you, man. You're the best. Yeah. So, just imagine a situation and start
speaking with yourself. And don't worry if people think you're crazy. I had a teacher who used to say, "If you want to
improve your speaking skill, you need to be a little crazy." And that's absolutely right. You need to be. Go
look into the mirror, talk to yourself in the mirror or just sit down, talk to your imagine that you have a bunch of
friends around, talk to them. Now we are in 2025, almost 2026 now and we have AI. So use it. Another activity that you can
do right now even if you are shy, even if you think your level is not good, even if you don't have the
self-confidence to start speaking immediately, is to practice speaking with AI. speaking with it. I mean,
writing to AI is fun. It's good, but I prefer speaking because you're trying to improve that muscle memory. Remember,
you're trying to work on your spoken output. So, don't just type, try to speak. And yes, I understand a lot of
the AI models, if you want to access the speaking feature, you need to pay for a premium account. But I think if you use
Microsoft Copilot or probably now even chat GPT, you get like I don't know five to 10 minutes per day of free speaking
access. It's very simple. You just open chat GPT and click on the voice mode. Wait, and then start talking. Hi, I'm a
student. I want to improve my uh English speaking skill. Uh can you help me? Absolutely. I'd be happy to help you
out. We can just have a chat and you can practice speaking with me. Feel free to talk about anything you're interested in
and I'll give you some feedback or tips along the way. >> Uh, let's just start easy. Um, ask me a
question. >> Sure. Let's keep it nice and easy. How about this? Can you tell me about a
hobby you really enjoy and why you like it? >> Uh, yes. I like tennis because I think
tennis is a very fun sport. >> That's awesome. Tennis is definitely a fun and dynamic sport.
>> That is enough. I think I proved my point. You can use an AI model to practice speaking. It's very good. But
if you want to do it, you need to pay. Also, again, if you join PC English Academy, we have built an AI speaking
teacher for you. You can use this AI tool to work on your speaking skill. This AI tool will ask you questions you
will have to answer. It analyzes your answers and it will give you feedback on your grammar, vocabulary, coherence, and
cohesion and an overall score. So again, if you want to have access to all of these cool AI tools that we have built
for you together with our four courses and our amazing student community, go ahead, click on the link and check out
our website. Let's get to the final one. This is very important and I think it's fair to say that this is the ultimate
goal of learning a language. Why do you study English? Because ultimately you want to be able to communicate with
other people, right? Yes, you can learn English to write better or uh to I don't know understand movies and TV series.
But if you're watching this video that that means your understanding is okay. You just want to speak. And why do you
want to speak? because you want to be able to talk to other people, right? So, this is exactly what I want you to do. I
want you to talk to other people. Yeah, it's going to be hard. You're going to have to find someone who is also
studying English. You're going to have to find a group of people who are also at the same level or a similar level to
you and are working on improving their English. And it's not easy. It's hard. But we have made it possible. We have
built an amazing community of more than 1,000 students who are improving their English every day. And on our community
space, our students are connecting with each other. They're making friends. They're finding study partners and they
are having daily conversations whenever they have free time. They go and check who's online and they start a chat and a
conversation together. Also, we have daily live lessons every day with our teachers and our students. You can
actually engage with other students and improve your speaking by talking to people. If you want to join, don't miss
this opportunity. Just click on the link, go to our website, register, and start becoming a member of our
community. And that's it, guys. I hope you've enjoyed this lesson. Now, what was the first activity I wanted you to
do? I wanted you to go to the comment section and share your thoughts. So go ahead, do it now. Go to the comment
section and start writing. That is your first homework. See you soon. Bye. [music]
>> [music]
Many learners experience an imbalance between input (listening and reading) and output (speaking and writing). While they absorb language through media, the lack of regular speaking practice causes hesitation or 'freezing' when trying to speak, despite good comprehension. Balancing input with output activities is crucial for speaking fluency.
Regularly typing comments on videos or articles encourages informal writing practice in a low-pressure environment. It helps you articulate opinions, develop sentence flow, and build confidence in expressing thoughts in English. Starting with short comments makes writing a daily habit and improves fluency.
Shadowing involves listening to a native speaker’s audio, pausing, and immediately repeating each sentence aloud. This mimics natural pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation, effectively training your speaking muscles and auditory processing. Practicing shadowing steadily enhances accent, fluency, and speaking confidence.
Voice-enabled AI platforms like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot allow you to practice conversational English anytime without social pressure. They provide instant feedback on your responses, help you structure your thoughts, and reduce speaking anxiety. Using AI conversational practice complements real interactions and accelerates skill development.
Start by sharing short thoughts in comments to build informal writing habits. Next, keep a daily journal focusing on fluency over perfection. Then write simple paragraphs (~100 words) on easy topics and use AI for grammar and vocabulary feedback. Finally, compose multi-paragraph essays on complex subjects, employing AI for structure and coherence guidance.
Reading aloud trains the vocal muscles and helps internalize language patterns, pronunciation, and intonation. Adding movement, like walking while reading, simulates real speaking scenarios and reduces stiffness. This practice builds muscle memory and confidence, making spontaneous speaking easier over time.
Communities provide structured courses, access to AI tools for detailed practice analytics, and peer interaction opportunities. Engaging with live lessons and speaking with fellow learners enhances interpersonal communication skills and accountability. Such an environment fosters consistent output practice crucial for overcoming hesitation and achieving fluency.
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