Speaking is one of the hardest skills in any language aside from Writing because there are steps that we need to follow in the right order to reach the level we want.
Step 1: Master pronunciation
Pronunciation is mandatory before test-takers think of advancing their Speaking skills because Pronunciation, Listening and Speaking always go together. If students’ pronunciation is not yet good, it’s super challenging to understand what others are saying, far less answer them immediately. Moreover, all PTE Speaking question types evaluate test-takers' pronunciation skills including Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, and Re-tell Lecture. That being said, it’s genuinely crucial to master Pronunciation beforehand.
The British IPA has a total of 44 sounds, while the American IPA has 41. For more details, let’s take a look at this article, “Master British and American Pronunciation”.
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It doesn’t matter what accent you choose to study, always remember to shape your mouth the same as your trainers train you. Always remember to mimic all actions they show and practise until you master all sounds in the IPA.
Step 2: Input every single day
Speaking and Writing are the output while Reading and Listening are the input. Let’s assume that you have already mastered Pronunciation (again, no matter if it’s British or American accents) but you have a super poor vocabulary bank, which means that you are only able to speak and write about ubiquitous topics such as Family, School, Food, etc, definitely not for more challenging ones that English learners predominantly face on their test day. As a result, always input every single day is the key to widening your knowledge and vocabulary bank.
To widen your vocabulary bank and gain more knowledge day after day, we need to read and listen. But how do we do that efficiently? We already shared two strategies for enhancing Reading and Listening skills, let’s read each of them thoroughly and apply them to practice.
We have come up with six ways to practice Speaking on a regular basis. If you have other ideas, it would be great to see them in the comment section.
Chat with your friends: This is considered one of the most basic methods to practice Speaking. Simply ask a friend of yours to set up a time every day or a few days a week to talk to one another in English.
Do shadowing technique: We technically mimic someone else speaking. In other words, we repeat what they are saying simultaneously. Students need to copy the speaker's intonation, pauses, pronunciation, and rhythm for the best results. For more information, refer to our A 05-step strategy to improve Listening skills that we already shared in Step 2.
Record yourself: English learners should combine this method with improving Reading skills. After finishing reading an article, open your phone and record yourself reading the whole article. By doing so, learners one more time have the opportunity to review all new words and knowledge that they read in addition to an audio file recording themselves for evaluation on pronunciation, rhythm, pauses, and other grading elements later.
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Regarding the Pronunciation grading element, there are many PTE question types evaluating it, including Part 1: Read Aloud, Part 1: Repeat Sentence, Part 1: Describe Image, Part 1: Retell Lecture. As we can see, Pronunciation is a truly vital element to get high scores in those question types. If PTE takers haven't got any ideas where to practice their Pronuncation, let's take a visit to the PTE Practice Platform and experience everything for free. This is sample feedback of the Pronunciation element.
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We offer detailed phoneme scores so students can learn from their mistakes and correct any wrong pronunciation.
Utilise language apps: There are uncountable proven apps in the market, students can pick a few and start experiencing them before committing themselves to that app. To give a few names, we have Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Memrise, and so on. Each Language learning app has its advantages and disadvantages, and surely it’s suitable to a specific type of audience. To illustrate, if students love animated characters, Duolingo is the best choice. Or if students like real-life people, then Rosetta Stone would be a better fit. Each Learning language app offers students a unique learning methodology and experience, so make sure to experience their FREE versions before going for the paid ones.
Join English-speaking communities: This is the best way in non-speaking English countries because talking to real people about particular topics is the best way to boost confidence, knowledge, vocabulary, and so much more.
Use an inanimate object: Is this method weird to you? No matter how weird it is, let’s hear us out first. Following this method is truly simple, English learners only need to find an inanimate object and start talking to it as a friend. Whether it’s a rubber Dog, a Monkey, or a Dragon, everything’s just fine. To do this, students need to prepare some questions in advance about specific topics, and we recommend you pick your favourite and easy ones first to practice. Later, let’s imagine the inanimate object as a friend and start asking the questions you have prepared, then you can change your voice tone a bit to fit with the inanimate object and answer all the questions. We keep asking in your real tone and answering in your fake tone (the tone of the inanimate object) until completing all prepared questions.
As we always advise students, enhancing general English skills needs to go side-by-side with practising on the PTE Practice Platform for the best result. We have countless ideas on how to practise Speaking on a daily basis, but they are recommended to improve general Speaking skills. Consequently, test-takers need to devote their time to practising all PTE Speaking question types to get used to them and aim for higher scores later.
Live-Interactive PTE Practice Platform
The Live-interactive PTE Practice Platform offers thousands of practice questions in addition to instantly detailed feedback for all question types to support test takers' preparation. To illustrate, the following feedback is of Summarize Written Text that the platform assesses students’ answers based on Content, Form, Grammar, and Vocabulary. We use the same grading elements as Pearson uses to evaluate test-takers’ abilities.
