The general cause that makes the task of speaking English difficult for English learners is the environment around them. Especially in India, the environment around does not support the learners to speak English frequently. The environment here is no one else but the people around. Few people make fun of you when you try to speak in English, few might judge you on your mistakes while others will think that you are just trying to show off when you use English in your daily conversation. Right?
However, this is not the only issue. There are a few other difficulties which resist you from speaking a fluent and decent English, which include:
1. Fear of committing mistakes:
This is the biggest and foremost issue which keep many English learners away from speaking English confidently even if they already know basic English. They think that if they commit any mistake, others will laugh at them or insult them. This keeps them away from practicing spoken English and they end up with all the hopes.
However, this is not desirable. It is merely normal for a non-native speaker of English to commit mistakes while learning English because English is not his mother tongue. Therefore, just speak out without any fear of making mistakes.
2. No words to express your insights:
Due to a lack of a decent vocabulary, at times it might happen that you do not get words to express yourself.
You should learn new words daily, a command of words can benefit your life in many ways. When you have command on large vocabulary words, you can express yourself easily.
3. Lack of practice:
Moreover, the major difficulty is due to the lack of practice of spoken English. To speak fluent English, you need to practice English on a daily basis. If you are not able to find people around you to converse in English with, you can prefer some English practice app like EngVarta where you can practice English with experts over the phone itself.
A daily practice can make you used to the language and gradually you will get fluent in the language and start speaking naturally.
Hi shrutl, you have given some great advice, thank you. I wanted to give you a bit of advice in return if I may. Be careful in recognizing the difference between “few” and “a few”. “Few” without the article has a negative connotation meaning not very many at all. In contrast “a few” actually has a positive connotation, meaning more than zero. Contrast:
“I have few good friends.” - I don’t have enough, I wish I had more.
vs
“I have a few good friends.” - I am happy for the friends I have and am glad I am not friendless.
So in your post, “Few people make fun of you …” means hardly anybody makes fun of you, so it is nothing to worry about. I think you mean “A few people make fun of you …” meaning there will definitely be people who make fun of you.
Hopefully this makes sense and welcome to the forum! Let me take this moment to add that I for one am happy to listen to anyone’s TOEFL or IELTS speaking practice answers. This forum has an excellent voice recording function that is truly unique among ESL websites. Here is the category to post all your speaking practice: