流利口语方法大全

⊙ By Alex Caser

流利口语方法大全

⊙ By Alex Caser

24 Ways to Improve Your Fluency

One of the top priorities of learners of English around the world is to improve their fluency, by which they usually mean how quickly and/or smoothly they can speak the language, including avoiding pauses. Unfortunately, fluency is one of the most difficult things to improve, particularly without living in an English-speaking country. This article gives over 20 tips that should help learners to speak more fluently, including many things people can do on their own outside the classroom.

Before You Need to Speak实战之前

1. Rehearse 演练

The obvious thing to do before having to speak in English is to practise speaking, keeping the questions, topics, etc., as close as possible. If you have someone to practise with, you can give your conversation partner a list of questions and/or topics.

If you don’t have a place to rehearse, it can also help to just think about what people might say to you and how you could reply. It’s generally best to imagine the whole thing all the way through in real time as if you were acting it out. You can then replay the whole conversation in your head, perhaps after looking up some words and expressions you could have used.

2. Warm Up 热身

It is well worth spending some time earlier the same day speaking in English in order to“switch your English brain on.” If that is impossible, the other options are to speak to yourself, listen to something, or read something.

3. Relax 放松

Stress can be one of the great enemies of fluency, so if you know you have to speak English and are worried about how quickly and smoothly you will be able to speak, often the best thing to do is just to relax yourself.

While Speaking口语进行时

4. Think Aloud 边想边说

If you are thinking “That’s a difficult question,” “I’ve never really thought about that before” or “I’m not sure that I could even explain in my own language,” then that is exactly what you should say. Not only does following this tip fill silence, but you’ll often find that by the time you’ve finished saying that you’ve actually thought of at least some way of answering the question.

5. Start Speaking, and Think about What You Are Going to Say 先开口，再想要说什么

There are phrases that can start lots of sentences and are long enough to give you thinking time. The phrases include “In my limited experience…,” “I have generally found that…,” “From my point of view…,” “Off the top of my head…” and “The first thing that springs to mind is…”

6. Send the Turn Back 以守为攻

One way of avoiding uncomfortable silences is to ask something to the other person to give yourself time to think of what you want to say. The most natural way of doing this are questions like “I’m not sure what…means,” “Do you mean…(or…)?” “Are you asking me…?” and “So, if I understand you correctly you want to know…”

7. Use Words from Your Language and Explain Them 先用母语的词语，再解释

A lot of people get stuck[被难住]when they think of a word in their own language which they can’t quickly translate into English. The easiest way around this is to mention the word in your own language and then explain it using phrases like “I don’t know how to say it in English but in my language we say ‘….,’ which means something like…” and “There is an expression in my language ‘…’ which is something like…”

8. Use Vague Language 用模糊的语言

Native speakers often give themselves thinking time by saying things like “something like,”“or something like that,” “I suppose.” Other useful phrases to do this with include “I guess,”“more or less,” “You could say” and “or so I’d imagine.”

9. Accept Other Weaknesses 专攻此项

If you are going to speak more smoothly than usual, it will inevitably[不可避免地]lead to grammar mistakes, less complex vocabulary, etc., so just accept that and work on those another time when they become your priorities.

10. Answer the Easiest Bit First 先回答容易的问题

Just talk about whichever part seems easiest to answer. You can also do something similar with single questions. For example, if they ask you “How did you get here today?” you can first of all give a basic summary like “I came by bicycle, train or bus” and then you can give more details.

11. Change the Conversation towards an Easier Topic 转换话题

Useful phrases for this include “Moving on from that…,” “Changing the topic a little…,”“By the way…,” “That reminds me a little of…” and “For some reason, that makes me think of…”

12. Don’t Try to Structure Your Speaking 切勿构思

An oral answer to a question isn’t anything like a written essay or even a conference presentation or lecture, so sentence starters like “There are three main arguments against this”are unnecessary. They can also be counterproductive[反作用的]. More vague versions like “There seem to be loads of reasons why it wouldn’t work” can be useful.

13. Dramatic Pauses and Waiting for a Reaction 戏剧性的停顿，然后等待对方的反应

There are some kinds of pauses which don’t come across as a lack of fluency at all, such as “and you’ll never guess what happened then (pause)” and “and when I opened the door I couldn’t believe my eyes (pause).” If you have a drink you can sip[抿]at that point, that makes the silence even more natural and dramatic.

14. Slow Down 减速

There are plenty of times in a conversation where it is perfectly natural to speak slowly, such as emphasising[强调]something in expressions like “Oh…my…God!” and you can use these naturally slow parts to think about what you will say next.

15. Stretch Words Out 拉长发音

Although real fluency might seem like producing lots of words, it is often more natural to stretch out fewer words, especially when that has communicative[交流的]function, as “I beliiiiiiiiieve…” (expressing doubt) and “You whaaaaaaaaaaat?” (expressing shock). This also gives you thinking time, hopefully helping you to speak more fluently afterwards. Other words which sound as natural or more natural when stretched out include “Weeeeeell,”“Reeeeeeeally?” and “Iiiiiiiiii seeeeeeeeee.”

16. Use Confident Body Language 使用自信的肢体语言

Make sure you also keep eye contact and it will also probably get the same positive body language from the person you are speaking to, making you feel more confident.

Studying to Improve Your Fluency备战策略

17. Stick to the Easiest Topics 挑选容易话题

To boost[提高]your confidence and get used to speaking fluently in English, it is often best to choose easy topics to speak on for fluency practice. Everyday conversational topics like hobbies and movies are good.

18. Choose Topics You Feel Passionate About 谈论酷爱之事

When practising speaking on your own or with a partner, one good way to get used to speaking at length[充分地]with few pauses is to choose topics that you are likely to get so into that you forget about the difficulties you have with the topic. Your interests or hobbies, topics you actually care about, can sometimes be surprisingly easy to speak about.

19. Prepare Your Answers to Probable Questions 事先准备好答案

You can also go beyond just preparing to talk about topics by finding or brainstorming[头脑风暴]actual questions you might be asked like “What are you working on at the moment?” and “What kind of music do you like?” then practising answering them.

20. Learn Sentence Starters 收集开头语

Sentence starters like “In my limited experience” and “If you ask me” are great for speaking first while you are thinking of what you want to say. They can be found in phrasebooks and other self-study guides to conversational English. You can learn them by having a list in front of you as you’re doing oral practice, trying to slip them into the conversation.

21. Read Quickly 快速阅读

I found reading as quickly as possible to be a good way of speeding up my thinking. The most important thing is not to stop to use a dictionary and to work on accepting words, phrases and even whole sentences you don’t understand. If you also want to improve your actual reading comprehension, then you can read again more carefully later.

22. Stop Translating 切勿翻译

Many people believe it is not possible for adults to really stop translating in their heads, but you can certainly stop translating during your own study. That includes switching to a monolingual[单一语种的]dictionary and using gapped[间断的]sentences, English synonyms[同义词], etc., rather than translations.

23. Speak on Your Own 自言自语

Ways of getting the chance to speak, even when you don’t have someone to do with, include answering questions out loud, talking about topics for at least a minute or two, roleplaying both sides of conversations and everyday transactions, describing everything you are doing out loud, and replaying real English conversations you have previously had. It really is best to do this out loud.

24. Be Realistic 务实的态度

This is more of a mental attitude than a practical tip.

Although it’s usually worth pushing yourself to fill silences, if you get stressed about your lack of fluency it can have the opposite effect. Native speakers pause, change their minds halfway through a sentence, repeat themselves, correct themselves, go back to something they forgot to say, explain something in a disorganised way, make grammatical mistakes, or find themselves interrupted halfway through what they were saying. You should therefore certainly allow yourself to sometimes do the same. For example, if you are quite a hesitant[犹豫的]speaker in your own language, it is quite unlikely that you will be more fluent in English.