5 FREE Ways to Practice English with a Native Speaker
Practice, practice, practice! Right, you’ve heard this before?
Practice is key to becoming a fluent English speaker.
Even after studying English years in a classroom, most students — maybe ALL students – still struggle to speak the language fluently.
Why?
Two main reasons:
(1) This is because they don’t practice speaking English often enough. How can you practice speaking English? Find a friend who speaks English. What if you don’t have any English speaking friends? Don’t worry there are several language learning platforms where you can connect with native English speakers for FREE. Not only is this a great way to practice but it’s also an opportunity to meet someone new and learn about their culture.
(2) This is because they don’t get the right kind of practice. The “right kind of practice” means practice under “real conditions” – you have to communicate, you have to get your point across, you have to connect with someone. If you don’t succeed, there are “consequences” — you lose something. And “the right kind of practice” also gives you feedback about how you did, and helps you to improve in a specific way!.
1. iTalki
You’ve probably already heard of italki. Most people already know that italki is one of the most popular language websites and apps that lets you find and hire language teachers to teach you virtually any language. What most people don’t know, is that in addition to the paid service, italki also offers a FREE service where you can find “conversation partners” for a free exchange. Conversation partners, unlike language teachers, aren’t language learning professionals. They are just native speakers who are willing to trade their language skills for yours. You teach them your language and they teach you theirs for FREE. It’s a lot of fun and we recommend it.
2. Speaky
Speaky is a FREE platform, available as both a mobile app and website, that allows you to find native English speakers all over the world. The website has a large community of speakers which makes finding the ideal language partner easy — well, nothing is easy, but easier than just random meetings with people!
Meeting a person from another country, besides allowing you to learn a new language, also allows you to learn more about the culture and make a new friend. It’s been proven that learning a language with friends makes the process easier. (You already knew that, right?)
3. LingoGlobe
LingoGlobe is a free language exchange community where you can find native English speakers that are willing to help them learn conversational English. When you first register on the website, you fill out a questionnaire that determines your language level and adjusts your preferences accordingly. The website includes all the necessary elements needed for language learning – interaction with native language speakers, free resources, and a community of fellow learners.
4. My Language Exchange
My Language Exchange is another language exchange website where you can exchange language services with another person around the world. While the My Language Exchange website technology is pretty outdated, they do have proven language exchange method and also free lesson plans (members from over 175 countries, practicing 164 different languages!). Their powerful search tool and community of millions of language learners lets you find compatible language partners, no matter what your interests are, where you live, or what language you want to learn.
5. The Mixxer
The Mixxer (also known as language-exchanges.org) is a free virtual language exchange site using Skype created by Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and open to all. It’s available both as a website and as an Android app. The way it works is you chat with users on the website and invite them to talk to them on Skype.
> So those are 5 interactive learning resources to check out –– and to practice!
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