Practicing Speaking

Overcoming Practical and Psychological Barriers for Fresh Foundations Day 12

This post is part 12 of the series Fresh Foundations which is about helping you create a sustainable and joyful language learning routine. If you subscribe, you’ll get access to the previous posts and receive a new one every weekday in January.

Today’s post is about speaking.

Earlier this week, we looked at some theory on practicing productive skills like speaking. Let’s review the key ideas:

Output and Interaction: Speaking helps you use what you’ve learned and makes it easier to remember. The Interaction Hypothesis says that talking to others—even if they aren’t native speakers—provides useful feedback. Conversations help you notice where you need to improve and encourage you to grow your skills.

Automatization: Practice helps you use the language without thinking about every word or rule. This is called automatization. Over time, speaking becomes easier and more natural.

Speaking a new language can be the hardest skill to master and many learners come us against practical and psychological barriers.

Let’s look at both types of issues, starting with practical matters.

Practical Issues

Finding a Speaking Partner

You don’t need a native speaker to practice effectively. While chatting with a native speaker can be helpful, it’s not essential for improving your fluency, accuracy, or range. Practicing with someone who is an expert user or even another learner can be just as effective.

• Classes or Tutors: A professional can guide you and provide constructive feedback. (Would you like a future post on choosing a professional? Let me know!)

• Language Exchange: Partner with someone who wants to learn your language while helping you with theirs. (I'm planning on offering language exchange sessions soon. Hope you'll consider joining!)

• Other Learners: Find a study partner. For example, I know a family that only speaks in their target language on Tuesdays and another family that always uses their target language in the kitchen. By practicing together, you can build each other’s fluency and confidence.

• AI Chatbots: Tools like ChatGPT can help you practice anytime, focusing on fluency and vocabulary.

• Speak to Yourself: Narrate your day, pretend you have a YouTube channel, or record yourself answering questions and listen back. Even talking to your dog, hamster, or plants builds neural pathways! You have no excuses not to practice.

Psychological Issues

Lack of Confidence

Speaking another language can be a real challenge to our sense of ego, identity and self-worth. It’s very common to feel nervous, or avoid speaking in certain situations when you lack confidence. While this is a normal part of the language learning process, learning how to build your confidence is essential if you want to speak with others.

Confidence, sometimes referred to as Self-Efficacy, is built through experience. When you step out of your comfort zone and discover that everything turns out fine, your confidence grows. It’s important to remember that confidence develops through action—so take that first step and start speaking. (You can listen to my interview with Kaylea Russell about building confidence on episode 2 of the Love to Lingo Podcast.)

Here are a few tips to ease into conversations:

• Start small: Practice simple phrases or conversations.

• Signal you’re learning: Phrases like “I’m learning Spanish” or “Could you help me?” set the right expectations and encourage patience from others.

• Use a stronger non-native accent deliberately: Sometimes, this signals to others that you may need repetition or a slower pace. I often do this when making l phone calls to the bank or doctor’s office. 😅

Dealing with Frustration

Expect to get stuck sometimes. Expect to hesitate and spend time trying to remember a word. This is part of the process. Yes, it’s frustrating, but if you practice enough, it will happen less and less. When it does happen, try:

• Circumlocution: Describe the word or concept you’re missing. For example, if you forget the word for “fridge,” say “the thing that keeps food cold.”

• Filler Words and Sounds: Learn filler words like “uh” or “well” in your target language. These give you time to think and show you’re still engaged.

• Use Repair Phrases: “I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat?” or “In other words…”

• Signal Pauses: Phrases like “Let me think” help you buy time.

• Think in your Target Language: Stop translating in your head. Start with simple thoughts: narrate your day or label items around you in your target language. Gradually, thinking in the language will become second nature.

• Be Honest: If you’re stuck, simply say, “I don’t know the word for this. Let me explain.”

Learning to cope with a lack of fluency is a skill in itself. Once you’ve mastered strategies like these, you can use them when learning any new language. (This might be one reason it gets easier to learn new languages after your first.)

Balancing Accuracy and Fluency

Perfection is not the goal, it’s communication. Focus on getting your message across first, then refine your accuracy over time. Speaking fluently, even with mistakes, helps build confidence and keeps conversations flowing.

Mistakes are a natural part of learning. Reframe them as opportunities to improve. Most people are kind and patient, especially if they see you’re trying. Remember, every mistake you make brings you closer to fluency.

The biggest mistake learners make is waiting until they feel ready to speak perfectly. If you wait for perfection, you’ll never start. Speaking is about progress, not perfection.

What’s the biggest challenge you face when practicing speaking?

Your Task

Your task for today is to practice speaking in your target language. I know it might be a step outside of your comfort zone, but today is the day to take that step. Don’t overthink it, just do it.

If you’re comfortable speaking in your target language, maybe you could also expand your comfort zone by talking to someone new, chatting about a slightly more challenging topic or changing up the type of speaking you do. For example, you could try giving a presentation or telling a story in your target language.

Good luck and please, let us know how it goes by leaving a comment. You can do it!

Tomorrow, we’re going to reflect on all the work we’ve done this week and learn how metacognitive strategies can help us maintain an effective practice. See you then!