 Welcome to eslgoal.com where you will find quick answers to your language questions. Ask us anything about learning English and we'll be happy to help you. Question of the day. Today's question is probably the number one question we get. How can I improve my English speaking skills? So the title for today's video is How to Improve Your English Speaking Skills. Are you all ready to speak? Wait a minute. I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what to say. I don't have anyone to talk to. What am I going to do? Well, in order to speak a language, you will need three things. Number one, something to talk about, a topic. What? A way to communicate. Language. How? Someone to talk to. A partner or partners? Who? eslgoal.com and our related sites are here to help you with these things. Let's look at each item individually. Number one, something to talk about. Where can you find topics to discuss? Look around you. There are plenty of interesting things to talk about. Let us help. ESL Gold has hundreds of topics for you to choose from, depending on your level. And we provide you with vocabulary, grammar, questions, pictures, and conversation strategies to get you started. Are you new to English? Check out our beginning topics. Do you have some experience in the language already? Look at our intermediate topics. You want to challenge? Try our advanced topics. Let's jump right in and see what we can find. We'll start by going to the home page. And there's a link to that right up here in the right hand corner. So eslgoal.com has what you're looking for. We have videos, free lessons, web pages, just about everything you need. I would suggest waiting until the end of the video and then going back to click on the individual links. Then you can keep up with us as we go through this site. All right. The first place to start is at eslgoal.com. Go to the top center and it says speaking. This is our number one section in the site. And then go to the pull down menu where it says conversation topics. And here is where you'll find all kinds of topics for you to talk about. All right. Let's look at the list here and it says easy topics. We'll start with those because they're for beginners. All right. So click on easy topics. And you'll come to a page like this. It says here are some easy topics to talk about. Now we have them numbered. The 100 topics are the easiest ones, then 200, then 300, 400, and so on. So let's look at one of these vocabulary topics for today. It's topic number 124, transportation. Again, there's a link up in the right hand corner if you want to come back and go to that page directly. But let's do it right now. Click on that and we'll see a sample lesson. Now you've heard the expression stop, look, and listen. At eslgoal we're going to say start, look, and listen. So we'll start with what you see and we'll help you with vocabulary and questions and things visually to help you get started. OK, so it says look at the picture, read the questions, and think about the topic. So this topic for today is talking about transportation. So we'll start with some pictures and it says look at the pictures here. And if you click on the link, you'll see pictures of things like airplanes, cars, bicycles, buses, et cetera. And you'll see the vocabulary over there on the right. But if you click on the vocabulary where it says look on the pictures, then you will see pictures and you will hear the pronunciation of the words like boat or motorcycle. And you can repeat those for pronunciation. So you see them and you hear the words being spoken by a native speaker. Then we're going to use or practice the language. And down at the bottom of the page they'll have additional questions for you to talk about transportation. Here are some sample questions for you. How do you get to work? I usually drive my car. How long does it take? It takes a half hour. How often do you ride the bus? Once in a while. Do you ever walk to work? No, that would take forever. So as you continue on with this lesson, you can learn new words and put those words in context where you can practice them with a partner. Let's go on to the intermediate level topics. These are a little bit higher for people who have some experience with the language already. Again, we're at eslgold.com and we're going to the center where it says speaking and going down to the conversation topics. Now instead of easy topics here, we're going to go to something a little bit more difficult. Now if you look down here it says conversation prompts. A prompt is something that helps you get started in your conversation. So let's click on that. And you'll see a page like this. So it has several different types of things you can talk about. We have narration, opinion, description, hypothetical situations, situations for conversation, giving instructions in English, things like that. Let's click on the opinion section. And we'll come to something like this. Again, we're using the method start, look, and listen. So we're going to start with a video which will enable you to see and hear the language. So it will give you phrases and pronunciation for asking for and giving opinions in English. And this will take you right to the YouTube video. Then after you've watched the video and you've listened to the way that you can ask for and give opinions in English, then we'll let you put it in context. We'll give you some situations in which you'll have to give your opinion like what you learned in the video. That's the intermediate level. There are lots of topics like that with video to help you get started and then situations in which you can practice the conversation you learned. For more topics, go back to the homepage and scroll down to where it says Free English Lessons. Now these are organized according to level. So let's click on that and you will see beginning, intermediate, and advanced topics. What about advanced topics? Well, you'll get a list of topics here and these are usually articles or videos that help you get started thinking about topics so you can talk about them in English with your partner or teacher or tutor or whoever you want to talk to. All right, let's go to this article here that says Things to Quit Doing. And when we click on this, this is a sample advanced lesson. Again, we'll start with something that you can see. So you look at the pictures, read the question, think about the topic. Now this is in preparation for you to read an article. And the article is called Six Things to Quit Doing in order to be successful. And we'll have a link to the article so you can read it and then you can discuss it. Now we also have vocabulary preview. You can see that in the middle and you can also see that on the right-hand side where it has the words and you can practice these for pronunciation, avoidance, burnout, constraints, criteria, et cetera. And down at the bottom of this section, you'll have some of the expressions they use in the article as it turns out, falls into the camp, free up, get stuck, play a role in something, plugging away at. So these are expressions that you will see and read about in the article for today's topic. If you go down to the bottom of the page, you keep scrolling down, you'll see some questions that ask you to discuss some of the things that you learned from the article. And if you've got partners or classmates or tutors to talk to, this is an excellent way to get some practice using the vocabulary that you've learned from the lesson. Again, if you want more of these, go to the section called Free English Lessons. There's a link from the home page and here's a direct link on this page as well. And it starts with basic, then intermediate, then as you scroll down, you can get to the more advanced lessons. Okay, now that you have something to talk about, the next thing you need is a way to talk. This is where language comes in. You will need expressions, grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. ESLGold.com can provide these things as well. Let's take a tour of these pages. Probably the most popular section of our site is called Phrases for Conversation. Here you will find conversation strategies including text, audio, and video. For example, want to know how to make suggestions in English? Well, you will go to the section with expressions called Phrases for Conversation. It's part of the speaking section. If you go to the middle, click on speaking and you'll see a pull-down menu that says Phrases for Conversation. It's organized by difficulty. So it starts with low beginning, then goes to high beginning, intermediate, and advanced. So let's click on the topic that says Making Suggestions. And here's what you'll see. When you click on that page, you'll see at the top of the page of video. And it says, what do you say when you want to make suggestions in English? And this video will give you several tips and phrases to help you get started. So click on the video. It's a very short video and there's a direct link there. Then after that, you can practice some of these phrases on your own. So look down at the bottom and it says, Repeat for Pronunciation. So we have a lot of phrases there. And all you have to do is click and you'll hear a native speaker say the phrase and you can repeat and practice your pronunciation. But that's not all. You need more than just pronunciation practice. We will give you situations for conversation. In other words, we'll give you context in which you can use these phrases for making suggestions. And then you can talk with a partner or a tutor about these kind of things. What about grammar? Well, what about it? We provide explanations, examples, and exercises for you to get the knowledge and practice you need. Web pages come with text, audio, and video. Check them out. Where do you find grammar? If you go to the top of the website, you will see the second tab just to the right of speaking. This is our second most popular section of the website, grammar. And you click on that and you'll see a pull-down menu that says Explanations, Examples, and Exercises. Now this has them organized according to level. So if you're just starting out, you might want to look at some of the easier grammar topics. So look at the list and click on the things that you would like some help with. Now a lot of people say, well, I don't know what grammar is all about. I don't know what these concepts are called. I like to give you an analogy of fixing your car. If you want to fix your car, you kind of need to know what the parts of your engines are and what you call them and how they work. So grammar is kind of like that. If you know what the part of language is that you need to fix, and you know how it functions, and you can label it, then you can find the information you need to fix your grammar. All right, these are organized by level, but we also have a way that you can just go directly to the grammar point. In most cases, we'll have a direct link from the speaking page that you're on. But if you want to learn grammar and practice grammar on its own, then you can go to our sister site, which is freeenglishstudy.com, and we have grammar all outlined for you. Some people like to do it that way. And just choose the topic. These are organized according to topic, not according to level. And again, you will see videos, explanation, examples, and exercises. So on freeenglishstudy.com, you'll see this menu of grammar topics. So you can find exactly what you're looking for. Here's a sample. This is one of our most popular pages. We have a video, and then we have text. This is on freeenglishstudy.com. This one's called irregular verbs in English, finally explained. And what it does is it explains the irregular verbs in English and puts them together in categories. For example, you'll see categories like sing, sing, sung, ring, ring, rung, and we'll put them together so you can see the relationship and the patterns among these words. But we also have an alphabetical list if you prefer to learn it that way. Now let's go on to vocabulary words and phrases. We'll start with the lower level. For the lower levels, we have what we call picture dictionary. And this is a list of items with a picture and sound or pronunciation so you can practice and repeat the words after seeing the picture. Now for this, you go to the low beginning or the high beginning level. And here's what you will see. Here's a sample picture page. This again is in vocabulary. It's in the third section from the left, vocabulary, and go to words and phrases. The pages include pictures, audio, pronunciation, and quizzes. So for example, this sample page is about body parts. And so you'll see the picture, nose, chin, hand, elbow. And if you click on the link next to the picture, they will say it for you so you can listen to it as many times as you want. A neighbor speaker will pronounce the word for you. And then you can repeat it for pronunciation. Now in addition to this, we have quizzes. So on these pages, you click on the quiz section and it will give you a quiz by showing you a picture and then you have to say what that picture is of in English. This is so much better than translating it from your language. You see the picture, you hear the audio, and you say it. And you remember it a lot better that way. Let's go on to the intermediate level for vocabulary. At the intermediate level, we focus on word parts and vocabulary in context. So we'll give you a short reading article and let you see these words being used in a natural context or situation. We also explain some of the common mistakes people make at this level. So at the intermediate level, you can get more practice with vocabulary as well. Finally, at the advanced level, we have academic vocabulary lists and quizzes. So we have a lot of matching exercises which let you look for the definition and put the words together with them. We also have these videos which will test you on your vocabulary. Now we're talking about general definitions here and you'll see the list at the bottom. Of course, there are more than one definition for a lot of these words. So we'll start with the general definition and you can look at other places on the website and through the dictionary to find out more definitions for these words, but these are just general meanings. What about pronunciation? Well, we have different pages designed for pronunciation. We have most of the difficult sounds in English outlined for you, the L sound, the P and F sound, the R sound, the V sound, the TH sounds. Did you know that there are two TH sounds, the voiced TH, the and the voiceless TH, the. Then we have other sounds as well. Then we have pages for you to practice these and you can read and listen and practice these words in. Phrases, sentences and oral paragraphs. Now in addition to that we have something unique on eslgold.com and it's called speech patterns and we have special videos for fluency and helping you talk faster in English. For example, this video tells you how to speak more like a native speaker, using words like what do you, what do you say, what do you want, what do you do. We have different kinds of reductions or ways to speak English faster here. Another video that's quite popular is did ya, did you do your homework and it shows you how to reduce certain words in English in order to speak faster. Check out these videos, they're in the pronunciation section. Finally, number three, you need someone to talk to. This is something you may have to find on your own for now but we will have some things like this provided for you in the future. You need to talk to someone, you're not just going to talk to yourself or a textbook. So speak to a teacher, speak to a tutor or a classmate or a friend or a family member. A lot of people say well what if they're not a native speaker of English. That's okay because you're getting practice by using the language yourself and if they're patient with you they can help you and maybe you can help them as well. For the future we're going to bring together some of the best teachers, classes and tutors in fact we're doing that right now in programs to help you learn English. Wait and see what we have to offer. If you want some help in this area contact us at the link below for more information. Wow, that was a lot of information about learning English. To review, in order to improve your speaking skills you will need what? A topic. How? Language. Who? Partners. ESOgoal.com can provide many of these things. Jump right in and get started. Please refer to the links on the website and in the comments section below will provide all the links for you. If you want to go back to sections of the video and click on the link directly you can do that or you can look at the links in the comments section below. If that was helpful for more information please subscribe to our channel and our website. It's all free. And please give us a thumbs up in the comments section below. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions or would like us to make a video on a particular topic please let us know at the link below ESOgoal.com-submit-question Well what are you waiting for? Jump right in. Go back and look at the sections of this video and start improving your English today.