Where to Practice English Speaking and Listening? (Transcript)

E.77 Free Speaking And Listening Practice — Speaking and Listening practice!

Are you learning English just for grammar or to speak the language? I’m sure it’s to speak. Unfortunately, speaking and speaking to yourself can only help so much. I’m going to tell you how you can improve your speaking in English and you’re listening, especially listening on the phone in this episode.

You’re listening to Living in English: 365, by Paradigm English. Welcome to episode 77: “Free English Speaking and Listening Practice?”

Well, hello? Hello. Hello there. Welcome to the Living in English: 365 podcast. My name is Ashley Rhone and I am your host. I’m from ParadigmEnglish.com— an online language company that helps you —adults intermediate—finally achieve that level of fluency that you know you can reach. I focus on speaking, listening, and vocabulary.

In fact. Today, I’m going to talk to you about speaking and listening. And this is something that I’ve known about for kind of some time, but I just didn’t really use it that often. And, uh, it’s free. Did I mention that? It’s free. This is an app that you can download it’s for apple. And actually right now, um, as of just a couple of months ago, it’s actually available for Android.

So, yay to all you droids. Uh, Android users out there. All right. What’s the big ? What is this app? Clubhouse. Have you heard of it? Clubhouse is kind of a new app. It’s actually been around for a couple of years and it’s still, um, still very new, but it’s becoming extremely popular, so popular that sometimes even famous celebrities come and join a room.

So in this episode, I’m not going to actually explain how you can join this app. I’ll just drop a link below so you can download it for your device or your devices, but this is called clubhouse. It is free. You can get it on Android and apple products. How this can help your language? That’s the main thing.

So, um, just briefly, I’m going to tell you how this works, what I like about this, and then how you can practice. I think next week I’ll make another post about how you can learn a language on clubhouse. And I’ll give a little bit more details for that. So it’ll be short and sweet, you know, I don’t like to waste too much time, so let’s not waste any more time.

First of all, like I said, just download the app. Um, after you download the app, you will be able to create your profile and then choose here’s the most important thing here. Choose topics that you are interested in, okay. Topics in which you are interested, for example, maybe you like gardening or traveling, or you really, really like, um, I don’t know. Exercise fitness, whatever! There is a room available for you. After you choose that, then the app suggests several different, um, “rooms”, which people have created around a topic, which you can join. Let’s talk about joining.

Most of the rooms are free. I mean, you don’t have to pay anything and they’re public. You just enter the room, and after you enter the room, here’s where the fun starts. When you join a room, it’s very simple. You just click “join,” [and then] enter the room. And when I say “a room,” it’s not like, you know, obviously an actual room, but, um, I’ll explain that more in a different podcast, but you enter and it’s audio only.

That’s the beauty of this app. It’s audio only. So there’s no video. Actually, just a few weeks ago, um, as of the recording of this episode in summer 2021, you are able to send some messages to the group leaders. But at any rate, there’s still no video. So this is the part where it really improves your listening on the phone, as well as your speaking.

When you enter, you enter quietly you’re muted. And if you want to speak, you just tap a button at the bottom of your phone. That’s it’s like, basically “raise your hand” like you would in class and the person or the people that are hosting this particular room. Well, then they can, you know, quote unquote, “call on you.”

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So they just select you. And, um, it unmutes you and you have the floor, meaning you’re able to speak. That’s brilliant! So, you can improve your listening only if that’s your goal. You could just listen to the room based on a topic. Maybe you like, um, business initiatives in Malaysia–could be, um, maybe you want to know the best soil type for your corn that you’re growing because you’re a gardener.

You’re a farmer. Could be! You just choose a topic, and that’s the really interesting part because it’s very specific to you and your interests. So if you know that you want to improve your vocabulary in nursing, because you are studying nursing, then this is a really great app for you because there are nursing rooms available in English and Spanish and whatever language that you speak or that you are wanting to learn or improve.

This is also a really good way to get, um, community and have social networking and social network. You could, you know, set, um, set up a study room. Maybe some classmates of yours, you create a study room, uh, or, you know, maybe your teacher or your professor did, you know, that’s totally possible. Personally, I’m going to open a room for you all to practice soon.

Mine won’t be free. You’ll you’ll need to pay a reasonable price, but there are others that you can join in, um, from other people that are free. This app is cool, because like I said, you don’t have to be on camera. You can be relaxed. You can sit in your pajamas or boxer shorts in your room and enter any room you want and just basically observe by listening. If you like it, well stay in the room. If not, you can “leave quietly.” That’s a button in the app. As of right now, it’s called leave quietly and you just leave.

There are rooms available all over the world and at all times of the day, so you don’t have to be worried about if you are going to find a room—there are always rooms.

It’s 3:20 in the morning on a Sunday night. There’s a room. I promise. So. Anyway, download the app, set up your profile, choose the topics that you’re interested in. Um, then you’ll be shown a list of different people. Some of the people, they could be contacts that you already know in real life. Maybe they are friends or family, um, and enter a room and add those people as” followers.”

So that’s the list of all of the really good pros, but there, there is one big con, and even though the app is free and you can create a profile. You still have to be invited as of the recording of this episode in summer 2021. Yes. I’m sorry. You still have to receive an invite from some, a friend or someone that is already in the app.

It’s very exclusive, but that’s great for privacy. That’s the only real con. I have read that some people say, well, there’s too many men that hasn’t been my experience. Um, there are plenty of women. There are women’s only rooms, men only rooms, non-binary, um, gender non-binary, gender queer, whatever you are interested in, the clubhouse actually has it.

And guess what if they don’t have it, create it! You just create a room. Add people to it, or people will come to it. It’s fabulous. Fabulous!

All right. So just to recap: this is an app that allows you to speak and listen, because it’s audio. This will improve, yes, your speaking and listening, but also your, uh, uh, vocabulary.

Especially if it’s very specific to a particular topic in the room. But, um, because it’s so relaxed and there’s no camera, you can just enter the room first and decide if you like it. If you have a question or want feedback, then you just click a button that shows the person that is hosting or the people that are hosting the room that you have something to say, and it kind of flashes at them and, uh, they click a button and you’re able to speak. So the one thing I want you to know is that be confident. It’s okay if, you know, you stumble sometimes or your audio is having an issue. Okay, it’s audio only, don’t worry. Nobody can see your face.

You can add a profile picture, of course, but at the same time, don’t freak out about it. Just be confident. It’s not as scary as you might think. Don’t give in to that reluctance, that resistance. Push through the resistance to not do that. Because once you do, everything that you have wanted for your English is just on the other side of that. Small steps. It only takes small steps.

You don’t have to do anything really big. It’s already a really big step for today to download the app. It’s already an even bigger step than yesterday to create your profile and select your rooms, and then go into a room. Listen for a little bit. You can just click and say, “hi! I’m happy to be here. My name is Brandon Bronson.”

People will say,” Hey, Bronson. Welcome! And that’s already an accomplishment. The next time you enter, well, you can add onto that and so on and so forth. All right. This is how you practice your speaking and listening to English for free. In the coming weeks, and very soon, I’ll be creating my room. So you guys can join me there and still just listen to my voice. I guess you still won’t see my face, but you can join me on the Facebook group. I’ll post a link below, or you can search it on Facebook. It is the Living in English: 365 podcast group. It’s available for you. It’s free. Check it out. We would be very happy to see there because I am actually, this month we’ll be sending out or I should say releasing a sign-up list to have conversation partners. It’s free.

You just put in your contact information, give me some information so I can try my very best to find or match you with a conversation partner. So there’s that. If you’re interested in that, well, it’s going to be there. Here’s an update on a Fluency Academy. I know I keep talking about this, but remember it’s just me here doing this by myself. It’s hard, but, um, Fluency Academy. Yes. It’s still coming. Um, I have changed some things, so it will be a little bit shorter. And I wanted to make it more available to all of you. So I have made it shorter. It’s going to be like a Fluent in Five. So it’ll be about five-weeks worth. I’m thinking, uh, worth of a practice that you can have and help you to master your English.

And, um, maybe we’ll use the clubhouse app. Anyway, you can still check my website at paradigmenglish.com/fluency academy. To learn more about the things that you would learn in Fluency Academy. And I will post the link to the wait list and to of course, read more about Fluency Academy, the clubhouse app, and the podcast– the Facebook podcasting group.

Well, it’s not a podcasting group, the, the Facebook group for the podcast. There you go. Anyway, I’m Ashley Rhone from Paradigm English and the Living in English: 365 podcast. And now you have just learned how you can practice speaking English and listening to English for free.

Thanks for your company. I’m just going to go ahead and say. Bye for now. And I’ll catch you next time. See you later. Hey, thanks for listening to the Living in English: 365 podcast. Be sure to check the description below for all resources and links, and don’t forget to like, subscribe, follow, and to share this with your friends.

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