There are always new ways to practice speaking English online with a native speaker. A language partner or teacher can help you to stay motivated when you are learning to practice English.
In this article, I will show you how to practice speaking English online with teaching platforms, language exchange websites, apps, and social media.
Some Recommendations before you start.
- Decide if you want to pay for a teacher or not.
- Do not just send a message saying “Hi”. I get lots of messages like this and I never respond. Write something interesting about yourself and how you can help the other person. Language exchanges are not just a way to improve your English but also a way to share your language and culture so tell this to your potential partner who is interested in learning about your culture.
- There are some strange people on the internet. Research every platform/website that you use and never give your personal details to people on the internet unless you trust that website.
- I recommend downloading Skype because you will need it to call people for many of the websites listed below.
Teaching Platforms
The benefits of a teaching platform are that you can find a teacher quickly that can help you with all their experience. Nowadays, it is easy to try different teachers so you can find a good teacher. It can be difficult to find a language partner so this is the option for you if you want to start learning English now and don’t mind paying money.
British Council
EnglishScore Tutors is British Council’s Official 1-to-1 tutoring service. British Council is the most trusted English teaching organization in the world and in my opinion have provided the best learning materials for students. The platform hosts over 150 qualified English tutors that are available for private classes 24/7.
Your first lesson is just $1, and you can choose to buy more lessons after that. EnglishScore Tutors is offering a limited time deal where you can get extra lessons for free!
Preply
Preply has over 2,500 English teachers.Preply is similar to Italki where the teacher sets the price. You can also learn other subjects apart from English on Preply.
Join Preply here and get 50% of your first trial lesson!
LanguaTalk
LanguaTalk is an online platform where you can book a class with an English tutor.
What I like about Langua Talk is that they only allow the best English teachers on their platform so that you know that you are getting an excellent class.
Look at the different teachers here
Italki
Italki is the biggest platform in the world to learn English. There are around 3,000 teachers available from every country in the world. Italki is not like a traditional school(or many other online schools) as it does not provide the lessons. Italki provides a place for you to find a teacher. You need to book a class with a teacher in advance.
Extra $10 to your first Italki credit here
Read my article Cambly vs Italki
Language Exchanges
A language exchange is when you practice the language you are learning and then spend time speaking in your native language to give your partner a chance to practice your language. It is free! Please always be considerate and try to practice 50% in each language. A great way to do this is to time your practice. 30 minutes in your language and 30 minutes in English.
This website has online lessons and an online text chat service so you can text your new friend. You can then ask them if they want to have a Skype call or organize a small group to practice together. You can also write your new expressions on your own notepad and find language learners from nearly every country in the world.
Conversation Exchange lets you meet people who speak the language you want to improve in your city. If you can’t find someone in your city then you can organize a Skype call to practice online. You can also practice writing in English with a pen-pal.
Tandem is a community where you can meet people from around the world and practice the language that you want to learn.
Easy Language Exchange is a free platform where language learners from all over the world have access to a free and user-friendly site to come together and learn their targeted foreign language.
LingoGlobe is another platform you can find people to practice your English. There is also a language learning forum where you can ask questions and other members of the website can help you.
You have a better chance of finding a language partner with the first 3 websites because they are more popular.
Apps to practice speaking English
A very popular app to practice languages. It includes a lot of features for language exchanges and also short English courses, translation tools and moments which are something like an Instagram story. There seem to be problems with the app so let’s hope the developers fix them.
With this app you can have an interactive conversation with video characters and use the latest speech recognition technology. This is great for visual learners. First, you listen to a dialogue in a video as many times as you need. You’ll be shown pictures to link with the meaning of the words. That way, you can focus on speaking instead of reading a text.
Then, you can read the dialogues to better understand them before you start speaking. Finally, you get to play the role of one of the characters in the video and immerse yourself in the conversation. A nice system that is similar to the way I learn languages.
Elsa is an artificial intelligence pronunciation coach that helps you improve your English speaking and pronunciation. You learn how to speak short, fun dialogues and can get instant feedback. First, you need to do an assessment test and then you will have a customized lesson plan especially for you and where you make mistakes in English.
Get an 85% Discount from One Minute English here
Social Media
You can use social media to make friends with English native speakers and practice speaking English. This is a great way to improve your English speaking especially if you are at an intermediate level or above. Find a group of people that are interested in learning English or in something that you are interested in.
Ok.. so maybe you have to meet someone in person for this one! Meetup has some English learning groups but also groups who are interested in different things. You can find people there who are interested in something like Software Development and you can ask them to chat about the latest trends in your area. If you live in an English speaking country then you can go to any meetup and practice your English there.
Facebook/Whatsapp
Facebook has many groups to learn English and you can meet many people there. Some people often set up a Whatsapp group and people practice their English there. You can also like my OneMinuteEnglish page where I give you more tips and recommendations about learning English.
Chat Rooms/Video Games
You can also use online chat websites or play online video strategy games where gamers often talk to each other in English. RealEnglishforGamers is a great website if you like video games.
There are lots of new ways to improve your English so be creative and try as many ways to practice your English online as you can. Let me know if you know any more websites that you know in the comments below.
- 10 Words or Phrases “To Make Her Feel Special” - October 16, 2024
- Synonym Generator - September 11, 2024
- [BrutallyHonest] Langua AI Review – Can you learn a language with AI? - April 23, 2024
you forgot to mention speak24.net
Hello, this is Ahmad Samim Dayan from Kabul, Afghanistan, I have graduated from School 10 years back and I did my BBA in Local Private University now I am doing my MBA in the same private University in 2nd semester and I have a lot of issues with my English speaking as well as translating it back to my own language. now how can I improve my English language speaking along with translation into my own national language.
Thanks,
Dayan
Hi I’m emon from Bangladesh
Hello Emon! Thank you for commenting!
Hi
This is Md Saahid from Nepal.
And I’m a student of secondary school and I have problems with English language like speaking and translation of English from my Nepalese language. I’m from a village where English language institute are not available.so please help me to learn English fluently from online free. Please tell me some names of English learning apps/sites like cambly…
Thank you.
Toastmasters is an amazing resource as well