The best way to improve your speaking is to speak. If you speak in English often, you will become more confident and it will start to be easier. Speak & Improve is a great place to practise your speaking.

If you create a profile, your work will be saved and you can continue working on your desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. This means you can practise anywhere and at any time.
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Tip: listen to your speaking on Speak & Improve and try to find the parts where your speaking was less clear or where you were less confident. Then try again and listen to see whether you improved.

Tip: why not choose a time each day when you will record something on Speak & Improve? Set a goal and make sure you achieve it. Choose a time when you will practise speaking each day, or each week. Practice makes perfect!

Tip: Speak & Improve gives you awards for how often you use it, how many tasks or tests you do and how many checks and improvements you make. Check your awards to help motivate you to do more tasks and tests more often. Why not set yourself the goal of getting some or all of the awards?

Another important way to improve your speaking is to make mistakes and learn from them. Remember that mistakes are an opportunity to learn. And with Speak & Improve, nobody will hear your mistakes, so you do not need to be afraid or embarrassed. You can take risks and do experiments and you can try and try again.

Tip: while you speak, have a good dictionary specially written for learners of English open. Use Cambridge Dictionary Online to check the pronunciation of a word, its word forms and word use. Look at the example sentences to see how a word is usually used. Click on the gold star symbol beside each word to add the word to your own online wordlist and make quizzes to test yourself.
If you prefer, keep a notebook and make a list of words you find and try to learn them.

Tip: check your grammar with this free online grammar reference from Cambridge Dictionaries
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Speak & Improve saves all your speaking. You can view the results for all the tasks you have done. Look at them to see which tasks you need to improve. You can do either individual tasks or complete tests. It is good to look back and see the progress you have made!

Self-study can be lonely and difficult. Look for people and resources to support your learning.

Tip: if you do not have a teacher to advise you, try to find a friend, colleague or classmate to share your challenges. Find a 'study-buddy'.

Tip: share your progress on Facebook or other social media and let your contacts know about Speak & Improve. Find people to talk to about your studies and your challenges.

Tip: Look on the internet to find useful resources and activities to help you. Cambridge English offers a lot of things to help learners. Go to this website and see what you can find for your level. Choose free activities for your level of English. Learn the Word of the day and try to use it in your speaking. Subscribe to the free YouTube channel. Join the Cambridge English Facebook page for regular hints and tips. Follow @cambridgeenglish on Instagram to find out about new features and get helpful hints on speaking and exam preparation.

Tip: there are lots of other places to find good free resources to help you with your English speaking. Here are two examples:
​BBC Learning English
​British Council LearnEnglish
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Reading and writing in English will help you to improve your speaking. You will learn new words and understand how the words you already know are used in a sentence. You will become more confident in your speaking if you listening to other people speaking.

Tip: think about what you are interested in and find podcasts and videos about those things in English to listen to. Make notes of new words and how they are used and try to use them in your own speaking. Choose something that is difficult to listen to, but not too difficult. Listening should be a challenge but not a torture!

Tip: Visit Write & Improve, the sister application to Speak & Improve. Choose from hundreds of tasks and get grades according to the internationally-recognised CEFR Scale, or for IELTS or B2 First. Write & Improve also gives you feedback on your errors.

Tip: Visit Read & Improve, a research project by one of our partners. Read & Improve provides up-to-date news articles from around the world, graded according to the CEFR Scale. And by using it, you are helping them improve technology that will help English learners around the world.
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​Tip: Remember you will learn better if you are not bored, so you should make your listening interesting to you. Think about all the different types of speaking you can listen to and where to find them. Find ways to listen to people talking about a subject that interests you?

Visit Speak & Improve whenever you can. Keep speaking to keep improving!