How to Encourage Your Child to Speak English Confidently?

Does your child feel afraid of speaking English in front of others? This is the most common problem that kids face who speak in their mother tongue most of the time. But as a parent, you can assist your child in feeling more confident and content by developing an encouraging and positive environment at home. Encourage them to speak first, let them discover their errors, and help them realise that making mistakes is a completely natural and crucial part of developing new skills and learning a new language. Nobody is perfect and everyone makes errors occasionally: this is the way how English speaking skills grow day by day.  

You and your child can engage in a variety of fun activities that will boost your child’s English speaking skills and help them overcome their phobia of speaking English in front of others. To learn how you can assist your child in speaking confidently in English, keep on reading.  

Tips to Develop Your Child’s Confidence in Speaking English

Read the tips given below that may help you to develop your child’s confidence:

• Don’t pressurise your child to provide lengthy answers. Pay close attention to them what they are saying and then rectify them gently.
• If you behave kindly and allow your child to communicate their feelings to you or let them realise that you’re pleased and happy with what they are expressing, it will boost their self-esteem and help them perform more confidently.   
• When your child is speaking, avoid interrupting or correcting them each and every time, even if they are pronouncing words incorrectly. You should not expect that they will be perfect every time because they are still learning. 
• Help them to say short sentences first. Ask your child to tell you about their dream or even their favourite cuisine while smiling at them. The most crucial part is your kid's ability in speaking confidently in English with fluency.
• Give them a chance to utilise words and phrases that they are already familiar with.
• Let them ask questions and make sure they comprehend whatever instructions you are giving them. If necessary, it will be best if you explain in your first language. 
• Let them finish speaking first and address their mistakes afterward. When your kid is speaking, don’t stop them or interrupt them. Stopping them every time to correct them can have a negative impact on their self-confidence. 

In addition, avoid pressuring them to do anything and let them discover things on their own. Develop a positive environment and encourage them to spark up without any inhibitions. You can also enroll your child in an online spoken English class to make them perfect at speaking English in front of others.   

Best Ways to Improve Your Child’s English Speaking Skills at Home

In our childhood, we all faced challenges while speaking in front of an audience. Speaking English fluently and confidently is one of the most important skills for children to have while giving a speech in public. As a parent, there are several techniques you can use to make sure your child enjoys speaking English and is not afraid to speak in front of anyone.     

Here are some tips to improve your child’s English speaking skills. Read below:

1. Reading storybooks to them
Reading stories to children is a great way of making them interested in reading books. Every day keep time for reading with your child and read the English books out loud to them. You can gradually urge your kids to read the books loudly on their own. 

2. Talk to your child in English
This is a simple method for enhancing kids’ English speaking skills. Avoid correcting your child and refrain from giving cues by finishing their words. Children initially take a longer time to find the phrases or words to make a sentence. So, keep patient and converse with them like a native English speaker. 

3. Ask questions about the day
Ask your child simple questions about their day that they can respond to in English. This will benefit your kids, and you may give titbits on what everyone did, how their day was, and any amusing events. 

4. Listen to audiobooks together
It’s crucial to read, talk, and hear English every day if you want to become fluent in the language. Spending time together while listening to English stories from audiobooks is fun and interesting. This will enhance your child’s vocabulary and pronunciation; thereby upgrading their English speaking skills as a result.  

5. Watch English movies together
Encourage your child to watch English movies. This lets them listen to the English the native speakers are saying. This improves pronunciation and grammar. Spend some time talking about the story after the movie. Encourage them to discuss the movie in English and to express whether they liked it or not.

Conclusion 

The first thing your child needs is your support and encouragement in order to improve any skills, including English speaking skills. You don’t need any teaching experience or abilities to utilise any of the aforementioned basic, affordable and simple procedures with your kids. 

If you think you can’t do it alone and need some guidance for your child’s English, you can enrol them in our FastInfo class which is an online spoken English class.