Strategies to improve your Duolingo Speaking skills

Admittedly, speaking is one of the most difficult skills in English. People predominantly achieve a low Production score compared to the rest; hence, we know how challenging it is to find strategies to enhance your Production score effectively. 

Production is the result of your Writing and Speaking skills, so this article will generally focus on sharing ways to upgrade your speaking performance. Let’s check it out and apply it to your practice, as many members did.

Here is one of our members who had applied all tips and strategies to practice and achieved his 140 Production sub-scores after several months! 

I. What do you need to know? 

There are several Speaking question types in the Duolingo English Test including Speak About the Photo, Read then Speak, Listen then Speak, and Speaking Sample. Yes, your Speaking skill will predominantly contribute to the scores of the listed item types, so let's comprehend fundamental information of each type first. 

1. Speak About the Photo

• Requirement: You speak for at least 30 seconds about the given image
• Preparation time: 20 seconds (start when you see the image)
• Time for speak: 90 seconds (maximum)
• Sub-scores: Production, Conversation
• Appearance times: 01

2. Read, then Speak

• Requirement: You speak for at least 30 seconds about the given question
• Preparation time: 20 seconds (start when you see the question)
• Time for speak: 90 seconds (maximum)
• Sub-scores: Production, Conversation
• Appearance times: 01

3. Listen, then Speak 

• Requirement: You speak the answer to the question you hear
• Preparation time: 20 seconds (start when you hear the question). During this time, you can hear and replay the prompt a maximum of 02 more times.
• Time for speak: 90 seconds (maximum)
• Sub-scores: Production, Conversation
• Appearance times: 02

4. Speaking Sample

• Requirement: You speak the answer to the question you see on the screen
• Preparation time: 30 seconds to prepare (start when you see the question), and the next 3 minutes to speak.
• Time for speak: 03 minutes (maximum)
• Sub-scores: Production, Conversation
• Appearance times: 01

II. How to enhance your performance?

If you want to improve your performance on the test day, you will need to improve your speaking generally. And our students always joke that “They speak English very fluent in their minds, but they cannot articulate it verbally”, which is a common problem that most of us face while learning languages. 

Perhaps, you have the same problem too. So, we will share a complete guide to level up your speaking step by step. 

Let’s get yourself ready! 

1. Master your pronunciation 

In every language on earth, pronunciation is the key to successful speaking. Why? Because it helps you understand how a language sounds, what people speak, and how to deliver speeches fluently and confidently that people understand. 

There are two ways you can enhance your pronunciation, which hinges on your choice: American English or British English. 

• - British English: You search “The sounds of English” on YouTube, and you will see around 45 free video lessons from BBC Learning English, which is the best course to follow British accent. 
  
  
• - American English: We always suggest our students take the Pronunciation Workshop from Paul Gruber, a Speech Pathologist in the US. You can search it on Google or other platforms. But please bear in mind that you may invest a small amount of money. 

2. Input every single day 

Everything needs input in order to have output. In English, Writing and Speaking are output, while Listening and Reading are input. Therefore, there is no way to improve your Speaking if you don’t read and listen on a daily basis.  

By saying input, we mean that you should read English articles or listen to English content to widen your vocabulary bank, imitate how native speakers speak, organize your ideas coherently, and articulate yourself better. 

You can spend only 30 minutes or hours practicing, but the point is that you have to do it regularly. Do not stop even for only one day.  

3. Practice your speaking 

We have several recommendations to help you out. But first, how do you practice your speaking every day? 

Let’s check ours and apply them to practice. 

a. Chat with your friends

Here is the easiest one to practice; you simply need to find a friend willing to lend a helping hand. You both can set up a schedule on a daily basis for around 10-15 minutes to practice speaking. 

If you guys want to get the most out of this, you should prepare your favorite topics beforehand. Hence, you will probably have at least two topics with lots of questions to discuss. 

b. Shadowing technique 

In a nutshell, it’s all about imitation. You concentrate on listening to how native speakers speak and mimic them as similar as possible. You should do it step by step by step as below:

• Pick your “Just-right” content: 

Generally, we divide all English content into three categories: Easy, Just right, and Difficult level. “Just right” content means you can learn the most from it. The content you choose needs to be your favorite topic, and it’s not too hard or too easy. 

If you want to have a better understanding of Just right content and how to find it, check out this article, “Tips to improve your Listening skills”.

• Listen to it and pay close attention to details: 

In the beginning, you listen to the whole video and pause to note down new words, idioms, or collocations. But you only should look them up after completing the video in order to save time and follow the flow of the speech. Besides, you should pay close attention to the speaker’s intonation, pauses, pace, and pronunciation. 

Please note that you should do this step one time only. 

• Play it again and repeat it:  

Play it again, practice as many times as possible, and most importantly, you need to repeat the speaker’s sentence by sentence. 

Pause the video to repeat the speaker’s every single sentence until the end, and you should mimic them as similar as you can. 

c. Record yourself

We’ve taken DET so many times, so we know for certain that there is a bunch of different topics every time we take the test. Therefore, even if you don’t like particular topics, you still need to immerse yourself in them. But feel free to practice your favorite ones first to motivate yourself.

Once you have your topics, seek some questions related to them and start recording your answers to the questions. 

The records will help you check your mistakes, which are undetectable when you answer. By that, we mean you’ll be able to learn from your faults and fix them next time. 

d. Use language apps

Duolingo is a free learning app, so why don’t we leverage it to improve our English skills? Let’s go to App Store or CH Play and get it. 

Our simple strategy to ensure your success using Duolingo is to study consistently EVERY SINGLE DAY. We know it is not easy to study for weeks, far less months consecutively. But, there are no other ways to leverage this app. 

We strongly suggest you set a specific but small goal day in and day out and put your effort into accomplishing it. For example, your goal today is to study at least 03 lessons or 10 minutes. If you are able to carry it out for a week, you should set a higher goal – 15 minutes. 

Of course, feel free to study with any language apps you prefer or other skills you like. But please bear in mind to do it in your everyday life. 

e. Use an inanimate object

Our members use their favorite rubber inanimate objects to talk to. Sounds strange? Yeah, it was weird with us at first; however, it is getting more beneficial by the time we practice. And it’s super easy to follow. 

First of all, what is your favorite animal? It’s a monkey, duck, or dragon? Whatever it’s, let’s find a rubber one and then talk to it. 

You need to point out a list of your favorite subjects, something you love discussing with others. Especially something you are good at, so you feel more comfortable conversing with others, such as education, films, traveling, etc. 

Next step, please write down bullet points on your notebooks and start presenting all points to your favorite rubber animal. In this case, you are not talking to yourself but teaching a rubber animal something that you are passionate about. 

Furthermore, you should record yourself while presenting your points so you can notice all mistakes later because it is not effective if you try to catch your faults while speaking, which affects your fluency and confidence. 

f. Participate in Speaking events 

As far as we can tell, English-speaking communities or clubs play the most critical role in increasing your Production score. Especially your verbal skill, because talking to real people in an English environment is the best to improve your speaking. 

Nowadays, there are so many online and offline events across the globe offering you a 100% English environment to practice speaking and writing. 

You can search for offline events in your town, or you can also seek online events worldwide.

4. Pretend English is your mother tongue 

Fake it until you master it.

Immersing yourself in an English environment is the best way to improve your skills efficiently and effortlessly. 

Just imagine yourself living in an English-speaking country, in which you use English to converse with others on a regular basis. Apparently, you will absolutely advance your Speaking skill easier. So we have three following tips to help you immerse yourself in an English environment. 

a. Think in English

Lots of people find this impossible to do because they think their current English level is not good enough. Yes, they are all correct! They cannot think in complicated sentences, but they definitely can think of simple ones, such as:

• I feel awesome today!
• It was amazing. 
• Yeah, I did it. I think I can achieve more!

Do you see? The above sentences are very simple, so we strongly recommend you do so as much as possible to make yourself completely comfortable with English.

Everything needs practice, and this is no exception.

b. Talk to yourself

Have you ever asked yourself about things, life, or what you will do if you face a challenge head-on? There are so many things to talk about!

Admittedly, it is quite strange and tough-talking to yourself in the beginning. Thus, you should set an initial goal to ask yourself three questions per day, and then you can increase it once you are acquainted with it. 

However, the point is that you need to speak aloud so you can listen to your voice, your tone, your pronunciation, and so on. It will be better if you record yourself while speaking, then you can listen to it again and detect some mistakes that you aren’t able to make earlier. 

c. Use English every time at home 

You need to optimize everywhere at home to immerse yourself in an English environment. In other words, you can attach sticky notes, famous quotes, or some personal notes in your room, on the wall, or on the fridge so you can see them frequently. 

This is also an effective and effortless way to learn new collocations or idioms by attaching them where you can see them often. 

The point of this tip is to let you see English more often at home.

*Practice makes perfect!

If you want to apply our tips and strategies to regular practice, we have thousands of similar questions to the real ones on our Practice Platform. We also upload more questions on the 15th of every month, so you don’t have to worry if we run out of questions.  

Furthermore, you will receive feedback from our Correcting systems for all question types to improve your score more efficiently. Our Correcting systems assess your performance based on some grading elements, such as Fluency, Lexical sophistication, Lexical diversity, Grammatical accuracy, Acoustic features (Pronunciation, Pace, Intonation),and report detailed feedback.

Check our instant sample feedback and see how it helps you achieve your desired scores!

Go to the DET Practice Platform, create your FREE account and boost your skills today.