Why You Freeze When Speaking (And What To Do About It)
Freezing up when you speak in English is a pretty tough thing to deal with. You are having a lovely conversation with someone and things are going well until suddenly, your mind goes blank, you can't find the words you are looking for, and time just seems to stop.
If this has happened to you, first of all, you need to know that it is not the end of the world. It happens to the best of us sometimes. However, if this is happening regularly, we need to work out why and do something about it.
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Why Do I Freeze Up When Speaking English?
There are a few different reasons that this can happen and it will depend on a few different things like the person speaking and the situation they are in. Having said that, it is usually because of one (or more) of these things:
1. Speaking is NOT Automatic
Understanding English and speaking English use different mental processes so you can't just assume that because you can understand something, you can magically do it. Just because I understand how a pizza is made, doesn't mean I am good at making pizza (trust me, ask my wife haha).
Learning words is just one part of the puzzle here. Understanding the words when you encounter them is another. The final part of the puzzle is being able to find them and use them at the right time. Most people just do steps one and two, and assume that the last part will happen automatically (It doesn't)
2. You Translate in your Head
This is a really common problem for loads of people who learn English. When you start, you basically learn through the translation method, but eventually it starts to hold you back. Imagine this situation...
You listen to a sentence in English → You translate that sentence into your native language → You think about the meaning → You decide how to respond in your native language → You translate that response to English → You say the translated sentence out loud.
I don't know about you, but that seems like a lot of wasted effort to me. Those extra steps really slow you down and create a lot of extra work and pressure on your brain. This causes you to hesitate and freeze up.
A much better option would be to train yourself to think in English and take away a lot of the wasted effort!
3. You Get Nervous
This is the simple nature of being a human. When we are uncomfortable (and speaking in a second language is pretty bloody uncomfortable at first) we tend to get nervous and that leads to feelings of anxiety.
Most of the time it is because we are putting so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect all the time when speaking in English. Anytime we feel unsure, or that we make a mistake, the pressure and anxiety starts to get stronger.
When these feelings get strong enough, they are going to cause your mind to be overloaded and go blank. We enter "fight, flight, or freeze" mode and this makes it almost impossible to think clearly and access the information we have already learned.
Why is Freezing Up A Bad Thing?
Other than it being a really terrible situation to be in, there are a few things that can happen to you if you regularly freeze up when speaking in English.
1. You will start to avoid speaking
Freezing up in conversations sucks. If it keeps happening, your confidence will start to drop. When your confidence is lost, you will feel like you can't speak English well enough and this will probably lead to you avoiding the situation that made you feel this way, you know, conversations where you freeze up.
Naturally, if this happens, you are going to avoid speaking in English and that is not cool because it will leave you feeling isolated, like you can't do it, and you will miss out on opportunities to talk to new people and build new relationships with people you meet.
2. The longer you wait to fix it, the harder it gets
Just like anything in life, we can learn to live with things. We start to find ways not to deal with the problem and tell ourselves that it is OK. However, the longer you wait to deal with this problem and overcome it, the harder it will get to do it in the future.
When you have a problem like this, or any kind of fear really, if you avoid it, it gets more powerful. You think about it, and the feeling of fear gets stronger, and you are less likely to try and overcome it. This cycle repeats over and over again, until eventually, it feels like there is no way for you to conquer this fear. Start today, before it gets out of hand!
3. People might get confused
If you freeze up all the time when you are speaking in English, the person you are speaking too might start to get a bit confused. Imagine you were speaking to someone and suddenly, the just went silent for 10-15 seconds. You would be a bit confused too, right?
Hesitation like this might lead to people thinking your English is not very good, when the truth is that your English is fine, you are just struggling to use it in real life conversations. This is another thing that can really hurt your confidence.
4. You will return to what feels safe
Most English learners, when they encounter a problem like this, they think that the best way to deal with it is to hit the books and just study more. Maybe the problem is not a lack of practice, it is because you don't know enough words yet! Or maybe you just need to buy one more textbook and that will magically solve the problem, right?
The truth is, that it won't fix the problem. The only thing that will is tackling it head on and doing the hard work needed to build your speaking confidence. It will be uncomfortable, but it is the only way to move forward and I know you can do it if you know how!
How Can I Stop Freezing Up When Speaking English?
There are a few different things you need to start doing that, when combined, will reduce the chances of you freezing up in conversations.
1. Start Speaking Everyday
The best way to retrain your brain is to start practicing speaking EVERY SINGLE DAY. I know it is hard to do this. You don't know what to practice... You don't have the practice materials... You don't have time... I know mate, I have heard it all before. However, it is possible if you know how.
You don't have to speak for hours a day. You don't need fancy materials to practice. You don't need a speaking partner. You can make loads of progress just by speaking for 10 minutes a day, even if you are on your own. You just need to start!
2. Get Your Reps In
When it comes to speaking practice, it is physical practice we need. Just like a football player needs to kick a ball thousands of times to get good at it, you need to do the same things over and over again until it becomes comfortable.
The key to this is repetition. It is not enough to do a speaking exercise once and feel like that is enough. You need to do the same kind of practice over and over again. This is how it becomes natural and easier to do in real life situations.
3. You Need Some Structure
Speaking practice needs to be organised and structured. You can't just randomly say things out loud and hope that it is going to lead you to your goals. You need to work out what skills need to be developed, and find exercises that will help you build those skills in an organised and structured way.
This is why it is so important that you develop a practice plan and stick to it. The best way to do this is organise a calendar or tracker with the exercises you want to do this week and stick to it. Check off each exercise after you have finished it and reflect on how it went. This is the key to consistent progress. If you need a bit of help, check out my 30-Day Speaking Practice Email Course!
4. Get Some Exposure
One of the other reasons we get overwhelmed is trying to keep up with native speakers in conversation. They speak quickly, they have weird accents, they mix all the words together into one big sound. You need to get used to this to take the pressure off when you are in a conversation.
You can do this by listening to native level speech as much as possible. YouTube, local radio, podcasts, movies, and TV shows are great ways to do this. You can even use these things to help you practice speaking through exercises like shadowing.
5. Consistency is King!
The best way to build your confidence when speaking English is through regular, consistent practice. Even if it is just for 15 minutes a day. Even if it is on your own. Even if it is a basic exercise. Over the span of a year, those minutes speaking in English will have a massive effect on your ability to communicate and how confident you feel!
Lots of people feel like it is too hard to practice everyday and it would be better to study for 2 hours at the weekend when they have more time. The problem is that the gap between practice is too long and you will start to forget what you have learned. As we say in English, Use it or lose it!
6. What Gets Monitored, Gets Done
Speaking practice is important, but we need to find a way of tracking your progress. This is tricky when it comes to things like confidence and speaking. There is no score you can see going up or down. There are no numbers that you can follow. It is all about feeling and that makes it harder to monitor.
That is why you should be using a tracker that will help you see what you have worked on, how it went, and give you a record that you can look back on to see how far you have come. Recording yourself speaking is a great way of having something you can revisit to see how far you have come!
Final Thoughts:
Freezing up in English is a pretty common thing, but it doesn't mean you should just accept it. It is something that you can fix quite easily through regular speaking practice. I know speaking is the hardest of the skills to practice for English learners, but I have something that will help you.
You can download my FREE Speaking Practice Planner today. It is a guide with a bunch of simple speaking exercises that you can do, even if you are on your own, that will take less than 15 minutes per day. It will tell you exactly how to do each exercise and the skills that it will help you develop. It also comes with a tracker so you can monitor your progress and record how it went so you are able to see your progress and plan for the next sessions.
If you are struggling to practice speaking in English, it is the perfect guide to get you on the road to consistent speaking practice!
