how can I improve my speaking? 

One question students often ask is how can I improve my speaking? If you live somewhere where you don't have a lot of opportunity to speak English, this could feel like a big problem. However, that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to improve. The first piece of advice I would give is listen. It's never been easier to listen to lots of English. The internet gives you access to millions of songs, podcasts, stories, video clips. There is so much stuff out there in English for you to listen to. And if you're listening to songs, sing along. A lot of people find that it really helps. If you're watching short video clips, pause them and repeat what you've heard.

Listening to get an idea of how people speak can really help you with your own speaking. One thing that a lot of learners find difficult about speaking is that they worry too much about making mistakes-- grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, and so on-- and this worry stops them from speaking fluently. Remember, though, that speaking fluently is about accuracy, using language correctly, but it's also about fluency. So of course you need to try to use correct English, but fluency is just as important. One tip here is to record yourself speaking English. You can try copying something you hear a native speaker say, or just record yourself talking about yourself or anything you want to.

Try speaking about a topic for a minute and see how you do. Another thing that students say a lot is how can I sound like a native speaker? My answer would be why do you want to? When you speak, the important thing is that people can understand you and you can communicate. If your accent makes that difficult for people, then there are things you can do to improve it. You can practise individual sounds. Find out which sounds cause problems for speakers of your language. You can practise intonation by listening to native speakers and getting used to the sound of sentence stress in English.

There's a lot you can do to improve your spoken English, but you don't need to sound like a native speaker. As long as people can understand you, that's fine. On this page you can find links to help you find out more about the things I've mentioned, and you can share your own tips too.

Taken from the video: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/understanding-ielts/0/steps/2171

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Link to Study the Sounds of English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/pronunciation

Speaking test advice by the British Council:

Make the most of your Speaking test:

• try to talk as much as you can
• talk as fluently as possible and be spontaneous
• relax, be confident and enjoy using your English
• develop your answers 
• speak more than the examiner 
• ask for clarification if necessary 
• do not learn prepared answers; the examiner is trained to spot this and will change the question
• express your opinions; you will be assessed on your ability to communicate
• the examiner’s questions tend to be fairly predictable; practise at home and record yourself

Taken from:

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/test-day-advice/speaking-test-advice