Academic English Speaking — Real-Time Practice

Real-time English speaking practice with your own AI voice tutor

For over a decade we have worked with international students preparing for the TOEFL® and other academic English exams, and one thing we hear over and over: what they need most is real-time speaking practice with immediate feedback. There is not enough class time, not enough opportunities to practice with a real evaluator, and books cannot tell you how your English actually sounds when you defend a research idea, explain a concept to a classmate, or answer a probing scholarship interview question.

That is why we built this. It is like having a personal academic English tutor sitting next to you, available any time of day, ready to practice with you.

How this is different from the TOEFL preparation course

Our course Preparation for Academic English Exams already offers a complete preparation across all four TOEFL sections: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Within speaking, the course gives you the official 2026 TOEFL task formats (Listen and Repeat, Take an Interview), AI evaluation of your recorded responses on the official rubric, and personalized diagnostic feedback when your scores are low.

This app adds what the course cannot offer: live, two-way voice conversation with an AI tutor in real time. You speak. The AI listens. The AI responds in natural spoken English. You can interrupt, ask for clarification, change direction. It feels like a real conversation, because it is one. That is the kind of practice that builds the fluency, spontaneity, and confidence the test will demand of you under time pressure on exam day.

Use the course for structured exam-format practice and AI-graded recordings. Use this app for the live speaking time that fluency actually requires.

What you get with your subscription

Twenty academic English conversation scenarios that reflect the kinds of situations international students face in English-speaking universities. Office hours with a professor about a missed deadline, a scholarship committee interview, a research-methods question with your TA, defending a paper grade, a financial aid appeal, a chronic-condition registration at the health center, pitching a research idea to your mentor, briefing your professor on a guest lecture, summarizing a journal article for a classmate, orienting a new international student to academic integrity, and more. Five scenarios in each of four contexts: academic discussion, campus life, independent reasoning, and integrated content.

Twelve timed monologue prompts built in the spirit of the TOEFL Speaking Independent Task. Thirty seconds of silent preparation, then two minutes of uninterrupted speaking. Topics span personal preference, argue a position, compare and contrast, and explain a concept. Practice the sustained academic-monologue muscle the exam expects on the timed Speaking tasks.

Real-time conversation technology powered by the latest generation of artificial intelligence. This is not a text chatbot, and it is not a recorder. It is a real-time voice conversation with an AI character who listens, responds, adapts its tone, and pushes you to use the academic English the TOEFL expects from you. You can interrupt, ask it to repeat, drift slightly off topic, and the AI will gently bring you back. The AI adapts to your pace, not the other way around.

Open conversation with Verónica. Beyond the scripted scenarios, you have an open conversation mode with Verónica, your academic English coach. Talk to her about anything related to your academic life: a difficult conversation you had with a classmate, a paper you are struggling to organize, a concept from a recent lecture that did not click. Verónica listens, corrects your English with warmth, explains academic conventions, and always brings you back to the academic register you need. It is like talking to a knowledgeable mentor with decades of experience in academic settings.

My Progress: your speaking analytics dashboard. Every conversation is evaluated on a six-trait rubric drawn from the TOEFL Speaking criteria: task response, development of ideas, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, and register. Each trait is scored zero to three, from what your transcript shows. Pronunciation and delivery are graded separately, from your actual recording on the timed presentation task, because a transcript alone cannot honestly judge how you sound. With each conversation you complete, the AI updates your progress, shows you which traits are improving and which are slipping, and identifies the themes that appear most often in your feedback. And right on the same page, Verónica knows all your numbers and can guide you: ask her what your weakest area is, which scenario to practice this week, or which trait moved the most since last week. She answers with real data from your practice. Verónica is also grounded in the same academic English knowledge base that powers her across the rest of the Enabling Learning platform (the Preparation for Academic English Exams course content, the TOEFL® task families, the official scoring criteria, and our academic-register vocabulary). When she explains a correction or answers a question, what she says matches what we teach in the course, not generic answers.

Immediate pedagogical feedback. When you finish each conversation, an AI pedagogical evaluator reviews your full transcript and returns a report: one concrete strength anchored in something real you said, up to three growth areas with exact quotes from your conversation, highlight moments, and a motivating closing. No cold scores. Think of it as warm written feedback from a pedagogical mentor for every practice session.

Hear how you sounded. On the two-minute timed presentation task, the app goes beyond the transcript and analyzes your actual recording with audio-capable AI. It reports on your pronunciation, your pace and rhythm, and any audible hesitations, the delivery traits a real speaking exam scores. It also flags the moments you slipped into your first language and rewrites casual phrasing into the academic register the exam expects.

Multilingual Coach chat

The voice practice with Verónica is always in English, because that is the language you are preparing in. But the chat with Verónica where you discuss your progress is multilingual. Write to her in your language, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Telugu, and more, and Verónica will reply in that same language automatically, no settings to change. The app is most thoroughly tested in English, Spanish, and Mandarin; in other languages it also works, with a short opening note inviting you to switch if you prefer. Scenario titles and rubric trait names stay in English so you can find them in the app.

Why this works

Because it is built on more than ten years of experience preparing international students for high-stakes academic English exams. We know exactly which parts of spoken academic English give learners the most trouble, what mistakes repeat, and what kind of feedback actually changes outcomes. That experience lives inside the rubric, inside the scenarios, and inside every response Verónica gives.

And because the technology has finally reached the level needed to do this right. Real-time conversational AI, pedagogical evaluation anchored in your own transcript, and longitudinal analysis of your performance: two years ago none of this was possible at the level we offer today.

Who this app is for

• International students preparing for the TOEFL® iBT (or TOEFL Essentials), particularly the Speaking section
• Graduate school applicants who need to demonstrate spoken academic English proficiency
• Researchers, scholars, and professionals who need to present and converse fluently in English at conferences and academic settings
• Universities and language programs that want to offer their students live speaking practice with immediate feedback

Practical details

• Time: each conversation lasts up to ten minutes. Practice as many times as you want during your access period.
• Platform: web, works in any modern browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) on computer, tablet, or phone. A microphone is required.
• Access: after purchase, your access activates automatically. Log in to your enablinglearning.com account and you will see an Open Academic English Speaking button on the My Apps tab.
• Support: questions, write us at info@enablinglearning.com.

What this is not

This is not a guarantee of passing the TOEFL. It is not a substitute for studying the test format and content. It is not a digital book or a video course. It is an intelligent speaking practice tool, designed to complement everything else you are doing to prepare.

TOEFL® is a registered trademark of Educational Testing Service (ETS). Enabling Learning LLC is not affiliated with or endorsed by ETS. This product is independent test preparation.