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Reading Aloud Technique | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6610 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 49 of 70 22 November 2011 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I understand the problem with "shame" because “shame” is the essence of a great deal of our emotional disturbance. I do not like shame or other negative emotions, but I have no choice than to experience it the from time to time. It just happens.
It is important to overcome shame to improve. If we fear shame, we have a problem to improve language skills or anything. People can use approaches to take advantage of this negative feeling. There are techniques used in RECT called “Shame-Attacking Exercises” that works with these feelings. These exercises are a " strategy of encouraging people to do things despite a fear of feeling foolish or embarrassed. The aim of the exercise is to teach people that they can function effectively even if they might be perceived as doing foolish acts." Here you have an article about shame in REBT and Stoicism: Excerpt: “Shame-Attacking Exercises” from The Philosophy of CBT: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. http://londoncognitive.com/2010/08/30/excerpt-shame-attackin g-exercises-from-the-philosophy-of-cbt/ 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| giuls Newbie Italy Joined 4953 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, German | Message 50 of 70 22 November 2011 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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To me shame means anxiety, how can you learn in such a state? Anxiety is good for certain things. It's good to experience fear if you're facing a lion in the savanna, but not when it comes to language learning, or learning in general.
It's not about using negative emotions as a useful tool, it's about getting rid of them, in order to feel more comfortable with the idea of being exposed and not being perfect, so that you can practice and accept criticism. You said it yourself @slucido "It is important to overcome shame to improve." By the way, I've just crossed my personal comfort zone by posting this comment. Edited by giuls on 23 November 2011 at 12:00am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6610 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 51 of 70 23 November 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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giuls, congratulations for your step outside of your comfort zone. How did you feel before and later?
My point is that it doesn't matter that you don't like fear,anxiety and so on, you will ALWAYS feel these emotions when you face challenging situations. It might be reading aloud on stage or writing this post. No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to get rid of negative feelings. They are there and they will be there. If you do not feel them, it means that the situation is not challenging. If you want to improve your language skills (or any skill), you need to expose yourself to challenging situations and you will have to face negative feelings: fear of rejection, fear of failure, different kind of anxieties, shame and so on. If you want to be skillful in anything, ACTION comes first and feelings of confidence come later. If you want to feel confidence or good feelings before to start, you will never start. You need to take consistent ACTION BEFORE you feel confidence. This means that you will feel fear, anxiety, shame and other bad emotions and after a lot of practice you will feel more and more confidence. HOWEVER if you want to improve, you will need challenging situations and you will always feel some level of discomfort. Our problem aren't these emotions, the problem is the RELATIONSHIP we have with these emotions. These emotions are negative if you label them as bad. Reading aloud is a good technique. Reading aloud on stage is better. Giving a speech in the target language with a critic public is much better. These situations are increasingly challenging. The more the challenge, the more you will learn and the worse you will feel. I am not claiming to take overwhelming steps outside of your comfort zone. Small steps outside our comfort zone are very important. For example, my Spanish is not improving. Why? Because I am happy living in my comfort zone and I do not need to improve. If I want to improve my Spanish (or any language), I will need to take challenging steps and this means facing negative emotions. If people have stage fright, they can avoid the situation and convince themselves that they are doing the right think, but if they don't push themselves and read aloud on stage or give presentations in their target language, they are missing important opportunities to improve. Summary: ---------- Regarding emotions, the steps are these: 1-ACTIONS outside your comfort zone. This means faith and NEGATIVE feelings. 2-FEELINGS OF CONFIDENCE. If people want to feel good, confident and happy before they start, they will never start. Edited by slucido on 23 November 2011 at 7:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| giuls Newbie Italy Joined 4953 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, German | Message 52 of 70 23 November 2011 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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:D I felt a little bit anxious, thanks.
I agree, avoiding is not good. I'm totally with you here. It also depends on the level of discomfort. Not everyone is the same. In my case, for instance, reading in front of an audience would be useful for becoming more accustomed to it, but not for actually improving the reading itself. On the other hand, I do enjoy reading aloud by myself. I think it's very useful for all the reasons that have already been mentioned, especially when you have access to an audio file of the same text read by a native. It's also a good physical exercise. I learned to articulate faster and I'm always getting better. I can't really say that I'm reading aloud my way to fluency, but it's tremendously helpful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| birthdaysuit Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4752 days ago 48 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish | Message 53 of 70 27 November 2011 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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There are 2 reasons why I always read aloud in my target languages: 1) Because I have
always read aloud in my native language (I didn't realise this wasn't the norm until my brother came into my room when I was younger and asked me what I was doing, thinking I was conversing with myself) 2) I LOVE the sound of my voice when I put accents on, and I do this religiously. Only when I read aloud can I truly hear how much I've progressed in the language, because my speed and pronunciation improve, and I begin to feel a connection with the book that doesn't seem too, for want of a better word, "passive". I will say this, however. I have found on some occasions that when I read silently I tend to translate less than I would if I were reading aloud. But then again that could be down to any number of things, like tiredness, mood or subject matter. As for the issue with reading novels to gain useful, everyday vocabulary, I can't really see what the problem is here. Yes the majority is in past tense, but I don't think this makes any difference. The present tense is oft times easy to extract from the past if you're desperate to use a particular verb in speech. I do agree that reading "current" material is key, though. Take Jackie Collins, for instance. She writes the way cool, hip people speak. Her work is easy to read, not bogged down with over complicated syntax or "purple prose". But really reading should be combined with watching/listening anyway, where the present tense is used more frequently. That way you'll have the best of both worlds. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 54 of 70 27 November 2011 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just found this thread today, and I must confess that I stopped reading carefully after the second page or so, because it seemed to be going round and round. I think the initial argument got derailed because people were defending reading out loud as a way of practicing pronunciation, which would seem best served by reading out loud in front of others. I do agree with those who dislike the shame element of reading out loud in public. However, there are still benefits to reading out loud in private.
Here are a few reasons:
Personally, when learning I do read a lot more in my head, because it just feels weird to read out loud to myself. But when I do it, the benefits are clear.
As I said above, the reading speed out loud is slower, so you actually have plenty of time to read ahead. It is partly this process of having to think ahead while reading which engages the mind more fully. And a more engaged mind is a mind which will be learning with greater recall. Edited by Jeffers on 27 November 2011 at 5:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4700 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 55 of 70 14 December 2011 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||
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When I learned Samoan as a Peace Corps volunteer, reading aloud was one of the key techniques that brought me from survival level to FSI 4+. At one point in my learning I was frustrated because I found it difficult to understand radio broadcasts. The Samoan family I was living with ran out of batteries for the radio, we had no electricity on that side of the island, I didn't have any money to help, and it was about 6 weeks before we could listen to the radio again. During this time, most of my language learning consisted of reading Samoan newspapers and the Bible aloud. When we go batteries for the radio again, I discovered that the radio announcers were speaking slowly and clearly. I could even understand the lightning fast sports broadcasts. It was a thrill.
Clearly reading aloud worked for me. steve 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6532 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 56 of 70 14 December 2011 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, interesting. But I'd rather spend hours watching sports broadcasts than spend hours reading aloud;)
1 person has voted this message useful |
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