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Can one speak better than understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5339 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 65 of 186 22 September 2012 at 12:50am | IP Logged | |||||
There is a distinction between speaking about something and having a conversation about something. I could sit and talk TO you about something for half an hour. Or I could talk to the cat. Or I could talk to myself. It's still speaking. Having a conversation includes listening comprehension. Speaking (alone) doesn't. There is a difference. You're talking about two different things. You're comparing your apples to their oranges. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4436 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 66 of 186 22 September 2012 at 1:49am | IP Logged | |||||
Your assertion of this disparity for the reasons given (fast idiomatic speech) is not understandable to me when a likely *huge* reason for the perceived disparity is the difference in passive vocabulary knowledge between B1 and C1. Now if you wish to assert that your passive vocabulary is that for C1 (i.e. somewhere well above 10,000), then I can understand fast idiomatic dialectical speech accounting for such a disparity. However even then, I would have difficulty believing that a C1 passive vocabulary and grammar could not inuit way more than A2 from context. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 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 67 of 186 22 September 2012 at 3:30am | IP Logged | |||||
BTW is the A2 can say this last bit in their L2, yes they speak better than they understand. Anyway, IMO in real life CEFR isn't very relevant. If you can express a variety of ideas but can't understand a real conversation with its slang, dialects and whatnot - one where the natives might be expressing the same ideas but in more sophisticated ways (and even harder: in a way that is simple, informal but not silly)... if you can't understand a conversation on the same topics that YOU can discuss/produce a monologue about, then IN REAL LIFE your speaking is better than your listening. And the CEFR standards are different for different skills, they distinguish between the passive and active vocabulary for sure. For example, at B2 you should be able to read a book but you definitely shouldn't be able to write a book! Edited by Serpent on 22 September 2012 at 3:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4436 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 68 of 186 22 September 2012 at 4:05am | IP Logged | |||||
It provides a semi-quantifiable touchstone by which to discuss language skills. However to be more precise one has to break it down into each of the 4 areas for each level.
The (overseas outsourced) authors of software and appliance manuals, and many fiction author wannabes would beg to differ. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5374 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 69 of 186 22 September 2012 at 4:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Well I think this says it all: "if you can't understand a conversation on the same topics that YOU can discuss/produce a monologue about, then IN REAL LIFE your speaking is better than your listening." I guess as long as you can speak to yourself or to the cat, your speaking is better than your listening. I give up. Let's look at this from a different angle. If according to my viewpoint, speaking requires an equivalent level of understanding, why does the CEFR model have tests for oral comprehension? Couldn't we just assume that if you can speak at a certain level, you must be able to understand at the same level? Similarly, why bother testing reading when you could just test writing? The answer of course is that the CEFR model specifies certain performance criteria for each skill. So, for example the complexity of the language used in the oral comprehension tests is always higher than the language required for speaking because the expectation is that one can should be able to understand more complex language than one can produce. The test is not about your ability to reproduce the language of the audio sample. It's about your ability to decode it. I should also point out that the CEFR model explicitly assesses the ability to interact with other speakers and not solely the ability to produce monologues. Here is one of the descriptors of B2: "Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party." I don't know how you can do this if you have problems understanding other people. Obviously, this descriptor is not for conversations with natives mumbling in slang and in some weird dialect. This is basically standard language over a range of subjects and is largely sufficient for most purposes, i.e. schools and employment. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4615 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 70 of 186 22 September 2012 at 7:25am | IP Logged | |||||
When people say they think their conversation skills are better than their listening skills, they are not talking about their skills as rated by CEFR. They are talking about usefulness. I get the feeling this debate is less about acknowledging this simple aspect of language learning than trying to force people to talk about things in a consistent manner. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5710 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 71 of 186 22 September 2012 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||
But is that common ground information? Just because you know something or think you know it, it doesn't mean that everyone else has access to the same information. To me it seems the debate is more about whether it can be true in absolute terms, which would mean that I for one would have to treat some people differently. Because up to now I did treat them as people who rated their language abilities thinking of their practical use. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 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 72 of 186 22 September 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think it's that we disagree on what counts as speaking well. Obviously you can't converse well if you understand nothing. But you can still produce speech, hence you speak better than understand. You have the right to think it doesn't count, I have the right to think it counts :) @Wulfgar yes, for me it's certainly about usefulness! Good speaking skills are useless if you can only deal with patient natives and not participate in real conversations. But that's why I also don't bother to speak from day 1 and wait till my listening is good... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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