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Results of speaking after comprehension? | ||
Tags: Silent period | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6831 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 47 28 October 2013 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I just thought of an experiment (L2 = Spanish), and I want your thoughts. This topic is certainly related to previous OUTPUT/INPUT topics, but I'm not sure anyone has done a real experiment. My
inspiration for this experiment is Glossika's Polish experiment, though I won't be doing ONLY doing extensive/intensive reading like him. In some ways, though, my experiment could be considered an extension of his. There are 4 main aspects to learning a language: reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Reading & Listening are INPUT. Speaking & Writing are OUTPUT. We probably all know this, but I mention it just in case. I'm thinking, for the sake of the experiment, to get to at least CEFR Level B2 for listening and reading, and ONLY THEN beginning to seriously speak with people (daily). So my question is, if I became "fluent" in Spanish in terms of listening and reading (i.e., can read anything with no problems, can watch a movie and understand it, etc.), but purposely didn't speak to anyone for the sake of this experiment, how well would I be able to speak/converse once I began conversing with people in Spanish? Stated slightly differently, what do you think would be the result of my speaking if I focused only on INPUT for a year? One thing to keep in mind is that I do speak out loud to myself every day while reading or repeating things that I hear. So I am speaking out loud daily, just not in conversation form. In short, the experiment: no speaking ever with other people until reaching at least CEFR Level B2 listening and reading, and only then begin speaking daily (EDIT: assume 1 hour of daily conversation) for the purpose of becoming really good at conversing. I can think of four possibilities, which are in the poll above (please vote): 1.) I will be terrible at conversing at first, and it will take me 3-6 months to become any good at having a conversation with another person. 2.) I will be terrible at conversing at first, and it will take me 1-3 months to become any good at having a conversation with another person. 3.) I will be terrible at conversing at first, and it will take me 1-3 weeks to become any good at having a conversation with another person. 4.) I will be able to converse quite well within a week. As a scientist, I'm thinking about trying this experiment so that humanity knows the answer. :) I'm quite curious. Note: This is an experiment. I'm not claiming this is the best way to learning language. Edited by AML on 28 October 2013 at 3:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5538 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 47 28 October 2013 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a friend whose Hungarian listening skills are somewhere between C1 and native, but who claims to barely speak a word of it. This was a result of her living in an environment with a lot of bilingual Hungarian speakers, where passive Hungarian and active English was enough to get by. But she can comfortably watch Hungarian police dramas with full understanding. So it's possible to have very strong passive skills and almost no output. In her case, I'd guess she could acquire decent active skills pretty quickly.
I also recall that Khatzumoto's recommended fix for weak speaking skills was to push for near-100% comprehension across a wide range of media. This seems to work well for some people, but others have a lot of trouble speaking despite good comprehension. There's also the fact that some people are much better at noticing small linguistic details—prepositions, endings, and so on. My guess is that these people are likely to have a more complete passive model in their heads than the people who've been happily ignoring (say) gender the entire time, and who treat le and la as completely interchangeable. So my guess is that the result of this experiment would vary hugely depending on the subject. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4532 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 3 of 47 28 October 2013 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I would be really interested to see how this turns out. This is basically exactly what I have done with Portuguese and Norwegian. I started learning Portuguese about a year and a half ago and can now read novels with occasional use of a dictionary and can understand most of my favorite comedy programs without subtitles. I did start writing occasionally after a few months of learning, but otherwise I have had a total of one conversation, and it did not go very well.
I started learning Norwegian in March and should be able to start reading novels and start writing stuff on lang8 within a month of two, with frequent but not constant use of a dictionary. I haven't yet written anything, nor have I had a conversation with anyone. A large part of my problem with Portuguese is my less than stellar pronunciation, which I ignored when I was a beginner. I have been very careful to avoid that mistake with Norwegian and plan on working on my Portuguese pronunciation more intensely in a couple months after the 6wc ends. I really wonder how long it would take my speaking skills to even come close to my comprehension if I started talking to people regularly and whether my extremely poor skills are normal or reflective of my poor speaking skills in all languages. A warning though, it is very frustrating. When people immediately switch to English and you just can't seem to get your point across, you just want to show them all the novels you have read as proof that you can in fact speak the language. Except, you obviously can't. Anyway, I look forward to reading about your experiment should you choose to try it. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6831 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 4 of 47 28 October 2013 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
That's interesting. Thanks for your response. I would get around the people-switching-to-English issue by doing language exchange, talking to friends, or otherwise schedule speaking sessions with people that know my situation. I agree that not neglecting speech is important, which is why I'm speaking aloud all the time when I study (2 hours/day). I have started learning Spanish, as I'm tracking here. But I haven't officially decided to do this experiment until I get feedback from my friends here at HTLAL, though I am on track for doing it seeing as I haven't conversed yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 5 of 47 28 October 2013 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||
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What was the point of, once again, banning the L-R troll? It would have some interesting comments on this, I'm sure,
and they would probably be opposite of what I believe. I've never been sold on getting all your skills, except conversation, to a high level before conversing. Instead I believe in developing all skills concurrently. They reinforce each other, and I believe there is a synergy, or that it is overall a faster way to fluency than delaying certain skills until later. There are people who claim that after reaching B2 in the other skills, it takes only a few hours of practice to become a good speaker. I've never believed this to be true in general. I can think of some reasons why the time to become a good speaker will vary among the delayed-speaking crowd, but I won't elaborate here. Instead, I'd like to see an experiment where learners reach B2 in all 4 skills, half of them delaying conversation, half of them not. Then the debate could finally be settled; to delay, or not to delay. I wish the op the best of luck with his experiment, but the results are unlikely to sway my opinion. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6603 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 6 of 47 28 October 2013 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Define "speaking well". B2? Passing emk's B2 exam? Being able to say anything you'd understand, but using a smaller range of vocabulary?
Also, what about writing? I voted for 1-3 months but mostly because you mentioned speaking only for one hour a day. If you invest more than that, even just shadowing, 2-3 weeks are possible - not for a B2, but for speaking well. I've done this with Finnish, but I was able to write and think fluently. I did tons of shadowing but it's hard to compare because back then I would go to Finland only once a year. With Italian I expected it to be the same, but I love Italian football (soccer) and I watch it A LOT. I also did LR so my listening was much, much better than the Finnish one. And I found that when I started reading at least some things online, and especially when I started the Super Challenge, this activated my vocabulary! Yay. Also some factors to consider: -If the language is similar to something you already speak, the trickiest thing will be not knowing whether you're speaking for example Portunhol or proper Portuguese (or Spanish in this case). With related languages the difference between speaking well and passing an exam (even B1) will be huge. -Your personality. If you normally love speaking and enjoy it from day one, don't fix it, it's not broken. -Will you be learning grammar? What about doing exercises? These can speed up the activation, regardless of whether you do that before or after starting to speak. If you already know the grammar and have no fossilized errors to deal with (whether grammar or pronunciation), I vote for 1-3 weeks. -SRS will be very, very helpful. One reason not to rush too much is that SRS will be at its best if you give it at least 2-3 months. -It's crucial to continue having input after reaching the level where you start output. -In general I believe that it's possible to achieve a lot in 2-3 months, but only in any two of the skills. Well, almost any - listening+writing is tricky combination. But listening+reading, speaking+listening and pretty much all other combinations are doable. Edited by Serpent on 28 October 2013 at 6:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eetusjo Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 4264 days ago 7 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish | Message 7 of 47 28 October 2013 at 7:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I have learned most of my languages exactly in this way and for me it seems to work like a charm. My most recent
experiences are with Spanish, which I studied for a bit over a year and reached probably high B1 in reading and a bit weaker listening skills. I spent couple of months in Chile last summer and my speaking and listening skills basically matched my reading in 2 weeks. What I also noticed was that when I came back to Finland to sit my matriculation examination in Spanish (B2) my writing skills were on par with those other areas even though all I had written before were a few Facebook messages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6709 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 47 28 October 2013 at 9:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I have added the tag "Silent period" because that's how I first read the description of the experiment, and I'm probably not the only one. But maybe this isn't an input only experiment, given that AML writes "I do speak out loud to myself every day while reading or repeating things that I hear. So I am speaking out loud daily, just not in conversation form". This could actually mean two things: just reading aloud or speaking freely to yourself. And there is a fundamental difference between the two.
Personally I almost never speak my foreign languages except when I'm on holiday. But I know from experience that I can switch to a number of foreign languages as soon as I leave the train or airplane, and I doubt that this would be possible if I didn't have the habit of .. well not speaking to myself, but at least thinking to myself as often as possible. Besides I have the habit of doing absolutely rotten on-the-fly translations of things I hear on TV or elsewhere. What lacks with this 'study plan' is the experience of having another person involved in the exercise AND having to make a conversation out of isolated statements. And learning those things is fairly simple once you can think in a language. How would a language study totally devoid of active components function? The nearest thing to this I have experienced would be my Latin courses long ago, which were based on the classical grammar-translation method. And my experience with this was that the language seemed to evaporate within no time when I didn't constantly read new literary works or participate in courses, but I did learn my grammar and a lot of words, and within a month or so after my return to Latin I could express myself in 'Neolatin' at maybe something like the A2 level - not fluently, but with fluency knocking on the door. And of course I also pass through a prolonged silent period with languages like Irish, where I primarily learn a fairly incomprehensible language through written sources. But as I see it the problem here isn't the lack of conversation opportunities, but rather the lack of suitable materials with transcripts and translations (or in other words: the things you need to do listening-reading activities). If I can't hear a language ringing in my ears there is little chance that I can learn to have brilliant conversation at the turn of a hat. Edited by Iversen on 28 October 2013 at 10:01am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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