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Is C2 possible without a tutor ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5023 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 144 10 December 2014 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Does it make me C2 in German if I know Brecht wrote Arturo Ui in Finland ? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5436 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 144 10 December 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I actually think that we all agree that a tutor of sorts is not necessary but certainly nice to have. But I do want to take exception with the idea that there comes a moment when you don't need formal classes or a tutor. At no point do we absolutely need these things but they can always be very useful, even at the highest levels of proficiency. Performers of all sorts use the services of a coach because they are always looking for ways to improve. Writers have editors, lawyers have mentors and coaches. Many people have spouses or partners who will offer comment and constructive criticism. My own observation in language learning is that we often overestimate our ability until we are actually confronted with a serious native critic whose job is to tell us what is wrong or missing in our performance. This can be very humbling. I thought my Spanish was great until I started working with a tutor. It was a bit of a come-down. I realized I was good, yes, but not great, and certainly not where I wanted to be. I now see the weaknesses that I have to focus on. But things have been improving every week. I feel much greater self-confidence when I meet native speakers. I now know what to say in most circumstances. Writing letters is not the ordeal it used to be. It's not that the tutor is teaching things I hadn't seen or heard before. The huge difference is that I now have to speak or write for real one on one. There's no hiding. The spotlight is no me. If similar results can be obtained just by massive interaction with the language, a lot of money will be saved. In that sense, tuition is not necessary. It's just so nice to have. I could see myself using a tutor or a coach for a very long time, not necessarily once a week, may every two or three weeks, as a means of maintaining my skill level. 2 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 11 of 144 10 December 2014 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Certified C1 is possible. I've never had a Finnish class at all.
My impression after doing the test was that C2 wouldn't require tuition, it would "just" require living in Finland. Of course a tutor can help you reproduce this immersion, but why would you even need that if you're not living abroad or in a multilingual country? Also, my years of English classes only made me lose my motivation for learning it on my own, and my most advanced language items were all learned through input, discussions about the language and numerous google searches. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4539 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 12 of 144 10 December 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Anyone who works professionally with language as a tool (e.g., academics, journalists, lawyers etc) gets lots of feedback about their language skills both in the course of their training, and later when they work. They are certainly getting language tuition, just not from a "language tutor". I do think at some point you can move away from L2-type coaching, and directly access the sort of language coaching that native speakers get. If you, for instance, start attending university courses in your L2 and get feedback on essays, or if you participate in a creative writing class in your L2. Edited by patrickwilken on 10 December 2014 at 11:47pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3892 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 144 10 December 2014 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I am able to produce "thesis quality discussions" in Mandarin mainly thru self-study and I still don't consider myself anywhere near C level.
For example last week I gave a long presentation on the American coal industry, entirely in Mandarin, with very few tonal or grammatical mistakes, but I am at best a B2 or the Asian equivalent thereof. To me C level would be the ability to comprehend the jargon of provincial coal miners in China, and I would have to seek the services of a tutor for that. I know a very accomplished and educated non-native English speaker who could probably translate the works of Aristotle into English language but still struggles to understand American comedians and shock jocks. I am not qualified to say what level she is. I have my own subjective B-C scale which goes something like this--- B1 - The ability to understand a radio show in the target language B2 - The ability to be a guest on a radio show in the target language C1 - The ability to host a radio show in the target language C2 - The ability to call a radio show and argue with the host for 20 minutes in the target language. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5436 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 14 of 144 10 December 2014 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
While I think the CEFR scale can certainly be adapted and interpreted for all sorts of situations, I think that in the interest of having a common standard that we can all refer to, it is best to stay with the system of definitions that has been agreed upon. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4628 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 15 of 144 10 December 2014 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My wife (native German) is C2 in English and she has never been to university or studied English in any
capacity. I don't think she even heard the language spoken in real life until she was 20, so you can't say she soaked it up as a child. What worked for her was massive amounts of immersion by living and working in a English-speaking countries and living and socialising with native speakers. She also reads a lot, which no doubt helps extend your vocabulary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5015 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 16 of 144 11 December 2014 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, it is surely possible, even though a good quality tutor can be helpful. Bad one
is just a waste of money and may even be harmful. The trouble is to distinguish the two before spending the money. Thanks for bringing up the topic and sorry about a long post. This happens to be something I've been pondering quite intensively for some time. C2 is a high level, defined in the cefr (even though some parts are quite vague) but it is not total perfection (even most natives would probably have trouble understanding some remote coal miner dialect), it is not any of our subjective scales, no matter how useful they might each be to the individual learner. Passing a C2 exam is a mix of skills, including a bit of exam taking skills and, above all, the four main competencies: listening, reading, writing and speaking. The first two are being learnt to high levels without tutors quite often, thanks to the English media being available so easily anywhere. It is a different story when it comes to other languages but English is a proof that, in general, there is no obstacle in not having a tutor. If you keep leaving your comfort zone and challenging yourself, you are likely to end there one day, sooner or later. A tutor has quite no way to help you, it's you vs. the input. The self assessment checklist gives these "I can" statements for C2 and I believe quite a lot of htlalers would fit the description at least in one of their foreign languages:
Now about the active skills. I was surprised in 2010 to find writing-C2 note on my CAE report. I had had no tutor and my classes at school had been quite a disaster and even the better ones were nowhere near to guiding me in the area. So obviously, there are ways to learn without a formal guidance. But not without practice, without a different kind of feedback and lots of self-correcting. However, there is a difference among various cefr exams. Those for English (the Cambridge ones) are a little bit more free when it comes to writing genres and styles, while the French ones are very strict. It's useless to be able to write novels in the language, the exam requires formally correct resumés, syntheses etc. That's why I got a tutor for my DALF preparation and I must say it's too early to decide whether I am satisfied with his guidance in this area. The Self Assessment Checklist says about C2 writing:
Now, there are many people who fullfill some of the criteria of C2 writing in one of their foreign languages, usually English. For exemple most scientists. But they usually cannot do everything from the list. The list includes a note: "If you have over 80% of the points ticked, you have probably reached Level C2". The catch lies in speaking (which is why haven't signed up for CPE yet). I think you can learn to speak like a native without any tutor or classes if your life depends on it. A teenager sent to a foreign country will necessarily learn and won't be any different from the natives in a few years. Some adults will learn just as well, if they are forced enough. As soon as they are allowed to escape the language at least in some situations, it is a different matter. the checklist says:
This list is actually more problematic and it is where the particular exam rules come into play. What is and what is not C2 speaking is harder to find out as the usual preparatory coursebooks with cds don't include such exemples. It is harder to get feedback without a high quality tutor, especially as normal natives usually don't correct you spontaneously any longer. And Speaking is surely the main challenge for most learners. I would say it is very hard to learn to speak at a C2 level without feedback and guidance. But I wouldn't completely exclude the possibility of reaching such a goal without external help. There has been mentioned a common prejudice: "we always overestimate ourselves" among the reasons why should one get a tutor. Actually, I don't think tutors are in general more critical than we are of ourselves. For exemple, I am now struggling with the fact that my French tutor, despite his pros, is much less demanding than I would like him to be and much less critical. I want to pass DALF in February and he has suggested I might be ready for C2 even though I've considered only C1 so far. It's hard to tell who's right in this case and finding out by taking C2 instead of planned C1 seems slightly risky to me. So, a bottom line to make sure there is no misunderstanding: Yes, I believe you can get to C2 level without any tutor, even though it doesn't mean a good tutor wouldn't be a valuable tool. (Much more valuable at those advanced levels than in the beginnings, I believe) But, tutored or not, you are unlikely to get there without lots of real interactions with others and without your own iniciative in learning. 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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