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How To "Speak" Any Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 22 11 August 2013 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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HTLAL certainly puts the emphasis on learning any language. But how well is it contributing to speaking any language?
Recently, the "Has this forum died" thread has become active, suggesting that HTLAL has become stale, that many of the best contributors are missing, and that perhaps almost everything that can be said about language learning has been discussed to death. I hope that is not the case. However, I think there is one area of language learning that, for some reason, HTLAL has not focused on, and that is promoting spoken conversation between members. The Skype thread lists many people who would like to chat in their target language, but you rarely see any reports of any actual HTLAL member to HTLAL member language exchanges. There are very few HTLAL Language Learning Logs that report member-to-member Skype or other voice chats. One would get the impression that most members are introverted passive book-learners and readers. OK. That is fine for those with passive goals. But many HTLAL contributors discuss their desire to be able to verbally communicate. Many have tried various other sites for the purpose of practicing their conversational skills. But rarely do you see reports that we, as an HTLAL community, are talking to each other, despite being the leading language learning forum on the Internet. Why don't we talk to each other? Why don't native speakers eagerly volunteer to help those seeking to improve their second language conversational skills? You often see newcomers to the forum introduce themselves and talk a bit about their target languages and their skill levels and aspirations, followed by a "Welcome" from other members, including their target language native speakers. But you almost never see a native language speaker say "Would you like to practice your target language with me on Skype?" Why not? Do we assume that most learners here are too shy to try to Skype in their target languages? Or too poor at it that it would be tedious? Or is it just that we don't think about offering? Or that we don't really like to talk or aren't comfortable with Skype? So I wonder if active verbal conversation is an untapped area where HTLAL could put some interest and energy, and produce some really good results for our members and newcomers? We don't need any integrated audio feature like some language forums have. Skype is excellent. It has high quality audio. It is easy to use. It is everywhere. And it is free. There are other similar technologies that could be used if some people preferred those. Their choice. We just need lots of one-on-one voice exchanges or simply a bunch of voice conversations going on amongst our members. And we need those who are doing it to report it here on HTLAL as a Log so that it can become infectious and attract other members to participate. What would it take to put some real focus on active verbal conversation here on HTLAL? Well, first it would take some interest in this thread. If there is little or no interest, so be it. But if there is a lot of interest, then I think there should be a new Forum Section (called maybe Active Verbal Conversation) set up with a Sub-Section for each Language that is being Logged by active voice conversation participants. Those Logs could be in the target language or any other language. Report your progress. It will help yourself and will help others, just like the current Language Learning Logs. To help start interest in promoting active verbal conversation here on HTLAL, I will offer to speak English on Skype with anyone wishing to improve their English, regardless of their current level in spoken English. I don't have unlimited time but I can certainly help a few people. If anyone would like to help me with my spoken Dutch or French, I'd be most appreciative, either with native Dutch or French speakers or with those who are learning those languages. So what do you think? Are there HTLALers out there who would like to talk to other HTLALers in their target languages? Is active verbal conversation an untapped but potentially very productive area for our Forum? 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4143 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 22 11 August 2013 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think that this is a really interesting idea! Personally, I wouldn't actively
participate right now, since I already spend about ten hours on Skype per week. (Oh my, it seems like so much when I type it out! But with 5 weekly language exchange partners, 2 Spanish tutors and 2 French students, it adds up quickly.) I found this site after I'd already jumped into my language learning journey, so I already had my Skype contacts. But if I were starting a new language (which I will be next year), and there were a forum here aimed at connecting learners to native speakers, then I'd definitely participate. Great suggestion! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 22 11 August 2013 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Your goal is worthy, but the practicality of it, for most members, is the issue. The forum language is English. Almost everyone here is proficient in English, at least well enough to post in the language. Most non-native English-speaking posters are at a very high level of English. Where's their incentive to participate in a language exchange with native English-speakers learning their language since they don't need or want to improve their English? Perhaps this may be a reason why there is relatively little participation in HTLAL member to member exchanges.
8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4609 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 4 of 22 11 August 2013 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You bring up a very interesting point, Tommus. It reminds me of earlier this year
when Team Sparta TAC started and there was talk of all of the team members getting together on Skype or gtalk to practise Greek with each other. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. I think the idea of a team Skype chat wasn't new to our team but someone got the idea from another team from a previous year. Has anyone else participated in such a thing? Edited by embici on 11 August 2013 at 5:22pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4252 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 22 11 August 2013 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The thing is that apparently language exchange things don't usually work out. If it's like we talk 50/50 this and that usually the other tends to try to talk more and shift and so on. I've read about many people having that problem.
That said I could chat with someone in Finnish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4143 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 22 11 August 2013 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I haven't had this problem with any of my conversation partners, and I have five of them! That said, I'm pretty assertive with what I want and say from the beginning that I'm looking for a 50/50 exchange. I also make myself the unofficial timekeeper. All of my partners agreed to start in Spanish (since my Spanish is generally weaker than their French/English), and then at exactly 30 minutes, I just switch to English or French, even if it's mid-sentence. We each get half an hour of practice. I only have one partner who talks WAY more in Spanish than I do (she just talks a lot and drives the conversation in general), but I figure that it's good listening practice, even if I'm not getting quite as much speaking practice as I'd like. Besides, she's fun and engaging, so I don't worry too much about it. If she were my only conversation partner, or if we were talking more than once a week, then I'd just gently tell her that I need lots of practice speaking. Skype conversation exchanges can definitely work! But you both have to be clear from the start about what you want to get out it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 7 of 22 11 August 2013 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have had several good series of 50/50 exchanges in Dutch where invariably my partner spoke much better English than I spoke Dutch but we worked hard at keeping it to 50/50. It is often very difficult to find a "balanced" exchange where each partner is at about the same level of proficiency with their L2. That would be ideal. But I think it is reasonable here on HTLAL to have not 50/50 but to have 100/0 chats for at least a short period of time (a few weeks perhaps with the indulgence of the generous participant). In other words, the objective would be an interesting conversation that is happening in the L1 of one participant and in the L2 of another. That is what I am offering to do in English with no expectation in that conversation for any conversation in any of my L2s. Yes. It is difficult to find non-native-English HTLAL members who already speak English very well to spend a whole lot of time helping English speakers to speak some other language. Maybe it is too much to expect, apart from the written help they already provide. But since these non-native-English members benefit a lot from the huge amount of interesting English written discussion here on HTLAL, maybe it is reasonable to expect that they might be willing to contribute some time to a 100/0 verbal conversation.
Thank you. That is a good start. I hope some Finnish learner takes you up on your generous offer. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4261 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 8 of 22 11 August 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To have a 50/50 exchange by time is not that hard; you just look at the skype time and switch over at the halfway time. But to measure a 50/50 talking and listening balance is obviously much harder. :) Edit: I think that it is good to speak with people at the same level and that more advanced exchanges are easier on the ears. I just (right now!) finished a 40 minute exchange and it was kind of draining on me because I had to speak English very slowly, super clearly, and I couldn't use advanced vocabulary so the other person would understand. So it was more of a lesson than an informal chat. Edited by casamata on 11 August 2013 at 8:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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