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Talking to self for speaking practice | ||
Tags: Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| marklewis1234 Newbie United States Joined 5342 days ago 32 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 10 02 June 2012 at 12:51pm | IP Logged |
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This might sound a bit strange, but I have recently started practicing my Spanish speaking skills by simply talking to myself out loud about random topics. Has anyone else used this method and if so, do you think it is usefel? I am a bit concerned that as there is no-one there to provide correction, errors may become consolidated. Obviously I am carrying on with many other methods as well.
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| Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 10 02 June 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged |
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How do you practice speaking in such an activity? Is it monologues or repetition of
phrases and the like? One problem with speaking to oneself is that if you say something that does not make sense (whether due to pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc.), you will not have someone else available (preferably a native speaker) to attempt to work out what you mean, as often happens in real-life communication. Such break-downs of communication which are caused by learners uttering something that is not understandable to a native speaker of their target language/L2 often provides evidence to the former that they are getting something wrong in the language, and as a result may lead to them reformulating their faulty hypothesis they had about the given aspect/matter of the L2. In other words, by making errors that cause a breakdown in understanding, the learner can begin to receive feedback that they are making errors and attempt to address them. This sometimes happens due to another interlocutor recasting what the learner said: non-NS: I buyed a nice book yesterday NS: You bought a nice book? non-NS: Yeah, I bought a nice book. Here it could be that the NNS did not know that 'buy' is an irregular verb and has regualarised it. However, the NS recasts the NNS's statement to confirm what the NS meant. In turn, the NNS then corrects himself and perhaps learns that his utterance was faulty. Such a negotiation of meaning can even occur by the NS telling a NNS that he does not understand what he's saying resulting in the learner trying to reach an understanding with his interlocutor if possible. In sum, speaking to oneself lacks the beneficial feedback (as opposed to error correction) and comprehensible input that is received in meaningful communicative activities, such as interactions with native speakers. Practising monologues and imaginary conversations may assist in making speech more automised/fluent (by 'fluent' I refer to the technical meaning of being able to speaking fluidly, which is distinct form speaking with accuracy). On the other hand, accuracy in oral language usage will only come about if one can notice the 'gap' in their L2 knowledge and this often comes up in real-life communication if the 'gap' is severe enough to cause a break down in communication. Accuracy can also be increased if you have someone else to point out your errors, perhaps on certain surface level language issues such as pronunciation and lexis. Hence, in all speaking to oneself can be utilised in language learning but should not be implemented as the sole means of improving ones language. To be able to further assess the actual merits and how efficient they will require further research. I hope this is has answered your question, if not then feel free to question further. -To list the main ponts of speaking to oneself in target language: --Perceived benefits: ---if used for monologues and imaginary conversations may facilitate automisation/fluency of speech --Perceived problems: ---unable to receive feedback where learner has faulty understanding of L2, which leads to learners correcting their erroneous hypotheses of their target language ---learners production of output does not lead to them receiving additional comprehensible input as is the case in real-life communciation. Sources: Gass (1997) VanPatten and Lee (2003) Edited by Al-Irelandi on 02 June 2012 at 2:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6625 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 3 of 10 02 June 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged |
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Some great links here :) See what Arekkusu wrote especally.
In my opinion, as long as you regularly get corrections at least in writing, that's ok for sure. And actually in my experience, extensive reading helps you get a feel for what sounds natural and what doesn't. 4-5 years ago, I used to write a lot of posts in Finnish and my friend would correct me. She stopped at one point, as she was too busy to be online almost at all. Around the same time, I got LOTR in Finnish and read it. A couple of months later I went back to my uncorrected posts and I could see how to make them sound more natural. this was important for my transition from basic to advanced fluency. So I'd even say as long as you read a lot, you don't risk your errors becoming consolidated :) Edited by Serpent on 04 June 2012 at 8:16pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| pegasusdba Newbie Germany twowheelsrule.com Joined 4591 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 10 04 June 2012 at 7:33pm | IP Logged |
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yes, there's the possibility that errors could be compounded, but relating it to my own experience, I have mostly focused on books and listened to audio. I have done little conversation and, frankly, I can feel a little reluctant.
Voicing out conversations, or reading aloud simple texts, gets my mouth used to making the sounds and my ears to hearing it echo about the room. Kind of like rehersing for a part in a play. I say go for it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 10 05 June 2012 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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I've found it extremely useful - definitely one of the main things that's helped me
improve my conversation ability and break out of the intermediate plateau. Yes, in an ideal world I'd be able to converse with native speakers daily and have them correct me, but despite all my efforts to find language exchanges, conversation groups, etc., that just isn't the reality and I'm lucky if I can talk to a native speaker once or twice a week. Self-talk as described in Arekkusu's post is the best substitute I've found. Describing an article or video to yourself lets you find and work on the gaps in your knowledge, and mimics conversations to some extent because a lot of conversation is just taking something, explaining it, and giving your thoughts on it, whether the subject be a film you've seen, one of your interests, a night out, a political event, or whatever. Of course, you need to use common sense: accept that it's not the same thing as a real conversation but simply a better-than-nothing substitute, and don't use it as your only learning method. I find that since I do a lot of listening and reading I have quite a good idea for what "sounds right", and if I'm at all unsure about something I'm saying I'll check it in a dictionary or grammar reference, so I think the mistakes issue is overstated. Even if I end up making a few mistakes that go uncaught, I'll take that as an acceptable trade-off for the improvement in self-expression ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5377 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 6 of 10 05 June 2012 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
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I speak to myself every day in Hungarian and it helps me a lot. I have a pocket dictionary with me all the time and as I walk along talking to myself, I check any unknown words and learn them like that. I sometimes hold my mobile phone to my mouth to act like I'm speaking to someone, so that I don't look like too much of a psycho!
So it really helps me with vocabulary and fluency and then I get written corrections here from a very helpful native. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4729 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 7 of 10 08 June 2012 at 8:44am | IP Logged |
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I talk to myself whenever I'm alone. Helps immensely. I get enough feedback from chatting and enough input from watching shows etc by now to not be stuck with weird mistakes.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5409 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 10 08 June 2012 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
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Here is the link to my post many have referenced:
http://tiny.cc/mac57 1 person has voted this message useful |
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