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Importance of correction | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 10 08 November 2011 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I belong to a few language meetup or exchange groups where people gather to practice their target language. Most people are at a relatively advanced level (beginners tend to be rather intimidated). The most common complaint I have heard from members is that there is often not enough correction of the individual language output. While it is a great opportunity to just speak the language, it is not always easy to recognize when one is making a mistake. The danger is that certain mistakes become fossilized or ingrained.
In addition to the correction of mistakes, what is also useful is learning how to say things differently or in a more natural fashion. What you say may be correct, but there might be a more idiomatic way of saying the same thing. All of this has lead me to believe that individual correction on the fly by a native or near-native speaker is essential if one is to make progress. This can be somewhat of a humbling process, but in my mind it is the only way to avoid making bad habits permanent. I wonder how people here at HTLAL deal with this problem. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6517 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 10 08 November 2011 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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* Lots and lots of input
* Shadowing (which gets you speaking idiomatic language at native speeds) * Not speaking until I'm at an advanced passive level * More input 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5197 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 10 08 November 2011 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
I wholeheartedly agree. Without correction I would continue in my errant ways thinking I was doing the right thing. My goal is to speak the language with people and to be understood when speaking and to understand what I hear in return. I have good days and bad days with the language. It can be quite humbling to be corrected but I am quite used to it and find it invaluable in my language learning. I don't see how I could learn without it. Perfection is the enemy of the good. Some folks think that they have to wait until they are "good enough" to speak. They fear "inflicting" their imperfect pronunciation and usage upon natives. It's true that some natives will not tolerate poor speech and will walk away. It is also true that many natives will bend over backwards to help you, especially if you make it known that you want and need correction because you are trying to improve your language skills. That's what is so great about mutual language exchanges. Both can help each other and progress. I don't know how learning in isolation from native speakers can be equivalent to interaction with native speakers, but to each his own. I know what works best for me. It can be scary to get out there in the real world and actually use a second language. If you actually want to speak the language, you must lose that fear of failure or humiliation. Correction is a good thing that helps your speaking skills (both pronunciation and usage) improve. You will fail many times, sometimes spectacularly- as I have done. With the right attitude you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, laugh and keep going. You will get better. Edited by iguanamon on 08 November 2011 at 2:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5782 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 10 08 November 2011 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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CORRECTIONS VIA SKYPE
I know that my people use Lang-8 to get their foreign language writings corrected. So far I haven't used this possibility. But I myself receive corrections and I myself correct my conversation partners via Skype for certain languages. For example I correct people's German, Dutch or Esperanto and I receive corrections for my Spanish or my other Romance languages. On Skype there is a convinient way to correct: While you speak with your conversation partner you can type the corrected expression in the chatbox. So the speech does not get disrupted while receiving a correction. You just have a short look in your chatbox and read it for yourself. So on Skype you can talk and receive corrections simultaniously. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 08 November 2011 at 4:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5316 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 10 08 November 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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People almost always instinctively correct something, at some point; they'll suggest the right word, repeat things in a more natural way, etc. There is usually a subtle dance between the speaker and the listener -- when the learner is open to these changes, when he makes an effort to integrate them in their speech, then the native speaker is much more likely to suggest more corrections. Ignore these suggestions and improvements and the door will quickly close. No one wants to waste their time making corrections that you won't care about.
I always try to pay attention to native speakers' suggestions and whenever I have a doubt, I ask them what I should say. They obviously get a sense that I want help and that it matters. I can also learn a lot from how they say things even if they make no corrections, and if I feel they're expressing themselves differently from what I'd say, then I ask why. When I listen to someone who is in the process of learning a language and I have no idea whether they want corrections or not, I pay attention to recurring errors and point them out afterwards. I fail to see how that wouldn't be helpful, and they can simply choose to ignore it. I don't point anything out deliberately, most learners are almost entirely oblivious to subtle suggestions or corrections. On a few occasions, some people have gone overboard and taken the incentive to correct absolutely everything. Initially, I thought I should be open-minded and try to take advantage of it, but ultimately I realized it's simply too much. We correct mistakes little by little, and many problems can only be tackled after other problems have been solved. Too much at once is just too much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 10 08 November 2011 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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The biggest ones I deal with are the fundamentals, and I don't like going into a long explanation every time.
If, for example, someone drops their plural -s frequently, I'll comment on it specifically once or twice. If they keep making the same mistake, and say eg "three car", I might ask "how many?" to try to trigger their memory of the error. If someone makes a particular error very frequently, you can get to the point where you only need to give them a funny glance and they correct themselves. By giving less and less feedback, you're training them to notice their mistakes for themselves -- you're conditioning a negative reaction to their mistakes. Of course, this only works with errors that come up frequently enough for you to work on again and again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5126 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 7 of 10 09 November 2011 at 3:23am | IP Logged | ||
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My philosophy is to suggest just enough corrections to keep the conversation flowing. I don't want to bog down the conversation with corrections because then the process of developing the skill to speak with more automaticity would be impeded. Of course if someone commits an absolutely fatal error, then the conversation has to be stopped in its tracks to rectify that. Edited by tibbles on 09 November 2011 at 3:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 10 09 November 2011 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps we should make the distinction between correction per se and enhancement. The latter for me refers to fact of showing the learner how to replace a perfectly correct utterance with something that is more natural or idiomatic. Let me give a specific example.
Last week I had to give a very short speech in Spanish to thank some people for inviting me to participate in an event. The speech went very well, I thought. No undue hesitation; no grammatical boo-boos. Fine. But as I was going home and thinking about what I had said and how I could have improved it--by the way this process in French is called "l'esprit d'escalier"--, I realized that I missed an opportunity to use a construction that is common in Spanish but difficult to understand for English (or French) speakers. As many readers here undoubtedly know, Spanish often uses direct or indirect pronouns in a somewhat redundant fashion. So, "Me gusta el café" (I like coffee) is perfectly good Spanish. But "A mí me gusta el café" is better. So, in my speech I had said, Quiero agradecer a Frederico y a Roberto la invitación... (I want to thank Frederico and Roberto for the invitation...) What I could or should have said was A Frederico y a Roberto quiero agradecerles la invitación... This may be splitting hairs, but I really liked the second formulation better although there was nothing really wrong with the first. This is what I would like to call language enhancement rather than correction. Edited by s_allard on 09 November 2011 at 2:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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