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Also speak with non natives in L2 | ||
Tags: Non-native Speakers | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6086 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 33 18 November 2011 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Obviously the best speaking practice is with natives in your target language. However, I found it helpful to also speak with other learners in the target language. Why ? As you're both aware you're not native speakers, you're more cautious about mistakes the other person will make, and more likely to point them out.
The mistakes can be anything from pronunciation, to grammar or vocabulary. Native speakers, unless they are actively teaching, are less likely to highlight errors. When access to native speakers is limited, it also helps to develop conversation flow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| July Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 5208 days ago 113 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB2 Studies: French | Message 2 of 33 18 November 2011 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of course, a non-native speaker is also more likely to correct you wrong because they
have a mistake ingrained in their minds and are honestly sure that it's correct. Best to have a native speaker on hand as well, as back up or tie-breaker! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6086 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 33 18 November 2011 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | ||
That would be ideal. The language I was practising was Russian and we didn't have a native speaker handy. Instead we resorted to Wade's grammar to resolve the matter. 1 person has 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 4 of 33 18 November 2011 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Up until a few days ago, I had been speaking Portuguese with an Argentine friend here on-island. He just left the island to sail to Australia and the Pacific via the Panama Canal. Lucky guy!
He lived in Brazil and was married to a Brazilian for ten years. As a result, he speaks excellent Portuguese and is very familiar with the mistakes that enter the language from Spanish. This has been a lot of help to me because Spanish interference (phrasing) in Portuguese can be difficult for me. I'm going to miss him. There aren't a lot of native Portuguese speakers here. I am so grateful for voip. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5406 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 33 18 November 2011 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I have found the opposite to be true. I found it not only unhelpful but also harmful, at least when speaking to students of the same level. There may however be some benefit when a beginner speaks with a more advanced student (for the beginner that is). Not only could I not trust the grammar or pronunciation that I hear but even when those were both correct, I found students sometimes chose words and phrases based on English patterns that were not typically used by native speakers. I did not find that it helped at all to understand native speakers as often the words sounded very different regardless of pronunciation because of differing accents, speech rates, contractions etc. I even became more accustomed to listening to anglophones speaking French than francophones and wondered why the natives couldn't speak properly! I have also had the experience of not being understood in a class because I said something too authentically. When the other student failed to understand, I repeated it in a more English student like manner and was understood perfectly. It was like in class, one must speak using a distinct 'classroom' accent never heard on the street. Spending several months where I spoke only with native francophones helped a great deal and I even started to find some bilingual anglophones difficult to understand. If starting over I think I would refuse to speak at all to other students at the same level. Edited by microsnout on 18 November 2011 at 8:56pm 6 persons have 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 6 of 33 18 November 2011 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you ask me -- and although you aren't asking me directly, indirectly, you kind of are --, the idea that you should speak with other non-native speakers is a lazy idea. The vast majority of people who advocate doing so simply find it easier than having to deal with actual native speakers. But no pain, no gain!
Most of the ESL students I meet seem to be perfectly fine with the idea that they spend most of their days with non-native speakers of the language. In fact, many of them, especially East-Asian students, seem to prefer NOT to have to interact with English native speakers (I almost wrote "scary White people", but I could have)! Then again, few -- if any -- have been making astonishing progress... One wonders why. Not for me, thank you. Not only do I prefer to speak with native speakers, but I make a point to tell them about my goals so I'm forced to improve in order to avoid embarrassment and they push me because they expect me to progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4817 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 7 of 33 18 November 2011 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm about to start a club at a college which will be populated mostly by L2 learners, hopefully with a native or 2. There may be a disadvantage to speaking with these students while I'm also still learning, but I've found it quite difficult to set up speaking arrangements with native Italian speakers over Skype. I can typically manage about 1 hour per week (weekends only work because of the 7 hour difference), but I could really use more like 4-5 hours per week of speaking practice (I would gladly do it if I could). My neighbor is Italian, but again, we have limited interaction time.
I use sharedtalk.com, but are there any other good sites for exchanging over Skype? I've tried some others, but to limited success... it seems that most just want to exchange written texts. 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 8 of 33 18 November 2011 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | ||
If you have no possibility to interact with native speakers, then by all means, speaking with non-natives is the only way to go. But you if you do have the opportunity to speak with natives, even if it's just for an hour a week -- as long as you take full advantage of that hour -- personally, I'd get more out of using self-talk than speaking with non-natives. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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