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Being precise about fluency? | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Asperger-glot Diglot Newbie Denmark Joined 4546 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, Persian, Arabic (classical), Pashto, Polish, Bulgarian, Russian, Turkish Studies: Mandarin, Romanian, French | Message 9 of 48 24 November 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just saw your video. Very informative. It made things clearer for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 10 of 48 25 November 2012 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Replying to s_allard here bc he insists:
Also, at least my copy of the European Portfolio doesn't use words like beginner, intermediate, upper-intermediate. Nor do I see them much in the CEFR descriptions (just two mentions of "intermediate" in this big PDF) - I think they're actually avoiding it! However, often there's nothing wrong with these words. They might not be precise enough when used as the sole description (B1 is certainly more clear than intermediate), like when applying for language classes or especially for a job. However, when someone describes their current level here (and asks what to do next), they're always encouraged to say more than just mention a level, especially, if there's a specific problem it should be described in detail. Also, CEFR implies a balance between your skills, but when people have problems, they usually LACK this balance! With CEFR, if one skill is better then it's singled out at best, ignored at worst. (if I were to take an Italian class, it would have to be something like A2 because my active grammar is limited. Although I tend to read stuff rated as B2/C1 because my passive level is better) Basically, I think CEFR is excellent for quick, clear descriptions but not necessarily for the discussions we have here. There is no need to go through the guidelines only to discover that you're in the range of three levels depending on the skill and on how exactly things are interpreted - when saying intermediate can even work better. Edited by Serpent on 25 November 2012 at 3:16am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 48 25 November 2012 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I say fluency I only mean that the language comes out as fluently as water from a faucet. But from the moment I say 'basic fluency' or 'advanced fluency' I have added an element of proficiency because criteria like correctness and vocabulary size then come into play.
We can't stop people out there in the wilderniss from saying 'fluency' (without qualifications) when they mean fluency + proficiency, but fluency without the 'easy flow' is probably as much a contradiction for them as it is for me. The only point where I might take exception to the common usage is when people are adamant to demand stellar perfection from people who only claim basic fluency or just 'fluency'. And the people who make this error could be native speakers who never have tried to learn another language and don't know that it is a gradual process. Edited by Iversen on 25 November 2012 at 1:22pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 12 of 48 25 November 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Really, I have to laugh when I read some of our discussions. We all know what proficiency or competence means and we all know what fluency means, but many people are bending over backwards to say that fluency really also means proficiency because that is the the way most people, including language marketeers, use the words.
The fundamental reason for distinguishing the two terms, fluency and proficiency, in the world of linguistics, is that fluency has a specific technical definition and is a measurable component of proficiency. We can measure fluency, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary size and even phonological exactness (although the latter is not part of the CEFR system). If you are going to use the CEFR, at least use it properly. Instead of the CEFR, you can use the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, the Defense Language Proficiency Test or the Second Language Proficiency Levels (Canada). There are other systems but nobody except HTLAL uses fluency as a generic term. I reason I bother bringing this point up at all, considering that most people don't give a rat's arse about the issue, is that this constant mixing up of fluency with proficiency inevitably leads to confusion because fluency now has two meanings, a general sense and a technical sense. So, most discussions end up going nowhere and peter out. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 13 of 48 25 November 2012 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So why are you discussing it?
For the record, to me, fluency is what it is - speaking comfortably. Proficiency and fluency are different. The CEFR is just a reference framework you can use to show people you can do a certain thing in the language. I am much less concerned with what I "am" in the language than what I can "do". Much more useful. Edited by tarvos on 25 November 2012 at 11:33pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 14 of 48 25 November 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Although we know what these terms mean, the discussions about how fluent is fluent or how proficient is proficient are inevitable. Most common words have more than one meaning. We survive just fine so why should it be an issue here? Not to be harsh, but you need to learn some English if you have issues distinguishing between "I know a lot of words and my grammar is okay, but I lack fluency in my speech, what to do?" and "I've done Assimil and I'm not far from fluency, how should I continue learning Spanish?" (I said that you insisted because you kept on posting about it in that thread after this one was started. I didn't mean anything else) Edited by Serpent on 26 November 2012 at 1:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4889 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 15 of 48 26 November 2012 at 12:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think of fluency as having a "fluid" quality to our speech. It's ease of use. I
think you can have an advanced knowledge of a language, but not have any kind of fluency. And I think you can be fluent at a beginner or lower level. Whenever I travel, or am immersed in a language environment, I find that my fluency improves rapidly, even if I'm not learning anything new about grammatical structures. Conversely, I learn a lot from my coursebooks, but I don't think I acquire much in the way of fluency from them. I'd almost argue that fluency should be a separate axis on which to measure or describe our abilities, that it doesn't really align with the A-1, A-2, B-1 type scales. Or rather, I think of fluency as existing in each category. Last month I would have put myself at a low to mid A-2 for Spanish. Now I would say that I'm fluent at the A-2 level. Or maybe I'm just being overly Elizabethan about it:
edit: or what Splog said. I just watched the video. Edited by kanewai on 26 November 2012 at 1:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 16 of 48 26 November 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | |||||
Also...
You know you're a HTLAL addict when you classify your goals and achievements per the HTLAL scale, while also keeping CEFR in mind :D Edited by Serpent on 26 November 2012 at 1:16am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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