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Is spoken language really taught? | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 26 21 April 2010 at 6:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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For a different thread I ended up reading a fascinating article on the language skills of Joseph Conrad, one of the great writers of the English language. http://home.earthlink.net/~apousada/id4.html. He was of Polish origin and learned French before English. Basically, the article pointed out that Conrad had poor speaking skills in English and this was a source of much embarrassment for him.
This article and another thread on the various equivalents of "um" in spontaneous speech made me think about the many differences between spoken and written language and the implications for independent learners. Interestingly, we use the term "speak" when we talk about the languages we know, and, as evidenced by this forum, there is a widespread obsession with the number of languages spoken and with fluency. On the other hand, most people learn the language through the written form and tend to emphasize the formal language of the printed media. Even the language of television, movies and theatre is mostly scripted and is not really spontaneous speech. I won't attempt to summarize the differences between spoken and written language. One is based on sound and in everyday conversations is a spontaneous and somewhat ephemeral creation in a specific social context. The written language, on the other hand, is script-based, of a permanent nature and is typically not very spontaneous. Of course, we have to recognize that spoken speech runs the gamut from slang to formal speech of an academic presentation or a legal argument. I don't think I have seen any materials that explicitly address the spoken language for French or Spanish, the languages I'm most familiar with. It seems that the assumption is that spoken language is just the written language transformed into sound. This, in my opinion, is totally wrong. Spoken language in many ways is so much simpler than the written form. A simpler grammar, limited vocabulary, no spelling or punctuation to worry about. But the spoken form has its own complications and characteristics that don't seem to be often explicitly addressed. I wonder what people think about this. Edited by s_allard on 21 April 2010 at 6:36am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 26 21 April 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a very interesting topic. I have often wondered why the language teaching in so many countries is "writing and grammar" focused, when it should be focused on speech. Norwegian shools have a lot of short comings, but one area where they do actually perform very well is within language teaching. They are much more speech focused, and they do not focus on grammar for grammar's sake.
The Scandinavian and Dutch shools in general all seem to have that focus, whereas in France and Spain and Italy they are much more focused on structure and grammar. Visting a Spanish high shool I was quite shocked at both methods and results. I went to a French class where they spent the whole class studying adjectives. The best pupils came out of that class knowing more about the exceptions to the rules concerning French adjectives that I will ever know, yet during the whole class not a single sentence was uttered in French. And they would not have been able to say "Ah how pretty you are" to a pretty French girl who passed them in the street. A little later I sat in on an English class, who were in their second year of English. In Norway, when you are in your second year, you do fairly simple texts, adjusted to the amount of English you allready know. And what did they study in Spain? Shakespeare!! I had at that point studied English for 9 years, with very good grades, and even I had trouble keeping up. Shakespeare is not for the faint of heart. The tragedy is that so much effort was spent, and even good grades were given, and the students had absolutely nothing to show for it. They would still not be able to order a cup of tea. One of my Spanish sisters had the best exam in all of the city of Granada the year she graduated, and she had studied English for 8 years, but did not know the difference between he and she. That is, she certainly knew it in theory, but she was unable to use it in practise. Language teachers really have a lot to be responsible for. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 21 April 2010 at 7:13pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 3 of 26 21 April 2010 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say not really, although audio-visual stuff slightly improves its chances of getting into the teaching material. Basically, you learn standard language or standard languages in education. Colloquial language is liable to be dismissed as "incorrect".
This is why, the better educated you are in most countries, the less likely you are to use colloquial, or a dialect, or a minority language not officially encouraged. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 26 21 April 2010 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am not sure I agree with you here. In several languages, the formal (primarily written) language is quite different in vocabulary and grammar from the daily spoken language. Using the spoken language in writing will seem "uneducated" but doing the reverse (speaking in formal language) is just as bad, since it will leave you sounding very stuffy indeed. Below this, of course, is slang which we mustn't confuse with the daily spoken language. Alas, as the OP has pointed out, many language courses teach only the formal (written) language, which can leave you very confused when you are listening and speaking in real life and wonder if you have been taught an entirely different language all along. There are plenty of sources for learning spoken languages (children's comic books and cartoons, for example, can be a good starting point!) but textbooks rarely touch on the subject. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 5 of 26 21 April 2010 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know if it's bad form to quote myself, but I did a bit of a rant on this in the "American language Teaching is Horrible" thread that I'd essentially be reposting here.
Basically, the spoken language can be more difficult to test, as it requires more labor-hours from the teacher to have 30 conversations with 30 students, as opposed to correcting 30 tests. Plus, it's a much more subjective process than teaching vocab and grammar on paper. Many teachers would be happy to more or less do away with tests in general, but the rubric they are required to follow would not allow this. And I really trace it back to school boards (which also often select textbooks) which are mostly comprised of minor politicians and overly-prideful parents who usually know very little about language acquisition. Edited by robsolete on 21 April 2010 at 1:54pm 1 person has 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 6 of 26 21 April 2010 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I found Solfrid Cristin's post about the emphasis on speaking in Scandinavian and Dutch foreign language classes very interesting. This is probably an element in the explanation of the impressive multilingual language skills of the populations in those countries.
Here in Canada immersion French produces the best results in our school system for the simple reason that the children actually use the language instead of just studying it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 26 21 April 2010 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I should perhaps add, in all humbleness, that we can show fantastic results in English, but the results in other languages are not quite as impressive. They are good, because the teaching methods are good, but they won't knock your socks off. And the difference between English and the other languages is again the absolutely massive exposure we get to English through the media. I bet that if we got a similar exposure to Russian (80 % of TV in Russian, listening to Russian music all day, internet in Russian, Russian movies in the cinema), we might get similar results.
Hence the possibility exists that we do not have the best methods, but just the most extensive exposure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 8 of 26 21 April 2010 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Many programs don't really teach the written language either. Joseph Conrad notwithstanding, it's not like the kind of teaching Solfrid describes in her post produces people who write beautiful prose but just don't speak well. For the most part, they'll have poor skills in both areas. Just like speaking, writing also comes first and foremost from just writing, not from "studying the written language". On the passive skills side, there is certainly not enough listening in such educational systems, but it is just as true that there is not enough continuous reading practice either. So, in the end the students don't get reading, writing, speaking or listening practice, i.e., not enough practice of any kind. Language has to be studied some and practiced a lot - they mostly study and hardly practice, and it applies to all four language skills, not just speech. As far as the original topic of this thread, the distinction between spoken and written language, some movies do a decent job of capturing everyday language, and some lesser literary genres, e.g., "chick lit", have a lot of dialog that tries to sound natural. Yes, if one insists on studying nothing but 19th century classics, one won't be exposed to the present-day conversational language, but with the right listening and reading, one can get a decent amount of exposure to such language. To do better one has to engage in conversation, which may or may not be available to the learner. However, while I do think that one may find a substantial amount of everyday spoken language in the right movies and some types of novels, in order to be able to learn it efficiently from these sources, one must understand the nuances of what one is hearing or reading, and here one does run into problems with the existing dictionaries as well as learning and reference materials. Some of it has to be absorbed over time from context anyway, but getting some help could speed up the process.
There exists "A Textbook of Colloquial Spanish" by Brian Steel, but it's more of an exception confirming the rule. Edited by frenkeld on 21 April 2010 at 8:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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