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Selective muteness | ||
Tags: Speaking | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Shenandoah Newbie United States Joined 4824 days ago 30 posts - 59 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 9 of 21 26 February 2011 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting topic.
I've never been diagnosed as such, but I do believe I was/am. Every single year I was in school my report cards read "Shenandoah is extremely smart but so quiet," or "Shenandoah knows the material, but refuses to talk in class," or something similar. When my mom would introduce me to people, I wouldn't say a word to them. At one point my mom had me see a social worker (because my parents were getting divorced and she thought I needed someone to talk to) who thought I was schizophrenic because in several weeks of sessions I never said a single word to her. I'd just sit silently, occasionally nodding or shaking my head as she asked questions. (Fortunately a later psychologist cleared that up). Anyway, I know there are debates about whether it's a childhood-only problem or whether it can extend to adults. I have definitely improved since my childhood, but still have issues that most people don't. For example, while I can hold a normal conversation with people I'm close to, I can't say a word in a social situation that involves more than about 3 people. People think it's weird when a group of us go spend a couple hours at a restaurant and I listen to everyone, but talk to no one. I also have issues with the telephone. It's getting better, but for a long time I simply could not talk on the phone at all. I still have anxiety over it. As far as the relevance to language learning, I tend to pick up reading and listening very very quickly. I'm not sure exactly where I stand with my speaking. I can chat with my classmates before our French class without much trouble, so I'm at least at the same level they are - but in class it's nearly impossible for me to speak up, even though there are only 8 of us. So I don't get my instructor's corrections very often. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4863 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 21 26 February 2011 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Definitely a selective mute. I think it might be a good thing for language learning. Well
I sort of "grew out of it", sometimes I can go to a bar alone and just talk to everyone, sometimes on the street just without alcohol and with strangers but it depends. I still hate the phone! I can't look at peoples faces as they speak that makes me feel strange about the phone I suppose. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5223 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 11 of 21 27 February 2011 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was very young, I vastly preferred reading over talking to other kids. In fact, up until age 12 or so, I wasn't
even interested in my peers. I did befriend people who were far older than I was, though, simply because I could relate to them more. I felt that what most people my age talked about was incredibly boring and trivial, so I didn't really have many close friends from my own age group. I don't think I'd call myself a selective mute, though - I definitely knew how to strike up a conversation and had no difficulty smiling at someone and saying "Hi!", but I just didn't do it as often with others my own age. I once took an IQ test and qualified for Mensa (top 2% percentile worldwide, which corresponds to roughly 130 or higher based on various charts I've seen), so I have no idea if that has anything to do with it even though I suspect there's a link. Now that I'm 16 and will soon be entering adulthood, though, I've found that many of my peers have matured and it's now far easier to talk to them about deep/philosophical/debate-worthy things, so I'm no longer the "social outcast" I once was. :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4863 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 21 27 February 2011 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||
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By normal to high intelligence I didn't mean IQ by the way, I don't believe in that
system. Yeah sounds like you are just a bit socially awkward and not a selective mute. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5438 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 13 of 21 27 February 2011 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been diagnosed with social phobia not selective mutism but I can relate to the diagnosis. In high school I received the same kind of reports as Shenandoah 'She needs to speak more/participate in class' and I'm sure that there's many people at my school who either never heard me utter a word or only heard the few words I'd say if a teacher directly asked me to answer a question. Although I'm more talkative in informal situations now, formal situations still trouble me and there's a long list of situations I do my best to avoid to avoid having to speak. I haven't found any benefits to this anxiety and obviously my speaking in my L2 lags way behind my other skills because I don't dare to practice it. My social anxiety is way worse in my L2 because of the fear of sounding stupid.
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| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5223 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 14 of 21 27 February 2011 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Ah, I see. I don't fully believe in IQ tests either; those tend to test only a few facets of intelligence and neglect plenty of others. My younger sister took the same IQ test as I did, but she did not make Mensa. On the other hand, I'd definitely say that she is a lot smarter than I am in some areas, especially in terms of spatial visualization and various other things. When she was 11, she was already putting together 5000-piece puzzles! I personally will never understand how she can possibly single out each shade of color and figure out where it fits in the picture, and I definitely don't have the patience for that type of task either. She's also an expert at knitting, weaving, and tying knots - things that she literally taught herself to do prior to her 10th birthday. She's also generally been slightly more socially adept than me, especially when we were younger. And I'd also like to comment on something that was brought up a few posts ago about not talking much in class - I received similar comments on my report card too, except that all my teachers would write that they wished I would speak up more often because apparently they found my opinions interesting! During class discussions, I generally just sat back and listened, but when I felt that something needed to be clarified or added, I would usually ask a thoughtful question or comment on something someone said. This usually either changed the course of the discussion as people started to consider my perspective(s), or brought up further points of debate. So basically, most of my comments regarding classroom discussion went somewhere along these lines: "Yawn is a highly intelligent, thoughtful student. Please encourage her to contribute more to classroom discussions as her opinions are often very insightful." I've never really been the talkative type, but I definitely think a lot about things... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5223 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 15 of 21 27 February 2011 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have another thing to add in regards to the major differences between me and my sister... what's funny is that
she has almost no interest in learning languages, and gets intimidated by difficulty easily. The only reason she knows French and Spanish in addition to our native English and Mandarin is literally because she was forced by our mother to learn them, and even so she doesn't really seem to have much interest in keeping her language skills up to speed. On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE languages and try to practice them at every opportunity I get. I've always been the more competitive/ambitious type since we were young, in not just language learning but also in terms of things like academics and music. I often actively seek out opportunities for competition and winning awards and getting some of my writing either honored in a contest or published - I actually signed up for the DELF/DALF exams by myself and told my mom to keep an eye out for other such language proficiency tests. My sister has just sort of tagged along. So I don't know. It's sort of weird because while I was often perceived to be the less gregarious kid when we were young, I was also the more bold and ambitious one, while for my sister, things were exactly the other way around. Does this count as "selective muteness"? I have a feeling it's more of a personality trait than anything else, but it's an interesting question to think about... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4863 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 21 28 February 2011 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course it's a personality trait, but the psychologists tend to differ.
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