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How do you handle corrections in speech? | ||
Tags: Corrections | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4360 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 26 of 37 24 August 2012 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
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With languages I don't consider myself fluent in (i.e. all but English) I always ask my
conversation partners to correct me as much as possible, and I rarely get discouraged by the corrections, because they give me a sense of progress: every time I'm corrected, I'm one step closer to mastery. I still feel terrible when I speak badly, and my mistakes haunt me throughout the day, but that's something I've accepted as part of the process. No pain, no gain--or something in that vein. Anyhow, I think this approach works for me, because I start speaking late (B2 or so maybe) and mostly talk one-on-one with a select few people until I've built up some confidence. It's much harder to get corrections in situations involving more people without disrupting the flow of the conversation, so I treat those as survival challenges of a sort. :-) I'll typically know when I'm saying something wrong anyway, so I can just make a mental note of it, and worry about it later. With English I've noticed that I have to explicitly ask to get anything out of native speakers, and that's only convenient among close friends. In general, it seems to me that one-on-one conversations are better for learning to speak correctly, while with more people you're forced to speak more instinctively, which is better for developing fluency. tl;dr 1) I start speaking late, so all I have to do is wire my brain to produce actively what I already know. This allows me to rapidly progress to a decent conversational level with less embarrassment, shame and self-loathing. 2) I mostly speak one-on-one with relatively few people. It's less distracting and less intimidating to be corrected, if you're talking to someone you know well. Edited by sans-serif on 24 August 2012 at 3:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4452 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 27 of 37 10 October 2012 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
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I don't mind corrections. Actually, I welcome them. I was able to get to B2 level in Spanish in 2 years, mostly thanks to chatting with a Spanish friend or two...
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6504 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 28 of 37 10 October 2012 at 12:09pm | IP Logged |
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For me corrections rank about the same as unknown words and expressions in a text. If I read for content I can't use a text where I constantly stumble over new things which I have to look up. It is OK that there are a few new words here and there, and I may even look a few things up if it is necessary for the comprehension, but basically I don't want to be interrupted so often that I loose the sense of flow in my reading activity.
On the other hand I do read 'too difficult' texts intensively, and there the topics should be interesting and the texts should be wellwritten, but these things are just conditions, not the purpose of the exercise. And with intensive activities I take the time I need, even if it means that I only get halfway through the text. In terms of conversations it means that I only can deal with a certain number of corrections per minute, otherwise I'll either ignore the interruptions or I'll find somebody else to speak to. So those rare and precious interruptions had better be high quality interruptions, which in one fell swoop give me the clue to correct a lot of my own speech. Nitpicking about details which only appear once every blue moon represents low quality interruptions, and I tend to disregard such interruptions. Theoretically the antithesis of conversation should be intensive speech training using drills and language labs and all that stuff, but I haven't experienced much of that since my study years. And by and large people I speak to during my travels are more interested in the subjects we discuss than in teaching me their language. Edited by Iversen on 10 October 2012 at 12:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aspiringplyglot Triglot Groupie United Kingdom aspiringpolyglot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4378 days ago 40 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Esperanto, Polish, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 29 of 37 10 October 2012 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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Generally, I think corrections are good in all circumstances. There does, however, become a point where TOO many
corrections can be given and they end up wasted and not absorbed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5182 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 30 of 37 10 October 2012 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
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I also correct my children, although I don't think they've ever corrected me. Where it's a problem is when they correct their teachers -- who in turn REALLY don't appreciate it. I try to teach them when to correct and when to realize it's not a good idea, but since this happens when I'm not around, it's hard to control.
Actually, I used to be really annoying as a teenager because I'd correct people around me a lot, so I try to be more careful today. Edited by Arekkusu on 10 October 2012 at 3:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4440 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 31 of 37 10 October 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged |
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Talking about correcting teachers: My children go to an international school, so there are many native English speakers. Now in one class this year they got an English teacher who was not native, and the children would laugh at her accent and correct her all the time. She lasted one month, now she has left.
A bit off topic: Obviously every school in every country cannot be expected to have native speakers as language teachers (I myself only had Norwegians teaching me English, German and French in school), but at an international school it is clearly risky to put non-natives in front of native children. Edited by Ogrim on 10 October 2012 at 3:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chris Ford Groupie United States Joined 4544 days ago 65 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 32 of 37 10 October 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
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My normal response is something like "Thanks!," insert filler word, then keep on talking. Doing most of my language learning in the US means that I need to show that I'm thankful for corrections, but I don't need the person to switch to English.
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