Your plan of attack - Speaking

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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby Finny » Tue Feb 07, 2017 2:12 am

reineke wrote:I am all ears :)


^ What the fox said.

I spent very little time speaking Spanish while learning it. Some time with a preschooler who only spoke the language. Some time interpreting for parents who only spoke the language. But almost all of my speaking came from media absorption...and some time reading aloud. I'd estimate I got to B2/C1 pretty much through that. Of course, I've had much more speaking practice since I started working as a bilingual teacher, but I'd say the main thing that's changed in my speaking is having a larger vocabulary from looking up so many random words (e.g., looking up eel yesterday - anguila in Spanish, anguille in French - after going to the aquarium).

Right now, with French, it's pretty much the same thing, except I speak to my kids. However, they're not teaching me the language; I'm teaching it to them. To avoid teaching them nonsense, I focus on getting lots of input--these days primarily from listening to the radio, with occasional TV and some / lots (depending on the month) reading. In contrast to learning Spanish, I've spent almost zero time reading aloud (beside when reading books in French to the kids). I started speaking to the kids in French at probably A0 in September and have clawed my way up to ~B1 as of January. I consciously decided to push the speaking hard because I wanted to start getting the language into their heads during their most flexible years.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby neofight78 » Tue Feb 07, 2017 5:49 am

Xmmm wrote:But ultimately I quit because:

1. I realized the tutors had stopped even trying to correct my grammar. They probably didn't even hear my mistakes anymore. I was developing fluidity in Tarzan Russian and essentially teaching the tutors that this was the best I could do, so they just gave encouragement and maybe washed their ears out with hydrogen peroxide afterwards.
2. I realized that I was becoming fluent in the sort of abstract conversation one might have discussing politics, but I couldn't tell the time or describe the things in a room.


Regarding point 1, Italki has a major problem with quality control (amoung others). Many tutors are just ordinary people who like being paid to talk, of the tutors many are inexperienced, low skilled or just simply forget that they should be teaching. There are now loads of Russian tutors on italki and only a few are worthwhile. Unfortunately it's a case of hunting them out, substantial classroom experience in a reputable institution is an indicator although not a guarantor that you have someone more professional on your hands.

Regarding number 2, I would be interested if anyone has a good way of takling this? I suspect whatever one's approach this can be a difficulty when not living in the country concerned. Perhaps a list of topics like which washing powder to buy or how to change a tyre would be good. One does indeed tire of taking about immigration and such like....
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby smallwhite » Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:14 am

neofight78 wrote:Regarding number 2, I would be interested if anyone has a good way of takling this?


You can see this post: Do You Use Phrasebooks?
or post your question in this subforum: Practical Questions and Advice

So,
OP wrote:
Your plan of attack - Speaking

How are you learning to or how have you learned to speak your target language(s)? What is your overall strategy, and what actual activities do or did you do? What worked best for you, what didn't work, and what's neither but is at least enjoyable to do? Have your beliefs, strategies and methods changed over the years?

(Please indicate your target language and the level in question to put things in perspective for us!)

Speak up!
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:23 am

neofight78 wrote:
Regarding number 2, I would be interested if anyone has a good way of takling this? I suspect whatever one's approach this can be a difficulty when not living in the country concerned. Perhaps a list of topics like which washing powder to buy or how to change a tyre would be good. One does indeed tire of taking about immigration and such like....



Keep a mini-note book with you during your day. Like, one you can fit in your pocket. Listen to what you say, and, if you can (i.e. you're not in the middle of a conversation), try to say it in your target language, or think it if it's an internal monologue. If you can't, write down either what you're trying to say or a general topic you think it falls under. Go back and look at what you're missing, and fill in the blanks. After you fill in the same thing a couple of times it'll start to stick.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby tiia » Tue Feb 07, 2017 11:22 am

When I came to Finland for my exchange I had learned the language for around six years, but barely spoke it. So I knew most of the grammar already. While my studies were mainly in English, the most important factor for starting to speak was probably the local language cafe. There were lots of other learners and you could have similar discussions every week with different people. So variations of the same basic theme all the time. Sometimes we also played games suitable for language learning.
I learned to speak rather quickly from then on, because - as I said - I knew the grammar already and just needed practice and a few more words.*

Once I surpassed the basic level in speaking this became rather boring, but it was a really great start. The main advantage I see here is that when changing your conversation partners every week, the same kind of very basic conversation doesn't bore you so fast as if you were doing it with the same person all over again. Plus, there's more variation. The other learners also happend to be very patient. Unfortunately we didn't always have a native speaker at our table.
At some point you also start making friends and talk with them more often so that you won't change the conversation partners that much anymore, but instead your topics will become more difficult.

I still hope to get something similar to this done with Spanish, because I feel like I'm at a similar stage with that language right now. I know (most of) the grammar and some vocabulary, but cannot really speak yet.


*I had (another) break-through half a year after the exchange most likely due to something a (native) friend told me. But that is really difficult to redo and it would not have worked without gaining some kind of fluency first.
Last edited by tiia on Wed Feb 08, 2017 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby reineke » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:51 pm

neofight78 wrote:
Regarding point 1, Italki has a major problem with quality control (amoung others). Many tutors are just ordinary people who like being paid to talk, of the tutors many are inexperienced, low skilled or just simply forget that they should be teaching. There are now loads of Russian tutors on italki and only a few are worthwhile. Unfortunately it's a case of hunting them out, substantial classroom experience in a reputable institution is an indicator....


I did not try any of these but here's a list of language exchange sites:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2943
Last edited by reineke on Thu Feb 09, 2017 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby rdearman » Tue Feb 07, 2017 1:17 pm

neofight78 wrote:Italki has a major problem with quality control (amoung others). Many tutors are just ordinary people who like being paid to talk, of the tutors many are inexperienced, low skilled or just simply forget that they should be teaching. There are now loads of Russian tutors on italki and only a few are worthwhile. Unfortunately it's a case of hunting them out, substantial classroom experience in a reputable institution is an indicator although not a guarantor that you have someone more professional on your hands.

Do they not have a rating system like ebay? I've never used iTalki, but would seem to be a good method. Or perhaps a forum where you recommend good tutors?
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby neofight78 » Tue Feb 07, 2017 1:30 pm

They do have a rating system, but people nearly always give the tutors five stars, i.e. nearly nobody likes to leave a bad review. Basically everyone on the site agrees that the system doesn't really work. Of course there is no guarantee that other people want from their tutor exactly what you do. Again most teachers have their own groove and don't tend to adapt well to specific requests or students. Although, there are exceptions of course. In short, I've not yet found any selection criteria that reliably works other than taking lessons to see, but that's rather an expensive approach.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby reineke » Tue Feb 07, 2017 2:30 pm

neofight78 wrote:The main thing is to speak, and to speak a lot. You also need to make sure you go out of your comfort zone and discuss something new, or use new words or constructions. It's great if you can work with a tutor or language partner who can note down (ideally in a chat window) all the words and constructions that you are missing...
Well, at least that's how I approach it and I find it effective. But I suspect there may be other ways to skin this cat...


Skinning cats is a very messy business.

From Conti's website:

"This has led to cohort after cohort of language learners who have fossilised (automatized) mistakes because they have often been encouraged to talk beyond their level of competence through unstructured tasks they were not ready for..."

"As I often reiterate in my blogs, there cannot be spontaneous talk without spontaneous grammar. Whereas in immersive or naturalistic input-rich environments (e.g international school ; the L2 country) the L2 learner can acquire grammar subconsciously, in input-poor ones with little teacher-student contact time this is impossible without explicit grammar instruction and work on the automatization of the target structures/morphemes.

"Hence, before being able to cope with unstructured communicative tasks (describing pictures, unplanned conversation tasks, simulations, etc.) language students need to be first trained to automatize grammar by applying it in speech in highly controlled tasks, what DeKeyser calls ‘Communicative drills’"...

See if you can find a tutor willing to practice with you in this manner.
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Re: Your plan of attack - Speaking

Postby Ani » Wed Feb 08, 2017 8:27 am

rdearman wrote:Do they not have a rating system like ebay? I've never used iTalki, but would seem to be a good method. Or perhaps a forum where you recommend good tutors?


I have found myself completely incapable of leaving less than a 5 star review.. Mostly because the trial lessons are so cheap you feel like a huge jerk. If I pay $1-2 to talk to someone for 30 minutes, I am not going to leave negative feed back. I just won't take more lessons with them. I haven't had trouble finding good teachers though. They all have video introductions about themselves and their teaching methods and you can do a trial lesson (message them and ask for one if your official italki ones have run out, they almost always say yes).

---------

As to the original post, I found the best improvement in my speaking has come through writing. I basically used the language islands method of preparing talking points and my half of conversions or stories I might like to tell. It gives me time to find the gaps and fix them. Like many others, I haven't found native speakers to correct any but the most glaring mistakes, whereas I can find much more through research via linguee or wordreference etc.
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