Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

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BeaP
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby BeaP » Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:51 am

Le Baron wrote: I agree that input, whilst necessary, can easily lead to over-reliance in the hope that it just produces magic results on its own.

I read your comment yesterday in another thread about people who are constantly looking for better methods instead of getting down to work. I agree with you totally, and the main reason for the agreement is that I'm myself often guilty of this sin, so my own experience is a proof for your statement. In my mind these topics are kind of related: there's the 'input' group, the 'digital' group, the 'Count von Count in Sesame Street' group, and we all have the same problem.

Language learning is easy from the methodological aspect, we all know what to do. The question is not the what and the how, it's rather how can I do it without a teacher or any other external motivation (promotion, job, nationality). How can I gain strength to sit down and establish the habit? I hate it when polyglot youtubers start to talk about self-help topics, but in my case at least I know it's part of the problem. Instead of working it's usually making up pretexts, looking for better options. I'm searching for new techniques for improving speaking skills because I'm too lazy or demotivated to do the ones that I already know. I also agree with Luke's comment from the other thread that there's a chance that we can find an easier or more enjoyable method, but this chance is extremely small.
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby jeffers » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:28 am

Le Baron wrote:
jeffers wrote:However, I think the benefit of shadowing comes from the fact that there's no proper break (e.g. the listening part of repetition), so it is more like real speech. Repitition is obviously better for practicing pronunciation, but shadowing is an effective exercise for developing fluency and automaticity (is that a word?) This is also because shadowing requires more quick thinking than repitition, more mental engagement, which are skills needed during conversation in the wild.


This was the problem for me when the other fellow mentioned something similar in another thread: listening/repeating without engagement or whatever it was. To me shadowing feels like effort with no real thinking, because it is just a repeat-what-I-say scenario with no regard as to what the words mean. In actual speech you have to be cognisant of what you say and mean and it means having control over things, over word choice and what you want to say. I still don't know what shadowing is supposed to do for this, apart from getting your vocal apparatus familiar with forming sounds.


As with anything, YMMV (your mileage may vary), but what makes shadowing different from repetition is literally because it is not "just a repeat-what-I-say scenario with no regard as to what the words mean". You have to know what is being said at the same time as you are saying it. You can't really shadow unfamiliar audio. You say that "In actual speech you have to be cognisant of what you say" but at the end of the day, fluency is speaking without really thinking about speech, it's putting your ideas into words without stopping to think about how. But how do we get to that point? We need to start small and work our way up.

One factor that has just occurred to me is that shadowing, in effect, creates language islands. As with language islands, it is a starting place and as you use the language you will move out from the safe base more and more. Shadowed audio and language islands give you an extended framework for common speech which can be built upon.

For the longest time I shared your skepticism about shadowing, but when I actually used it consistently for a specific period of time, I found it was quite effective. I wouldn't think it would be effective to use week in, week out, all the year round. Rather, as I tried to explain above, I feel like it prepared my brain and tongue to just jump into talking without overthinking what I was going to say.
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:31 am

I'm going to recommend a few things.

1. Speaking aloud as much as possible when carrying out your learning.

So, if you're reading and there aren't others to disturb, do it aloud. If you're doing any kind of focused study through a course, or through audio in which you pause and replay to aid in developing your listening, speak the phrases aloud. Read the book aloud, read every phrase you come across in your textbooks, read aloud sentences you have paused to verify your listening.

Jeffers mentioned shadowing and I've done a lot of this in the past. However, I first listened and ensured I understood everything first, repeated everything after pausing each sentence in my coursebooks first and then moved onto shadowing the dialogues of the courses (eg Assimil). Whether this is shadowing or not, I'm unsure, but whatever your method, if you're speaking aloud, surely it's going to help.

So I guess speaking aloud takes care of training your mouth/memory to the sounds of the language, but if you're not totally unfamiliar with the language or your far from the beginner stages, what else could hold you back?

2. Interpreting/translating studies in your routine.

There are some activities that could aid your memory, your recall in order to prime your Spanish mode so it's more prepared when needed. Work with flash cards or translation exercises come to mind. Flash cards can help with recall and perhaps this is where you could try the 'island' thing someone else suggested or simply enter whole phrases. I'm not a huge fan of flash cards at this point in time, but they can be very useful/motivating for some.

Perhaps you could use a bilingual text or bilingual textbook (depending on how difficult you find it or what your preference is) and while reading (or listening to the audio) of the English text try to translate (either aloud or written) into Spanish. In fact, I'd recommend varying the translation activity (from audio to speaking your translation aloud, from written to spoken, written to written etc). I'd do this line for line. Listen to/read one line in English, translate into Spanish and do this consistently as part of your study routine.

Why? Well, if you predominantly function in your native language (most people do), then translating could be something you're doing normally, even if you're not fully aware of it. So if you train yourself to get better (more accurate, quicker) at it through regular translation, you're going to do a better job of speaking Spanish, I'd like to think, if caught on the fly. These kind of activities are still going to help even if you function entirely in Spanish without ever translating. Speak aloud as much as possible and you could use flash cards btw as your translation activity.

Finally, something that could be harder, perhaps even impractical to put into action, but worth mentioning...

Speaking Spanish in your head as much as possible

We all do some form of chit chattery chatterboxing in our heads. I've often wondered if it's possible to switch your main chatterbox language. If you can do it more and more and more, chances are you might switch to operating in your head almost entirely in Spanish. I'd say this would be better for advanced learners and even still somewhat tedious at times, given there are going to be phrases that you say to yourself that you wouldn't know how to say in Spanish, then you're going to have to look them up. Can we get to a point where we can eventually switch the chatterbox language entirely? Well, even switching it 50% of the time, might mean your brain is much more primed to actually speak Spanish when you're suddenly called upon to do so.

Good luck!
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby thevagrant88 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:45 pm

STT44 wrote:Speaking ability is seriously overrated. The most important and difficult skill to acquire is listening comprehension. Native speakers would forgive you if you contribute only a few broken sentences in a heated discussion about the tax policy of the Maldives, but not if they have to repeat everything slowly.


If this is your opinion then that’s fine, I respect that. As the creator of this post who is more often than not happy with his listening skills the overwhelming majority of the time, and specifically asking for this help, I feel like this comment is seriously misplaced. Your sentiments simply are not in line with my values, goals, concerns, experience, or the spirit of this post. To be honest, your comment to the contrary kind of makes me feel like my interests are being dismissed. Of course I don’t think that’s your intention, but I feel better pointing it out rather than ignoring it in the effort of facilitating discourse.

Hope this comment is read in the positive spirit it was written in!
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:46 pm

jeffers wrote:As with anything, YMMV (your mileage may vary), but what makes shadowing different from repetition is literally because it is not "just a repeat-what-I-say scenario with no regard as to what the words mean". You have to know what is being said at the same time as you are saying it. You can't really shadow unfamiliar audio. You say that "In actual speech you have to be cognisant of what you say" but at the end of the day, fluency is speaking without really thinking about speech, it's putting your ideas into words without stopping to think about how. But how do we get to that point? We need to start small and work our way up.

I'm not sceptical with regard to shadowing, I just think it doesn't do what people say it does. It's a practical exercise for attempting to match your vocal apparatus to the one needed for the TL; it also helps with developing 'flow' (not fluency) by copying how TL natives form their words in chains. It has little to do with actual meaning, you can learn to recite a poem perfectly without knowing its meaning, it's just sounds. Being able to do that is not being a poet.

I agree that we start small, but not that speaking is speaking without thinking. It may be so for simple reflex exchanges, but even in a native language you can't work on auto-pilot like that. Fluency is 'command' over your material, like Bach's command of fugue, not a state of zen.

What you say about developing islands is very agreeable. I do it, I use it, but I don't consider it shadowing. It's a form of drilled memorisation performed only by me. I develop the things I think I might need/want to say using native models to find naturalistic ways of expression. I need to know exactly what all this means and perhaps prepare for certain expected replies. Ordinary speech is full of these anyway, so they are a legitimate move, though they end where real free-form interaction begins.

This is not me saying: 'no Jeffers! You've got it all wrong!' More that various learners are doing different slightly things/same things in a different way, or things that somewhat overlap, and then choose to describe it or include it under the simple known umbrella names of: 'shadowing', 'reading-listening' or whatever.
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby rdearman » Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:11 pm

jeffers wrote: automaticity (is that a word?)

Yes, automaticity
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby einzelne » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:13 pm

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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby lingohot » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:47 pm

jeffers wrote:As with anything, YMMV (your mileage may vary), but what makes shadowing different from repetition is literally because it is not "just a repeat-what-I-say scenario with no regard as to what the words mean". You have to know what is being said at the same time as you are saying it. You can't really shadow unfamiliar audio.


Interesting. That's how I see it as well. You have to understand what you shadow. If I encounter a word I don't understand, I'll omit it, I can't just parrot the sound. So I think that shadowing is actually an exercise for (very) advanced learners, not for the beginner's or the intermediate stages. Shadowing is quite taxing mentally, since you have to process quite a lot of things at the same time (listening comprehension, understanding the meaning, reproducing the so processed linguistic signs with your own speech apparatus at the same time).
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:01 pm

How can it be for 'very' advanced learners? To be 'very' advanced surely means you're already producing the language in an advanced way, and not needing to be fed stuff at all. Before that you're an intermediate learner. What's the point of burning away time repeating a load of stuff you already know how to say??
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Re: Other ways of improving speaking skills apart from…speaking?

Postby thevagrant88 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:13 pm

Scheduled a half hour session on iTalki for 5 bucks. I was 100% overthinking this.
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