French listening and oral production

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Carmody
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby Carmody » Thu May 12, 2022 1:01 am

Sometimes I do fiction and at others I try documentaries:

Foreign Legion, 1 month in the heart of hell Green (Part 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_0Htv5Q28&ab_channel=imineoDocumentaires

I find he Foreign Legion interesting. Also the dialogue on most documentaries is usually not fast.
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lusan
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby lusan » Thu May 12, 2022 1:09 am

BeaP wrote:I've always skipped the listening exercises of coursebooks and watched an extreme amount of TV series and youtube videos made for native speakers. Mostly with Spanish subtitles, sometimes without them. My theory at the moment is: coursebook listening exercises and videos for learners develop speaking (if you listen to them multiple times). Listening can only be developed with native materials, and a lot of them. For me it's an adaptation process, not a learning process. Most of it is unconscious, because you don't hear everything clearly but your brain fills in the gaps. It's connected to rhythm, the musical nature of speech, which also gets a bit lost in slowed down recordings. I don't know the science behind it, but for me the practical takeaway is always more important.


Yes, yes, yes... the brains does the work.

BeaP wrote:I also noticed that because of skipping the listening exercises in coursebooks my speaking skill is worse than it should be at this point (after so many years of learning). I speak with relatively good intonation, rhythm and pronunciation, but my active vocabulary is very limited. I often search for basic words, and I use only very few things automatically. In my opinion speaking can be developed with dialogues made for learners, listening to them and imitation. So it's a good idea to watch the videos you've linked, but they'll only develop your speaking skills even if you use them properly.


Not sure about it. I just have 1 hours conversation with an italki tutor. After not doing much with active since de beginning of the pandemia, I spoke as you described above French; about A2-B1 level. Though I can read books and follow the FranceInfo news/24 France without any problem. I attribute it to lack of conversation practices. I believe that some repetition practices with FSI basic French would take care of the problem.
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby lingohot » Thu May 12, 2022 6:16 am

Carmody wrote:Since I have been listening to these sources for so long and yet without qualitative improvement, I fear there is no hope for me. Please tell me that isn't so..........


One thing I can recommend is watching (or just listening to) movies with French dubs that you already know very well. Your favorite movies that you more or less know by heart (if there are any). Listen to the French version 10, 20, 30... times. Be curious: how do they put this scene/dialogue in French? etc.

I think that the difficulty of listening comprehension is often under-estimated. Many L2 speakers who already have a good command of the language tend to "blank out" in their brain the bits they actually don't understand.
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BeaP
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby BeaP » Thu May 12, 2022 7:20 am

lusan wrote:Not sure about it. I just have 1 hours conversation with an italki tutor. After not doing much with active since de beginning of the pandemia, I spoke as you described above French; about A2-B1 level. Though I can read books and follow the FranceInfo news/24 France without any problem. I attribute it to lack of conversation practices. I believe that some repetition practices with FSI basic French would take care of the problem.


I don't think we differ from this aspect. I also think that conversation practice is beneficial. My point was only that for oral production you need a limited amount of active vocabulary and grammar, which in self-study can be attained through intensive work with good dialogues and (I also agree on this) grammar drills, repetition practice. (You're right, sooner or later one needs to use the things learned and put them into practice.)

On the other hand, listening (and reading) requires a huge passive vocabulary, that you won't find in A1-A2 materials. It might be a bit easier for you, because of the similarity between your native language and the ones you're learning, but I think even you needed a lot of time to have a good understanding of French speech. Imagine Carmody, a native English speaker. When you speak with someone, and people recognise that you're not a native speaker, they usually speak slower, don't use very rare or academic vocabulary. You can ask for clarification, ask the other to rephrase a sentence, define the meaning of a word. And there's no problem with that, the main goal is effective communication. However, when you listen to videos, speeches, a theatre performance or anything, you can't say that you have a problem, and most of the time (IRL) you can't even jump back 5-10 seconds and listen to things again. That's why I think listening is the hardest skill to master.

An experience that was interesting for me: At the beginning of my exam preparation I did a listening about the iberian pig, how they raise and feed them. I'll never in my life forget the word 'bellota' (acorn). I don't even know it in English, I had to look it up now. So 'bellota' was there in every sentence, and at that time I didn't know it. It would have been quite easy to guess from the context, but I became anxious and worried that I don't understand the key word. It seemed a fraction of time, but I totally disconnected, the speech went on, and at the end I had no idea what the whole thing was about. To use a metaphor: I fell off the horse and couldn't get back to it because it was running instead of waiting for me. This never happens in the case of reading or speaking. Listening for me consists of the adaptation process (ears-brain), the passive vocabulary and the ability to stay on the horse, to be attentive continuously.

Good news for you and me if I'm right: we're already done with the time-consuming part, and can achieve a high level in speaking relatively quickly if we work hard.

There's a very interesting idea that I've heard from different sources: some say that reading is the key skill. This would mean that fluent and accurate speaking can be attained through reading an insane amount. I feel it's mostly true for my native language, those who have read a lot are usually good speakers, but I don't know if it's true for a foreign language. Any ideas?
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Le Baron
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby Le Baron » Mon May 16, 2022 6:20 pm

A fitting video for this thread. I was just sent the link by my neighbour (she's been brushing up on French for a 3 month trip to France next year 8-) such luck). I had told her to stop relying on her old coursebook and to seek out some listening, because when she told me what she was doing and I asked: que vas-tu faire en France ? She was panicking. I wouldn't say she didn't understand, but clammed-up. Note well that she's been dabbling with French on and off since school, also did a Volksuniversiteits course in the past, and she's now over 30 years old. Fear and self-doubt has been her enemy....and a bit of laziness.

I haven't watched every last second of the video, but I watched most of it. I think she has good things to say about blockages to speaking, particularly psychological, preventing people from even attempting oral competency in any language. Falling back onto comfortable theories about language learning which are a safe-haven. Also about wrong 'solutions' to misdiagnosed problems.

Some will disagree with parts of it, e.g. starting to speak from beginner level; a topic which always generates a conflict of views. I think, however, that it stands in opposition to the grave mistake of constantly waiting to be 'good enough' to start talking. Whereas few people ever wait to be 'good enough' to start reading big novels. On the contrary it's considered a prime method for 'learning while doing'. Strange that, isn't it? It suggests the simpler fact of availability and safety, rather than the theoretical idea that talking must only be approached at a late stage of development - after you've 'learned'.

I'm posting it because it's also in French, so a listening exercise to boot. She speaks rather simply for the purposes of explication. Only the part from 5:00 to 39:00 is worth watching, the second long bit is just her flogging her coaching services.

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Carmody
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby Carmody » Tue May 17, 2022 1:22 am

Le Baron,

Thank you so much for posting this video. I listened to the first 60 mins. up to the Q&A.

I think her summaries of the 6 errors are brilliant! And I will probably listen to it again, however I am fascinated to learn people's responses who have taken this 8 week course. Maybe that would require posting a separate thread somewhere; I don't know. But she is certainly very charismatic and energized. Question is do people find it worth the money.....

Thanks again for posting.....
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby BeaP » Tue May 17, 2022 7:57 am

I think these psychological aspects get too much emphasis lately, and I blame them in part for the rise of youtube polyglots. We need more practical advice and less psychological analysis. Especially from a teacher. If I don't speak French, it's not because I'm shy, concentrated on errors or victim of an inferiority complex. These are just excuses (for me - to deny my wrong learning methods, for teachers - to deny their wrong teaching methods). If I don't speak French, it's because I can't express myself. What a teacher needs to tell me: what exactly should I do to acquire a set of useful collocations, sentences or clauses that I can use automatically (without thinking) in the most frequent situations? I'm searching for words because I don't have tools ready to use, not because I think I think it's better this way. I'm comparing myself to others, because I'd like to speak as well, I want to achieve the goals they've achieved. I'd like to how they've done it. It's all normal.

My overall impression is that a lot of coaches and teachers don't know methods, don't know resources, and don't actually view their job as a real profession. (Meaning I won't put the blame on the student's supposed psychological problems, but revise my methodology instead.) Things got degraded to the level of popular women's magazines. Positive thinking, embracing your faults, not caring about the others. No, these things are not the real problem. Emphasising them might actually hide the real problem and lead to eternal failure. Without good resources and effective methods most learners won't be able to improve their skills.
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Le Baron
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 17, 2022 2:01 pm

BeaP wrote:If I don't speak French, it's not because I'm shy, concentrated on errors or victim of an inferiority complex. These are just excuses (for me - to deny my wrong learning methods, for teachers - to deny their wrong teaching methods). If I don't speak French, it's because I can't express myself. What a teacher needs to tell me: what exactly should I do to acquire a set of useful collocations, sentences or clauses that I can use automatically (without thinking) in the most frequent situations? I'm searching for words because I don't have tools ready to use, not because I think I think it's better this way. I'm comparing myself to others, because I'd like to speak as well, I want to achieve the goals they've achieved. I'd like to how they've done it. It's all normal.


Whilst I agree that psychological analysis can be overrated I think she is more or less correct. It isn't that a lot of students are lacking input or groups of useful collocations and ready-made sentences. In fact people learn them again and again and never get to the point of using them. She said at the start that often students are pretty advanced in what they know, even in listening.
To use something automatically without thinking it has to be used in the wild, that's the point. The only way you ever learn to return a fast tennis serve is to have someone serve a ball against you. Everything before that is preparation and it's still a shock when the real thing happens. I don't think all of this is the teacher's job, although a teacher who reassures you that errors are okay, that searching for words is okay, is doing a good job.

To enter into interactive speech with the expectation of speaking anywhere near the level of even the most mediocre native speaker is just one more blockage. What every speaker of a foreign language only learns later is that all those who know how to speak well went through the same pain they're going through now. No-one ever turned up to their first real conversation (or their 20th probably) with enough at their fingertips supplied by books or teachers.
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Le Baron
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 17, 2022 2:43 pm

Carmody wrote:Question is do people find it worth the money.....

That would be whatever a person feels they could afford to lose for what they get. I think for a self-guided learner what she says here is enough to dwell upon and use to take steps. A lot of 'coaches' charge exorbitant rates and unless they're matching you with speakers on a daily basis, they're not even offering you the core of their own advice, just collecting money.

During lockdown I joined one of the zoom-type chat groups on Duolingo for Spanish. I don't use their course for Spanish. Even though (like me) many weren't accomplished speakers it was good to be forced to act and react. Your memory gets jogged when people use words/phrases that have slipped your mind, I then used these with the next person I spoke with. This is how language currency is transmitted and reinforced between people. I consider this 'coaching' on-the-fly. Everyone remembers different stuff, it's like having things saved in 'the cloud'.
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BeaP
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Re: French listening and oral production

Postby BeaP » Tue May 17, 2022 3:05 pm

Although these arguments are all rational, this whole concept goes against my experience. I'll try to some it up, I don't know a better way to make my point. In the past years I've used Spanish, French and Italian on holidays.

Spanish:
method: 90 percent native input (vast majority listening), extensive learning
result: huge passive vocabulary, good passive skills
speaking: very problematic - unconfident - the model is in my head, but I don't find the way to produce it, I don't really have active vocabulary, everything is on the same level of slightly out of reach

French:
method: French in Action videos 20 times, intensive learning
result: mediocre passive skills, active vocabulary is almost as big as passive
speaking: confident, I use a very limited toolkit in a very simple way, but I use it efficiently (even automatically)

Italian:
method: one book studied pre-internet (know it almost by heart)
result: mediocre passive skills, active vocabulary is almost as big as passive
speaking: confident with mistakes, a bit worse than in the case of French (lack of audio input)

I don't say that I speak French or Italian better than Spanish. But I've only spent 2 years learning French and Italian, and 15 years learning Spanish. The difference should be huge.

What I want to emphasise is that how you prepare before going out to the wild is crucial. And a teacher should talk about this. And yes, sometimes people need to learn. (One example I've found is verb forms. Those who don't know the most frequent forms of irregular verbs, won't be able to speak.) But I accept that others feel that it works in a different way, I just wanted to add another point of view.
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