Postby Speakeasy » Thu Jul 13, 2017 10:52 pm
Hello, Scott, and welcome to the forum! First, I would like to congratulate you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. One of the great advantages of taking language classes is that the student has, from "day one", an opportunity (an obligation) to express himself in the target language. However, as you have discovered, the “true” time available for conversing with your instructor and the other students during the sessions is a rather small portion of the total class time. It is, perhaps, one of the main reasons why many of the members of this language forum, many of whom are independent learners of languages, tend to shy away from classrooms and their associated course materials. Most members of this forum tend to choose materials that are specifically designed for self-study and move on quickly to authentic materials. Nevertheless, developing fluency and self-confidence through actually speaking the target language often presents a serious challenge.
Second, taking into consideration your experiences to date, I suspect that your one-on-one work with your tutor has provided you with the ability to speak more fluently and with greater self-assurance than many of your fellow students who have not sought out this supplementary contact with the language. I find myself wondering whether or not you are underestimating your actual progress. If it is any comfort to you, please rest assured that, depending on the context, the feeling of being “like a deer caught in the headlights” is rather common amongst language-learners, so much so that even graduates of the very demanding DLI and FSI language courses, initially at least, express similar feelings once they find themselves in conversation with native speakers. As an example from my personal experiences, even though I had been living and working for a full year in a “truly” full-immersion environment in Quebec, even though I had just passed the Quebec government’s mandatory CEFR B2 level French exam for professionals wishing to work in the province, even though I could speak fluently and with self-assurance in a one-on-one setting, whenever I was required to participate in a conference involving a wide range of topics that seemed to switch back-and-forth with the speed of light and in which several people were “vying for the attention” of the moderator and cutting one another off in mid-sentence (with a view to advancing their respective careers), I continued to feel “like a deer caught in the headlights.” In other words, it is possible that you are expecting too much of yourself at your present stage. A CEFR A2 level is a great achievement, but it is not equivalent to B2 or higher.
It is difficult to provide advice without knowing the exact, or at least the proximate, cause of your difficulties. When you say that you feel “like a deer caught in the headlights”, is this because you have to formulate your thoughts carefully before expressing yourself? At the A2 level, this is to be expected. Still, have you discussed the situation with your tutor? If so, how has he responded? From your brief description, you seem to be benefiting from your work with him. So, your situation might respond to some fine tuning. You might benefit from exposure to some self-study materials such as Assimil German (sadly, the second-stage course is not available from an English base). In addition, it is possible that working through the Glossika German files might be of some help. In any event, I suspect that at least a part of the fundamental issue at play here is related to your expectations. Stick with it, it gets better (slowly, painfully, but it does get better)!
EDITED: Minor correction to the text.
Last edited by Speakeasy on Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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