Hello, this is Steve Kaufmann here. I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to speak clearly and slowly in order to test the closed-captioning function at YouTube. I'll speed it up a little. I think I have to avoid the “ums”, because that creates funny symbols with the closed captioning. I want to see how this works. I look forward to hearing from you.
I'm going to talk about speaking, because I've had a bit of an exchange – a discussion – with Benny the Irish Polyglot and we are, in fact, hoping to do an online discussion, which we would record and offer as a podcast, where we will talk about our respective approaches to language learning. The issue is: When should we begin to speak when we're learning a foreign language? How well can we expect to speak after one month, two months, three months? How long does it take to be able to speak well? What do you have to do to be able to speak well?
Those are some of the things that I'm going to talk about here. Let me first say that I think anyone that's on the Internet promoting the learning of foreign languages is a good guy. So while I may disagree with one or other of the people in terms of method, which is normal because people have different ways of doing things, the fact that one person believes fervently in their own method doesn't mean that someone else's method is wrong. Nor should we be shy about saying what we think, so I say what I think and Benny the Irish Polyglot, I am sure, is not going to be timid about saying what he thinks, so that's fine. We seem to have a difference in that he very much encourages people to start speaking from the beginning; whereas, I say that I personally don't like doing that, but that people should speak when they want to. I put the emphasis on a lot of input -- listening and reading to build up vocabulary; build up some familiarity with the language. Otherwise, I find that engaging with someone in a foreign language when I have very few words is actually painful for me and painful for the native speaker, so I tend to avoid it.
Now, of course, if you're in a classroom, the teachers will tend to want to make people speak because that's something you're going to do in a classroom. Personally, if I ran a classroom, I'd let the kids read or listen to their iPod right in the classroom. I think that's more valuable for them. I say that without ever having tried that in a classroom and maybe the kids would all fall asleep. I don't know. When it comes to speaking, let me just say a few things that come to mind right away. In order to learn to speak well you have to speak a lot, okay? So at some point you have to start speaking and you have to speak a lot in order to speak well. You cannot just do input-based activities and then all of a sudden turn the switch on and expect to speak well.
The purpose of the input-based activities, which I favor, the purpose of this is to build up your capability, your potential for speaking, because you acquire familiarity with the language, you acquire vocabulary, so that when you finally decide – whenever that point is – now I want to engage with people, now I want to speak, you will have a better chance of doing well. If you have gone through this period of extensive listening and reading, you'll find that your progress in speaking will be quite rapid. That's point number one. So, eventually, we do need to speak and we need to speak a lot.
The second point is I don't think it matters when you start speaking. There is some suggestion out there that if you start to speak too early you will engrain bad habits and that your bad habits will become fossilized. I have not seen any proof of this. This may be true, it may not be true. I just don't know. I do know that the less stress we have the better we learn. So I find it much more pleasant to read something at my own speed or listen to something whenever I want and build up my language capability rather than having to confront a teacher or a native speaker who is going to ask me questions which I can't answer. I prefer not to do that. But some people may be happy doing that, so that's fine. I don't think it really matters in the long run. The next thing is you often see people say, even Benny the Irish Polyglot says, you know, ‘here's how you can learn to speak pretty well after two months. ' I have learned a number of languages. I don't think it's very easy to learn to speak a language pretty well after two months no matter what you're doing. I think it takes a long time to learn to speak a language well.
You can start speaking from day one. That's not difficult. You can get to the point where you can say your name and ask someone what their name is and how old they are. You can do that on the first day. That's not difficult. But, to me, speaking ‘pretty well' means that you can talk about things other than the weather. That you can talk about a variety of subjects; that genuine communication can take place. That takes a long time.
So you can actually get to a point earlier where you can understand quite a bit and that is my preferred strategy – to get to where you can understand and then you start speaking and your speaking will gradually improve. And you need to speak more and more and continue your input activities so that the objective say in two months with a language -- let's say like Spanish or French which is somewhat closer to English -- is to get to the point where you've kind of got a toehold in the language. That you could, in fact, start speaking and you would have enough words to have a kind of limited conversation stumbling around.
Ideally, after two months you are in a situation where you can go out with a group of native speakers and spend most of your time listening and occasionally chime in with something. The idea that you could actually all by yourself maintain a useful, meaningful, conversation after two months, I think that's expecting a lot. I think it is good that people be aware that language learning takes time, but it should always be fun. Therefore, in a way, if you like speaking, by all means, speak right from the beginning. If you don't want to then you don't have to. I think it's realistic to think in terms of – say for Spanish and French – to get to a point after two months where you are starting to be able to say some things. You feel a little more confident thanks to a lot of listening and reading that you can start talking a bit more to improve your speaking.
I often hear the question ‘Because my language learning is based on input, how do you turn that into output? ' Well, the fact is that you continue with your input. The input-based activities remain the main activities for the longest time, simply because there's so much easier to do. You can always find a book. You can always listen on your iPod. Even after you've reached the level where you're comfortable speaking, normally you'll have far fewer opportunities to speak than to listen and read. But when you do have these opportunities -- that's where I agree very much with Benny – don't be timid. Don't be afraid. Don't expect to speak correctly. Speaking correctly won't really matter. What you want to then get to is to where you enjoy communicating. So you should put the focus on communicating and give yourself a pat on the back when you are able to communicate. Don't worry too much about when you struggle to find words, which you will do for a long, long time and continue to work on your understanding. I still feel it's a much more unpleasant feeling to be in a conversation where you don't understand what the other person is saying. That is much more unpleasant than stumbling about, feeling awkward, not quite being able to say exactly what you want to say but somehow managing to get your meaning across. As long as you understand what they're saying. So, in summary, to speak well you have to speak a lot. You'll know when you want to speak. Once you're in a situation where you can speak, make sure that you take advantage of every opportunity and don't worry about making mistakes. I don't know if that makes any sense, but there you have it. Thank you for listening.
