CUTE PRINCIPLE T: TALKING

CUTE PRINCIPLE T: TALKING

(What were the first two principles?)

Main Idea: Your talking machine gets quicker and more capable as you ________________?

Some Questions to Think About or Discuss:

1)   Why is learning to speak so high in our consciousness in comparison with learning to understand?

2)   What are some common complaints we have about our speaking ability as non-native speakers?

3)   Which of these is most likely to be affected by my personality?

4)   How does our speaking ability improve?

Definition of TALKING:

Negatively: Talking is NOT saying something you memorized perfectly.

Positively: Talking IS putting your own thoughts into your own words. Early on, people have trouble understanding you. Over time you improve.

EXAMPLE OF HOW TO FORCE MYSELF TO TALK (= creatively):

Picture Story (e.g. BIG FAT WORM)

Two philosophies of learning to talk (out of six):

Get it right from the beginning. (Grammar-translation method; dialogues and drills--audio-lingual method; LAMP)

Get it right in the end. (Communicative methods; common ESL-style; ACTFL guidelines.)

Remember: time spent in memorizing, reciting, drilling and doing written exercises is time not spent in UNDERSTANDING and TALKING.

 Learner Preferences: Language Learning Methods as Transportation

1)   Railroad

Do all the lessons in my textbook, line by line. Few decisions are necessary on my part.

Strengths: I don't sit around wondering what to do next; feeling secure is good for morale and motivation.

Weaknesses: Can't ultimately develop UNDERSTANDING and TALKING ability that way. (They are filled with uncertainty.)

(Compromise? Railroad activities for language sessions and homework, and outside life for UNDERSTANDING and TALKING.

Problem with the compromise: You lose the best context for rich, powerful UNDERSTANDING and TALKING—your LANGUAGE SESSION.)

2) Highway: For example, use a textbook that lets the learner make a lot of choices, and do some actual UNDERSTANDING and TALKING. (Perspectiva)

3) Trails: Lots of choices. (Example: Talking about a picture book. The picture book suggests to you many things you might say.)

Strengths: Gives extensive practice UNDERSTANDING and TALKING

Weaknesses: Planning learning activities may take time, especially in the beginning; being this far from the railroad is depressing or scary for some.

4) Open country

This is the reality of using a language. We can get used to it first in the security of our language sessions.

THINGS THAT MAKE SPEAKING DIFFICULT

Recall that with COMMUNING, the main issue was

We often do not have adequate involvement in relationships to support full-blown language learning.

SOLUTIONS:

1)   Various strategies to increase our social relating

2)   LANGUAGE SESSIONS provide a tremendous opportunity for at least several hours a week of highly profitable communication.

Recall that with UNDERSTANDING, the main problems were

1)   SPEED (my understanding machine works too slowly.)

SOLUTION: Give it hundreds, eventually thousands, of hours of practice hearing things it understands.)

2)   WORDS (my understanding machine has too few in its dictionary.)

SOLUTION: One possible solution is to keep planting word seeds—say fifty per week.

3)   CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE (my understanding machine has too little information about these people’s life experience, beliefs and assumptions.)

SOLUTION: A great solution is to spend a few hundred hours in cultural discussions, such as ethnographic interviewing.

Turning to TALKING, what are the new issues?

Problems and solutions:

1.   The process of formulating sentences is slow and clumsy.

2.   There are many things we would like to say, but simply can't.

3.   People may have difficulty understanding the things we do say.

4.   We are not sure of how we come across socially: polite, rude, dumb, suspicious, etc.

5.   Our grammar is not native-like.

6.   Other

Some solutions:

1.         How does our listening machine become faster and less clumsy?

INTERLUDE: Like UNDERSTANDING, TALKING is an extremely complex process with many steps, such as:

-    Have an idea

-    Choose the words without their forms

-    Choose the subject, object, etc.

-    Choose grammatical forms

-    Find the phonetic form of the words

-     Prepare the actual pronunciation

-    Pronounce

-    Monitor

while managing to produce speech that is coherent, adapted to the audience, etc. etc.

General solution for developing a quick, efficient “talking machine” in our head: GET TALKING; Force yourself to talk, talk, talk, talk.

Examples:

Early on—Breaking loose in your language sessions

·    Talk about a picture book (worm book).

·    Jump into a story (e.g., from your childhood).

Later

·    Go through seasons where you talk your heart out.

·    When you find you get stuck talking about something, for a while talk about it at every opportunity.

·    “Talk repeatedly on a chosen theme.”

·    Have a list of topics you keep rotating through in your language sessions.

·    Take on jobs that are way over your head, such as preparing and giving talks.

2) How do we come to be able to talk about more things?

·    Apply principle U well. Listen extensively to speech we can understand on many, many themes.

·    Cycle through your lists of topics

·    Once you are able to do it, talk with lots of people about lots of things.

·    When you hit on something really hard to talk about, try to bring it up and talk about it with many conversation partners.

·    Do some hole-finding (e.g. describe an action cartoon as you watch it!)

3) How do we not be difficult to understand.                  

·    Record yourself speaking and go over it with your language helper.

·    Keep at it. Talk and talk. It WILL be hard to understand you at first, and it WILL get better over time.

4) How do we get insights into how we come across socially: polite, rude, dumb, suspicious, etc.

·    Memorize a bit? (for example, “Please and Thank-you”). Politeness phrases are useful to memorize, but we need to learn how to use them appropriately also.

·    Lexicarry

·    Role-plays recorded and critiqued

·    Discuss manners and values a lot

·    Discuss character traits a lot

·    Discuss beliefs about foreigners

5) Our grammar is not native-like.

·    Read a grammar book from time to time, or a little at a time.

·    “Talk repeatedly on a topic” (Task repetition)

·    Correction is good

·    When your language helper helps you formulate what you are trying to say, that is often good.

·    You can do “communicative grammar activities” (TALKING and UNDERSTANDING, but emphasizing a grammar point)

6) Other?