The Linguist On Language

In this situation your expectations of yourself are often unrealistically high, and your evaluation of your own performance is probably too critical. So just relax. Just pat yourself on the back for even being able to communicate at all in another language.

Recognize that this stage will continue for a long time. It started when you entered the ranks of the intermediate learner. You have put a lot of work into your language studies and want to be able to use it. You expect it of yourself and you think that others expect it of you. So lower your expectations and do not presume that others are so unforgiving. So what, if they ask you to repeat yourself a few times, or you have to ask them? But do make sure that you commit to improving.

Here is the strategy to overcome the fear of speaking

1. Do not al ow yourself to get too uptight. Learn to enjoy your language learning at every stage. Do not just focus on that happy day when you wil be fluent. Perhaps you wil never be as fluent as you would like to be. My wife practices piano every day. She is improving gradual y but she enjoys it every day. Do not be impatient to get to the end of your studies. Choose learning activities that are enjoyable.

2. Put a lot of effort into input activities, like listening and reading and vocabulary study, based on interesting and enjoyable content. Make sure you enjoy those activities and believe that, if they are continued, they wil help you to improve.

3. When you have a less than satisfactory encounter in the new language, make sure you go back and redouble your efforts to absorb more of the language. Build up your abilities for the next encounter. It is like playing sports. If you are playing your friend in tennis, you are not self-conscious of how you look, you just want to win. Whether you win or lose, you wil want to improve your technique, so that you wil win the next game. Whether you win or lose you can stil enjoy the game.

4. Learn to accept uncertainty. That is key. You wil forget words. You will get the structure wrong. You wil find yourself in conversations where you are lost. This wil go on for a long time. If you are not prepared to accept that level of uncertainty, you should stay in the comfort zone of your own language. If you prefer the comforts of home, do not travel. However, no pain, no gain. But the surprising thing is that the more relaxed you are, the better you wil remember what you have learned. The more confident you feel, the more natural you wil sound.

Talk to yourself

You probably talk to yourself quite a lot during the day. Try doing it in the language you are learning. Repeat some of the phrases you have been noticing in your listening. Or just say something sil y. Do it out loud or just to yourself. It wil depend on who is watching you.

How much writing and speaking is needed

That depends on your situation and what you want to do with the language. Writing and speaking are not as important at the beginner stage, when you are not yet used to the language. At that stage you need lots of repetitive input. However, as you start to feel the need to express yourself, writing and speaking activities wil become key to moving to output, even if you are not surrounded by native speakers.

Beginner learners need only one or two short (15-30 minutes) one-on-one sessions per week with a native-speaker. Writing is not necessary at that stage.

Intermediate and advanced learners should try to write at least once a week, join a discussion with a native speaker and 3-4 other learners, once or twice a week, and have a 15 to 30 minute one-on-one session with a tutor once a month.

On the other hand, if you have the opportunity, or the need, to use the language in real meaningful ways, you should take maximum advantage.

Output activities and learning

A recent study investigated whether giving learners an opportunity for oral output has any positive effect on the L2 learners' acquisition of a grammatical form. Twenty -four adult ESL