(ویژه سومین کنفرانس چند زبانه‌های ایران )

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you understand everything your language teacher and your classmates say, but when it comes to you speaking in your target language you get stuck? I used to think this was a problem peculiar to me until I found out it was not. While preparing for my language final examination, I realized that not just me but all my other classmates were worried the most about the writing and speaking part.

Part of the reason why, I think, is because while reading and listening we have a moderate if not huge range of passive vocabularies and even grammar points we can take advantage of. However, when you try writing or even worse speaking off the cuff in your target language, you no longer have the support of that well of passive vocabularies because as the name suggests passive words are words we understand but can not use actively when producing language. You start a sentence thinking you know where it’s going, but in reality, you get stuck and decide to take another course.

So how do we successfully face the challenge of producing in our TL? There are two things we need to focus on: number one is getting input and number two is producing output. The comprehensible language the learners are exposed to while listening or reading is called input. What is meant by comprehensible input is that the learner can understand the language he/she is being exposed to despite the fact that he/she doesn’t know all the words or grammar structures used in it. Suppose you are listening to a podcast in your target language; The title of the podcast is “First Impressions”. While listening to it, you realize that the host’s first impression of the guest was positive, but the guest’s impression of the host was negative. when the guest goes on to talk about the reason why he or she received a negative impression, you get absolutely lost. Then they move on to talk about how first impressions differ in every country and you understand them completely, but when they talk about how accurate first impressions can be, you can only understand 50% of what they say.

By the end of the podcast, you realize that there were a good number of words and structures you didn’t know, but you could get the gist of their conversation. This is an example of comprehensible input. When you constantly receive input, you gradually start to pick up prefabricated patterns. In every language, there are a lot of fixed phrases and sentence patterns that make you sound natural in your target language; For example, in English, there are some phrases like as far as I’m concerned, I for one, etc. Phrases like these are picked up through the learning process and are of great help when producing a text or speech in your TL. The more prefabricated patterns you know, the more natural and advanced you will sound in your TL.  These patterns give your speech or text a natural flow, a continuous flow of natural-sounding sentences in your TL.

Output is any language the learners produce while speaking or writing. Speaking and writing are called productive skills since they involve producing language, And accordingly, reading and listening are called receptive skills since they involve receiving information in your TL. In language learning, we move from input to output, from receptive skills to productive skills. Therefore, the more you read and listen, the better you write and speak. One of the passionate advocates of this method is the YouTuber @Matt Vs Japan who claims he kept receiving tons of Japanese input for  2_3 years before he realized he is fluent in Japanese. For producing output, among the many things you can do is leave comments and write captions in your TL on your social media accounts. You can learn so much by uploading content to your TL.

 One good example is @Aleksandra.moscow who’s a Russian girl majoring in Persian literature. She’s confessed that she could improve her Farsi speaking skills through her Instagram account more than she could at university. By communicating with the native speakers of her target language through her IG account, she has now mastered the colloquial language. When you upload content in your TL and point out that you are thankful for any corruption since you are still a learner, you will meet so many native speakers or advanced language learners who are willing to help you, correct you, and make friends with you. People whom you might have never met in real life. However, putting yourself out there to be criticized for your foreign accent or simple grammatical mistakes can be nerve-wracking, it’s not for everyone.

Another method for producing output is recording your voice talking about your daily routine, family members, events, etc.  Save these recordings so that later on you can check for pronunciation and grammar mistakes. When practicing writing start by writing anything and everything that comes to your head. Some polyglots advise not checking the dictionary or the internet until you’re done writing. However, I find checking the dictionary while writing very helpful, particularly when I check for the right collocations. You can try both methods to see which gives you better results.

In conclusion, try getting as much input as you can, recognize the prefabricated patterns in your TL and try incorporating them in your writing and speaking, write and speak as much as you can, and last but not least, do not compare your progress with anyone else because some people simply start speaking and producing language earlier than others. Documenting your language learning journey, whether you decide to make it public or private, gives you insight into not only language learning in general but also what works best for you, so you’ll feel much more comfortable and confident when you start learning a new language.

By: Zahra Shateri