Here is the second (short) installment of the speaking practice guidelines - a definition of what we’re talking about.
What is speaking practice?
For present purposes, the term ‘speaking practice’ refers to organized practice sessions, rather than real world practice. (We can look at practice in the ‘real world’ later.)There are 2 kinds of classroom practice.
- ‘Communicative output’, or genuine practice. Here, the speaker effectively ignores (in the conscious sense) the grammar/structures to concentrate on conveying meaning. If your goal is fluency, this type of practice should make up the bulk of your classroom time - 70% or so. [You may be surprised at how you are able to draw language out if you keep it simple and relaxed.]
- Structured practice. This is where you take some structures (ideally, some lexical patterns) and use them to make sentences, answer questions, or to build up genuine conversation.
Ken Carroll
Does anyone else have the following problem with “Communicative output” It always seems very hard to do with someone who is either above your level or is a native speaker.
What always ends up happening is they correct me on my grammar so I start thinking about my structures again even though I may have gone in with a mindset to not focus on how i am saying something just focusing on what I am saying. This is something I’ve never been able to get around (he he something I don’t have an answer for!).
There is also the problem of people bellow your level as the conversations are simply not challenging enough (plus you end up thinking about structures because they will ask can’t you say it like this blah blah blah.
What are other peoples solutions to this problem? Or am i only one that finds it very difficult to find someone of an appropriate level?
I’d like to see strategies for Native Speakers and for other non native speakers. Plus to keep all my comments at least relatively the same I’d like to see some sort of test or group of test to determine level… and to have this integrated into babal pod. See just can’t not say something about new technical features for CPod
For which I apologise…. sort of 
It is essential for the helper to be trained. For many that can take 3 minutes of reading the rules, but some take months to get it. That’s why I think we need a second set of instructions all in Chinese.
The learner also needs to know the method well, of course, and must be ready to identify and disengage with a helper who likes to tease or criticise, or to remind an overly helpful helper not to teach until the conversation practice time is over.
There are some really important issues here. Sue’s idea to have the guidelines in Chinese is excellent. She’s also right that some teachers get this idea after a simple explanation, while others never really get it. All of this is often out an attempt to be helpful, but it can be, as Sue rightly terms it, overly helpful. It leaves you with not much to do except listen, when you should be striving to mobilize the stuff you have stored in your brain. If your instructor is of this dominant persuasion, I recommend that you find a new one.
Charles, I would set aside a time where you make it clear to your teacher that a certain time-space is set aside for speaking only. No corrections, no grammar, just communication. The teacher should not demonstrate sentences and have you repeat them - that kills the dynamic and it is not communication, in any sense.
One possibility may be to tell stories. Read up on some (not too complex) stories and try to get them across, without resorting to English or corrections. Insist on the communication guidelines for these sessions. After you’ve told your story once you can then go through it a second time to focus on grammar and corrections - selective corrections, that is.
Ken Carroll
Sometimes practice instructions or plans are too broad. Focusing on specific topics is necessary. Ever ask someone, even in their native language, “OK start talking about anything… now… start…”? “uh… um… well…”
Much better topics: how you got your name, the tv show you watched last night, your morning routine, etc.
One thing that bugs me is when we have speaking practice and the instructions include making things up. It is much better to tell a story, about something you did, your future plans, etc. I think trying to force being creative with a limited vocabulary is too much to ask until you are confortable with real situations.
James,
We’re still at the ‘theoretical’ stage here. I want to get a working definition of the terms ‘practice’ and ‘communicative output’ before getting more specific. After that, you are correct to say that the instructions have to be specific.
The next posts will gradually do that. Then we’ll include specific suggestions for each lesson. At the end of the day, of course, these are only suggestions. Different topics wil lwork differently for different people - that’s why I want people to have a broader definition that they can apply as it suits.
Ken Carroll
Talk about a transparent process! You’re very brave. Thank you.
Aunty,
How could I ignore the smart folks that we have on this forum?
I hope I know something about all this, but if I can add the contribution of our learners to what I know, then it will get better and better! After I finish I’ll put that version in the wiki so that everyone can add to it.
Transparency has its advantages!
Hi,
I have a question about the relationship between Shanghaihua and standard Mandarin. (A little out of place I know) I have a prof from Shanghai who has told me ‘not to worry so much about the tones’. I have for the most part ignored his advice given what I’ve heard from friends and others who have studied Mandarin as a second language. However, I did a little research on the web about Shanghaihua and discovered that Shanghaihua really only has two tones. Is this perhaps the reason why my prof gave the advice? Or, will the people I encounter in Shanghai have an easier time understanding my Mandarin even when I neglect attention to tones?
Thanks
Let me try and add my two cents to this discussion. I’ve been practising speaking in Mandarin quite a lot recently. I’ll summarize the main problems I encountered. Hopefully, this may help you design solutions to help chinesepodders on their way to fluency. The first thing I’ve noticed is that being able to speak actually involves quite a few different skills and that perhaps this hasn’t been adressed in enough detail so far.
In the discussion so far, the emphasis is on *what* to say and the importance of ‘grammar’ vs ‘meaning’ or ‘communicative output’ versus ’structured practice’. On this subject, I would like to add this: It is clear that the focus at chinesepod is on ‘communicative output’ which is a good thing as that is the eventual goal isn’t it. If anything, grammar should be nothing more than a means to that end. I do believe that chinesepod could incorporate grammar in a meaningful way though, see below.
There’s more to *communication* practice than putting all the vocabulary, expressions and grammar one’s learned into practice though. There’s also the problem of the actual *speaking*, ie. making sounds that would actually be intelligible to native Mandarin speakers. There are a number of obstacles here which I am trying to overcome. Of course there’s the *tones*, the *initials* and the *finals*. Having a native speaker around when learning these can be a big help as this helps avoid learning them the wrong way. Therefore, I believe a session on speaking practice should involve a section on ‘the pronunciation of syllables’. However, there’s more. I noticed this when, after having worked really hard on my tones, initials and finals - and even 2-tone combinations - I still couldn’t read a chinese sentence aloud properly. There was just no rythm. I came across a paper on chinese-forums, which discusses just that, rythm of a sentence, or *prosody* (I didn’t know the word before). Basically, the idea is that prosody, ie. the rythm of an entire sentence, is a skill which is important to learn by itself. Perhaps this is the same as the ‘melody’ of a sentence which Ken sometimes refers to. It’s really a top down approach as opposed to the bottom-up approach of learning the tones. The importance of this is that if you speak in a natural rythm, your speech becomes a lot more comprehensible. The way they say it can be learned is (1) by taking sample sentences and having a native speaker read them out loud and then repeat in chorus with him and (2) by focusing on the rythm/melody/prosody when listening to a sentence. What I did - still not having a native speaker around - is to listen to a podcast for about five times first and then start talking along with Jenny. This has really helped me to build a basis for a rythm and it gets easier every time I do it.
Finally, my contribution to the discussion on grammar:
In the chinesepod dialogues, especially at the newbie and elementary level, I’ve noticed that you hardly ever use patterns which are generally regarded as *grammatical* patterns. I think it would help students if you changed this. You see, to learn a decontextualized grammatical pattern from a grammar book is does not constitute meaningful input (note the reference to intermediate podcast ‘you got schooled’). However, *exposure* to this patterns (even without explaining them) can help students in two ways. First, on a short-term communicative level: a lot of meaningful expressions require the use of a certain grammatical pattern. Second, on a more long-term level. The sooner one starts to get exposure to grammatical patterns, the sooner the brain starts to understand the pattern. You might think this is too hard for beginner level students, but I don’t agree: as long as you don’t tell them ‘this is grammatical pattern X, this is how it works, these are the exepctions, learn it by heart’, but just use a pattern in normal conversation, it will just be another bit of meaningful input. And then, after being exposed to it a number of times, ‘click’ and you unerstand it. For example, when I just started to study Mandarin I learned the word ‘jiu4′ (sorry no han4zi available at this time) and my online dictionary added the cryptic description ‘implies that something is just what it is’. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Now, after having seen the word used in context dozens of times, I have developed a strong intuition for where to expect it and when to use it. The above description still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense though. Also, although I now know how to use it, I would really have a hard time explaining the ‘rules’ for using ‘jiu4′.
I agree with Wout about the grammar in Newbie lessons. What i would like to see is something in addition to the lesson which would be a drillPod (qick copyright it). So you ahve you normal Cpod lesson then you can go and listen to the drillPod this would be a lesson to teach grammar with out teaching grammar. I.e. if in the lesson there is “Wo yao yi ge bi” this is the very simple subject verb object construct. DrillPod then expands this by exposing you to other sentences using this pattern. Pretty soon you would pick up the pattern and start forming basic sentences around it. as you increase in levels the phrases and constructs are going to get more difficult. I think that this kind of thing would really help with speaking practise. I have found that at various times I have either had the vocab to say something but no idea how to say it so I end up applying English patterns to it, or i have known a pattern but not known the words I want to put in there. The Basic idea of aDrillPod would be to expose you to the pattern and get it stuck in your head while at the same time giving you extra vocab. Hopefully this would excuse people from the aforementioned predicaments
A bit of grammar is valuable to support conversation practice. Without any grammar (and we do get some) it would be impossible to vary from the exact phrases that have been studied.
For example, with “Are you Chinese?” and “No I’m American”, plus “she”, “they”, “we” etc, it would not be possible to construct “They are Chinese.” Especially so if one knows one of those convoluted European languages. In our case we were given those examples, plus an explanation that shi4 is used unchanged for all of those words. That’s learning Grammar, did you notice? Maybe not. It broadens the scope within which we can improvise. It’s a means to an end.
Every time we say something that’s not exactly written in the script, we’re using grammar that we’ve been taught, or abusing grammar if we didn’t know that that particular utterance was outside of our scope.
When we refrain from making a new construction, we’re hungering for a grammar lesson to give us guidance or reasurance and shift our free speaking scope outwards a little.
There’s a very important method of speaking practice that hasn’t really been addressed here, one that fits into structured practice as well as genuine practice:
自言自语 zìyánzìyǔ talking to oneself
Of course, it might not be genuine for everyone.
Dai,
Talking to myself is hugely important to me, If I ever get to speak Chinese this will be one of the main reason. I post about it here:
http://friedelcraft.blogspot.c.....urger.html
Which was sparked of by a comment to me on Chinesepod so its done the loop now.
Lately, apart from listening to chinesepod-podcasts, I’ve been training my ability to speak chinese using the following site
Chinese Reading World
http://www.uiowa.edu/~chnsrdng/index.html
The cool thing about this site is that they’ve recorded someone reading the reading texts out loud (almost all of them- skip the first 10 beginner texts, they don’t have sound). I’ve found that by listening to them for a couple of times and then starting to speak along and/or repeat them has really helped me to improve the rythm and melody of my spoken chinese. Also, it’s really helped to train my ear to hearing the different tone combinations.
(Of course this site helps with reading as well, as the name suggests).
The texts are at two levels, ‘beginner’ (corresponding to chinesepod upper elementary/lower intermediate) and ‘intermediate’ (corresponding to chinesepod upper intermediate/advanced). The speed at which they are read is different at both levels.
The site has 80 (that’s eighty!) texts per level, on various subjects. I’ve been working through the first 30 beginner texts, but I’ve also looked at the intermediate ones. Intermediate #80 is a monologue which lasts for about ten minutes! (Well that’s what it felt like anyway).
Ie. it’s loads and loads of extra input (for all those who can’t get enough). Check it out!
I’d like to rename it: Chinese listening, reading and speaking world
http://www.uiowa.edu/~chnsrdng/index.html
An approach focused on ‘communicative output’ is clearly best; but requires that one has something one wants to say. When I was learning German (years ago) I found this side hard in a classroom as I would either be paired with someone I had no connection with, or with friends to whom I had already spoken all I wanted to say in English. However, once I got to Germany and met up with fellow students in the bar, it all came much easier as a) had something to say; b) had people who be interested in what I had to say; c) a relaxed environment to say it in.
That’s just another way of saying: I agree [with your bias towards communicative output]…
And Carl, one should also never underestimate d) the tongue-loosening benefits associated with bar beverages.
COMMUNICATIVE OUTPUT - Hi Charles Bluett,
I totally understand how you feel, “It always seems very hard to do with someone who is either above your level or is a native speaker.” Not to scare of newbies from talking but here are some very typical responses to my Chinese “Your pronunciation is terrible,” “I can’t understand what you’re saying,” “You sound like a baby,” “Let’s talk in English,” but I also get this “Your pronunciation is really good,” “Your voice in Chinese is very nice,” “You’re really fluent, why are you still studying?”, “You can’t read the newspaper? But you can speak so many words,” “If my English was as good as your Chinese, it would be enough.”
And just as the comments I get are all over the place, so are the levels of ”comfort’ that I get with various people. It is MUCH easier for me to speak to a variety of people in English. So for Chinese right now I have several strategies, all of which have made me ‘a better person’. I take all comments good or bad with about three sacks of salt thrown over my back. There’s a saying though, it takes 7 compliments to balance out one criticism. I keep talking, in Chinese. I pretty much ignore any ‘grammar’ feedback I get in a spoken conversation. I find people who ‘understand me’. I think the last one is most important. For a variety of reasons, mostly out of our control, the people listening to us are going to be different, so some will suit us and lots won’t. It’s sometimes worse than speed dating!
Offline I do work on my grammar, reflect on corrections people say to me, practice pronunciation, rehearse, repeat, look up words, etc. Personally I find that the repeating or re-output of set phrases is very hard b/c it’s hard to find the perfect ’situation’ to recall that set phrase. That’s why fluency and ‘talking’ is different. A conversation is first built upon expressing oneself. As a friend of mine said, “Never let language get in the way of communication.”
Is it ‘harder, better, worse or more interesting’ to talk to someone who talks better than you?