Low power mode in conversation practice
- Anchoa
- 33 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Speaking in another language is intense
It's common for language learners to feel some resistance to speak. Fair enough! Many things are needed at once: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc. ¡everything at the same time! This with the emotional addition of embarrassment, fear and external factors like noises, distractions and social complexities... until it all normalises, it is a considerable energy expenditure.
A certain level of exhaustion within the early stages of learning are to be expected, but if our strategies aren't well set, it is possible to waste energy in unnecessary tasks, leading to an energy drain and frustration.
In this article I am going to share some of the mental energy saving strategies that have worked with my students.
Fluency or accuracy?
As always, context is fundamental when deciding what to demand of our practice. In mi conversation lessons, we clearly differentiate fluency from accuracy exercises, as the priorities of each are not quite the same.
When working on our fluency, what we want is the rhythm to be as natural as possible, meaning as similar to the rhythm in our native tongue as possible. If there are any doubts about the effectiveness of communication, I explain what I have understood and we check. If I understand what is being said to me, I don't correct; I just take notes for the next stage: accuracy. In the accuracy phase we focus on different aspects of the language in a detailed way in order to correct and complement what failed or was lacking when in the flow. Not getting an immediate "solution" also creates interest, causing things seen at this stage to sink in better. Food tastes better when we are hungry, doesn't it?
Giving each process its own space reduces "open processing channels", freeing the conversation quite a bit and making the concept and the experience of "mistakes" much kinder.
Careful! This does not mean that lessons don't require effort.
Wanting to translate is normal, but if you're going to translate, do it responsibly
In the context of learning languages, there is a lot of debate about whether translating is bad or good... we can't ignore the fact that it's a valid tool that can serve as scaffolding occasionally. The problem is that it's easy to develop excessive dependence to it, and that it also requires a lot of energy and it isn't the most efficient long term. However, it's a common tendency when learners are feeling somewhat insecure, so we can give it some direction to take the most advantage of it, specially during the study/ perfecting stage.
If I am hearing "How do you say..?" in every student's sentence, I know there is an attempt to translate from their native language, then the problem is not in all the missing words, but in the translating strategy, which needs some adjustments. In the past, I would have answered to the question, generating endless vocabulary lists that would regularly fall into oblivion, now I address the issue in a different way.
Once, when someone told me that they had been 18 years with their partner, my response was "your relation can now drink alcohol!". I like to visualise things as entities with their own age and capacities, it gives them a different perspective.
If we see our first and acquired language(s) as "people" of age corresponding to the time we've been using them, suddenly expecting or demanding that a 1-year-old translate as a person who is forty will seem unfair, and it is!
Our acquired language needs realistic expectations and support. If we are going to translate, the best thing is to first adapt our own language to a simplified version, in a similar way to how we speak the the little ones.
Another translation source I consider rather valuable are people whose native language is our target language, speaking OUR native language. Specially when they are learning, as they are likely to try translating directly, revealing the language logic.
For example, in Spanish, people (gente) is singular and it is common to see this mistake in English: "people in Spain is very friendly", that should give you a hint of how to say it in Spanish!
Conversely, another example is an English speaker saying "hace sentido". Spanish "has" sense, but in English, it "makes" it: "makes sense". ¿Tiene sentido?
Bilingual > not saying it
Let's see if it rings any bells: you are discussing something when all of a sudden there's this word you can't find. The conversation gets stuck in an attempt to find it and the more you struggle to find it, the more it seems to elude you. This, in a second language, may lead to it disappearing in your mother tongue too!*
Continuing with the idea that our languages are like people, it can happen that "adult" languages want to have priority and "speak first", to assist the languages in their "infancy stage", due to nerves and worries (such as feeling that a listener is in a hurry), or simply out of habit. Whatever the reason may be, once that little word or sentence makes an appearance, resisting it creates a rebound effect (do not think about a white bear).
Trying to silence the "adult" language may require sometimes a considerable energy investment, which it's good when perfecting and defining, but less ideal when we're after fluency in a conversation.
In class, I often remind everyone that "Spanglish is ok!" and I encourage my students to say the word in their first language whenever they get stuck trying to find the target language equivalent, or to look another way of saying it if they can't remember a previously seen word. In my experience, sooner or later that word ends up coming back on its own more often than not.
*I call this the "bilimbo" (bilingual limbo).
Memory does not live by repetition alone
It's clear that repeating is key to learn and diminish future energetic expenditure, but repetition alone cannot sustain everything a language requires. To explain this, let's think for a moment in the word "night". When thinking about "night", what other words come to mind? What colour(s) do you associate it to? What memories come to you in connection with "night"? What do you do normally at night?
In those moments from our lives that we remember best, there often a couple of common elements among them: emotion(s) and sensation(s) (often quite intense). Relying on these when building and deepening our relationship with the language is key, it will help us stop trying to translate and the emotional factor will optimise efficiently cognitive processes.
Un apunte para terminar
There are other external aspects that will parasitise our mental resources, such as illness, stress, burnout, grief, sleeping badly, etc. making our skill to fluctuate a big deal. In these times where excessive self-demand is rampant, sometimes the only thing we can (or should) do is to accept it and adapt to it with patience and kindness. In the end, we can only save energy if we have it in the first place!
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