Does anyone have any thoughts of the value of practicing your conversations skills by talking to yourself and if this has been backed up by any research or other language practitioners.
I often read and listen to material on LingQ in sentence view. I have just started repeating the sentences out loud but then changing it a few times. For example changing the tense, the object of the sentence etc. A Youtuber called Robin McPherson mentions this technique.
I wondered if anyone does this and if you think it is a good learning exercise or not a good use of time.
I do it all the time. WellâŚthat an exaggeration. I should do it all the time. However, I definitely do. Iâm not doing what youâre specifying.
I will talk to myself. Like Iâll say what Iâm doing, what I did yesterday, or whatever, as if I was telling someone about it. Or if I say something in my native language, I may wonderâŚhow would I try to say that in my target language? and then I would try to say it in some way (as best I can with the words I know). Then I may look it up, if I donât feel satisfied with what I produced.
Another thing Iâve been doing recently is going through the mini stories, or other content in my native language. Going sentence by sentence and trying say it in my target language. It doesnât have to be exact, but wanting to try and convey it as best I can. Again, if Iâm not satisfied Iâll look it up after the fact.
I donât know if there is research at all, but you are getting practice outputting, so it has to be beneficial. You are helping to get comfortable thinking in this âdirectionâ and working on your universe of words that you can output. Youâre developing these patterns that you will use over and over again.
At one point we discussed this guy: https://www.youtube.com/@languagelords
Especially his videos on learning French. The method is a bit âhardcoreâ but there are good ideas in there, for example how he gets immediate feedback from recording himself.
Another thing is that you donât even have to speak out loud to practice output, honestly just thinking in your target language is incredibly powerful. Switching your inner monologue to your target language gives you a lot of practice forming sentences and retrieving vocabulary, without the fear of judgements or paying tutors etc. It also tends to reveal deficiencies.
The methods of transforming existing sentencesâ tenses / gender etc and of translating into the target language are effective but can be a bit boring in my opinion. This used to be integral part of the old-school way (roughly up to the the 70s) of language learning, called âgrammar-translation method.â
Iâm not sure about this. You need to train your mouth muscles as well, depending on the language. You might find yourself that mentally you are doing good but physically, the output is quite crap. Muscle training is essential for fluency and speed.
I think it is a good practice to train your muscle memory and pronunciation, amongst other things. But conversation with other native people is unpredictable, so I donât really know how to develop that spontaneity only by yourself at home.
Iâm sure other people that were very willing to train that peculiarity have found methods to repeat a ton of variations of the same questions/answers to train that too.
I didnât learn that conversation fluidity by training by myself so I canât really say. I donât think itâs so easy. You will be faster to train pronunciation, articulation, stretching words, learning vocabulary by yourself and then doing the last step talking to people.
Imho.
I donât disagree on the muscles. But I didnât mean to say that this is an either or situation between thinking and speaking.
I would rather say that you need to be able to think (i.e. form sentences and ideas in your head) in the target language before you can even start speaking.
Also you can basically always think, but not always speak, for example when it would disturb others.
I donât even go there, it would open a big metaphysical/neurological/philosophical/psychological discussion on actions-thoughts-impulses-automatisms-subconsciousâŚ
I agree that doing one thing doesnât disregard the other. However, I thought the target on the initial topic was conversation skills and with that, it came to my mind the âfinalâ output. Which means being able to handle a back and forward conversation with one or more native speakers, at their level, with fluency. I wasnât considering all the work to do before that stage.
Iâm glad someone else has found outputting by themselves valuable. I hadnât thought of translating thoughts in my native language to Italian. I will definitely try this. In fact, I just started doing it with your answer!
I must admit output practice comes after the âthird sweepâ of my text. First is viewing in page view to LingQ unknown words, second is listening in sentence view to train my ear, third is outputting.
Yes - I have changed my learning methods a few times to make sure it is always fun and interesting. I started out with an old-school text book. Thatâs now collecting dust in a drawer somewhere!
Yes - I can appreciate that conversation with a native speaker allows you to get exposed to the unpredictable and irregular patterns of speech.
I like to think of inner / private speech as an add-on rather than a replacement. I tend to find that when talking to someone I have to think so quickly that I resort to more basic language and structures but by manipulating text I tend to practice on more advanced language. I am also changing my study material from Youtube videos of Italian teachers using simplified language to street interviews with native speakers to drill into more natural and âmessyâ speech.
Yes - I also prefer to talk out loud to train the mouth muscles and make sure the sound is coming from the right place in the mouth to produce a nice standard Italian.
Practicing conversation skills by talking to oneself has been shown to be quite beneficial in several studies. For instance, a study titled âAutonomous EFL Learnersâ Ways of Practicing Speaking Skills During Pandemic of COVID 19â found that some learners chose to talk to themselves as a way to practice English speaking skills. Another research paper, âL2 speaking self-ability perceptions through multiple video speech draftsâ, highlighted the role of self-evaluation in improving speaking abilities.
In addition to these, the book âThe art of talking to yourself: Self-awareness meets the inner conversationâ discusses the importance of self-conversation in enhancing self-awareness and joy. Therefore, it seems that your practice of repeating sentences out loud and modifying them can be a valuable learning exercise. It allows you to familiarize yourself with different sentence structures and broadens your understanding of language use.
Thanks for the info on studies and the bookâŚfascinating. One more book to add to my âmust readâ list.
I also like what you said about âbroadens your understanding of language useâ. I find that is one of the main benefits for me as well. First I imagine the thing I want to say, and then in the attempt to translate I realize a literal translation is not correct. Then figure out what I really mean to say and how to say that. I much prefer to do that alone, whether in my head or spoken, than with another person. Great prep for real life conversations.
