Speaking a language that isn’t your own requires a lot of confidence. Taking that first plunge into the proverbial deep end of conversation with a native of the language is something that can’t really be rushed in my opinion. Yes, there are arguments that output is critical to building this communicative confidence, but where do you get the language from to actually perform? Well.. that would be input. Even if you believe what you’re working on is output with conversation, the language of the so-called native speaker is acting as input for you, the learner.
But enough about output and input, an article on this will come shortly since it’s a current debate that won’t go away.. besides I’m pretty much on the fence, albeit almost falling over that fence to land on the input side of things… but anyway… gaining confidence.
As an experienced language learner, I’ve made a fool of myself enough times to realise that it isn’t the end of the world. This is the issue that new learners need to come to terms with. Until a language learner can understand and accept that talking like a child is fully acceptable, then confidence in speaking will not come. In my opinion, it’s only after experiencing both the positives and negatives of attempting to speak that your confidence can grow. For instance, we can all live in a bubble of positive praise for attempting to speak and you will build confidence… faux confidence. It’s only after suffering from a negative experience and being willing to come back from it can our confidence grow and develop into something that is a serious weapon for our language learning.
Misunderstandings, failed communication, embarrassment and even ridicule… now these can build confidence for me as a learner. At the time it may not seem like it since you’re enduring the humiliation of realising you ARE a child again, but once you can see past this and understand that the world as you know it has not crumbled around a la the Mayan prophecy, then life goes on. You can work on the parts that halted your conversation and come back and try again… equipped with new weapons.
The problems for the new learner is that they are not likely to have experienced this many times and may take a backward step from the experience. But here’s the simple advice… DON’T! It’s hard to adhere to, but seriously, if you can see past the immediate situation and look at it with hindsight… think of all that you succeeded in during that “failed” conversation. It may be that you got their attention with an “excuse me”, it could be something more developed. No matter how small it is, take something positive from it.
Here’s a really depressing example of my language learning experience. I have been “learning” languages since I was in middle school – since about 11 years old – yet my first serious attempt at language learning came a decade or so later. I foolishly decided Korean was going to be my first adult-learned language. I studied Korean at university with no idea how to study languages. I studied for 2 years with good results in the form of a percentage. I went to Korea in my third year of studies with faux confidence… I nearly died. That first day in Korea I struggled to order food but I ate… The happiest part of that day? I heard a very young child in the supermarket saying “엄마~ 어 디 갔어?!” (Mummy, where have you gone?!) …I was elated, it was my first success in Korea.
Now how stupid is something like that to be proud of? It’s the little things that build confidence. From that, I moved on to using French as a medium for communication with a Japanese guy even though I hadn’t studied French since I was about 12 years old… it was the ugliest French I have ever produced. It was difficult but we understood each other. And with some Korean friends I had met in Perth I managed to BS my way into a World Cup qualifier with no ticket by simple matters of misdirection. I’m sure that what I was saying was largely incomprehensible but I just went with the flow. These few experiences on my first two days in Korea made me realise that language learning was very much about letting your inhibitions go. I had been living in a bubble with my Korean studies up until that point with people positively encouraging me all the time. I needed some failure in communication and realisations about where I actually stood in the real world.
How does failure equal confidence? Good question… I alluded to it before, but basically… if you can take something positive from your “failed” conversation, then you have succeeded. That’s all there is to it. Be the eternal optimist… and if given the chance for a conversation, grab it until you fail. I often tell people of the night I went to photograph the cherry blossoms with no house key nor mobile phone… in short and skipping all of the good bits (as in storytelling ‘good bits’), I ended up being approached by a couple of drunk guys and ended up talking with them for over 2 hours and them offering to show me around their hometown if I ever visited. At times I understood less than half of what they were talking about, and they didn’t understand parts of what I was talking about. But with my inhibitions left at home along with my keys and phone, I stumbled around the misunderstandings to ask for clarification or even to change topics. And let me tell you, the week that that conversation had taken place I was getting very depressed about my Korean skills, but after that conversation I was sky high with the realisation that I could communicate… and then I think of “엄마~ 어디 갔어?!”.
By looking at where you stand and where you have come from you can have a true sense of success and how will you not gain confidence from noticing how far you have come?
I also found I could understand children better than adults when I started learning Korean. However in my native English adults are easier to understand.