Don't Worry About Speaking, Focus on Comprehension

hi there, Steve Kauffman here today first

of all that it's my last video here in

Palm Springs before I go back to

Vancouver I apologize if the microphone

isn't ideal we're gonna work on that

when I get home today I want to talk

about why you shouldn't worry about how

well you speak you should worry about

how well you understand that should be the focus of language learning now obviously this is my approach other

people may have other goals but in general

I have found that a focus on comprehension will eventually enable you to speak.

to speak

unfortunately language instruction seems

to be focused on getting you to speak

and people are overly concerned about

how well they speak what can I say

various language courses and books

promise you that you'll be able to speak

at some level or other and I have never

found this to be the case if you don't

first have a proper you know base in terms of comprehension

now the reason I

come to these ideas is because I come across

across things in Twitter or I speak to

people and we were at a party at our

neighbors the other night and all of

these things remind me of certain things

for example steven crash and tweeted

that all we really need to make sure you

know through elementary school is that

the kids can read properly if they can

read they can acquire knowledge they can

read on geology they can read on history

they can read on any number of subjects

even technical subjects in order to

understand technical subjects you need a

high level of vocabulary and reading

ability this again gets back to the same

concept in in language learning is

what matters is what you can understand if

you understand well some people say well

you know there are people who understand

well but they're afraid to speak they're

intimidated alright if someone is

intimidated is timid is shy about

speaking if they have poor comprehension

they're gonna even be more timid and all

the most intimidating thing to me if I

speaking in a foreign language is not

understanding what

are saying to me yes I would like to

speak better but I can deal with the

fact that I have trouble getting my

words out or remembering them but if I

don't understand what the other person

has said that's out of my control now

that the best I can do is say please

repeat whereas if I'm trying to say

something and I don't quite get it out I

can try again I can make gestures it's

kind of more in my control

not understanding what people are saying

is the worst

once you have good comprehension you can

access books you know movies songs you

can be learning your your snowball is

getting bigger and bigger if you have

good comprehension and I don't believe

that it that you can have good

comprehension and be unable to develop

the ability to speak

some people may speak better than others

fine but in terms of the emphasis of our

learning in my view it should be on

retention not worrying about how well you speak

so for example now that I'm committed to

but might be a foolish idea three

languages at the same time: Arabic,

Persian and Turkish I am not having any

online discussions with anyone if I have

an hour to spend I'm spending that hour

reading and increasing my vocabulary and

my comprehension so I'll show you here

is some snapshots first of all of my

profile in Arabic showing the growth

over time I went through an early period

of intense involvement with Arabic I've

been doing less recently a because I was

spent three months on Persian and three

months in Turkish and I'm dividing my

time up between the three languages but

the bulk of my activity now and

certainly for the next seven or eight

months is simply going to be listening

and reading so you see the profile there

you'll see that I have learned say

roughly 9,000 words of Arabic I have

saved 35,000 by going from memory now

35,000 links so potentially these are

words that I have seen that I have not

yet

now by continuing to read coming across

these yellow words in the text that I'm

reading and listening to slowly I'm

converting more and more of these yellow

words into white words and on my

statistics you'll see that of the 9,000

words that I know seven and a half

thousand were converted in other words I

learned those through my activity at

link if I am studying I don't know

Italian then the fact that both of the

words you learned incidentally because

you can recognize so many words without

ever having to look them up that was

even true in Slavic languages but in

Arabic and Persian there are no free

these are very few so all of them you

learn as the process of coming across

them again and again through these

listening and reading activities I'll

show you a snapshot of an article

actually was a a podcast on economics

from the in France podcast which I had

transcribed and I've studied it and

you'll see that the page now that I've

been through it once and have saved all

the blue words you'll see that there's a

lot of white there and there's a lot of

yellow there that means even though I

believe that I'm you know still I have

so much trouble understanding Arabic in

fact I know a lot more words than I used

to

then I showed you this other snapshot

where I have just brought an article in

from al-jazeera and here there are a lot

more blue words a lot more yellow words

but my goal is to get to where my pages

on link are whiter and whiter with no

bloopers fewer yellow words lighter

yellow whereas showing that the status

of the word has moved up and that

would be an indication that I'm understanding

more and more and so that is my goal now

at this party on the right here at my

place people are talking about the

tremendous burden of student debt that

students require and so I know that in

the u.s. there's this big debate about

free ecologist or not free colleges is

over but when you think of the cost of

university

aah-ha inefficient those institutions

are and that they burden people with

these you know this tremendous debt

burden if people could read well if

people have the initiative they could

learn so much on their own sure some

people may speak better than others some

people may write better than others I'm

talking about in their native language

but I don't very much that if a person

is a very good reader if they read on a

wide variety of subjects if they read up

on the different subjects of their study

at university they read widely if they

need well if they understand well I

don't that they can that they would be

poor writers and speakers much of the

sort of teaching profession in languages

and in English is involved with you know

a teaching critical thinking and asking

questions and all this kind of stuff and

I doubt that that is as effective as

just letting people read and understand

and if their understanding is imperfect

at first such as is the case with my

Arabic I don't want to be answering

questions about what I'm reading in

Arabic I want to read more of it get

exposed to more of it gradually I get

more familiar with the letters I get

more familiar with the words and my

comprehension builds up and on that

basis I will be able to speak one day

I'm absolutely confident of it whereas

trying to teach people to be you know

critical thinkers or to another example

at hi on Twitter I saw this account that

promotes the Catalan language they have

online instruction in Catalan so I go to

the website and what do I find

exercises grammatical explanations by

those dictionaries that's not what's

needed that's not what's needed and so

much of language instruction is

counterproductive why you know in Arabic

I wish there were instead of

me having to go to an automatic

transcription site and to get an

inaccurate transcript of these podcasts

with no punctuation which is difficult

for me why are there not more materials

as was the case in Russia where they

come a suite where you've got the

interview and the transcript

just give us interview and transcript

stories a lot of luck there are many

stories is for beginners or intermediate

people but also just people talking

talking to each other

transcribing is why isn't there just

more great content that we can latch on to

and improve our comprehension and

once we have our comprehension in

learning languages or even in terms of

learning anything at school our ability

to write and to express ourselves will

be better because we have that strong

comprehension yes at that point you can

learn some techniques of rhetoric or

when I was at school in Paris how to

organize your thoughts from your party

does your party whether it had to be

balanced there are different ways of

expressing your thoughts that can be

taught once you have that base of proper

comprehension you know if you want you

can't be a critical thinker if you don't

know the subject so you have to begin

with understanding then some people

might be better at speaking some people

might be worse in speaking it doesn't

matter but I think has learned if you

should push ourselves to drive

comprehension and with regard to

speaking or expressing ourselves I would

say let chips fall where they may

but don't worry about it too much and

certainly when you speak don't worry

about it just go with what you have with

the words you have with your

understanding of something and you'll be

far far ahead

they are alright if you want to get my

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hopefully we will get to a better

microphone next time around bye for now