Learning to Speak a Second Language How to speak fluently in less time — whether in an established school or in independent study. Lynn Lundquist Public Domain Public Domain Statement This book is not copyright protected. Our purpose in offering this popular book to publishers without cost is to advertise the Spoken English Learned Quickly language course on our www.FreeEnglishNow.com website. Publication of this book helps us advertise. This book may be translated into other languages. The English text and graphics may be downloaded from our website. Any publication may carry the publisher's own copyright. Introduction You have just arrived in another country and want to study the local language. There are a number of language schools promising that they will teach you to speak fluently. While telling you they will teach you to speak, they will actually teach you to read, to write, and to memorize grammar rules, but they will largely fail to retrain your tongue to speak the local language. Or you may be in an area where there is little formal language study available. You may find a tutor or a small school that will claim to teach you the language. Again, however, the language instruction will likely do little to retrain your tongue to actually speak that new language. In either case, you face the same obstacle. On the one hand, there are prestigious institutions that will expose you to current methods and enriched cultural life, but they will fail to provide the necessary retraining so that you can rapidly learn to speak fluently. On the other hand, there are inadequately prepared schools trying to teach their language courses without understanding what learning to speak a second language entails. This book was written to show you how to effectively learn a new language. It will give you important information regarding methods to use, whether you enroll in a highly esteemed university language program or study in a remote area with few formal language learning resources. Its primary purpose, however, is to show you how to retrain your mind — and your tongue — in order to acquire a new language. With that information, you can learn to speak your target language in considerably less time regardless of the resources available to you. Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning explains the concept on which the new Feedback Training Method described in this book is built. Chapters 3 and following will tell you how you can apply that information as you learn your target language. Chapter 2: Focusing on the Target Language addresses the critical concern of choosing the kind of language instruction that is best for you. Too often a language course is selected for no other reason than that the name of the target language is included in the course title. This chapter evaluates the important step of selecting appropriate language instruction by showing the choices made by a fictitious international student as she selects her own English study program. The appendix material is taken from the free downloadable website course Spoken English Learned Quickly at www.FreeEnglishNow.com. The appendices demonstrate various types of spoken language exercises that you could develop in your target language. We wish you the best of success as you begin studying your new target language. This axiom is almost universally true for every adult intentionally or unwittingly faced with learning a new language, whether that individual is a university student, a career diplomat, a secular or religious social service provider, a professional, or an immigrant working as a day laborer: The effort you expend to acquire a new target language during your first few months of residence in a new country will never be surpassed at a later period of time. If you begin your study with determination to learn your target language fluently, and if you select effective language learning methods in order to achieve that end, you will make steady progress toward reaching your goal. However, once you accommodate your speaking ability to a level which merely allows you to get by, you will never rise above your self- actualized plateau of mediocrity, and will consign yourself to failure in ever acquiring fluent language skills. INDEX: Introduction Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning 1 Chapter 2: Focusing On the Target Language 8 Chapter 3: Four Rules for Learning a Spoken Language 13 Chapter 4: Grammar and Writing in Spoken Language Study 17 Chapter 5: Do You Need Both Beginning and Advanced Lessons? 21 Chapter 6: Selecting a Text 27 Chapter 7: Studying the Verb 34 Chapter 8: Making the Feedback Training Method Work 42 Looking to the Future 52 Appendix Overview 53 Appendix A: Introductory Lesson 55 Appendix B: Text Exercises 58 Appendix C: Lesson Exercises 61 Appendix D: More Verb Exercises 66 Appendix E: Expression Exercises 69 Appendix F: Miscellaneous Exercises 71 Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning Chapter summary: Human speech uses a closed-loop control system. Speech is controlled in the mind by feedback from hearing and mouth position as much as it is by memory. In order to produce fluent speech, language instruction for Second Acquired Language (SAL) speaking adults must simultaneously retrain the entire feedback chain used by the mind. By using methodology restricted to open-loop control which emphasizes memory alone without the simultaneous training of all senses, grammar-based language instruction fails to effectively teach spoken language to adult learners. I n order to teach adult students to speak a second language fluently, it is necessary to understand how the human mind produces speech before it is possible to design an effective language instruction program for them. However, before looking at speech, drawing an analogy from machine control will be helpful because the analogy closely parallels neurological responses in spoken language. Open-loop machine control Wikipedia describes an open-loop control system as follows: An open-loop controller, also called a non-feedback controller, is a type of controller that computes its input into a system using only the current state . . . of the system. A characteristic of the open-loop controller is that it does not use feedback to determine if its input has achieved the desired goal. This means that the system does not observe the output of the processes that it is controlling. Consequently, a true open-loop system . . . cannot correct any errors that it could make. For example, a sprinkler system, programmed to turn on at set times could be an example of an open-loop system if it does not measure soil moisture as a form of feedback. Even if rain is pouring down on the lawn, the sprinkler system would activate on schedule, wasting water. Figure 1 shows an open-loop control system. The control could be a simple switch, or it could be a combination of a switch and a timer. Yet, all it can do is turn the machine on. It cannot respond to anything the machine is doing. Learning to Speak a Second Language Closed-loop machine control Wikipedia then describes closed-loop control as follows: To avoid the problems of the open- loop controller, control theory introduces feedback. A closed-loop controller uses feedback to control states or outputs of a dynamic system. Its name comes from the information path in the system: process inputs (e.g. voltage applied to a motor) have an effect on the process outputs (e.g. velocity. . . of the motor), which is measured with sensors and processed by the controller; the result (the control signal) is used as input to the process, closing the loop. Wikipedia's definition of a closed-loop system subsequently becomes too technical to use here. However, as Wikipedia suggests above, a sprinkler incorporating a soil moisture sensor would be a simple closed-loop system. The sprinkler system would have both a timer and a control valve. Either could operate independently, and either could shut the water off, but both would need to be open in order for the sprinkler to operate. The arrangement is shown in Figure 2. If the soil is already moist, the sprinkler will remain off whether or not the timer is open. When the moisture probe senses dry soil, the valve is opened. However, after the sprinkler is on, if the soil becomes moist enough, the valve will close even if the timer is still open. Thus, the sprinkler uses feedback from its own operation to control itself. Figure 3 shows a simple closed-loop machine control. Notice that Figure 3 also shows a calibration function. Irrespective of whether it is a soil moisture sensor on a sprinkler — or a counter on a machine — there must be some way of setting the control so that it will respond in a Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning 2 Learning to Speak a Second Language predetermined way. In a machine application, the calibration function could be a counter that is set so that the machine will shut down after producing a certain number of finished parts. Human speech is a closed-loop system Human speech is a complex learned skill and is dependent on a number of memory and neurological functions. Speech is a closed-loop system because sensors within the system itself give feedback to the control portion of the system. The control then corrects and coordinates ongoing speech. In this case, the mind is in control of the closed-loop system, the mouth produces the desired product (speech), and auditory feedback from the ears and proprioceptive feedback from the mouth allow the mind to coordinate the speech process in real time.[1] The inter-relationship of these functions is shown in the table below. The meaning of specialized words is given below the table. The Organ or Sense Primary Function(s) Comments The mind provides: 1. Vocabulary memory The mind is the storage bank for vocabulary. Memory is 2. Partial syntax control also involved in structuring 3. Feedback coordination syntax. In addition, the mind uses both auditory and 4. Calibration by the speaker to proprioceptive feedback to give meaning to the sounds monitor and calibrate speech in real time. The mouth and related 1. Sound production The proprioceptive sense is organs provide: involved in both 2. Breath regulation pronunciation and syntax 3. Proprioceptive feedback to the feedback. It is essential for mind in real time which speech control. regulates pronunciation and provides partial syntax control Hearing provides: 1. Auditory feedback to the mind in Auditory and proprioceptive real time feedback are combined in the mind for essential speech control. Table 1: The three components of human speech and their primary functions. Proprioceptive.[2] Human speech would be impossible without the proprioceptive sense. (Proprioceptive refers to the sense within the organism itself that detects or controls the movement and location of the muscles, tendons, and joints which are used to create Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning 3 Learning to Speak a Second Language speech.) Our mouth, vocal cords, diaphragm, and lungs incorporate thousands of nerve sensors that the brain uses to control their movement and determine their position. Imagine the complexity of pronouncing even a single word with the need to coordinate the tongue, breath control, and jaw muscles. Now multiply this complexity as sentences are constructed in rapid succession during normal speech. Real time. Unlike an open-loop control system, a closed-loop control system monitors feedback and corrects the process as the machine is running. The reciprocal path between the control, the feedback sensors, and the process itself is instantaneous. That is, information is not stored for later use. Rather, it is used instantaneously as the sensors detect it. In this chapter, the term simultaneous is used to indicate real time feedback during language instruction. Calibration. In human speech, the mind must constantly monitor the feedback information from both the speaker's own hearing and the proprioceptive senses so that the mind can control muscles to create the desired sounds. Thus, the speaker is constantly calibrating the feedback to control speech. To change a tense, the speaker may change "run" to "ran," or change the person from "he" to "she," and so on. These word changes are achieved by precise control of the muscles used to produce speech. Thus, in Figure 4, human speech is represented as the interplay between the mind, the mouth, and its related organs (represented in the figure by the tongue), two feedback systems, and conscious calibration as the speaker constructs each sentence. In addition, calibration continuously takes place within the control center — the mind. However, it acts on feedback from hearing and the proprioceptive senses, so calibration is shown as acting on the source of the feedback. When children learn their mother tongue (First Acquired Language or L1), their natural ability to hear and mimic adult speech builds complex proprioceptive response patterns. A French-speaking child effortlessly learns to make nasal sounds. An English- speaking child learns to put his tongue between his teeth and make the "th" sound. A Chinese-speaking child learns to mimic the important tones which change the meaning of words. Each of these unique sounds requires learned muscle control within the mouth. No apology is needed for the intricacy of this explanation. The neurological feedback and resulting control of the muscles involved in speech is extremely complex. The mind plays a far more important role than simply remembering vocabulary and organizing words into meaningful sentences. Chapter 1: The Proprioceptive Sense in Language Learning 4