Listening, speaking, reading, writing: setting priorities

The use of a foreign language boils down to four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The structure of most language tests reflects this. Study programs often have separate exercises for each of them or focus exclusively on speaking and listening. However, when we learn a foreign language, we tend to focus more on one skill than the others. The article discusses how to prioritize your learning efforts.

listening

I can’t say if native English speakers, but from my experience, listening is the hardest skill when it comes to foreign languages. Especially if we are talking about two phonetically different languages, such as English and Russian. Obviously, spending a lot of time with textbooks can produce some results, but it doesn’t guarantee a good enough speech comprehension skill to lead a conversation. However, I think this bookworm approach is less of a problem in the West and most of the language buffs I met think that learning a foreign language is mostly a conversational activity. However, listening alone is not too popular. Apparently progress isn’t that obvious at first when you just listen a lot, but that’s how we acquire our first language.

Speech

Talking, if you think about it, is the result of muscle activity. We control our breathing and the tension of the vocal cords with the muscles, the tongue is also a muscle. Thus, by repeating the same sounds, words and expressions over and over again, we activate our muscle memory, that is, the same device that allows an athlete to execute a complex movement or a musician to execute a masterful piece. Fluency in speaking a language comes from muscle memory. But it’s not so much about fluency. Apparently exercising your muscles has a fundamental binding effect on whatever you’re learning or practicing and makes it quick to remember what you’ve learned even after you haven’t used it for a while (much like riding a bike).

If you want to learn more about the brain-muscle-movement connection, I highly recommend this TED talk by Daniel Wolpert, where his main premise is that “we have a brain for one reason and one reason only: to produce adaptive movements.” and complex”. .”

Apart from fluency, when we speak with a focus on correct pronunciation, we improve our awareness of the language, which is closely related to muscle control, so again we engage areas of the brain responsible for language acquisition (there must be a reason why). that “language” means “language”). ” in some contexts and in Russian, for example, both correspond to the same word.) Furthermore, by pronouncing words of the language we are learning, we have a better chance of understanding the distinctions between the sounds of the foreign language, which also benefits our comprehension/listening skills.

Reading and writing

Unless the language you learn uses hieroglyphic writing, chances are you’ll start reading and writing in no time. You’re not going to sweat over an alphabet, no matter how exotic, are you? After all, it’s only a few dozen characters. However, Japanese or Mandarin is a different story. Just like native Chinese and Japanese speakers do, you’ll have to invest a considerable amount of time and effort learning kanji, unless you’re happy to do it with conversational skills alone.

It’s no secret that reading can benefit from writing: it’s much easier to remember a kanji after you’ve written it several times. Did you notice how the positive effect is achieved by re-engaging the muscles and movement, just like talking and listening?

The 4 best of the 4

Finally, with all the above considerations here goes my list of priorities:

1. Speech. Pronounce using your full voice, that is. That is really a secret back door through which language registers in our brain. Obviously, we want to feed our muscle memory with as authentic a pronunciation as possible, and therefore number 2 goes.
2. listening it is extremely important. That is the basis of language acquisition. By filtering this huge stream of information, our brain collects statistics that are essential for learning a language.
3. Reading It is an excellent tool to expand your vocabulary and review grammar.
4. Writing It may have the lowest priority, at least for me now, but don’t ignore it! Putting your thoughts in writing at your own pace, especially in the early stages of learning, efficiently exposes your blind spots, whether it’s a lack of vocabulary and expressions or shaky grammar. Penpals aren’t as popular now as they used to be, only to give way to instant messaging and language-learning social networks like Livemocha.

But wait! What about grammar and vocabulary? See, they’re foundational to all four skills, not the skills themselves. That’s great if you’re willing to systematically tackle them, just make sure you’re looking well into the forest for the trees.