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This rather occurred to me when I suggested speaking an obscure language, like Tatalog, to prevent uninvited people from speaking to one while flying on an airline. The fail point would be if one started reading something in English.
But is that really a failure? I am slowly learning Spanish by watching the closed captions on the TV channels but I don't have a clue about how to speak it. As a child, I would read French marine biology books but my speaking of French is something of a disaster. In TV spy and mysteries, the bad guy would often make a fatal mistake by assuming that because someone couldn't speak a language, it also meant that they couldn't understand it or read it....but they could.
So here I have two questions. First of all, is it not unknown or for that matter, even common, for someone to be able to understand a language, either in print or by ear or both, but to be unable to speak it (or to be so poor at it that they don't wish to speak it)?
Secondly, is it known that, in the teaching of languages, to have the student first understand the text?
Surprisingly common for English. I am an ESL teacher and I've encountered a number of students with moderate to high reading ability but unable to speak beyond simple phrases. That's the nature of English classrooms in some parts of the world.
I'm bilingual English/French and I can passably read some Italian/Spanish as a result.
I can still read French and Spanish pretty well, due to regular verb conjugation and the similarity of Romance languages. My pronunciation is also still decent. However, I've lost any ability to understand what I hear and my conversation skills are crumbs. "Hello, which way is the train? I like my green suitcase. It is 2 o'clock."
Verbal fluency and the ability to recognize enough known foreign language vocabulary to piece together the meaning of written materials are two different things.
I have a CLAD credential in California....basically for teaching English Language Learners.
What I learned, teaching ELLs, and also having to take a six week Spanish immersion class myself....usually most language learners learn to read it; then to hear it; LASTLY to speak it.
So here I have two questions. First of all, is it not unknown or for that matter, even common, for someone to be able to understand a language, either in print or by ear or both, but to be unable to speak it (or to be so poor at it that they don't wish to speak it)?
It is extremely common that someone can understand a language, but cannot speak it. That happens all the time to children of immigrant parents. Parents speak the native language to their children, but the children cannot speak very well. It's so much easier to listen to a foreign language because you're just sitting there receiving the info. But do you actually internalize the vocabulary words to the point that when its time for YOU to say something, can your brain can actually call up those words?? Nope. Listening does not automatically mean remembering. You need to SPEAK it to remember it. And have someone help you when you get stuck. That's how to learn to speak a language.
I know a ton of people born and raised here in the USA and their parents are immigrants. Of course they understand when their parents say something to them, but when it comes time for them to speak it, they can barely string a sentence together.
My own children are the same way. They Can understand more than they speak. How do I know? Because when they speak to me in our native language, I can see them struggling to find the words even though I use the same word all the freaking time!! Even common words like table, park, fork, I.e. words that I use almost every day, when they need to use it to speak to me, they don't remember it!! Drives me nuts, but that's what happens when you're raised in the USA and you get 8 hours of English schooling and TV and then very little time talking to your parents.
It is extremely common that someone can understand a language, but cannot speak it. That happens all the time to children of immigrant parents. Parents speak the native language to their children, but the children cannot speak very well.
Yep, this is my husband. He and his brother were raised in California by immigrant parents and spoke only German when they were little. Once they were in school, they started refusing to speak German and insisted on answering their parents in English. To this day, my husband understands German perfectly but when he tries to speak, he sounds like a two-year-old because his grammar is so atrocious.
His brother, however, moved to Germany as an adult and now speaks like a native.
I can read French and Spanish, but I cannot understand or speak very much at all. The part of my brain that processes written language must process much, much faster and efficiently than the part that processes auditory language.
able to understand a language, either in print or by ear or both, but to be unable to speak it
Yes, pretty common.
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Secondly, is it known that, in the teaching of languages, to have the student first understand the text?
Not when I was a foreign languages teacher at Berlitz schools.
Some crash courses were based only on speaking and memorizing phrases, and less about reading, or understanding the grammar.
This rather occurred to me when I suggested speaking an obscure language, like Tatalog, to prevent uninvited people from speaking to one while flying on an airline. The fail point would be if one started reading something in English.
But is that really a failure? I am slowly learning Spanish by watching the closed captions on the TV channels but I don't have a clue about how to speak it. As a child, I would read French marine biology books but my speaking of French is something of a disaster. In TV spy and mysteries, the bad guy would often make a fatal mistake by assuming that because someone couldn't speak a language, it also meant that they couldn't understand it or read it....but they could.
So here I have two questions. First of all, is it not unknown or for that matter, even common, for someone to be able to understand a language, either in print or by ear or both, but to be unable to speak it (or to be so poor at it that they don't wish to speak it)?
Secondly, is it known that, in the teaching of languages, to have the student first understand the text?
Early in the last century most all engineers learned to read German, because it was the lingua franca for the industry. I can sort of read German car magazines. I just have not had the opportunity to learn German like I did Russian. My speaking and understanding of German is quite limited, although, I think I got some points from the German customs people when I could at least respond to "Sprechen sie Deutch?" with "Ich spreckter kown Deutch" (pardon my misspellings here, but I think I have the phonetics at least close...) rather than the typical American response, waiting for them to repeat the question in English...
As for using a foreign language response to "push away" undesired interaction - I don't know about Tagalog, but a gruff response in Russian, heavily laced with "mat" (swearing) works really well for me.
I definitely understand Russian better than I speak it. Since most of my instruction is in reading classics and current literature, unsurprisingly I read quite well, but since I don't have much call to write in Russian, my writing skills are not so sharp.
My first visit to Kurchatov in Moscow, as customary we met with Americans on one side of a long table, Russians on the other, with team leads at the "head" ends of the table. I was the "new guy" and Dr. Sukhuruchkin, the KI team lead had been chatting with me, when it was time to take seats, he motioned me to a seat next to him, on the American side of the table. Then he cracked a very obscene and funny joke in Russian to his colleague sitting next to him. I, of course, busted out laughing. He turns to me and says "Well, yes, your Russian skillls are quite good...". Of course he had been briefed by their intel/counterintel guys that I knew some Russian. The Russians always do their homework for these sorts of meetings better than we do.
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