If a person who is good in reading, writing and listening to a language but has not much practice of speaking, can he improve by practising speaking with people of the same level?
Yes, he can.
Any type of practice helps him to acquire the language and communication skills.
Hi mate,
As far as I concern, the most determining aspects in developing speaking in EFL contexts are the quantity and complexity of communication tasks rather than the peers. Their ability in speaking will increase as they attempt to accomplish the tasks. The fluency gets better as result of the frequency. In ESL context, their ability will be developed as they are exposed to the communication in the society rather than with peers.
Sure, peers are good teachers; correct one another with affection of allowing one to learn freely.
Practicing with a peer can improve fluency and reduce anxiety, which in turn free up attention for further learning in the future.
Yes and No to some extent. Each individual understands and produces only a certain level of language skills. It will depend if they have any better skills in certain areas. If the language speakers are in an actively language learning environment like a learning institution that will be of more advantage. otherwise if they are in informal environment not much learning would occur.
Competence in reading, writing and listening is a great foundation for speaking practice. Real life spoken interactions bring time pressures that don't exist in written language. Speaking w peers at a similar level will allow confidence to grow as speed of processing improves. If a group of people share the goal of increasing their fluency in a spoken language, then a fun & supportive atmosphere could be fostered.
As others have mentioned, different speaking tasks call upon different levels of vocabulary, grammatical complexity, emotional regulation, and perspective taking skills. To increase the improvements that are gained by such a group, choosing a variety of speaking tasks will allow broader learning: self-narratives being simpler than telling jokes, discussions about current affairs or policy debates. If a group agrees to support each other's learning by offering one another feedback, this may be helpful. Some learners would benefit from reviewing an audio recording of practice chats/conversations, to allow them to follow up challenging aspects.
Pronunciation & speech rhythms can become easier and more natural with practice.
Shashi: Honing skills with peers is how children learn their languages. They learn from informal peer interaction rather than from interaction with adults or from structured language ‘teaching’.
Effective language lessons favour language use rather than the languages themselves, because we all (big and small) learn best by using what we’re learning.
Madalena
Of course, one can improve his speaking language as he interacts with peers.
In stimulus response theory, when applied in language, affects the proficiency of the speaker. Citing from a sociolinguistics perspective, socializing among peers can improve a speaker's language competency.
Certainly yes.
Second Language Acquisition cannot be achieved unless the learners feel stimulated to participate in communicative activities without any qualms of failure or criticism. And when the peers are of the same level of linguistic competence, they will definitely encourage each other as also will not feel any inhibitions in speaking freely. This will naturally augment their speaking skills as the more one practices a language, the more fluent he/she becomes.
hi
I think the short answer is yes. Beyond knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and text organization, many communicative skills, and strategies such as starting, maintaining, developing, expanding, managing, and terminating the conversation, are needed for being a good/fluent speaker. Paying close attention to such strategies employed by others while speaking can benefit you with respect to your speaking ability.
Definitely, developing speaking skill depends, in large part, on practice, despite the level of the partners. The learner can overcome the tension caused by speaking a foreign language and this is a necessary step towards establishing his skill. As you know, speaking any language even the native language in the presence of others causes tension, let alone a foreign language. In addition, the learner can benefit from the other participants' vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and comprehension even if they belong to the same level since learners develop these skill components at different rates and qualities, which enriches his proficiency in speaking and also has a positive effect on his other lingual skills.
Good Luck!
It is a multi-factorial and multivariate issue that needs to be addressed from that perspective. Put differently, based-on the theoretical model (s), the answer(s) should be sought.
In general, yes, but ideally that person would also seek people to talk to who are at a slightly higher level.
In language acquisition, it is called total immersion. One tends to improve fluency and listening skills which are important in attaining linguistic competence in a language. One also gains confidence and communicative competence through interaction with those at the same level of acquisition.
Yes, a person is product of the people around him/her. If other skills like reading, writing listening are already acquired by the person in learning the language it would be easy for him/her to speak and improve himself/herself just like the people who are already used to the target language.
Yes, according to the sociocultural theory, talking to peers is also important. These days my paper is being published on this issue, I'll upload it soon.
Best,
I would say "yes". Speaking skills have to do with negotiation of meaning, rewording, keeping the track of the conversation, etc. These all can be achieved by interacting with someone else no matter the level. I think that probably what these speakers of the same level could do is to find other topics which require different vocabulary, more complex ideas, etc. I think they could work together and use texts, podcasts, videos, etc. as their input for their conversations so that they broad their scope of vocabualary and topics.
Any kind of practice is good. Even if two people have approximately the same level, the fact of communication with someone belonging to a different culture can enrich them.
Seen from this perspective, I think it is indeed possible for a person to improve his/her speaking skills, given the fact that he or she has to communicate some ideas, to put his/her thoughts into words. Forced by this necessity, the person develops and improves his speaking skills. However, it is not certain that he would also improve the language level as he would tend to use simple, common expressions to avoid misunderstanding or confusion. More or less, it depends on what exactly the person wants to achieve, but I see it as a good experience and example of not only learning a foreign language but also dive into its culture from every point of veiw.
Yes sure. It will be a very good chance to exchange ideas and opinions.
Practicing any skill (and speaking is definitely a skill) is always beneficial. The question is actually what are expected results from this practice: what looks on the surface is that both participants can improve their fleuncy and develop confidence and can learn how to negotiate a meaning that can contribute their communicative competence. However, what looks like a less porbable scenario is that the fact of speaking per s, can improve their accuracy.
May be this can be used for getting some confidence about speaking. Evevnthough such communication is considered artificial, it develops some elements in learners ability like pronunciation, breaking the shyness, etc.
Yes, a person can improve his language skills when using it with a similar person, and the degree of improvement includes mastering what they teach of the language and training their minds and themselves on the correct use of it through trial and correct use and error, with an interest in comparing their use together with the correct use of language from writers and authors who read their books and their books as well From their conversations with native speakers who they would like to learn
My answer is "yes, you will", because the more you practice, the more you improve your speaking.
Yes, the best solution for language problems is practicing, so practicing is very important even with peers who have the same language level.
The only way to improve your speaking skill is via listening, then practicing what you learn by speaking with native English speakers. But you should allow them to correct your mistakes.
I'm afraid there are not enough native speakers for everybody to start with them from the scratch. Someone will have to do the groundwork, and that will be non-native speakers, (teachers and peers).
Yes is the answer here because practice they say makes perfect not only in speaking but also in writing and reading as well. There could be exceptions when it comes to native languages, one does not expect someone who hasn't mastered the grammar of a particular native language to just practice speaking with peers and just get improved on the grammar just like that. I bet you it won't be as easy as the language one is used to for instance English language.
The short answer is Yes, but it will happen in case colleagues improve their vocabulary and grammar skills besides. Otherwise, they will experience improvement in fluency in threir current language knowledge.
In my opinion, communicating with someone of the same level of knowledge of a foreign language greatly improves conversational skills. As long as it’s a regular practice.
Absolutely, a person can improve his communication skills through practice as 'practice makes perfect' despite conversing with a peer at the same level as yours. It will help both get fluency and accuracy easily. However, the proficiency level may not get improved as long as there is no exposure to a high level of communication.
They may improve speaking competence, but not to a large extent. They will at the end prefer to communicate in their mother tongue so that they can understand each other fully. They will feel fed up because they always use the same vocabulary. Saif Bareq
To conclude, speaking competence can be improved if conversing with a native speaker or at least with a person whose mother tongue is different from yours.
This question has been already answered positively almost 100 years ago by Lev Vygotsky, the author of the socio-cultural theory used as one of the approaches (linguistic, psychological, etc.) in Second Language Acquisition Studies.
PS: you can also read my papers on the socio-cultural theory of Vygotsky and the role of Interaction (peers included) here, on ResearchGate.
PS. Here is the link to the abovementioned papers:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343829664_THE_THEORIES_OF_LEV_VYGOTSKY_AND_MICHAIL_BAKHTIN_AND_THEIR_ELABORATIONS_IN_CONTENT_AND_LANGUAGE_INTEGRATED_LEARNING_AND_SECOND_LANGUAGE_ACQUISITION_STUDIES/stats
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