Speaking/Signing Strategies & Stories

Compared to other skills like listening or reading, making a plan for practicing speaking or signing can really help. Otherwise, it can be easy to let it fall by the wayside. Do you have a friend, roommate, or family member who can interact with you regularly? Can you take some time to use AI technology as a chat partner, or simply talk to yourself as you’re walking somewhere? Even shadowing someone you’re listening to online or repeating words on a language app can keep you connected with the sounds of the language. Every small bit counts! Thinking ahead for when you can have space and time to focus on speaking will help to make it a reality.

Have you ever thought of the perfect thing to say after the opportunity to say it has already passed? This can happen in any language of course. Reflecting back on what you said or signed after communicating in your L2 can help you pinpoint what you were able to do and where you struggled, and you can prepare to improve in specific areas the next time. You can take a moment to write these points down in a journal or notes, or simply think about them.

This metacognitive strategy of self-evaluation and monitoring is helpful for tracking all your language improvements. If you have the chance to record yourself speaking or signing every week or month you can keep track of your progress in your ability to communicate more fluently and accurately over time.

Once you have a plan in place for when you will practice speaking/signing, you can get ready for it ahead of time. For example, if you know what topics you will be discussing in your next language class, review the vocabulary beforehand, and try out some of the exercises from the textbook ahead of time. If you know you will be interacting with a family member or friend soon, think about a topic you want to discuss, try talking about it out loud to yourself, then look up some of the words you realize you don’t know yet on that topic. You don’t need to master any of this content before you speak/sign; just activating it in your mind will make it easier to use it later on.

You might say “Only 3-5?!?” if you are used to studying 10-20 each week for a language class. The key here is learn and use. If you focus on 3-5 of the most frequent words you are hearing/seeing, and you attend actively to them, noticing when and in which contexts they are used, you can start to use them yourself in similar contexts. This will allow you to actually learn them and store them in long-term memory rather than just short-term for a test. You can keep track of these words in a vocabulary journal.

If one of your friends or family members speaks your target language, set up a time to call or see each other regularly, even if it’s just for a few minutes to practice greetings or to catch up on what you did or will do that day. If you are feeling anxious about this, let them know, and tell them how they can help. For example, you can ask them to be patient as you think of what to say, or to help you find the right words. You can ask them to help you switch back again to the target language if you find yourself over-relying on your L1.

If you don’t have a friend who speaks your target language, find one on an app like HelloTalk, Tandem, or find an app that works for you.

If you’re taking a class in your target language, go to your professor’s office hours, or if you’re not at a university, go to your class before or after class to practice talking with them.

If you already enjoy playing games online, try those games in your target language with others who are using that language. Although you might mostly be listening to others, you can bravely find moments to make your own comments as well. Often many of the players are also learners of the language.

If you are taking a language class, take full advantage of it! Good language classes will give you the chance to practice speaking/signing in pairs or groups, or at least the chance to answer the teacher’s questions. Don’t hesitate to sit with other people in class who want to practice as much as you do and who also have a growth mindset about embracing their mistakes as a chance to learn. People who are studying independently often don’t have such easy access to structured, focused speaking/signing practice that classes provide, and the opportunity they give for peer and teacher feedback too.

As we discussed in the listening chapter, you can learn specific phrases and questions that help you avoid communication breakdown either as a listener or a speaker. Here are examples in English. Avoid just translating these examples directly into your L2, as each language has their own ways to appropriately communicate these ideas.

• Did you say…?
• Could you say that more slowly?
• I’m sorry, I don’t understand.
• What’s the word for…. (description of the word)?
• Is that the right word?
• Does that make sense?

Stella Schulte is a past student of LING 144 who expressed through a drawing her feelings of anxiety when speaking her target language. To help with anxiety, she tries to remember how to say “Slow down please”.

Filler words and sounds are helpful for all speakers, as they fill the silence and show that you are thinking about something or searching for a word. In English, these are typically ‘uhhh’ and ‘um’.  These fillers can sound different in different languages. For example in French it is an ‘euh’ sound. You can pay attention to how native and proficient speakers use fillers and then you can try to copy these patterns, or simply continue to use your L1 fillers. Your listeners will understand!

If you don’t know the word or remember the grammar needed to describe something, use gesture! Gestures are amazing resources for communication. They can show the size or shape of an object, how something is moving and in which direction, and where objects are located in space relative to one another. Gestures are also excellent for pointing to things in your environment. If you can’t remember the word for shoe, point to a shoe!

Although struggling productively in your target language is important for learning it, you can also use other languages to communicate your meaning when you need to. In the case of signing, you can fingerspell words from a spoken language.

A past LING 144 student, Jack Ford, wrote and performed the following song about a heritage French speaker who re-ignites his French skills after meeting a French visitor in New York City. We chose to put this project under translanguaging because it 1) refers to translanguaging and 2) it also demonstrates translanguaging, with the song alternating between English and French: (“Poems on the subway, ses poems chantent en deux langues [her poems sing in two languages]”).

Notice how the use of both languages contributes to the meaning of this song. The song is a reflection of how a bilingual individual can move between languages to express their message.

If you don’t know the word for something, take the opportunity to describe the concept or referent with words or signs you already know. For example, if you can’t remember the word for daughter, say ‘girl child’. If you can’t remember the word for pan, say ‘thing that you can cook food in on the stove’. Using circumlocution gives you more practice with the language, and your listener will usually be able to help you with the word you were looking for after they understand what you mean.

There’s a reason that greetings, introducing yourself and small talk are practiced so much in most language classes. It’s because they are so important to most interactions, and only through practice will they become automatized as a procedural skill. Prioritize learning typical greeting and leave-taking routines in your L2, as well as what the common topics in that language or culture are for small talk and meeting new people (such as the weather, how family members are doing, what you are doing that day). Feeling confident and fluent in these everyday conversational domains will allow you to function more comfortably as you meet others or travel.

Record yourself telling about your day for a set amount of time, and for an extra challenge you can tell about what you did yesterday and what you will do tomorrow to practice your past and future tenses. Even if you aren’t brave enough to listen to yourself right away, the recordings will create a useful record for you to listen to in the future to track your progress.

Start describing your surroundings to yourself once in a while. If you know the phrase Esto es una banana (This is a banana) in Spanish, and you have a banana sitting next to you, say it! You can describe the banana too: Es amarillo, larga y rica (It’s yellow, large, and tasty.). Though this is supposed to be spoken out loud or signed visibly, it can be done silently in your mind as well.

To combine the skills of speaking with listening and reading, when reading a book or watching a show or a movie you can read out loud or say the character’s lines along with them! You can make a goal to read one chapter or page of a book out loud per day, reading at your i+1.

If you are feeling nervous about communicating with a real person, you have the advantage of using AI to practice your interpersonal speaking without worrying about the needs or judgements of your partner. Be cautious, however, because AI may not reflect linguistic diversity. It might correct your utterances or prompts to reflect the standardized varieties only.

Remember that the word ‘perfect’ doesn’t apply to language learning! Embracing the messy nature of language is critical for getting into the process and enjoying it. Don’t let a few bumps along the way discourage you from reaching your goals.

Former LING 144 student Bella Lane captures the messy nature of language learning in her drawing and explanation below.

“Clarity in forming signs far outweighs the importance of speed. In the study of sign language, the clarity of your signs is your articulation” (Duke, 2009, p. 28). Just as it is okay to slow down in a spoken L2 in order to articulate sounds clearly, it’s fine to slow down while signing, and to get in the good habit of well-articulated signs from the start. Sloppy or rushed signs will not gain you time in the long run. For practice, try websites like Handspeak.

It is a mistake to try to sign words one at a time in the same order as they would appear in a spoken language. Signed languages have their own grammars, and concepts may be signed in a different order or combined in different ways. For example, American Sign Language typically uses a topic-comment order, in which a topic is introduced first before commentary is added about the topic. Body movement, facial expressions, and head movements can all provide grammatical information that in a spoken language would be communicated through particles or affixes, such as the use of -ed (a ‘d’ sound) to show past tense in ‘played’.

Signers are typically dominant on one hand or the other; they are “left-handed” or “right-handed” signers. Choose the hand you feel most comfortable signing with to be your dominant signing hand. It is not recommended to switch dominant hands while signing, even if you are ambidextrous.

In signed languages, facial expressions are as integral to communication as the hands. Raised or lowered eyebrows, squinting or widening the eyes, blinking, extending a lower lip, or pursing the lips are all examples of using the face to communicate not only emotion or emphasis as might happen in spoken languages, but grammatical or lexical information as well. Remember to engage your face to make your signing clearer and more effective.

Maintaining eye contact with those you are signing with is very important. Looking away from a signing person is like “sticking your fingers into your ears when someone is talking to you” (Shelly & Schneck, 1998, p. 64).

“Because no two people are alike, no two people will sign in exactly the same way. You can study sign language with the same teacher for years, learning all the signs exactly as presented and copying the teacher’s every move. But, as soon as you get comfortable with signing on your own, your use of ASL will become individualized. You’ll develop your own personal style of signing and nobody else will do it quite the same way you do” (Shelly & Schneck, 1998, p. 65).

Although it’s always important to consider who you are communicating with, for presentational speaking it is particularly important because you will not be able to easily change what you are saying while you are presenting. This is different from conversation in which you are directly influenced  by others’ responses (see here for a refresher on the difference between interpersonal and presentational speaking/signing). Are you speaking to people who are experts in your topic, or who are completely new to the topic? Are you speaking to people who are themselves fluent speakers of the language, or are many of them learners of the language? You will adjust both the content and the delivery of your presentation accordingly.

Most of the time it is perfectly acceptable to use slides or notecards during presentational speaking. Just like when you give a speech in your L1, visual aids can be your friend! Just try not to include too much of your speech on the slides, to avoid reading them. Bullet points or key words are best.

Remember the cohesive devices we discussed in the listening/viewing strategies? They are also good for you to learn to use as a speaker or signer, to help those listening to or watching you! Learners usually rely on simple connecting words at first such as and, but, so, because. As you become more proficient you can expand your use of these phrases to clarify your meaning and increase your own fluency.

Just as you would for a speech in your L1, practicing beforehand is key. Include some practice in front of the mirror, a pet, or some stuffed animals to get used to imagining an audience. If you have several stuffed animals you can place them around the room to practice making good eye contact. You can also use faces on sticky notes as an alternative!

Shadowing refers to speaking along with a recording of someone else, either at the same time or slightly after them. Shadowing a more proficient speaker can give you practice with the sounds, timing and rhythm of the language. You can adjust the speed of the video to be slower if that helps, and you can read along using a transcript as well. Shadowing is also a good technique while listening to audiobooks, if you have a written version of the book to look at too. An example of shadowing can be found here.

Importantly, try not to memorize your presentation word-for-word. Memorizing can backfire if you no longer are thinking about the underlying message you are trying to communicate. If something distracts you during the presentation, you may have trouble starting your speech again without repeating some part of it. Instead, memorize the key points you will make (and include them on notecards or slides), and practice talking about them many times, even if each time you word the points a little differently. This is called extemporaneous speaking (or signing).

If you are prepared to speak extemporaneously, you will stay focused on communicating your key points, and distractions or disturbances during your speech will not derail you as easily. You can simply return to ‘What do I want to communicate here?’. It’s much better to confidently express your points, even with some language errors, than to try to recite a memorized script.

It can be tempting to rush through a speech that you have prepared, but this does not allow the audience time to think about and process what you are saying. Excellent public speakers often speak carefully and relatively slowly, and include pauses after they say something new or important (the TedTalk speakers included in this textbook are good examples of this).