Think about your own language learning experience. Do you find speaking
or writing more difficult in your L2? Think about why and discuss in
detail.
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I find speaking more difficult in my L2 (spanish). I think this is for several reasons.
ReplyDelete1. I have been able to practice my writing skills much more than my speaking. With a basic knowledge of spanish grammar and vocabulary, I can easily practice writing sentences at home by myself. If I didn't know something, I can easily look it up. With speaking, however, it's not this easy. I can't prepare for what I'm going to say before hand unless I know exactly what someone is going to say or ask. In most real life situations, that is impossible.
2. I have received a lot more feedback regarding my writing abilities than my speaking abilities. For example, almost every classroom assignment I would have as a student required at least a little bit of writing. These assignments were usually turned into the teacher where he/she would grade and/or assess the assignment and return it to me with some feedback. In a regular classroom, even when you can practice speaking skills readily, it's very unlikely that the teacher will be able to give you feedback on your speaking skills every time you open your mouth.
3. Since I took Spanish as a foreign language, Spanish was not a language that was spoken all around me. Therefore, I found it hard to practice my speaking skills when there was no one to speak to around me. I found it easier to find something to write down and have someone check it later.
4. Also, I felt much more comfortable practicing my writing skills versus practicing my speaking skills. If I write something down incorrectly, somehow that doesn't seem as embarrassing as saying something incorrectly. Maybe it's because when you write something down and it's incorrect, you can simply erase it. Almost as if it never happened. When you say something that's incorrect or that sounds strange, you can never go back. It's already out there and you just have to deal with it. So, writing just always seemed to be more in my comfort zone.
I definitely find speaking more difficult because with writing I am not as limited by time in a social context. Making pauses and scratching your heading when speaking is unproductive and embarrassing when trying to communicate with others. Writing is more forgiving.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am more likely to be creative and less inhibited in vocabulary when I write. I am more comfortable writing in English than speaking in it, as well. So, for me, I like the privacy and creativity writing allows. However, at the same time, if I am bored by a topic, my writing will suffer. I must have strong opinions in order to write fluently.
With me it is kind of odd, because while I was actually learning my L2 (taking classes), I always found the writing easier than the speaking. I would have time to think about how to write my answers, and fix the way I would say something, etc… However, now that I am not taking any classes, I find trying to write something is a lot more difficult than speaking! I seem to remember how to speak more than how I used to write. For example, I remember how to say certain phrases, but I completely forgot how to write them (I can’t distinguish the word boundaries). If I had continued speaking/reading/interacting with my L2 I think I would still have found the writing easier, because I would have practiced more, but I think that even though the speaking is more difficult, once it sticks, then it stays stuck (or so in my experience).
ReplyDeleteWriting is almost always easier than speaking for me. First of all, I have as much time as I need to organize thoughts. Second, I can check grammar afterwards, instead of getting to the end of a long phrase and realizing I said it wrong but being unable to correct it. Third, I can look up unknown words in a dictionary/online instead of talking around the word until the other person suggests one that might work (but still might not be what I was trying to say).
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, speaking with an understanding conversation partner is much less stressful than writing. Writing, because of the available resources (time, textbooks, dictionaries ect) also has the pressure of needing to be perfected, while speaking with a friend who has my L2 in common is much more relaxed and much less frightening.
Kailey Watson
In my language classes, I always found writing more difficult. When I was writing, I had to really think about word order and spelling. It was always a chore to figure out what word I should be using, where it should go in the sentence, and what form of the verb I needed to be using. When I looked down and saw the words I was writing, I would always second guess myself, and hope that it was right.
ReplyDeleteWith speaking, more often than not, it was easier to figure out what I wanted to say, and just how I wanted to say it. It was less intimidating because I had less to think about, pronunciation was never really that difficult for me, but grammar has always been a chore. I think that speaking was easier, mainly because I was most often talking to the teacher. With speaking, I would get immediate feedback, and I would know right away if I had gotten something right or wrong, and I had less to worry about.
For Khmer, an L2 I learned in Cambodia, speaking and listening are easier than reading and writing. I was taught speaking/listening first because those skills were immediately needed for survival and meeting basic needs. I didn't even begin studying the alphabet (which is very complex) until about 6 months after I got there. I will say, learning to read greatly enhanced my speaking/listening skills. The second reason I am stronger in speaking/listening Khmer is that it is an oral culture. By learning to read, even at the level of an elementary schooler, I was more literate than half of the Cambodians. Although literacy is certainly helpful for them, it's not as necessary as it is here.
ReplyDeleteMy other L2, Spanish, was learned in the States. As a result, I am far more comfortable reading and writing it (especially since I didn't speak it for 3.5 years while I was in Asia!). I think the reason reading/writing are easier is that they give me more time to think and process what I'm communicating. In writing you have more time to think about the right vocab word or what verb tense to use. It requires less automaticity. Also, the vast majority of your homework from a foreign language class is going to be reading and writing. It makes sense, then, that you would be stronger in this area coming out of an American foreign language classroom.
It depends on two things: the language I'm trying to produce vs. my proficiency level, and the complexity of the writing system. If the language I'm trying to produce is higher than my proficiency level, I find writing to be easier because there's TIME to put it together (I find writing to be a good learning tool for that reason). There usually isn't the luxury of time in speech. Only if the language I'm trying to produce is below my proficiency level do I feel speaking to be more automatic.
ReplyDeleteIn Chinese, of course the writing system is completely unrelated to ours, so I find if I don't review characters daily, I quickly forget how to write even basic things. That can make writing more difficult than speaking. In Spanish, writing is nearly the same to me as speaking, although writing has always been easy because of their transparent orthographic system that directly reflects pronunciation. I don't need to review Spanish writing like I do in Chinese. Once you learn the few rules of spelling in Spanish, you're set since Spanish orthography is regularly systematic and there aren't too many idiosyncrasies. This is not the case with French. Although closely related to Spanish, it has a less transparent orthographic system that does not reflect pronunciation as directly. The word "hors d'oeuvres" /ɔr ˈdɜrvz/ is a good example of this! Therefore, writing in French poses more of a challenge for me than speaking and is somewhere between Chinese and Spanish for me in terms of difficulty.
I found both to be challenging but I think this had more with me being a lazy student that procrastinated. But I have a lot of friends that have come from other countries and I’ve noticed that a lot of them will become really fluent very quickly when speaking. They will make mistakes when speaking English but so does everyone else, including myself. But people tend to be a bit more forgiving when speaking to one another, it’s natural to fudge spoken language. When my foreign friends write a paper for school or work they seem more stressed out by it. Writing seems more concrete and common and uncommon mistakes seem so permanent once you hand that piece of writing off to someone else.
ReplyDeleteOne friend who spoke English really well once handed me a paper to proof read and when I read it I noticed she had written something in a way that was really amusing and I couldn’t help but laugh. She ran out of the room in tears and ever since then I’m a lot more careful not to laugh.
I think people feel a lot more pressure to write than to speak.
In all my language learning experience I find writing more difficult. I seem to grasp the speaking part faster. Yes, I am a perfectionist when it comes to speaking so I want to be fluent and sound like a native. But writing and reading seem to be the things I pick up later.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have formal training in German until I took classes in college so learning to read and write was something that was self taught before I had formal training it in. I was immersed in the culture and so I was forced to learn it. When it came to Italian, I had formal training in at the college level. I learned both reading and writing at the same time as I did with speaking, but again my speaking ability was stronger.
When I learned Korean the opposite seems to have occurred. Though I learned reading, writing, listening, and speaking at the same time my skills in reading and writing were stronger. I think its because we spent the better part of the first semester learning the orthography and since its completely different from English it seemed to stick better with me. To this day I can recognize the Korean orthography (Hangul), I can read it and write it though I may not recognize the words.
For me speaking is easier if the orthography is similar to English but reading/writing seem to be easier when the orthography is different.
Stefani Goode
For my English learning experience, speaking is more difficult that writing. I think the reason is that there are not so many chances for us to say, or to talk in English. The environment is surrounded by L1. Even if we can find partners to practice oral English, our pronunciation cannot improve a lot. As for writing, we have many ways to get reading materials which we can learn from and have enough time to think about the construction of the passage and the word use, and we have chance to correct it.
ReplyDeleteAnd the teaching curriculum pay more attention to the exams, which means reading and writing are the most important parts to get high points and listening and speaking, to some extent, can be ignored. So most Chinese students learnt “Silent English” or “Mute English” not the communicative English.
It is difficult for me to decide whether speaking or writing in my L2, Spanish, is harder for me. Speaking is easier than writing in that it does not take a lot of preparation and drafting. Rather, what I say on the spur of the moment is final. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to very ungrammatical utterances. Yet the meaning usually gets across, and I do not have to get hung up on perfecting my grammar. However, speaking makes me more uncomfortable, because I cannot predict what anyone else will say, and often do not understand their responses. Writing does not cause me this trepidation, but it also does not give me the feeling of satisfaction of having communicated (especially when the only person who reads my written work is my teacher). So, if I had to choose, I would say that speaking is easier for me than writing.
ReplyDeleteI've had two very different experiences in learning. When I was taking Spanish, speaking and listening were both fairly easy, probably because I had a high exposure to the language in context and had the chance to use it in interactive situations. I became fairly comfortable early in my studies with speaking the language. Reading and writing developed later when I was in formal classes, although I can't say that it was any more or less difficult than speaking and listening.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began to study Korean, I had already been listening to Korean language music and watching Korean television and movies for a year, so my listening ability was already developing, but I had zero ability to speak the language apart from a few short phrases. Reading and writing were a challenge because of the new alphabet, but the Korean language is extremely well organized and learning the basics was not actually all that difficult. I found that learning to read and write really helped me to understand the pacing and the word separation of the language, which in turn improved my listening skills. I did not ever develop good speaking skills, however, because I had very little chance to use the language in conversational settings and the classes I took focused only on vocabulary outside of context and on rote memorization of phrases rather than exercises that helped me to begin to form my own thoughts in the language. When I would sit down to write, the fact that I had a great deal of time to figure out what I wanted to say helped me to communicate, but I never progressed to a point where I was comfortable speaking the language in conversations - my production orally never became automatic.
For me, writing in my L2, (Spanish) was much easier while I was still taking classes. I had loads more time to correct myself, look words up, and just think about what I wanted to say. Speaking used to be my main problem area because I was so shy and only practiced producing the "safer" forms. Now that I'm out of school and not writing hardly anything anymore, (and without someone to grade my work), speaking has become much more automatic, sometimes I have more of my L2 vocabulary at my immediate disposal than in my L1. I have to use my L2 at work and at home, so it was a trial by fire to improve and expand my speaking skills, so now I am much more comfortable speaking than writing.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking is definitely one million times harder for me. It has been all about my affective filter, especially in high school. We had to take foreign language classes, but I wanted to “get into” the process. I even studied for four years (beyond the necessary credits). But, I’d want to talk, but it seemed like every time I spoke, I was being tested. As a nervous and insecure student, this was detrimental. I felt like I was on pins and needles! Now that I’m able to look back on how I let that affect me, I can see that a good language learner lets down his or hers inhibitions. I have tried to keep that in mind when speaking in class the second go-around. I try to talk, even though I am unsure of what I’m saying. Writing is better for me because I have time to look at the words and think about it all. I have a visual of what I did wrong or right, and I can erase my mistakes.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Speaking is definitely much more difficult. I think that it is because the majority of the time I am writing is when it was an essay and the only person who would read it was the teacher who knew that I didnt know everything and could cut me some slack. But I have found that when I go to post something in Spanish on facebook to a heritage speaker I am just as nervous as I would be if I was talking to them face to face because I am so worried they would say something like 'please for everyone's sake, stick to English'.
ReplyDeleteI dont think that it has anything to do with the fact that I have more time to think about what to write than I do when I'm speaking. Actually its much harder for me when I stop and try to think really hard about what I am writing because words start sounding wrong and my spelling starts to look wierd so actually when I am writing I just write the first words that come to my mind and try not to think too hard.
As a second or foreign language learner, we can think separately that reading and listening are receptive language skills, and speaking and writing are productive language skills. In my L2 experience like other L2 learners, speaking and writing, which are productive skills, are more difficult to improve. Because when we listen or reading something, we just passively accept or understand the information which is written or spoken in L2 in our brain. However, when we speak or write something in L2, we have to product some utterance or written outcomes actively. This process may be more difficult to L2 learners especially to beginner level L2 learners. Surely, I think writing is a little bit more difficult than speaking because when we write something we should consider structure, grammar, logic, and so on. In addition, if we compare the two receptive skills, reading and listening, reading is easier because readers can control the speed or repetition by themselves but cannot in listening situation.
ReplyDelete