Helo 'na.
Mererid dw i.
This is an interesting topic. Some really important points mentioned above regarding personality change and role-reversal issues in additional-language acquisition. I could talk all night about those issues, but that’s not going to help you in the short term. Therefore, I offer you some practical advice.
When you think that the seemingly ‘simple’ act of having a conversation with someone requires ALL these skills at the SAME time, there’s no wonder we develop a fear of speaking. Consider the following skills involved in having a conversation:
Deciding you’re going to say something, constructing a coherent sentence in your mind, saying this sentence out loud in order to be understood by another person, knowing how to pronounce Welsh, voice intonation, reading the other person’s body language, listening to the other person’s response, making out the individual words in the other person’s response, knowing what those words mean, processing those words, thinking of an appropriate response, thinking about how to word that appropriate response in Welsh and so on and so on. All this while your heart is beating fast and your perceived vulnerability levels expanding.
One strategy that I use is to get over my fear of speaking to a native speaker is to set myself ‘secret tasks’.
To do that, I have to separate these conversation skills and focus on developing one skill at a time, like so:
1)I practise how to ask someone for the time. I then ask a friendly-looking person on the street for the time, even though I know what the time is. By getting rid of that element of fear about not being able to understand the person when they something back to you, you’re concentrating solely on one language skill at a time: speaking. More specifically, speaking to a native speaker and seeing if you get understood. If the person checks his/her watch, then mission accomplished. If not, try again or go back and perfect your pronunciation until another day. It doesn’t matter whether or not you understand what they say back to you as that wasn’t your goal in the first place (although checking the time before asking the person for the time at least means you can anticipate the response). Then either thank them and move on, or if they’ve carried on with the conversation past your current comprehension level, say in English or Welsh (depending on your level) , ‘oh, sorry, that’ ‘s all the Welsh I know at the moment, I’m learning. Maybe next time I’ll know more’, (or something along those light-hearted lines).
- Do the same by asking for directions to somewhere you already know how to reach.
3)Think of similar scenarios where you can ask questions without really needing an answer.
In Italy this year, I struggled to remember the Italian word for ‘bin’. So each shop or café I went into, I would force myself to ask someone who worked there ‘do you have a bin?’ while waving some eitem of rubbish in my hand I’m front of them, like a tissue, sweet wrapper, empty packet etc
After a bit, I started remembering the word for ‘bin’ without having to check my pocket dictionary all the time, and I’d practised my ‘speaking to real Italians’ skill too.
This is a good confidence builder and the more you do it, the easier it will become to speak to the Welsh people you know, like teachers, family members etc.
Has anyone tried anything like this before?
It’s always my go-to method when I need to give myself a gentle push.
I will certainly give it a go
