Looking for techniques to improve speaking for upper intermediate student

[Gorman]

Hey everyone - talking to other foreigners struggling with this language, it seems many of us (myself definitely included) run into a common problem - pretty good reading/listening/writing - but embarrassingly bad speaking. I'd put most of my skills around upper intermediate, with speaking lagging far behind. I'm studying a lot - but most texts seem to be basically: memorize vocab, make a sentence, read text, answer a few questions, do grammar exercises. Repeat.

So, has anyone found good techniques or exercises that can be used to improve speaking? Maybe a good textbook that doesn't focus on tons of vocab, but on classroom exercises, questions to spur discussion, etc. Maybe mock interviews? Simple stories to retell in Chinese?

I once had a teacher walk me through a riddle. She drew things on a whiteboard and I had to describe what she was drawing. After she walked me through the riddle, I retold it a couple times, and after an hour was pretty comfortable with it. I thought it was pretty effective - but it takes a lot of work/creativity on the teacher's behalf to think up stories to have a student tell.

Any thoughts or advice would be great - thanks!

P.S. Please don't say go out and talk to local Chinese people - I know! I'm looking for more classroom specific things that I can work on with a teacher. It's not the job of my Chinese friends to correct my grammar or listen to me repeat things over and over until I get it correct!

[roddy]

She drew things on a whiteboard and I had to describe what she was drawing

Sounds similar to one I used to use when teaching. That was in a group class setting, but if there's just the two of you you could still do it. You'd bring in a bunch of photos - anything would work - and describe them to the teacher, who attempts to draw them on the board. See how accurate you can get it in three minutes, something like that. Daft, but could be fun. I used to do it with students divided into four teams, each using a quarter of the board, the team that had the picture closest to the original got points.

Basically all my ideas date from my English teaching days, which was mostly small groups.

Another one I did with adult students was set up some kind of role play - say a sports star's agent trying to clinch an advertising deal from a couple of executives. As things progressed I'd pass in notes informing them that the star had been found guilty of drug-taking (response: "This will make him much more popular with the youth market"), etc. With one particularly game group of Spanish students I got away with "Raquel, you've been asleep at home all afternoon. You had some very strange dreams. Maria, you've come home to discover your pet parrot is missing, and your housemate Raquel asleep on the sofa with blood and feathers all over her face." Sounds daft, but it's tailor made for 'you must have'; 'I couldn't have'; 'I wouldn't', etc . . .

I think one important thing with these kind of exercises is that you need to take away people's responsibility for what they're saying, so they can just get on with the business of saying. If you ask a group of three to discuss the most useful invention ever, they'll sit and um and ah. Give them slips of paper with either 'penicillin', 'space travel' and 'cats' and they can really get into it, while the teacher sits back and idly notes errors to moan about later.

Even a simple 'buying a ticket' role play can be extended and livened up by telling the seller that they're too tired to sell any tickets for at least five minutes - delay in any way possible; and the buyer that he's in a terrible rush.

[wrbt]

Maybe a good textbook that doesn't focus on tons of vocab, but on classroom exercises, questions to spur discussion, etc.

Quite the problem eh? There is a distinct correlation between higher level texts and obscure vocabulary, it's really difficult to find something that's advanced enough to be useful in practice without becoming an exercise in looking up words you'll likely never use in daily conversation.

[whereishunter]

So, has anyone found good techniques or exercises that can be used to improve speaking?

Yes, its speaking all the time, at every chance you get, and to everybody.

Please don't say go out and talk to local Chinese people - I know! I'm looking for more classroom specific things that I can work on with a teacher. It's not the job of my Chinese friends to correct my grammar or listen to me repeat things over and over until I get it correct!

Why not? Its the best way of improving your speaking. Maybe you are spending all your time worrying about things instead of just doing it. I found it so hard and frustrating when I started studying as no one would understand what I was saying. But I just kept going and over time I could be understood (well most of the time).

I don't think you will find your answer within a book. One thing I always do in my classes is try to talk about the topic in the book but using my own experiences and ideas.

But you just need to stop worrying, and just speak!!

[imron]

For a systematic way to improve your speaking skills, see my thoughts on the matter here. It's boring and tedious to do but it will push your speaking to a higher level. Although this technique focuses on reading out loud, it will have a spill-over effect on your general speaking.

[roddy]

Actually, when you say embarrassingly bad speaking - what's actually the problem? If you're not actually hitting the correct sounds, then all the speaking exercises in the world may well just cement in bad habits.

[Gorman]

Thanks for all the suggestions - these are really helpful. I'm going to try some of the exercises you suggested Roddy - and Imron, thanks for the systematic approach.

I didn't mean anything in particular by 'embarrassingly bad' - just that speaking is lagging far behind other aspects. 'Frustratingly bad' is more accurate - I can feel my reading/writing/listening improving - but speaking, I'm not as sure about. I try to speak with people as much as possible and am generally understood - but that often leads me into conversations in which I can understand a good deal, but when it's my turn to contribute, I can't say much..

I know there is no silver bullet, and that the answer is basically - the more you speak, the better your speaking will get. But I'm looking for good, systematic ways to optimize my time with teachers (i.e. captive audience) or even my own study time.

As far as other techniques that have come to mind today - I think I remember reading in the forums that someone spent a lot of time talking to themselves. Seems like it could be effective. Another technique that I've used is retelling/summarizing the text in a chapter using my own words.

Again - thanks for all the replies!

[character]

@Gorman what do you feel is your biggest problem with speaking:

Pronunciation?

Finding the right words?

Getting the grammar right?

[renzhe]

Hey everyone - talking to other foreigners struggling with this language, it seems many of us (myself definitely included) run into a common problem - pretty good reading/listening/writing - but embarrassingly bad speaking. I'd put most of my skills around upper intermediate, with speaking lagging far behind. I'm studying a lot - but most texts seem to be basically: memorize vocab, make a sentence, read text, answer a few questions, do grammar exercises. Repeat.

This is me a year ago.

P.S. Please don't say go out and talk to local Chinese people

I'll have to do it anyway

This is exactly what helped me. A few hours in the pub every two weeks with a bunch of Chinese people and learners of Chinese. It really does work, as long as you're consistent.

It sounds like your grammar is fine. Speaking is a skill that is best practiced through speaking.

[animal world]

For a systematic way to improve your speaking skills, see my thoughts on the matter here. It's boring and tedious to do but it will push your speaking to a higher level. Although this technique focuses on reading out loud, it will have a spill-over effect on your general speaking.

Thanks, Imron. Of course, i visited the linked thread and, no surprise, perceived the value in your approach to tackling a problem. However, there you kept referring to sentences of these articles. Are they posted anywhere? For starters, i like to have the characters in front of me so that i truly understand what i'm hearing and what i'm trying to learn.

Thanks for clarifying this!

[DrZero]

Marry into a Chinese family, one whose members, for the most part, do not speak English. Also get a Chinese stepdaughter. I don't claim to be a great Chinese speaker, but I know that these things have helped my language skills.

[roddy]

From the OP

I'm looking for more classroom specific things that I can work on with a teacher.

[jbradfor]

Marry your teacher, and then do as DrZero says?

[huaxia]

Have you tried the textbook series - Chinese: Communicating In The Culture, published by OSU press? Definitely you'll probably be able to teach yourself with the DVD. It focused on L/S and gives you quite a lot of opportunities to speak in the activities.

[Don_Horhe]

I'm in the same situation as the OP - I can pretty much understand (both reading and listening) everything at the intermediate and upper-intermediate level, even technical texts if they're about linguistics and my writing,I guess, is quite alright. When it comes to actually speaking, however, I can't help but make really simple sentences and use very basic vocabulary - I just can't get myself to use what I've learned so far.

What I've found useful is to listen, and listen a lot. Not those fake 听力 recordings, but real, natural conversations you're having with your friends/teachers. Notice when and how they use certain words, mentally repeat certain structures and then go use them on someone else - this way the retention rate seems to be higher than simply going over vocabulary lists.

[natra]

Private tutoring is helpful.

[im.joanna]

I think you should change the way you learn chinese.I have a student who has the same problem like you.Bf I tought, he had learnd two years of chinese with good vocab. He had good skills of listening and reading.I found the problem is when he speak, he don't know how to use the word or use it in right way.He thought the reason he can't comunicate is he don't know the word he want to express.That wrong idea made he lose his confidence of speaking and prefer to listen to.

Actually,when we(chinese people)speak chinese, we seldom use complicated words .Basic words is enough to express ourself in daily life.So if you are already in upper intermediate level,I suggest you don't need spend too much time in focus on enlarging your vocab.What you need is to learn how to use simple words to speak pure chinese like chinese local people.It will make chinese people understand you easily and has more confidence of speaking.

I can give you an example. Like the word "火" (huǒ),which means "fire".I will tell my student other two basic meaning which we use more.

The first is "发火"(fāhuǒ),(verb.)which means" get angry".eg. Lǎobǎn jīntiān fāhuǒ le.(The boss got angry today.) When we lose our temper, normally the face will turn red and hot which like get fire on the face.

The second is "huǒ"(adj.)which means "be popular".eg.Thè jiā fàndiàn hěn huǒ.(This restaurant is very popular.)When we mention to the fire, we can easily think of hot.Like english, the word "rè"(hot) also has the meaning of popular.

See, although you only learn one word, you learn different expression. You don't need always try to memory the words"shēngqì" or "liúxíng" when you talk to other people, try to use this simple word you already learned.What is important is this is the way we speak chinese.It will make you cooler when you speak pure chinese.

Of course, you need more practice to help you familiarly use the simple words.I always give my students a lot of scenes and opportunities to use the word.Sometime I use pictures to describe a situation, sometimes I prepare some topic which they are interested in.Encourage them to use the word right away.

The student I mentioned at the begining is very diligent. He change his idea of learning chinese.Everyday, he try to use the new word he learned in different way. He talked to the taxi driver when he take the taxi;he talked to his chinese colleagues when he had lunch with them;he describe his news when he is in my class.Little by little, he found chinese people can understand him easily.And it is not that hard to express himself anymore.That brought him huge confidence of speaking out and more interesting to learning chinese. This is a positive circle of learning chinese.

So, it is not that difficult to speak chinese, you just need adjust your way to learn this language and more effective practice.Of course, finding a good tutor will also help you a lot. You definitely can make progress in the seeable future! :-)

[imron]

However, there you kept referring to sentences of these articles. Are they posted anywhere?

Just read back a few posts in that thread and you'll see links to the articles e.g. like in this post.

[renzhe]

Actually,when we(chinese people)speak chinese, we seldom use complicated words .Basic words is enough to express ourself in daily life.So if you are already in upper intermediate level,I suggest you don't need spend too much time in focus on enlarging your vocab.What you need is to learn how to use simple words to speak pure chinese like chinese local people.It will make chinese people understand you easily and has more confidence of speaking.

This is a good approach to learning to speak in any language -- try to rephrase what you're trying to say in simpler words.

But this will only get you talking about the most basic everyday things. Another big hurdle learners face (and which I'm facing now) is when you can do the basic stuff fluently, but are lacking active knowledge of some less common, but still important vocabulary.

This is where you see a very comfortable, fluent student go through an instantaneous metamorphosis between a rapid-fire native-like chat and the dreaded festival of stuttering which I lovingly refer to as "那个话" . So far, I haven't found a solution for this, other than looking up some key vocabulary ahead of time, and intentionally venturing into uncertain territory regularly. Once I've discussed a topic a few times, it generally improves.

Just a quick example: I've had my blood taken today. I'd like to mention it this evening when I meet some Chinese friends. I don't know how to explain it. I know that blood is 血, but how do you say "take blood"? 抽血 sounds wrong, it definitely can't be 拿血... So I can explain it using "那个话" and tell everybody that "今天我做了那个你知道吗这个抽血那个大夫打针拿了我的血就是那个" and then wait for them to tell me how to say it, but this way of communicating leaves me somewhat unsatisfied.

[chrix]

haha, renzhe, I so feel ya