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Writer's pictureCaroline Jestaz

Pause before you speak

One would argue that this is true of any situation, but it's particularly true when speaking in a foreign language.


What I observe, time and time again, is my students rushing into a new sentence, head on, adding one word after the next and not looking at the sentence as a whole.


What invariably happens is, they translate word for word what they want to say, as opposed to actually formulating the idea using the logic of the language they're studying. And in so doing, 10 times out of 10, they reach an impasse and realise their sentence does not work and they cannot communicate their ideas clearly.


A big part of my job as a language teacher, is to explain the right approach and methodology. This helps students save time and energy and avoid reaching the wrong conclusion, i.e that they cannot speak the language and are not good at language learning.


One of my key tips, which sounds obvious when you read it, but less so in the heat of the moment, is to pause for a couple of seconds and only speak when they know how the sentence ends, meaning giving themselves the time to formulate the ideas with the tools they have, as opposed to translating, which is never the point.


The reason students rush to speak is twofold. To get the scary part ''out of the way'' and because they feel like their interlocutor is holding a timer, waiting for them to achieve communication at the speed of light! Rushing makes thinking clearly impossible, while taking a couple of additional seconds to think is unlikely to offend anyone, especially if they know that you're not using your mother tongue.


As I always remind my students, when we speak in our mother tongue, we pause, think, rewind, and rephrase all the time, but we're not aware of it. If we do it when using our mother tongue, all the more reason to do so with the language we're learning! It's not only common sense but good practice.


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