Language Practice: Why You Don't Need A Native Speaker

The native speaker is often considered an absolute holy grail of language learning: They naturally know how language is used, they speak it perfectly and of course you will be immersed in your target language if you speak to one. But today, I'm writing to make you re-think your dependence!

Have you ever found one of the following problems when practicing with a native speaker:

• It's difficult to understand regional accents
• You ask them a question, and they respond with "it just is like this"
• They always want to practice your language with you
• You run out of topics after a few hours of discussing family, hobbies and weather

What if you have NO native speaker to talk to? Does that mean you will stop learning a language?

Why You Do Not Need A Native Speaker For Practice

In this blog, I'm not advocating that you avoid native level input and natural sources of your target language. They are what makes it come alive! By all means, make full use of Italki, social media and your own network to find a good language buddy, but please note the following:

You don't actually need a native speaker to practice with. This is so important to understand. You just need someone who's good enough or a little better than you. Sometimes it even helps not to have the native speaker, because a non-native speaker has learnt your target language too and can explain grammar and other problems more easily. Natives often don't even know which bits are hard for non-native speakers.

Why Practicing Online Isn't For Everyone

In addition to this point, some people just don't connect so well with the Skype or phone communication method. As an online language tutor, I work on Skype all the time, and it's a different to meeting in person - some of my students love it, some find it odd at the start. For some, I can just tell that it's not the right medium. So if you're In fact, the teenager who will practice his school French with you might actually be a better option than the French native speaker that you meet online.

Moral of the story: Make your own rules for what works for you.

What To Do About It

My advice would be to try a tutor, and that's just because:

1. They work hard to make sure you understand, by reducing their own dialects and breaking sentences down to where you need them
2. They will stick with you when you run out of the first 3 conversation topics with a language partner and research topics you need to talk about
3. They won't expect you to spend any time teaching them your own language

Personally I learnt English before the internet was everywhere and still got from "pretty good" to "pretty fluent", through being taught by German natives and spending a lot of spare time listening to Pulp all the time and talking to myself. But I cannot imagine having done it without teachers. When your target language is German,

I think it's even more important that you find native speakers who understand your needs. German is that much easier to learn when you can make sense of the rules - and our spoken language is different from the grammar books. Trust yourself most of all, but if you have no native speaker around you please remember: It's not going to stop you.

How To Bring In Native-Like Practice

Of course, working without a native person to learn a language does not mean it would be wise to cut out all native-language content. When learning a language, it's important to know how it's spoken and to get a sense of the place where it's spoken.

You want to hear the sounds, the idioms, you want to know that there is a point to what you're doing here. In all learning, it's boring when it's just theory.

To get native-level practice into your studies before you go hunting for speakers all over town, try bringing in audio resources or even TV. It's easy to watch television in other languages or use cool software like Yabla.

And if you have regular access to native speakers, don't avoid them. Go out of your way to say even small things like good morning, and ask them "How do I say this in your language?" You'll soon find that every one of them is a small ambassador for their own language, just like you are for your own. And what's better than sharing?

How Soon Do You Work With Native Speakers?

Has it ever held you back that you can't find the native speaker? Or has shyness stopped you from talking to natives?

Leave your comment below to tell me more!

9 Questions To Discuss With Your Language Tutor

Today's post is inspired by a recent episode of David Mansaray's "Language Is Culture" podcast. In Episode 12 of Language is Culture, we hear from computational linguist Judith Meyer - she's German, she loves languages and you can totally hear it in her voice!

Working with a language tutor is something I can recommend for any language learners, especially introverts, because you'll just get more out of the intense environment and focused attention.

Even if you have never worked 1-to-1 before, you can easily to use it as a booster, for example before an exam or as a quick refresher after a quiet spell.

But it's important to get the chemistry and expectations right from the start, so take account of the following key points.

First Conversation with Your Language Tutor

If you are looking for a tutor that works specifically on your goals, then it's much more important to have a clear conversation at the start. The experienced tutors will know what

Some questions I like asking my new students are:

• Do you want to work with a specific resource only, and do you want me to buy it too?
• Are you aiming for a specific skill like reading literature, applying for jobs or doing small talk?
• Are you working towards an exam or moving date?
• Is your goal about a feeling (confidence, comfort, encouragement?) or about hard data (vocab, grammar?)?

And here is what you should ask them:

• How long and how frequent are your lessons, and what is the pricing structure?
• Have you worked with my type of situation before?
• What kind of lesson structure would you suggest for my situation?
• What's your approach - strict or relaxed, friendly or formal?

You should know what kind of answer you want to hear, so make sure you have made some notes before the first conversation.

My Perspective

My own style, for example, is very friendly and I like to build up a supportive relationship with my students. If you were looking for a sober teacher, my lessons might not meet your expectations!

How To Use a Language Tutor

Judith's interview is focused on how learners get the most out of working with a language tutor. Here is her theory:

Any 1 to 1 language lesson should be led by either the tutor or the student, so an inexperienced learner should look for an experienced tutor and vice versa.

I thought about this point for a bit, and I do agree. The dynamic between me and my students can be very different depending on how experienced they are at language learning. When a student knows very definitely what they want out of the lessons, I often find that they're less keen to react to my input - it's not a lazier lesson for me, as I then take a role of watching out for errors, prompting the conversation and supporting through extra challenges. With a student who is new to language learning, I am more likely to direct the lesson in many ways and set the topics myself.

A good tutor is sensitive to what the student expects, and able to make adjustments to the teaching style that meet those expectations.

My Perspective

My favourite people are new to tutoring and often they're studying their first foreign language. In those cases, my students are often happy to experiment. They just love a challenge, so we can enjoy the variety that I bring to our lessons and just focus on having fun along with the more complicated parts. As someone with a love of coaching, I like providing those extra services of improving learning methods, finding new exercises and encouraging them along the way.

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