5.2.7. Avoiding fossilization

A final important aspect of your general communicative ability has to do with your language ability in the narrowest sense. How's your Chukchee? Think of people who have learned your native language as adults. Let's say that is English. There is a general impression that new speakers of English speak “broken English”. What is the opposite of broken English? I want to say that the opposite of broken English is “fluent English”. Ideally, a new speaker should start out speaking broken English and end up speaking fluent English. Unfortunately, there is a third possibility. Many adult learners of English will end up speaking what we might call “fluent broken English”. That is, native speakers of English can generally understand them without difficulty, and they themselves can rattle on in their limited English a mile a minute. In technical terms, such people have fossilized. They have become very fluent in using very limited resources. You can fossilize in your new language if you wish. All you have to do is learn a few hundred of the most frequent vocabulary items and a few dozen basic sentence patterns. You can then develop a special genius for using those limited resources to communicate almost any conceivable meaning. You find roundabout ways to express most meanings, and simply avoid talking about other things, or get people to help you when you get stuck. (These are examples of communication strategies; see Bialystok, 1990.) Since you're using so few words and even fewer sentence patterns, you use them zillions of times, and thus become very “fluent” in your use of them. You really can speak quickly. Since I don't know the language at all, I'll conclude from listening to you that you are very fluent indeed. Native speakers will know otherwise, though they may claim that you speak their language better than they do. People are so kind.

The alternative to fossilizing is to become truly fluent in the best sense of the word. If you are pressing on, learning to talk about all of life, and more importantly, learning to understand most of what is said around you in most situations (assuming you are in a lot of speech situations), you have not yet fossilized. But one special area of concern is learning to speak the language accurately. Early on, it is hard enough to speak the language at all, without worrying too much about speaking it perfectly. It is widely believed by experts that it would be counterproductive at that stage if all of your friends tried to correct or improve upon everything you try to say. It would be discouraging, if not debilitating. You need the rewarding feeling of successful communication experiences to keep your morale and motivation up. So in many situations it is best to concern yourself with what you want to say rather than to get hung up on exactly how you are saying it. But then, how are you going to learn where your mistakes are and overcome them?

For this I have two suggestions. One useful technique is to record your own speech from time to time. For example, you may tell a story to your LRP. Your LRP listens politely and interacts normally. All of this is captured on tape. Then you go over the tape with your LRP and she points out places where your speech could be improved. This could involve pronunciation or grammar or vocabulary. I find it helpful to write out each instance, placing what I said in one column, and the LRP's corrected version in another column. The other approach to improving your accuracy in grammar and vocabulary is to work on writing, that is on composition. The things that you write sit there forever and stare you in the face. Your LRP can point out errors or suggest improvements. You can keep a log of these errors and suggestions. As you keep at it, your writing will become more and more accurate with respect to grammar and usage.