d language. They are not simply copied from normal English. Rather the speakers know bits of English, and use those bits to invent their own language. These invented languages that are derived from the language being learned, and which gradually become more and more similar to the language being learned, have been called interlanguage (see especially Selinker, 1992).
The existence of interlanguages is one of the main reasons we know that brains know how to learn languages. The interlanguages of people learning a given language, let's say, learning English, go through similar stages, regardless of their mother tongue. For example most people go through this same sequence of patterns in learning to form negative sentences in English. Why do different people's interlanguages go through the same stages while learning English negation? The answer is that when it comes to learning a language, your brain has a mind of its own. It will invent the interlanguages, and refine them, until it has succeeded in reinventing the language as it is spoken by natives, or at least some reasonable facsimile.
I say all of this to reassure you that if you keep exposing yourself to comprehensible input, and keep persisting in conversational practice, your speech will keep getting better. Some perfectionistic people don't like this. They would prefer to speak perfectly, or not at all. Well, if you are such a person, swallow your pride. Speak badly. The way to come to be able to speak well is to speak badly for an extended period of time.
So then, speaking the language imperfectly is essential. There is a whole body of research on how people manage to cope while they are still not very good at using their new language. They use a variety of strategies in order to communicate, strategies which have been labeled, appropriately enough, communication strategies.
There have been a number of efforts made at classifying the strategies people use when communicating in a second language (these are surveyed in Bialystok, 1990 ). One well-known system of classification makes a distinction between reduction strategies and achievement strategies (Faerch and Kasper, 1983b, 1984), summarized in Ellis 1986). When you use a reduction strategy, you may simply avoid trying to say something that you would like to say, because you can't think of any way to get your point across. Or you may find a way to say something which is related to what you wanted to say, but not really the same. For example, you may wish to say that you are worried about something, but realizing you don't know how to say that, you may resort to simply saying, “I don't like it.”
In using an achievement strategy, you will find a way to express what you wish to express, even though you don't know the normal way to express it. For example, you may not know the word for a crank on a machine, and so you say “this thing” while making a circular motion with your hand. Some people are probably better than others when it comes to using communications strategies. I mention them here to reinforce the point that it is normal to speak “poorly” first, and gradually improve. That is the name of the game. If you put high demands on yourself for premature excellence, it will discourage you from speaking as much as you need to, and thus hinder your progress. So get out there and start making mistakes. And give yourself extra credit for extra mistakes.
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Page content last modified: 11 September 1997
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