She had NATIVE-LEVEL comprehension...but couldn't speak a word

In his video Can You Really Learn a Language Without Speaking It? Luca Lampiarello talks about a surprising encounter he had with a professional interpreter. 

One day, at an event for aspiring interpreters he was sitting next to the director of the school. She translated professionally from German into her 1st language, French.

Spotting a chance to practise his German, Luca opened his mouth to speak, but before he could even finish his sentence the interpreter cut him off with, “I’m sorry, but I do not speak a word of German.”.

As Luca later discovered, this situation is actually quite common among professional interpreters. 

- a near-native level of comprehension, but almost no ability to speak in their professional language.

How is this even possible?

I can feel an analogy coming...

Imagine that your speaking ability is like a bathtub full of water. To fill the bath you need water, which in this analogy represents vocabulary and grammar.

The water is stored in your boiler (I think) somewhere behind the walls which we can’t see, just like our subconscious store of words and grammar.

To fill the bath you need to turn the tap on. The tap represents the time you spend speaking. With me so far?

With the tap off, no water comes out and the bath doesn’t fill.

Tap off = zero speaking practice = zero speaking ability

In the same way, when you have no water you can leave the tap on for days, but nothing will come out and the bath will never fill.

The interpreter in Luca’s story had collected enough water over the years to fill an olympic-sized swimming pool, but she had never left the tap on long enough to even get her feet wet.

Activating Subconscious Language

Listening and reading grow the subconscious store of language in our brains, but to activate it, sooner or later we have to speak.

Maybe you’ve heard the terms passive vocabulary and active vocabulary before.

Most of our vocabulary is passive, meaning we understand it but we can’t use it ourselves in sentences. To convert passive vocabulary into active vocabulary we have to use a key stage of the memorisation process: recall.

There are several ways to practise recall, but by far the most effective is free recall.

Free Recall

We use free recall naturally in conversations.

When we try to remember words without help or external clues we create stronger connections between the acquired information (the water) and our active vocabulary.

Compared to other forms of recall this is much harder to do. 

It works so well because…

ONE - BOP! - the extra cognitive effort sparks your brain into remembering more.

And...

By Alain Delmas (France)

TWO - BAM! - real communication is a real, deeply felt experience...like a smack in the face.

Together they make conversation a knockout one-two combo.

Maintenance or Recovery?

Maite Maintains

Maite (name changed for privacy) is a student of mine who has taken a 1-hour class with me every week for almost 3 years. She has to speak in English with American colleagues occasionally as well as attend international conferences. Her consistent class schedule allows her to maintain her confidence with English. She notices a decline after the long summer holidays, but she is quick to recover her former level and to continue improving once back to her usual routine.

Daniela Recovers

Daniela on the other hand, while also needing English for work, sometimes goes many months without needing to speak or take classes. When she uses English it is often for several weeks or months at a time in the United States. Her strategy is to attend classes in short, intense bursts in the weeks and months before her trips.

Both students have improved their speaking with these strategies. 

Depending on your personal situation either strategy can be a good option.

To use my bath analogy again (for the last time, I promise ;), as long as you keep reading and listening your stores of water will keep growing. So when it’s time to open the tap you’ll have a fountain instead of a trickle.