Meaningful Interaction for Fluency

You know how they say that it takes a village to raise a child? I agree, but I'll extend and warp the metaphor a little further - it takes a village to raise a child (or an adult) to speak. To speak grammatically, knowledgeably... eloquently. One of our main foci at langoLAB is to harness the foreign language-speaking community and to give them a place to interact, so that each user's experience directly benefits other users. My own passion for this stems from personal experience - from feeling isolated in a teacher-centric atmosphere in high school and college. We would sit, facing front, listening to overly complicated grammatical explanations. One person would ask a question, the teacher would answer him and we'd move on to the next task at hand. Or we'd stare down at our books, while someone read a sentence out loud and we'd repeat. Sometimes we wrote tests, sometimes we conjugated verbs, but we lacked the most valuable thing for fluency in a language: interaction with native speakers.

In order to speak well, you need hours of interactions with people fluent in the language you're studying. You need to discuss a variety of topics, recognize different styles, emulate dialects, and otherwise immerse yourself in the language and culture. I haven't forgotten the disillusionment I felt while studying in school. A lot of the indignation is still there, at a system that let me down. At TechStars, we're trying to channel that energy into producing a product that really addresses the problem.

Employment and Foreign Language Fluency

According to a recent article on CBS MarketWatch, foreign language fluency is fast becoming a key factor to landing many U.S.-based jobs. Employers are exploring the global marketplace like never before, and, as a result, their employees are being put in direct contact with customers and colleagues overseas. But are they fluent enough? Fluency in a foreign language requires years of intensive study, ideally while being immersed in an environment where the language is spoken constantly.

These opportunities can be somewhat difficult to come by for the typical American. In many institutions, foreign language courses are slowly being phased out of the curriculum and not offered until very late in a student's academic career. The current two-year high school requirement is only enough for a student to superficially grasp grammar, if s/he is lucky. In the worst case scenario, the two-year college requirement only reviews what the student should have learned in high school. Study abroad might not be financially feasible.

Fluency in a foreign language is not just the ability to put words together in a sentence, but, more importantly, the ability to communicate ideas and concepts. It is an understanding of both language and culture. So how can we expect to compete in a global marketplace where foreign languages have been learned since childhood? I think we just need to be smarter.

We need more interaction with native speakers and foreign media. We have to learn how a foreign language is actually spoken, then emulate the accent that we hear. We should practice speaking as much as possible, with someone who speaks the language better than we do. Many of these components are already in place on our website - immerse yourself in texts and videos, ask questions and read notes. Meanwhile, we'll keep working on other ways to help you increase your fluency in the spoken language.

What's the Best Way to Get Fluent in a Foreign Language?

During my last semester of undergrad, I asked my very old, very wise professor the best way for me to get fluent in Russian. This man, a graduate of Moscow State University and a highly regarded Philologist, didn't skip a beat when he said, "You must read! You must sit with your book out in front of you, and, with a dictionary to the side, compare every word!"

I was incredulous. Surely this man, with decades of teaching experience, would know true fluency in a language comes from learning more than just grammar? So I persisted.

"But, I have Russian-speaking friends! Isn't this a better way to learn to speak the Russian that's being spoken in real life?" Three years of my four-year instruction were spent struggling through short stories written by Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I was unable to utter more than a few short phrases at a time. My listening comprehension was absurdly low. My speaking abilities were a joke.

"No, you must read."

It was after this meeting that I really understood. I understood that, to be fluent in a foreign language and to truly understand the culture, I needed contact with native speakers. I needed contact with foreign media. I wanted to watch movies, then discuss them with native speakers of Russian. I wanted to listen to music and understand the lyrics. At that time, there was no way for me to do all of this in one place.

Fast forward four years, and I work on a website that offers all of these things. Like I could only dream about before, langolab.com not only aggregates media, but provides tools (like one-click dictionary look-up and flashcard sets) to help understand what the words on the page mean.

So what's the best way to get fluent in a foreign language? We're working on it.