Business and Language Fluency
The Europeans have always had the advantage on languages. It’s not unusual for a European to speak more than two languages fluently. Maybe it’s because the countries are smaller and there is little problem crossing borders. So it is no surprise that Chile uses a European system for language assessment for their national English program ‘English Opens Doors’; not an American system.
When I was younger I spoke basic conversational French and German. No longer. No one speaks French or German in California, ha. It hardly matters because you would be hard pressed to find many Germans that know no English. When they visit the U.S., they speak English.
So it is no surprise we find some of the world’s best language research comes out of Europe, not the U.S. It is also not surprising that the Europeans are critical of the way Americans teach languages. While acknowledging the importance of pronunciation and grammar, exclusive attention on grammar actually can lessen proficiency by reducing positive learning reinforcement. Ouch! We all did it in school. How much high school French do you remember? The learner gets bored and just studies to pass a test, not become fluent.
It’s also our standards. Our standard is that if we can decline a verb correctly and pass the test, we are fluent. Not so. Our focus is on a test and not fluency. That is why students can graduate from high school in California and not be fluent in English. They can pass tests, but aren’t fluent enough to go to college or get an English-speaking job. In California we have students that spend their entire public school career in English proficiency programs. In our local school district, it takes up to six years to get to English fluency. Yet some programs can get Spanish speaking kids mainstreamed in only two years. Why?
Clearly politics plays a role. It seems highly unlikely the Europeans would accept six years to fluency. They would laugh at the State of California’s inability to define fluency, even though ‘mainstreaming’ is the clearly defined result.
So if we can’t look to the U.S. for guidance; we can at least look at the Europeans.
One of the simplest concepts is that of active vocabulary. A word is in your active vocabulary if you can recall it at will and do not have to think or translate. At 500 words of active vocabulary, one can do the some basic communication. At about 1500-2000 words the learner becomes conversationally fluent. At 4000 words one is considered fluent enough to carry on a normal conversation. What this demonstrates is something we already knew: words are the building blocks of language and knowing and ‘owning’ these words provide the path to fluency. Or at least part of the path…ha!
Active vocabulary can be tested objectively and precisely. Active grammar and syntax hold the rest of solution
Oh, and by the way, here’s a definition of fluency: the ability to comprehend and to spontaneously generate words, phrases and sentences in a language. That’s our definition and it seems to work. Maybe it’s our California politics. In language, fluency is everything but why is fluency such a secret?
Jack D. Deal
