Do chat rooms improve conversation?

Question

Personally, I have found that being in a chat room and typing out Spanish helps a lot with conversation because you can actually see your mistakes and work out what you are saying as you talk in normal time. Does anyone else find this to help? I would like to try to get the teachers at my school to use it more once in a while because I think its a great help.

Answer 1

jttorbey72, chat rooms would be a great place to learn Spanish if they were a controlled environment. Schools that let their students chat online as a method of improving their conversational skills are opening themselves up to lawsuits because of the possibility that one of the students might be harmed in some way by some rogue chatter. Therefore schools are not likely to do that.

I go to one of the Spanish rooms at Yahoo occasionally. I am an adult. Like all Yahoo chat rooms, I see things going on that are inappropriate and could cause any educational institution legal problems, if the educational institution could be legally found to foster, support, tolerate, etc. the sick kind of behvior that occurs in Yahoo chat.

So, if Spanish Dict can get their chatroom going again, and it is a place where negative behaviors, that characterize a lot of chat sites worldwide, are not allowed, tolerated, and quickly suppressed by either moderators or software, then Spanish Dict would be doing the world a great service! Schools would probably flock to it.

Well I could understand that in a normal high school, or even a college setting. That makes sense. But I'm actually studying at a military school with much smaller classes and all grown adults. Therefore I think it would be good to use them. - jttorbey72, Jun 4, 2012

In your situation, Yahoo chat would be fine. When I go there, I have an open notepad file to save texts that I don't understand. I have learned a lot by doing that, including a lot of slang. - Esteban3304, Jun 5, 2012

Thats a good idea.I just wanted to see what some other people thought about it. - jttorbey72, Jun 5, 2012

Answer 2

I agree but not soley with chat but with verbal internet as well. So anything from skype, chat, and live face to face communication will all improve your language skills. This also keeps you well rounded.

Of course verbal conversation is essential to learning a language. But the institute I study at has very small classes and many hours set aside sheerly for speaking already. - jttorbey72, Jun 4, 2012

So I think some time in a text chat room would give a valuable perspective that you cant do quite so much with speaking. Its the same real time application but you can see exactly what youre doing and where you make mistakes. - jttorbey72, Jun 4, 2012

Answer 3

Unfortunately, there are too many teachers and educational systems that simply teach how to get through a course, rather than teaching the material of said course. So naturally, practice and the use of any subject is extremely helpful in mastering it. Your findings are right on!