Fluent In a Second Language?!

More often than not, one takes up learning a second language with an intent or "final outcome" of becoming fluent.  What exactly does that mean and how much exposure to a second language do you need to get there?  Robert Blake starts off his text with this very thought in Brave New Digital Classroom addressing why technology is in the L2 curriculum.  Second language acquisition (SLA) is a "intensive and time-consuming activity" (Blake, 1) You would think that starting a language in the 7th grade and continuing all through middle and high school (a total six years) would mean that fluency is the final outcome... not so much.  According to the Foreign Service Institute, anywhere from 700 to 1,320 hours of full-time instruction are needed to reach a level of high fluency.  In addition, "the time commitment for learning a Romance language minimally approaches 20 weeks of intensive, full-time study at 30 hours per week, for a grand total of 600 hours..." (Blake, 1).  These numbers are startling, particularly for university students whose courses don't come close to these requirements.  

Reading these statistics surprised me in a sense that I had no idea how much continuous exposure was necessary to gain a high level of fluency.  What first popped into my head was my own personal experience with learning Spanish I've been interacting with the Spanish for now 12 years, having started learning the language in 7th grade.  I remember deciding that I wanted to become a Spanish teacher my junior year of high school, and then asking myself, "Can I even speak Spanish that well?"  I could carry a basic conversation one-on-one with my Spanish teacher and even my peers in class.  I even could get up and give a decent 10 minute presentation on Las Fallas, but it felt like something was missing... this whole idea of "fluency".  It wasn't until I studied abroad in Spain for a semester that I felt that I had acquired a level of fluency- being able to speak Spanish with an authentic accent and carry conversations with native speakers.  Obviously, the idea of "increasing contact with the target language" (i.e. through study abroad) is the solution... a second language is "best learned and taught through interaction" (Blake, 2 & 3).  

Yet, studying abroad is expensive and not always a doable option for most, so that's where the idea of integrating technology comes into play.  Technology can serve as a tool to help create those opportunities of language contact in the classroom.  Therefore, it's important for both foreign language teachers and students to be computer literate, so that they can gain the most from these Internet interactions.  The possibilities are endless!  More to come...