Speech Therapy Techniques That Help Adults Speak a New Language

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) draw language out of people for a living. Their core techniques work for adults learning Spanish, French, Korean or Portuguese too: modeling, expansion, recasts, scaffolding, wait time, one-step-up targets, story retell and question ladders. Each one gives you just enough help to say one more piece.

These are learning strategies borrowed from speech therapy. They are not therapy. Learning a language is not a disorder, and neither is an accent.

Why speech therapy techniques fit language learning

SLPs specialize in helping people say what they mean when the words don't come easily. Every adult learner knows that feeling.

Speaking also teaches you something listening can't. Swain's output hypothesis proposes that producing language can make you notice gaps in what you know. In one test of that idea, 55 first-semester Spanish students who were pushed to produce sentences, then saw the target forms in later input, worked out the future tense from examples. Students who only saw highlighted forms in a text did not show the same gains (Russell, 2014).

So the goal isn't more input alone. It's more output, with smart support.

The SLP toolkit at a glance

1. Model it first: self-talk and parallel talk

Self-talk means saying aloud what you're doing. Parallel talk means saying aloud what someone else is doing (Tennessee Department of Education, 2020). SLPs use both to surround a listener with language that matches the moment.

For an adult, it's the easiest speaking practice there is. No partner, no audience.

• Spanish self-talk: Abro la puerta. Pongo el agua a hervir. Corto el pan. (I open the door. I put the water on to boil. I cut the bread.)
• Korean self-talk: 문을 열어요. 물을 마셔요. (I open the door. I drink water.)
• Spanish parallel talk: Mi vecino saca al perro. Ahora cruza la calle. (My neighbor takes the dog out. Now he crosses the street.)

Start in the present tense. Stick to things you can see. When it gets easy, narrate what just happened, then what will happen next.

2. Feedback that keeps you talking: expansion, extension and recasts

ASHA describes an expansion as repeating a speaker's words and adding grammatical and semantic detail. A recast repeats the utterance but changes its form (ASHA Practice Portal). An extension adds new information (Tennessee Department of Education, 2020).

Here are all three moves, in Spanish, with a learner retelling The Tortoise and the Hare:

The conversation never stops. That's the point.

In child language intervention, the evidence for recasts is limited but supportive (Cleave et al., 2015). Second language research adds a twist. In primary-school French immersion classrooms, teachers used recasts more than any other feedback, yet recasts rarely led students to repair their own errors. Elicitation, metalinguistic clues, clarification requests and repetition did better (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). A meta-analysis of 15 classroom studies found that oral feedback had significant, durable effects, with larger effects for prompts than recasts (Lyster & Saito, 2010). A broader meta-analysis of 33 studies found a medium overall effect for corrective feedback that held over time (Li, 2010).

What to ask your tutor for: prompts on one or two targets, recasts for everything else. A prompt sounds like ¿Cómo? (clarification), La liebre… ¿qué hizo? (elicitation) or ¿Pasado? (a metalinguistic clue). For feedback on pronunciation, see how to practice pronunciation.

3. Just enough help: scaffolding, cueing and wait time

Scaffolding is help that lets a learner do what they can't yet do alone. The idea comes from Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). Later work tied it to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, the gap between what you can do alone and what you can do with help (Stone, 1998).

SLPs turn this into a cueing hierarchy: start with the least help, add more only when needed, then fade it. Language researchers studied the same move. Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994) described feedback that moves from very implicit to very explicit, tuned to what the learner needs (Ai, 2017).

A cueing hierarchy for se durmió, least help to most:

1. Wait. Count three seconds.
2. Open question. ¿Y luego?
3. Picture cue. Point to the sleeping hare.
4. First sound. Se dur…
5. Choice of two. ¿Se durmió o se despertó?
6. Model. Se durmió. Then the learner says the whole sentence.

Wait time is cue number one, and the most skipped. Teachers typically wait less than one second for an answer (Rowe, 1986). After at least three seconds of silence, a range of positive outcomes appears (Stahl, 1994). Planning a sentence in a new language takes time. Give it.

Cloze, or sentence completion, is a gentle cue too. Leave the end open and let the learner finish: Le corbeau met des cailloux dans la… (cruche).

4. Build the sentence: one-step-up targets and sentence combining

An ASHA tip sheet for families defines expanding as adding one or two words to what a child says, using language "just a step beyond what they can say" (ASHA). The principle scales up. If you speak in three-word sentences, aim for five, not fifteen.

Add one piece at a time: an object, a place, a reason.

• O corvo bebe. (The crow drinks.)
• O corvo bebe água. (The crow drinks water.)
• O corvo bebe água da jarra. (…from the pitcher.)
• O corvo bebe água porque está com sede. (…because he's thirsty.)

Sentence combining joins two short sentences into one longer, linked one. It's how you move from a list of facts to connected ideas.

• Spanish: La tortuga es lenta. No para. → La tortuga es lenta, pero no para.
• French: Le corbeau a soif. Il trouve une cruche. → Le corbeau, qui a soif, trouve une cruche.
• Korean: 까마귀가 목이 말라요. 물을 찾아요. → 까마귀가 목이 말라서 물을 찾아요. (The crow is thirsty, so it looks for water.)

Clinicians call this level of detail microstructure: sentence length, linked ideas, accuracy.

5. Build the story: narrative retell and story grammar

Story grammar is a map of the parts listeners expect in a story. Stein and Glenn's (1979) version includes a setting, an initiating event, an internal response, a plan, attempts, a direct consequence and a reaction (Roth & Spekman, 1986; see also Duchan, University at Buffalo). The Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument treats three units as core: the initiating event, the attempt and the outcome (University of Alberta). Clinicians call this level macrostructure.

Here is Aesop's The Crow and the Pitcher, part by part, in simple Spanish:

There's good news in the research. When 69 adult native speakers of German, Russian and Swedish told the same picture stories, their story structure was strikingly similar across the three languages (Gagarina, Bohnacker & Lindgren, 2019). You already know how stories work. The new language is what you're building.

6. Climb the question ladder

SLPs order questions from concrete to abstract. One common framework, Blank's levels of questioning (Blank, Rose & Berlin, 1978), moves from naming what you see to reasoning about what might happen (NHS Leicestershire Partnership). Teachers use Bloom's revised taxonomy: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create (University of Delaware; Krathwohl, 2002).

After a retell, climb a rung at a time: ¿Quién? ¿Dónde? ¿Qué pasó? ¿Por qué se durmió la liebre? ¿Qué harías tú? The why-questions are where linked ideas live: porque, por eso, parce que, 그래서.

For teachers, tutors and SLPs

These techniques come from child language intervention and from classroom research on corrective feedback. The adult self-study versions here are adaptations, not tested protocols. Two rules carry across both fields: pick one or two targets at a time, and fade your help as soon as the learner succeeds. If a learner has a communication concern beyond learning a new language, refer them to a licensed SLP.

FAQ

Is this speech therapy? No. These are learning strategies borrowed from speech therapy. Learning a new language is not a disorder, and ASHA states that accents are not a communication disorder.

Should my tutor correct me with recasts or prompts? Both help. A meta-analysis of classroom studies found larger effects for prompts, which make you fix the error yourself. Ask for prompts on one or two targets and recasts for the rest, so the conversation keeps moving.

How can I practice speaking a language alone? Use self-talk (narrate what you do), parallel talk (narrate what others do) and story retell. Record yourself, check one thing, and try again with one piece added.

What is story grammar? Story grammar is the set of parts listeners expect in a story: a setting, a problem, attempts to solve it and an outcome, often with feelings and reactions. SLPs use it to analyze how complete and organized a story is.

How long should a tutor wait before helping? At least three seconds. Teachers typically wait less than one second, and research on wait time links three or more seconds of silence to a range of positive outcomes.

What does "one step up" mean? Aim just above your current level. If your sentences are three words long, add one piece, such as a place or a reason, rather than jumping to complex sentences.

Your next step: Try a story retell in Edgewise. Your first retell sets your level. Edgewise scores two things: story structure (who and where, the problem, the attempts, the ending) and sentence building (length, linked ideas, accuracy). Every round ends with your next piece: one specific thing to add next time.

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Related: How to practice pronunciation with motor learning · Why your English sound rules follow you

Sources

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