In conversations between native and non-native speakers, the burden of success is typically placed on the non-native speaker. But in conversation it takes two to tango.
An article about having effective conversations between native and non-native speakers of a language. Excerpt:
Since listeners bring so much of their own experience to the table during communication, I suggest it’s unfair to place the entire burden of communication on the non-native speaker. If that’s the case, what can the native listener do to improve communication outcomes?
The answer is easy: Practice!
Recent research suggests that native listeners can improve their ability to understand speech with relatively little exposure. In lab-based studies, listeners practice transcribing non-native speech. Individuals who partake in this practice, improve their ability to understand a new accented talker as compared to listeners who did not.
This benefit exists within individual accents and across accents, given sufficient exposure to a variety of talkers. If a native English listener spends some time listening to Mandarin-and French-accented English, not only will she get better at understanding speakers from China, France, and Thailand, but the effect seems to extend to those from Guatemala, Korea, and Russia.
Read the whole thing.