Developing fluency in our learners

This post is lightly adapted from the first part of Chapter 7 of The Language Teacher Toolkit (Second Edition) (Smith and Conti, 2023). References are provided in the book.

Charles Fillmore described one of four types of fluency as the "ability to talk at length with few pauses" (Fillmore, 2000, p.51). This is what many of us think when we describe what it means to be fluent. We have the idea of someone who can speak rather like a first language user. To be ‘fluent in Spanish’ is to be able to speak quite fast, without too much hesitation and with some accuracy.

Research into fluency tends to focus on temporal measures of L2 production - syllables per second, number and length of pauses and mean ‘length of run’ - the number of syllables between pauses, rather than general proficiency. It is about how well speech flows.

But there is more to fluency than that. As Segalowitz (2010) explains, when looked at from a psycholinguistic perspective, we can define three types of fluency:

1.   Cognitive fluency: our ability to mobilise and bring together the underlying cognitive processes responsible for producing fluent utterances - short-term memory, planning, lexical retrieval, choice of grammar, phonological knowledge and so on.

2.  Utterance fluency: this is what is referred to above, namely how well speech flows - the oral manifestation of cognitive fluency.

3.     Perceived fluency: judgments made about speakers based on samples of their speech.

     Derwing 92017) points out that massive amounts of input and opportunities to speak are necessary to improve general fluency. In addition, being more fluent encourages students to engage in more conversations which produce more input. But even with more limited input, typical in the average classroom, it is possible to become fluent in a narrow repertoire of language.

A distinction is sometimes made between lower-order fluency (fluency at the level of words, phrases and single sentences) and higher-order fluency (fluency at the discourse level, i.e. beyond single sentences (Taguchi, 2009).

Cognitive processing

Drawing on research into L1 acquisition, Pawley and Syder (1983) refer to the 'one-clause-at-time' constraint. This means that learners, limited by their working memory capacity, can only focus on a single clause at a time. The writers state: "It is the knowledge of conventional expressions, more than anything, that gives speakers the means to escape from the one-clause-at-a-time constraint and that is the key to native-like fluency" (p.164). By conventional expressions they mean ready-made chunks of language (collocations, stock phrases etc - see Chapter 12). Their idea is that language learners can compensate for their lack of fluency by falling back on multi-word units. A six-month long study by Wood (2006) showed the extent to which the use of formulaic sequences contributes to fluency.

But other aspects of cognitive processing are also important. Below is a simple model of speech production proposed by de Bot (1992), based on Levelt’s (1989) model.

1. Start with an idea (a semantic notion) that you want to express (the 'conceptualiser', which includes the choice of which language to use).
2. Put the idea into linguistic form (the 'formulator'), where words, grammar and phonology are implemented.
3. Speech is produced by the ‘articulator’.

De Bot suggests that L2 learners need a 'feedback loop', as they realise they do not have the words they need and must reformulate the language to match what they can actually do. As articulation proceeds, speakers monitor what they are saying for accuracy. Being able to find words quickly is crucial.

Segalowitz (2010) adapted the de Bot model, identifying points where fluency can break down, e.g. in the encoding of grammar, lexical retrieval, phonological encoding, articulation and the speaker's perceptions of their own production. The speaker’s degree of automaticity dictates fluency. Fluent speakers perform the process of speaking with little effort, whereas learners must resort to paraphrase and avoidance strategies owing to their limited range of language. This means they may avoid talking about something because they instantly recognise they do not have the words they need. The more words and chunks students have in long-term memory, the easier it is both to retrieve and to paraphrase. In addition, articulation is easier if students have mastered a good level of pronunciation (see below).

If fluency is developed at each level (e.g. phonological, lexical, grammatical) then overall fluency will improve. This might suggest that designing classroom activities to develop each level of fluency should have a beneficial effect at a larger scale. This is the model used in Conti and Smith (2019), where listening skills are broken down into micro-skills which can be practised individually (see Chapter 2). If fluency breaks down at any level, then overall fluency is impaired.

Interestingly, Towell, Hawkins and Bazergui (1996) found that if someone speaks fast in their first language, they are more likely to speak fast in the second. In another study by Derwing et al (2009), it was found that L2 fluency was influenced by the first language of the learners. In this case, L1 Mandarin speakers became less fluent in English than L1 Slavic language speakers. So it is possible that where there is a greater dissimilarity between L1 and L2, fluency is slower to develop. This makes sense if the L1 and L2 share cognates and similar grammatical structures since learners can draw on their existing knowledge to help.

The choice of classroom task affects fluency. Derwing et al. (2004) compared three tasks: a picture narrative, a monologue and a conversation. The picture narrative was judged by listeners to be less fluent than the other two conditions. This was thought to be because the picture tasks dictated to some extent which vocabulary could be used. In the monologue and conversation speakers could choose their own language. Foster and Skehan (1996) found the same, and attributed the problem with the picture task to greater cognitive load, but essentially they are referring to the same problem – students are more likely to be fluent if they can choose what to say. This has implications for test design. If students are allowed to do a presentation or hold conversations, they are likely to be more fluent than during a role play or picture task, where the language is somewhat defined by the source.

(In the book we go on to devote a section to how fluency can be incorporated into a curriculum.)

Fluency activities

Below are a few classroom activities which help develop cognitive fluency (fast recall) as well as spontaneous language use. A fundamental point here is that it is useful to incorporate activities which encourage fast recall and spontaneous use when students are ready for it. But even at beginner levels, you can add time limits to simple tasks to encourage quick retrieval. 

§  ‘Just a Minute’ in pairs. This involves speaking about a topic to a time limit without repeating yourself excessively, coming to a stop or going off topic. If you do any of these things the partner buzzes in and continues talking until the minute is up. With intermediate students you could ask them to talk about what they did yesterday, their holiday plans or their school. With near beginners you could get them to try talking about their family or town.

 

§     Pair work guessing games. For example, ask partners to jot down five things they did last weekend. Each person has to use yes-no questioning to guess what their partner did. The first to work out all five is the winner. Put a time limit on the task.

 

§  Scaffolded situational dialogues - gapped dialogues with options to choose from, but with the instruction that students should add more of their own. Alternatively, provide ungapped dialogues, but with some words and chunks underlined, that they should change.

 

§  Interactional writing tasks within time limits. Students could engage in social network-style communication with their devices or mimic it in their exercise books at home. The sequences of speech bubble trails now available on smartphones facilitate this: templates reproducing these would be a useful model to follow. This encourages students to develop quick reactions and lessen their fear of making mistakes.

 

§  ‘Sales pitch.’ In this game students are divided into buyers and sellers. Sellers are briefed about what they will sell, and each is given time to prepare their sales pitch. Meanwhile, buyers are given receptive practice in the sort of vocabulary they are likely to hear from the sellers.

Example: Selling holiday accommodation, such as a hotel, campsite or holiday park. Sellers prepare their information about the accommodation, facilities, activities available, excursions and nightlife. They are given a ‘stall’ (desk). Buyers go from stall to stall, listening to the sales pitch, taking notes. They then compare notes in pairs and feed back to the teacher on their choice.

 

§  ‘Messengers.’ Students are placed in teams of 5 or 6. Each team has a describer, two or three messengers and two makers.

w  The describers have a diagram, map or picture to describe.

w  The messengers listen to the describers and relay what they hear to the makers.

w  The makers reproduce the diagram, map or picture based on the description they hear.

w  Because of the complexity of this task, the messengers will need to return to the describers more than once to recall all the information they need. Good sources would be simple town maps, a diagram of a school, a picture of a family, beach scene or house.

 

§  Timed writing. Students are given a picture to write about. They have five minutes to write as many sentences as they can about the picture. After this first attempt, they write down the number of words they wrote. They can compare responses with a partner and feed back to the teacher. They repeat the same task later, for example during the next lesson, and note down how many words they managed to write the second time (adapted from Nation, 2014).

 

§  ‘Sentence puzzle race.’

w  Two students are each given identical or similar jumbled-up sentences.

w  The student who reads out the sentence in the correct form is the winner.

w  A third student acts as timer/referee.

w  As a post-task students could do some L1-L2 translation of the same sentences or write a paragraph aimed at reusing the same or similar sentences (best for higher-achievers). If the aim is fluency building, ignore errors.

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