Accuracy and Fluency: Giving each its place

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Accuracy and Fluency Giving each its place

• JoAnn Miller, Editorial Macmillan
• miller_at_room20.org
• www.efltasks.net

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Fluency

• The ability to produce written and / or spoken
  language with ease
• Speak with a good but not necessarily perfect
  command of intonation, vocabulary and grammar
• Communicate ideas effectively
• Produce continuous speech without causing
  comprehension difficulties or a breakdown in
  communication

Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics
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Accuracy

• Ability to produce grammatically correct
  sentences
• May not include the ability to speak or write
  fluently.

Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics
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Self-Assessment

• The amount of emphasis you put on accuracy or
  fluency depends on your students
• Tourism?
• Translation?

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Four skills

• Reading
• Intensive vs. Extensive
• Listening
• Intensive vs. Extensive
• Writing
• Process vs. Free
• Speaking
• Planned vs. Spontaneous

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Reading Extensive

• Reading for overall understanding
• Longer piece of text
• Worry less about individual words and sentences
• Get caught up in flow of ideas

Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching. Heinemann,
1994, p. 152-3.
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Reading Intensive

• Short sections or sentences
• When we need to understand information in detail

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Listening

• Intensive vs. Extensive like in reading
• Intensive listening
• Instructions
• Extensive listening
• A movie
• A conversation

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Process Writing

• Teacher doesnt just assign a writing topic and
  receive the finished product for correction with
  no intervention in the writing process itself.
• The process is as (or more) important than the
  product
• Students plan, write, rewrite, edit individually
  and in groups with teacher supervision

Stanley, G. Approaches to process writing.
Teaching English. British Council, BBC.
http//www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/write/proc
ess_write.shtml
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Freewriting

• Not just for brainstorming
• Practice for decreasing students inhibitions
  about writing
• Allow them to increase written fluency
• Reassure students continually that whatever they
  write is OK
• BUT must keep writing..write as much as possible

Gretchen Jude (1999). Freewriting for fun and
fluency. http//langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/
tlt/99/jul/sh_jude.html
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Now you try it.

• Theme The best class I ever had
• Rules
• Dont erase
• Dont stop writing

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Speaking

• Fluency concerns the learners capacity to
  produce language in real time without undue
  pausing or hesitation.
• Accuracy how well language is produced in
  relation to the rule system of the target
  language.

Peter Skehan, Second language acquisition
research and task-based instruction, Challenge
and Change in Language Teaching, J. Willis and D.
Willis, ed. Heinemann, 1996. P. 22.
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Task-based methods

• Recommend fluency activities first
• Then follow up with accuracy activities

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Accuracy in Tasks

• Whenever learners are involved in communication
  they are concerned with accuracy
• In spontaneous communication -- little time to
  reflect on the language they produce.
• If given time to prepare, there will be more
  accuracy

Dave Willis, Accuracy, fluency and conformity
Challenge and Change in Language Teaching, J.
Willis and D. Willis, ed. Heinemann, 1996. P. 50.
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Fluency in Tasks

• need opportunities to process language for
  communicative purposes as receivers and
  producers.
• should be unfettered by the perceived need to
  conform to teacher expectations in terms of the
  production of specific language forms.

Dave Willis, Accuracy, fluency and conformity
Challenge and Change in Language Teaching, J.
Willis and D. Willis, ed. Heinemann, 1996. P. 50
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The Task Cycle Task (Fluency)

• Pairs or groups.
• use any language they have to express themselves
  and say what they want to say.
• T walks around and monitors
• helps Ss formulate what they want to say, but
  doesnt correct errors in form
• Emphasis on spontaneous, exploratory talk and
  confidence building in small group.
• Success helps Ss motivation.

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The Task Cycle Planning / Reporting (Accuracy)

• Planning
• Ss draft and rehearse what they want to say or
  write.
• T helps advising Ss.
• Emphasis on clarity, organization and accuracy
• Reporting
• T asks some pairs to report briefly to whole
  class so everyone can compare findings--or begin
  a survey
• T chairs, comments on content, rephrases but
  gives no public correction

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Now you do it

• In pairs, tell your partner about your worst
  teaching experience

• Now, write your experience

• Change partners and tell the story again

• How did it change?

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So, what to do in class

• Reading
• Encourage students to do free reading of longer
  passages (fluency) as well as in class exercises
  (usually accuracy)
• Listening
• Encourage students to watch movies and listen to
  songs in English (fluency) as well as class
  practices (accuracy)

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• Writing
• Include freewriting (fluency) daily or weekly for
  a few minutes
• Speaking
• Follow a task cycle

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Thank you very much.

• JoAnn Miller
• miller_at_room20.org
• Handout available at www.efltasks.net