Theme: designing discussion activities and distinguishing fluency and accuracy activities

1.3. Importance of fluency and accuracy
Accuracy is often what we think about when we are learning a language. The term refers to how correct learners’ use of the language system is, including their use of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Accuracy, for example, demonstrates a learner’s ability to use the correct verb forms, articles and prepositions. These are, of course, important skills to learn and the accurate use of language is particularly important in written communication as errors and mistakes tend to stand out more when written down. Such mistakes in all walks of life particularly in academia or business can also cause misunderstandings and reflect badly on the writer, suggesting poor attention to detail or even worse, general incompetence. It takes lots of practice for learners to become accurate in their target languages and it’s something that’s developed through many small steps. Alongside grammar exercises, definitions, gap fills, and drills, teachers often use controlled practice activities to help students work on their accuracy. These enable repeated practice of the target language, with little variation and minimum amount of free speaking. As the answers are either right or wrong, teachers usually correct mistakes made, either on the spot or after the activity.
Fluency refers to the ease with which a learner can explain themselves. In other words, how well can they communicate without pauses or hesitations, without needing to search for words or phrases, and without having to think about what they are about to say/write. When a learner has good fluency, it means that they can produce and engage with language in a smooth and effortless way. Of course, they might make mistakes, but they’re able to easily communicate their thoughts and ideas in both spoken and written form. In all settings, language fluency is incredibly important. After all, it’s not much use knowing all of the vocabulary if you cannot use the words to communicate! Building fluency enables learners to explain their views and engage in conversation with peers and/or native speakers. Outside of the classroom, the ability to communicate fluently will help smooth your entry into a foreign culture, making it easier for you to make yourself understood and to fully enjoy your international adventure!
Paul Nation suggests that the following conditions need to be in place for educators to deliver effective fluency activities for their learners:
All language items involved are already familiar to students,
The focus is on communication not grammatical structure in real-time, and
Supports are in place for students to outperform their normal proficiency
Fluency activities, therefore, tend to focus not so much on how students are communicating but on what they are communicating. Examples of fluency-building language learning activities include peer or group conversations, roleplays, debates, projects, and presentations.
What’s more important? Accuracy or fluency?
All of the research and experts across all commonly taught languages conclude that both accuracy and fluency are vital components for student success and language competency. Yet the practical challenge for educators is all about balance, particularly given that the skills are effectively at the opposite ends of the teaching spectrum. A conversation exercise, for example, is designed to help students practice fluency, teachers shouldn’t be regularly interrupting to correct their mistakes. So how should teachers prioritize and proceed? From Sanako’s international language teaching experience, the focus has to be on the learner and understanding their motivation for taking the course. Apart from formal academic language courses, the majority of learners are focused on using their language skills outside of the classroom. In that context, the answer to the “Which is more important – accuracy or fluency?” question is clear - it’s fluency! As long as students are accurate enough to be understood, then building fluent, confident and competent communicators are more important.
But how can this be easily delivered in a language classroom? Firstly, it’s worth reiterating that accuracy should always be a major part of any language teaching course. Without an accurate knowledge of their target language, students will never be able to be understood. However, it’s a good rule of thumb that accuracy activities come before fluency activities. This is common sense - there’s no point in building fluency with incorrect forms or incorrect words. Get the basics right and then speed it up.To that end, be clear about whether activities are designed to build accuracy or fluency and stick to your plan. If fluency is what you’re after, then don’t keep stopping your students if they make mistakes! Wherever possible try and ensure that lessons incorporate opportunities for students to develop both their accuracy and fluency. Creating exercises that replicate real-world situations is a great way to achieve this whatever language you’re delivering. Accuracy and fluency are two key components of second language acquisition. In today’s world, it seems that learning the usage of grammar and focusing on accuracy are emphasized by many language students over fluency. This topic of accuracy and fluency has been a controversial issue that has been discussed for many years. Although some formalists argue that learning a language means learning forms and rules, some activists take a different view and claim that learning a language means learning how to use a language. Thus, this essay will argue that accuracy is not necessarily more important than fluency. It depends on learners’ needs and the purpose of instruction in second language acquisition. In order to demonstrate this, this essay will first focus on the importance of accuracy and fluency in English learning and show that they are both essential by looking at two different teaching methods. Second, it will turn to discuss both accuracy and fluency in term of learner goals, learner variables and instructional variables. Third, it will suggest what language teachers should do to deal with the issue and find the right balance between them. In this section, it will be argued that both accuracy and fluency are needed in second language acquisition. There has been much discussion about these two components, with arguments put forward in support of either one of the other. However, it will be shown that neither component is useful without the other. Early teaching methods promoted accuracy over fluency. For instance, the Grammar-Translation Method has been used by language teachers for many years. It is the traditional style of teaching method emphasizing grammar explanation and translation. In such a method, it is important for students to learn about the form of the target language. The role of the teacher is the authority. Students merely do what the teacher says and learn. It’s important to balance accuracy and fluency among the various stages and activities in a lesson. Learners usually attain a much higher level of proficiency in the receptive skills than in the productive skills. Mastering the language skills, like mastering any kind of skill, requires a considerable amount of practice. Step by step in the teaching-learning development process the learner should become more proficient. When we say a person knows the language, we first of all mean he understands the language spoken and can speak him. Language came into life as a means of communication. It exists and is alive only through speech. When we speak about teaching a foreign language, we first of all have in mind teaching it as a means of communication. Speech is a bilateral process. It includes hearing and speaking. Both refer to the productive skills of the students. Compared to teaching listening skills, where varieties of techniques have been developed since the introduction of the oral communication courses, partly with the help of new technological devices such as the closed captioning system or mini disk, teaching speaking seems to be far behind. ⁶The former is known as the fluency-oriented approach. From this viewpoint, small grammatical or pronunciation errors are insignificant, especially in the early learning stages. As a matter of fact, too much emphasis on correcting them is considered harmful rather than helpful, for it may cause excessive monitor in the mind, hindering the natural acquisition of spoken skills. The fluency-oriented approach believes that spoken skills are developed meaningful communication. Naturally many EFL teachers support this viewpoint. The latter, on the contrary, places most emphasis on accuracy by pursuing mainly grammatical correctness. This view is called the accuracy-oriented approach. Practices that focus on repetition of newly introduced forms or grammatical structures are thought to help the learning. Although once supported by many linguists, nowadays it is seen as rather obsolete. Stern says that the teachers using this approach complained about the lack of effectiveness in the long run and the boredom they endangered among the students. Few EFL teachers, at least ostensibly, favor this viewpoint. In reality, accuracy and fluency are closely related, which leads us to the notion that accuracy as well as fluency is necessary for successful communication. As Ebsworth says, “A steady stream of speech which is highly inaccurate in vocabulary, syntax, or pronunciation could be so hard to understand as to violate an essential aspect of fluency being comprehensible. On the other hand, it is possible for the speaker to be halting but accurate. Sentence level grammatical accuracy that violates principles of discourse and appropriateness is also possible, but such language would not be truly accurate in following the communicative rules of the target language” Thus, it may not be too much to say one speak fluently without accuracy or vice versa.
Consequently, we see the necessity of combining the fluency-oriented approach and accuracy-oriented approach by meticulously weaving certain language items into communication-oriented tasks. This research paper will discuss how we can develop learners’ speaking by enhancing both accuracy and fluency. In the first chapter, the strength and weakness of these two approaches will be examined. Then, EFL learners’ speech and major causes of inhibition will be analyzed, along with suggestions for remedies to reduce this inhibition. The second chapter will deal with how we can modify the existing learning tasks in order to implement these remedies. Accuracy and fluency are terms characteristic for a successful conversation. Scrivener declares that accuracy is the ability to speak correctly without making serious mistakes and therefore a greater use of instant teachers´ correction within a speaking activity is appropriate. On the contrary, fl uency is the ability to speak confidently without irrelevant pauses or hesitation, however, often with making major mistakes. It is often believed that in corrections made by the teachers could interfere with the aims of the speaking activities. Hutchinson and Waters also explore the importance of learning needs. They maintain that ESP main aim is to teach English as a subject related to the learners’ needs and believe that what makes ESP different from General English ‘is not the existence of a need as such but rather an awareness of the need. The main concern of action-oriented approach to course design is to enable the learners to use the foreign language to accomplish just those tasks that are of most relevance for their professional lives. At this point needs analysis is called for. Vulić claims that an effective needs analysis determines what communicative tasks the learners have to accomplish and what discourses they have to know in order to function in their profession. Teachers should be aware of whether their main goal in a speaking activity is accuracy or fluency and adapt their role in class. The students´ reason for studying the language will sometimes dictate the balance to some extent. For example, adults who learn English for non-academic reasons are likely to be more concerned with fluency, while young learners studying for exams think accuracy is more important. The grammar translation method is a method of teaching a foreign language where the rules of grammar in the foreign language are taught along with the vocabulary of that language. Not much time is spent dealing with the spoken form of the language. One of the major disadvantages of this method of teaching is that it often leaves students frustrated and bored. The students see the language as a bunch of vocabulary, with no particular comprehension. The method has two main goals: to enable students to read and translate literature written in the target language, and to further students’ general intellectual development. The term “Communicative Language Teaching” means different things to different teachers. To most teachers, it simply means a greater emphasis on speaking and oral activities in the classroom. Eskey claims that fluency may cause the signifi cant effect on accuracy, rewarding a learner’s fluency may, in some cases, actually obstruct his or her achievement of accuracy. For example, in order to deliver the message, language learners fi nd the words, but they either pronounce them wrongly or put them together inappropriately. Such problem happens due to the fact that they speak English continually but express themselves poorly. Therefore, although accuracy is not enough by itself, it is still considered as necessary in language learning. Vulić claims there are several elements that can influence accuracy and fluency. One of them is learner goals. A strategy guideline should be provided to assist teachers in determining what degree they ought to focus on. It should be emphasized that every individual learns in diff erent ways. If the ESL learners are young, it is most likely that little grammar instruction is needed. However, if the students are adolescents or adults, focusing on form may be more important. It is also suggested by Vulić that education level is relevant to focus on accuracy or fluency. If adults are at the level of beginners with little formal education, then focusing on form will be less important while fluency is the top priority.⁷ On the other hand, if the learners are at the intermediate or advanced level and are well educated, accuracy may be required and it may be necessary for the teacher to provide some feedback relating to form correction on order for them to make progress. Therefore, focusing on accuracy in not enough, fluency still needs to be concerned in terms of learners´ age, proficiency level and educational background. Moreover, when teacher is teaching receptive skills, such as listening or reading, the emphasis on form will be less important, since these skills require. Nevertheless, this does not mean accuracy can be neglected, because when knowing grammatical structure, learners can build up logical connection between sentences. On the other hand, if the teacher is focusing on productive skills, such as speaking and writing, then formal accuracy will become an essential concern. Furthermore, if the learner’s immediate need is survival communication, formal accuracy is less focused.