Accuracy and Fluency

Written by Chris Cotter

It's important to balance accuracy and fluency among the various stages and activities in a
lesson. Both refer to the productive skills of the students. Where one focuses on getting the
language right, the other focuses on getting the language out smoothly and quickly.
What is Accuracy?
Accuracy refers to the mechanics of the language. Students address and improve on the
following ideas:
Clear and articulate speaking or writing.
Language free from grammar mistakes.
Words spelled and/or pronounced correctly.
Language appropriate to the situation and/or context.
When a teacher, classroom, or student fails to consider accuracy in the class, then students
may sound less fluent and capable with the language. This can quickly cause problems when
students need to use the language for more than casual conversation.
For example, let's say a businessperson uses English for email, as well as regularly attends
teleconferences with the head office. Because English ability is so visible, it oftentimes easily
gets confused with overall job ability or competence. The businessperson thus sounds less
capable in the world of business, especially with peers and colleagues he doesn't regularly and
directly work. It really isn't much different than a colleague who dresses in shorts and stained t-
shirts. In most business industries, peers simply don't take him seriously or believe him to be
fully competent.
There are unsympathetic listeners to consider too. Most native English speakers in the real
world outside of the classroom don't have the background or the patience to work through the
mistakes of a non-native English speaker. Whether the mistakes come from the native tongue of
the students, are pronunciation problems, grammar problems, or even cultural differences,
breakdowns in communication occur. What had been intelligible in the classroom for the teacher
and other students is suddenly no longer intelligible outside the classroom.
It must be noted here: Too much attention to accuracy results in students unable to use the
language. They breakdown the sentences, translate them, and look at the sentences from
different angles to minimize mistakes. This results in very slow response times. The language
becomes less able to carry out its purpose, namely to effectively communicate ideas and
information.
What is Fluency?
Fluency focuses on the flow of language. Sentences must be spoken smoothly and with few
pauses. In addition, students respond to questions and information quickly. Lastly, it's important
that students participate in a conversation, not simply react to it.
There are a number of factors which affect fluency. To start, unfamiliar material results in less
smooth, less quick language production. This is especially evident when the teacher first
presents the target language (grammar, vocabulary, phrases, etc.). Students of all levels, when
faced with new material, must process and practice it. A certain level of automaticity must be
achieved before also gaining a level of fluency.
And what is automaticity? The term refers to the recall time on the target language. Students
work towards producing the new structures naturally and with less thought. When students
repeatedly practice a word, phrase, or sentence structure, then the new material becomes
automatic. Students require less time to think about how to produce the language. Improved
automaticity directly affects fluency.
It's important to note that too much information presented and practiced at once hinders fluency.
For example, as students must become familiar with new material in the earlier stages of a
lesson, they struggle with longer and richer sentences. In short, there's simply too much to
juggle all at once.
Of course the whole of the lesson shouldn't be restricted to short sentences that narrowly focus
on the target grammar and/or vocabulary. However, restrictive practice at the start improves
productive fluency later in the lesson. As the lesson progresses and students become
comfortable and familiar with the target language, additional information for longer, richer
sentences can be worked into the lesson plan.
Response time also measures fluency. If someone asks a question, and the student takes
several seconds before giving any answer, this can be considered poor fluency.
Slow responses most often occur with lower-level students. However, even higher-level
students may struggle with response times. In both cases, students may know the grammar or
vocabulary, but must nevertheless process it when encountered. In short, it takes time to
retrieve the needed information.
Lower-level students also tend to translate questions and answers from their native language to
the target language, then back again. This further hinders fluency.
Lastly, students need to be able to participate in a conversation. When students simply ask and
answer questions, without adding detail, supporting information, tangents, or additional
questions, then this is merely reacting to the conversation. Fluency should also be considered in
terms of enriched grammar and vocabulary, all of which add to meaning, nuance, and so on.
Let's look at the following exchange which serves as an example of reacting to a conversation:
Student A: What are you going to do this Saturday?
Student B: I'm going to see a movie.
Student A: What are you going to do on Sunday?
Student B: I'm going to study for the English test.
Student A: What are you...
Such conversations are common at the lower levels, but some detail can still be added if the
teacher explicitly and repeatedly gives attention to this point. The teacher needs to set clear
goals that the class works steadily towards, such as creating longer, richer conversations.
Opportunities for discussion, as well as other open activities, help improve this point.
At higher levels, the same reaction to a conversation may occur with difficult subject matter.
Students may lack knowledge on the topic in their native language too, which results in a far
less rich discussion in the target language. The teacher can assign preparatory homework,
perhaps with the students receiving several question cards for essays or presentations.
Fluency is thus a very important aspect of the language classroom. Students should be able to
accomplish the following for fluent conversations:
Acquire and use the needed target language.
Respond with few pauses, or quick access and activation of information.
Participate in a conversation.
How to Balance Accuracy and Fluency
With a clearer definition of accuracy and fluency, let's now look at how to effectively balance the
two. Although some ideas and information has been briefly mentioned above, it proves
important to now discuss the balance as a separate entity.
When the teacher develops a lesson, the early portions of the lesson generally get devoted to
acquisition of the target language. Students need to learn the new material and produce it
accurately. As a result, activities tend to be narrowly defined. This allows students to explicitly
focus on one aspect of the target language. And as students become comfortable with the one
aspect, then additional points and/or information can be added. Students don't need to juggle
too much information.
Of course, as the students practice, the teacher shouldn't expect zero mistakes. No matter how
much practice occurs, mistakes continue to occur. In addition, the teacher shouldn't restrict the
lesson to controlled and repetitive activities. For example, if students drilled and drilled and
drilled the language for the majority of the class, then everyone would quickly become bored.
There would be little challenge, little engagement, little interest. Both the students and the
teacher wouldn't offer careful thought to the lesson contents.
It should be noted that drills and controlled activities improve fluency too. Improved familiarity
with the target language means an improved level of automaticity. This then translates to
quicker and smoother response times.
However, as was mentioned earlier, fluency consists of more than quick responses to
questions. Students must also be able to access and activate the knowledge. Students must be
able to add detail for richer responses. Students must be able to participate in a conversation.
Hence the latter portion of the lesson gets devoted to these other aspects for better fluency.
With increasingly open-ended activities, students must provide longer and more detailed
answers. Students further mix grammar and vocabulary from past lessons. They also mix pre-
existing knowledge gained from personal studies, interest, and exposure to English with the new
material. All of this allows students to create more realistic and richer conversations, which they
may also immediately apply outside the classroom.
Productive and Receptive Levels
Let's conclude with a brief word on productive and receptive levels, as both connect to accuracy
and fluency. Productive and receptive levels can be defined as the following:
Productive Level: This refers to language use, specifically speaking and writing.
Receptive Level: This refers to listening and reading, or input and comprehension.
For effective communication to occur, students must be able to produce and receive
information. A poor productive level may mean that students have the information but can't
speak quickly or correctly. On the other hand, students may try to dominate a conversation
because of a poor receptive level. They speak and speak without actually participating in the
conversation.
Attention to productive and receptive levels ties directly to accuracy, fluency, and the activities in
this resource book. A teacher may correctly assume that students understand the target
language, and thus ignore additional opportunities to improve language production. In other
words, the teacher ignores activities for better accuracy and fluency simply because students
understand the new material. An apt analogy would be assuming someone a capable driver
after only a few sessions behind the wheel! Drills are needed to improve accuracy and response
time.
Conversely, the teacher may spend too much time on drills and short activities that don't allow
opportunities for rich and detailed use of the language. This results in a poorer receptive level
because students don't have the chance to meaningfully interact with one another.
To conclude, the teacher must not only consider accuracy, fluency, and the balance of the two,
but he must also consider both sides to language use. Focus too much on accuracy, and
students are disengaged and unable to connect to the content. Focus too much on fluency, and
students make so many mistakes that they cannot be clearly understood.