Can You Speak English

A Look at What Fluency Really Means

By Dr. Edwin C. Weaver

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How fluent are you at English? Almost every application for employment will ask the question, 'how fluent are you?', yet the relationship that fluency plays in proficiency is still unclear (Butler-Wall 1986; Hieke 1985). A person may be considered fluent, yet not proficient or via versa.

There is little understanding of what comprises fluency in nonnative speakers (Riggenbach 1989). For the most part fluency is defined as 'planned, smooth, effortless speech without numerous pauses' (Raupach 1989:268).  It is easier to judge if a person is proficient at written English than to judge if they are fluent in speech.

We can give oral exams to assess the person and normally that is the way we determine their level of fluency in most institutions. However, the type of testing or the type of conversation will determine if the speech is considered fluent or not.

A person may be rated fluent in one type of test (dialogue, cued dialogue, monologue or cued monologue) yet not rated fluent in a different type of test. Additionally, different examiners focus on different parts; fluency in grammar, utterance, discourse, phonetic or sociolinguistic levels. The context and the examiner determine the rating. All of this adds to the confusion in determining if a person is fluent or not.

As an educator working with mainly ESL learners, I am always confronted with the task of determining if a person is fluent or not. There are so many aspects to look at when making this decision. I have had occasion to pronounce a person fluent and later informed that the person was not considered fluent.

As an administrator, I have outlined the criteria for assessing students for fluency. We, as an institution, have proclaimed that a student is fluent, yet the teacher disagreed with our ruling. There is always the other side of the coin, so to speak.  I know many of my colleagues have faced the same difficulties.

For example; you are the teacher of a group of young learners. You give periodic exams, according to the institution where you work, and at the end of the course or term, write a report about the student. In this report you claim that the student is fluent at English. Later, the student has a planned oral exam in which he/she does poorly.

Were you wrong? Are you a poor instructor? Was the institution wrong? What happen?

That is easy to explain. In class, you work with the student in an atmosphere which is relaxed. The student knows you and has become accustomed to your way of teaching, habits, etc. The student feels confident talking to you. You have great conversations, but soon the student goes to take a formal exam.

When the student goes to an exam the student is stressed. He/she probably does not know the other examiners. He/she has no idea of how to act or react. Therefore, the formal exam will prove disastrous compared to the classroom conversation and this is normal. Students will perform their best in a situation in which there is the least amount of stress (Brown & Yule 1983).

Additionally, if the student is talking about a series of events instead of answering multiple questions, they will exhibit a higher degree of fluency. If you give the student a topic to plan a discussion, he/she will perform better than if you ask questions where they have to give shorter, unplanned answers. Of course, even with the planned discussion, you still need to apply sufficient cueing to provide structure to the discourse, otherwise the exam could be bias and the student will be evaluated as having less fluency that actual.

Another problem is culture, yes culture. As stated, fluency is defined as 'planned, smooth, effortless speech without numerous pauses'. Every culture has its own speech patterns. The pauses we consider numerous or long, may in fact be normal for the culture. The student will speak English in the same style in which he/she speaks their native tongue (Olynyk 1990). Often we will describe the person as having problems with fluency, when they are speaking properly for their culture.

There are so many variables when considering if a person is fluent, which can be confusing to student as well. Imagine the student who graduates from a course at one institute and enrolls for an advance course at another institute and is denied direct admission because he/she is not consider sufficiently fluent. The student thinks that the first institute did not complete their responsibility to him/her or if he/she has confidence in the first institute believes that the second institute is trying to get extra money from him/her.

Indeed, we as educators have great challenge before us. We must attempt evaluate every student fairly and correctly and at the same time take into account all the variables which may affect the outcome. Take into account the variables, judge fairly and if someone differs with your verdict, take it with a grain of salt. We are all trying to get the student to the same point, but we all look from our own point of view. After all, the other person may have seen something that you missed or something that will make the student a better speaker of English. By cooperating with each other we will succeed in helping the student.

References:

Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the spoken language: an approach based on analysis of conversational English. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Butler-Wall, B.A. (1986). The frequency of disfluencies in native and non-native conversational discourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Califormia, Los Angeles.

Hieke, A.E. (1985). A componential approach to oral fluency evaluation. Modern Language Journal. 69(2), 135-142

Olynyk, M., D'Anglejan, A., Sankoff, D. (1990). A quantitative and qualitative analysis of speech markers in the native and second language speech of bilinguals. In C.R.Scarcella, E.S. Andersen, & S.D. Krashen (eds). Developing communicative competence in a second language. New York, N.Y.: Newbury House

Raupach, M. (1980). Temporal variables in first and second language production. In H.W. Dechert & M. Raupach (eds). Temporal variables in speech: Studies in honor of Frieda (Goldman-Eisler. The Hague: Mounton.

Riggenbach, H.R. (1989). Nonnative fluency in dialogue verse monologue speech: A microanalytic approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

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