Brain to mouth: Are you receiving me? – Ben Parry Davies

Brain to mouth: Are you receiving me?

How to improve fluency through individual and group practice

One of the main objectives of most language students is to be able to converse with confidence and fluency in a variety of situations, in short, to speak the language well. The classic problem of course is that most students have few opportunities to speak a foreign language outside the classroom, and little communicative objective to stimulate meaningful speaking practice. However, all is not lost; there are many opportunities for a variety of speaking activities, both individual and in groups, which can to a certain extent compensate for this lack of real life conversation practice. Firstly, it is important to challenge three relatively common assumptions:

Conversation with other people is the only useful speaking practice; in fact, a large part of our ability to speak a language comes from giving the brain plenty of practice of connecting to the mouth and of allowing the mouth to become accustomed to forming the sounds of a different language. By drilling new words and phrases intensively, it is therefore possible to have meaningful practice without necessarily speaking to anyone else.

Conversation with native speakers is the best way to improve fluency; it certainly helps to have native models to imitate, but again speaking does not depend solely on who is listening, and you can practice your side of the conversation equally well even if you are talking to other Brazilians. It is also worth remembering that a large proportion of the English spoken in the world is among non-natives, meaning that many students will in fact need to speak English to other foreigners, so again they do not necessarily need to focus exclusively on conversation with ‘the natives’.

Free conversation is the most realistic type of practice; again, authentic open-ended interaction in a language may be preferable, but in fact a large proportion of our everyday conversations consists of the famous ‘chunks’ of language, all of which can be usefully practised as an individual. With a little imagination and preparation, the 3 categories identified by Michael Lewis* can form the basis of regular drills; Collocations (words that are frequently combined), such as miss + bus or heavy + smoker; Semi-fixed expressions (phrases with limited variation), such as How was your ….? or What time does the …open?; Fixed expressions (which may also be idiomatic), such as Make yourself at home or To cut a long story short.

Speaking to yourself

One of the most common reasons given by students for not practicing language more is lack of time, the difficulty of including periods of study in an already hectic schedule. However, it is not always necessary to do anything outside your normal routine, as there are in fact many daily activities that can be combined with some individual speaking practice, for example:

• Driving: instead of just sitting in traffic, use the time to (listen and) repeat important words and phrases. Can also be done on public transport, but be prepared for some funny looks from other passengers!

• In the shower: many people like singing there, so why not saying (or singing) phrases in English? Put a plastic folder in the shower that will keep your daily list dry!

• Shaving/putting on make up/getting dressed: again, a few precious minutes in which your mouth could be getting used to some new combinations. Just stick your list by the mirror…

• Working out: whether you jog, cycle, lift weights, do aerobics or just walk the dog, many types of physical activity also allow you to (listen and) repeat key language.

• Break time: even 10 minutes of regularly speaking English with a colleague during a coffee break or lunch hour can provide valuable practice.

Most importantly, bear in mind the importance of studying a little, but often; if for example you manage to memorize just 5 new phrases or examples each day, 6 days a week, by the end of the year your vocabulary will be 1500 phrases richer!

In addition to repeating aloud as many times as possible everything that you read, write or hear in English, a wide variety of drilling techniques can be included in your daily period of study:

• Fluency or death! Set yourself a target to repeat with total fluency an expression or example sentence a specific number of times (3, 5, 10 etc.), with absolutely no hesitation, repetition or mispronunciation. Repeat the process, but saying the phrase a little faster each time.

• Build up. To help articulate difficult word combinations, construct phrases word by word, starting either from the beginning or from the end, for example:

It’s…It’s not…It’s not worth…It’s not worth it
Lately…busy lately…so busy lately…been so busy lately…I’ve been so busy lately

• Substitute and transform: drill a sentence, then change one element (the pronoun, a noun, the verb) and repeat, or change the tense, positive to negative, or positive to interrogative:

I’ve just been to the mall → We’ve just been to the bank
She’s coming at 8.00 → She isn’t coming at 8.00 → Is she coming at 8.00?

• Imaginary partner: as well as simply recording yourself to have a better idea of how your speaking could be improved, you can also record questions or one side of a conversation, leaving suitable gaps in the recording to then reply to the questions or complete the dialog when you play it back.

• Out of body experience: to add variety and have a bit of fun, try speaking with different emotions or characters, for example in an angry, nervous or sarcastic voice, in a very deep or high voice, or imitating a famous person/someone you know.

• I’ve got rhythm: to stimulate both auditory and kinesthetic memory, repeat sentences as a chant, clapping hands, stamping feet or nodding your head on the stressed words and syllables, for example:

I went to the shops to buy some food. What did you get?
I bought some meat and I got some juice. How much did you spend? I spent a lot

Talk to me my friend

Speaking practice in a group or pair has the obvious advantage of allowing interaction between students with a communicative objective, as well as the exchange of ideas, opinions and experiences. In addition, it can provide an important incentive to practice regularly, as knowing others are expecting you at a specific time makes it harder to make excuses not to study! Group members can also help each other by correcting and analyzing errors, testing each other, monitoring progress and generally boosting group confidence by encouraging each other to speak in a relaxed setting. So how can you form a conversation pair/group? Here are some suggestions:

– Classmates/workmates who may be able to meet before or after class/work

– Friends or relatives who could meet up easily and regularly

– Advertise; notice boards in school/university/supermarket, local newspaper. If there is bar/club in your city where people go to speak English, try advertising there

– Internet: classifieds, social network sites, national sites such as learnenglish.com
Don’t forget you can also talk on Skype, even through international sites such as InterSpeakers.com

Once you have found at least one other person, arrange together the day and time of the meetings, the venue, a basic plan of the topics and activities to be covered, and who will provide the snacks/cake/beer…

In addition to typical social interaction (greetings, talking about the recent past, work/studies, family, future plans, health, current affairs etc) there are numerous activities that can be used to stimulate speaking practice, among others:

• Warm ups; 20 questions (one student thinks of a person, object or place and the others have 20 yes/no questions to discover it); What’s the question? (each student gives the answer to a question and the others try to guess what the question is); Don’t say no (students ask each other questions but lose a life if they answer with the words yes or no; Describe a picture (to other students, who must then draw it and compare at the end).

• Show and Tell: one or all of the students bring something to stimulate conversation; photos or personal objects; article or picture from a newspaper, magazine or the Internet; the summary of a film, book or TV program; personal experience, story or joke; interview or discussion questions on a specific topic.

• Definitions: write some key words/phrases on slips of paper and put them face down. Students take turns to look at a slip, then give a definition without saying the word(s) on the paper, but instead using expressions like: What do you call a person who…/a thing for (doing)/a place where…?; It’s a word which means [the same as…]; It’s an expression you use when…

• Board game: on a piece of A3 paper, draw a ‘circuit’ of any shape and divide into a certain number of squares (20 for example). On each square write a number which corresponds to question or instruction, such as Tell us about your best friend or What’s the best film you’ve ever seen? Students then use a dice and counter to go around the board, following the instructions and keeping the conversation going for as long as possible.

• Role plays: students act out typical interactions such as waiter/client, father/son or receptionist/guest, which can also have a specific objective such as getting your money back, changing a reservation or choosing the best candidate for a job.

• Drills: either choral drills, taking turns, choosing the next student or as questions/answers. Another option is the subjective drill, in which students repeat a sentence only if it is true for them personally.

• Continuous stories/dialogs: one student starts a story (well-known or made up) or dialog, and the next student must continue it in an appropriate way. To give the activity more structure, a list of key words/phrases can be prepared in advance which must be used (and crossed off) as part of each turn.