Theron Muller, John Adamson, Philip Shigeo Brown, Steven Herder (Eds.) - Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia-Palgrave Macmillan UK (2014)

Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia
Also by Theron Muller, Steven Herder, John Adamson, and Philip Shigeo Brown
Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia (editors)
Exploring EFL Fluency
in Asia
Edited by
Theron Muller
University of Toyama, Japan
John Adamson
University of Niigata Prefecture, Japan
Philip Shigeo Brown

Konan Women’s University, Japan
and
Steven Herder
Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts, Kyoto, Japan
Selection and editorial matter © Theron Muller, John Adamson, Philip Shigeo Brown,
and Steven Herder 2014
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-44939-9
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First published 2014 by
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DOI 10.1057/9781137449405
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Exploring EFL fluency in Asia / edited by Theron Muller, University of Toyama, Japan;
Philip Shigeo Brown, Konan Women’s University, Japan ; John Adamson, University of
Niigata Prefecture, Japan; Steven Herder, Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts,
Kyoto, Japan.
pages cm
Summary: “While individual teachers interpret fluency differently, most working in EFL
agree that it has a considerable influence on the success or failure of students’ language
learning. In EFL contexts, the absence of fluency-based practice opportunities can lead to
low self-confidence, low language learning motivation, and limitations in learners’
productive skills. This volume explores fluency in all fours skills (speaking, writing, reading
and listening) and through a number of different perspectives to build upon existing
research and to expand the fluency discussion to include consideration of classroom
strategies for fluency development in EFL contexts. The definition of fluency as a trait
of speaking is expanded to encompass all four language skills in an effort to illustrate its
importance to all aspects of language learning. This volume includes a mixture of literature
review chapters outlining the research paradigm for ongoing fluency research and !
empirical investigations into fluency development and measurement in the EFL classroom,
making it relevant to both researchers and practitioners of EFL”—Provided by publisher.
1. Language and languages—Study and teaching—Asia. 2. Second language

acquisition—Asia. 3. Fluency (Language learning) I. Muller, Theron, 1977 – editor.
PE1068.A7.E977 2014
428.0071'059—dc23 2014022930
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

To Paul Nation, a gentleman and an inspiration
to many of us. Thank you.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Figures and Tables ix

Preface xii
Acknowledgments xiv
Notes on Contributors xv
List of Abbreviations xxi
Introduction 1
Philip Shigeo Brown and Theron Muller
Part I Fluency in the Curriculum
1 Developing Fluency 11
Paul Nation
2 Employing a Fluency-Based Approach to
Teach the TOEFL iBT: An Action Research Project 26
Steven Herder and Gregory Sholdt
3 Scaffolding Participating, Agencing Friending
and Fluencing 42
Tim Murphey
4 Fluency through Attitude Change 59
Andrew Finch
5 A Lexicogrammatical Approach to Fluency 79
Jason Peppard
Part II Speaking Fluency
6 Addressing Spoken Fluency in the Classroom 101
Steven Kirk
7 An Exploration of Effective Teaching Approaches
for Enhancing the Oral Fluency of EFL Students 120
Sakae Onoda
8 The Influence of Intentional Reasoning
on EFL Fluency Using Tasks 143
Tomohito Ishikawa
vii
viii Contents
Part III Writing Fluency

9 Implementing and Evaluating Free Writing
in a Japanese EFL Classroom 163
Theron Muller
10 Assessing Fluency: A Framework for Spoken
and Written Output 178
Sue Fraser
11 Recent Developments in Writing Fluency Measurement 196
Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif
Part IV Reading Fluency
12 Building Fluency with Extensive Reading 213
Rob Waring
13 Extensive Reading and Students’ Academic Achievement:
A Case Study 231
Mu He
14 Improving Reading Fluency: An Investigation
into Timed Reading 244
Andrew Atkins
15 Improving Fluency in EFL Reading Comprehension
in Adolescents with Learning Difficulties 261
Carol Goldfus
Part V Listening Fluency
16 Developing Listening Fluency in Asian EFL Settings 281
Michael Rost
17 How Can We Enhance EFL Learners’ Listening Fluency?
Teaching Connected Speech to Japanese University
Students Using Songs 297
Junko Matsuzaki Carreira
18 Does Autonomous Listening Increase Fluency? 312
Ya-Chin Tsai
Index 328
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
4.1 A formative learning process 65

5.1 ‘V about n’ DDL exercise 86
5.2 Categorization DDL exercise 90
6.1 Kormos’s model of bilingual speech production 104
6.2 Dialogue from Touchstone, Student’s Book 2 114
8.1 Means of the fluency measures of speech rate,
articulation rate, and mean length of fluent runs
in the no-reasoning task (NRT), the simple-reasoning
task (SRT), and the complex-reasoning task (CRT).
The vertical scale is the number of syllables for each
fluency measure 149
8.2 Means of the fluency measures of silent pauses
per ten seconds, mean length of silent pauses,
and hesitation episodes per ten seconds in the
no-reasoning task (NRT), the simple-reasoning task
(SRT), and the complex-reasoning task (CRT). The y axis
is the frequency of silent pauses per ten seconds,
hesitation episodes per ten seconds, and number of
seconds for mean length of silent pauses 150
9.1 Changes in ten-minute writing word count over time 172
12.1 Types of reading characterized by lexical density
(ERF, 2011) 226
13.1 Representation of the control and experimental groups’
English lessons 237
15.1 The cycle of learning to achieve fluency 268
15.2 A graphic organizer 271
15.3 Reader’s Protocol 274
18.1 Weekly performance by mean rank 321
ix
x List of Figures and Tables
Tables
1.1 Five sets of linked skills activities 17

2.1 Translations of Japanese words related to fluency 33
2.2 Definitions of fluency based on student input 34
2.3 General thematic approaches throughout
the 2010 school year 35
2.4 Average speaking and reading words per minute (WPM)
in the 2010 academic year 36
2.5 Average words per minute in essay writing practice
for the TOEFL iBT 37
4.1 Task types and activities 67
4.2 Student vs. teacher perceptions of changes
in fluency and CMI 70
5.1 Aspects of fluency 82
5.2 Study participants 88
5.3 Test results 93
6.1 Conjugation table for the verb be 111
8.1 Descriptive statistics for the six fluency measures
as a function of task complexity 149
8.2 Summary table of the Friedman test results:
mean ranks in the three task conditions, degrees of
freedom, chi-square values, probability values,
effect sizes, and post hoc test results 151
8.3 Summary of the effect of increasing task complexity along
the intentional reasoning dimension on L2 fluency 152
9.1 Timeline for free writing research 168
9.2 Differences between initial and final data
for all three groups 172
10.1 Framework for analysis of written and spoken data 180
10.2 Practical differences between first-year English
courses F and Y 181
10.3 Analysis of written data (mean scores) 183
10.4 Analysis of spoken data (mean scores) 188
List of Figures and Tables xi
12.1 The relative probable uptake of vocabulary from

coursework and graded reading based on the number
of meetings over two and a half years 220
12.2 Reading tasks that involve implicit and explicit learning
(based on Grabe, 2009, 2011) 223
13.1 Descriptive statistics and results of One-Way Analysis
of Variance (ANOVA) from the pre-test 234
13.2 Quantitative description of students’ extensive reading 237
13.3 Descriptive statistics and results of ANOVA
from the post-test 238
13.4 The results of multiple comparisons by the Fisher’s LSD
test in the post-test 239
14.1 Examples of the composite scoring system 249
14.2 Missing data percentages for treatment groups 252
14.3 Descriptive statistics for treatment groups’ composite
reading scores 253
14.4 Repeated measures ANOVAs by treatment group 254
14.5 Change in scores between reading 1 and reading 12 255
16.1 Features of spoken language 287
16.2 Examples of assimilation in spoken English 288
17.1 Differences between pre- and post-scores on dictation
tests and EIKEN Grade Pre-2 listening sections 304
17.2 Connected speech comprehension results 305
17.3 Results of chi-square of impressions toward the lessons 305
18.1 Pre-test performance 319
18.2 Kruskal-Wallis Test for weekly tests 320
18.3 Post-test performance 321
Preface
The idea for this book originated at a Chinese restaurant in Shizuoka,

Japan, during the 2010 Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT)
International Conference. A private (and delicious) dinner with Paul
Nation was filled with talk of ideas for research, classroom pedagogy,
and ongoing discussion about better understanding the subtleties of
an EFL context. Toward the end of the evening, Philip Shigeo Brown
suggested that, beyond classroom methods, a relatively unexplored
part of language teaching was fluency development. For many of us,
having spent years dealing with the predominant focus in Japanese
language education on accuracy, this topic struck a clear chord. It
quickly became obvious to all sitting around the table that Exploring
EFL Fluency in Asia was a great idea to follow our first book, Innovating
EFL Teaching in Asia.
In retrospect, we were completely spoiled by the smooth and rela-
tively painless process of getting our first manuscript published. We
were somewhat naively convinced that everyone would share in our
excitement about a topic as practical and poignant as fluency as it
related to the EFL context. That was not to be the case. Our fluency
book has slowly taken shape over the past four years, and has been
through a number of revisions along the way. Fortunately, data has
been updated by many of the authors, and we are confident that this
book reflects cutting-edge approaches to fluency in our field. If good
things come to those who wait, we eagerly look forward to this book
informing EFL teachers and researchers around the world.
What’s in a word?
In working with 22 authors and editors on this project, we have seen

distinct evidence that the term fluency means many things to many
people. Initially, we wrestled with the idea that perhaps we might
need to agree on a particular definition for consistency sake. However,
upon further discussion, it became clear that understanding a nuance
of fluency that fits one’s own teaching context or resonated with one’s
students was more valuable for all.
xii
Preface xiii
What this book can do for you?
If you are teaching in an EFL context, whether in Asia or any other

part of the world, the way that the authors discuss or implement
fluency-based activities in their classrooms in order to develop fluency
will resonate with some areas of your teaching experience. If you are a
program developer, there is ample evidence that a balanced approach to
language learning not only includes addressing the four skills, but also
calls for a balance between focusing on accuracy, fluency, and complex-
ity as measurable constructs that can lead to better learning outcomes
for our learners. Finally, for researchers and postgraduate students, our
experience in crafting this volume has led to many more questions and
areas for further research that we wholeheartedly invite you to pursue.
Theron Muller and Steven Herder

Japan, 2014
Acknowledgments
Producing this volume has been a labor of endurance as much as it’s

been a labor of love. It has taken twice as long to get published as our
first volume, Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia, and more than a few times
we wondered if it was destined to be shared with the world or not.
Therefore, first and foremost, we would like to thank all of our authors
who stuck with us, and continued to believe our ongoing email updates
explaining that the book was ‘still a few steps away’ from publication.
One of the highlights for the editors during this long process has been
the opportunity to be able to work with some of the frontline leaders in
defining the EFL context, such as Tim Murphey, Paul Nation, Michael Rost,
and Rob Waring. With the addition of their vast experience and expertise,
our book is a much better resource for teachers around the world.
We also would like to thank the Palgrave Macmillan acquisitions edi-
tors, Olivia Middleton and Rebecca Brennan, who saw potential in this
project despite initial setbacks.
We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers who gave us critical
feedback on earlier drafts of Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia. We hope this
final version of the book does justice to their criticisms and suggestions
for improvement.
The students whose test scores, feedback, and language features that
make up the bulk of data discussed in these pages are what make this
kind of research possible and make the work we do enjoyable, so we
would be remiss if we did not thank them as well. So, thanks for keep-
ing our days interesting and for challenging us to constantly improve
ourselves even as we work to help you improve your language and com-
munication skills.
Finally, as is often the case, with great effort comes great sacrifice, and
so we also want to thank our families and loved ones for all of their sup-
port over the past years as we’ve worked on this extended project. We’re
sorry for the missed games, walks in the park, and cycle rides through
the countryside. We promise to make it up to you in the months and
years to come.
Theron Muller, John Adamson, Philip Shigeo Brown,

and Steven Herder
xiv
Notes on Contributors
Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif is Lecturer of English language teaching

at the Institute of Educational Studies, Cairo University, Egypt. He is the
recipient of various prestigious international research awards, including
ACTFL-MLJ 2009 Emma Marie Birkmaier Award for Doctoral Dissertation
Research in Foreign Language Education, the Canadian Modern Language
Review 2009 Best Graduate Student Paper, and the 2008 Sheikh Nahayan
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship granted by the International Research
Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF). He has published in
ranked and well-known international journals such as Applied Linguistics,
Journal of Research in Reading, Canadian Modern Language Review, and
English Teaching: Practice & Critique.
John Adamson is a Professor at the University of Niigata Prefecture,

Japan where he teaches EAP. He is Chief Editor of Asian EFL Journal
and established two sister journals, Asian ESP Journal and the Linguistics
Journal. He has presented and published in the areas of EAP (English
for academic purposes), interdisciplinarity, CLIL (Content and language
integrated learning), academic publishing and Thai learners.
Andrew Atkins is a lecturer at Kinki University in Osaka, Japan. Andrew

is Coordinator of the JALT Study Abroad Special Interest Group and
Membership Chair of the JALT Task-Based Learning Special Interest
Group. He is a doctoral candidate at Temple University, and his dis-
sertation research is focused on modeling reading fluency development
using timed reading, extensive reading, word recognition reaction time,
vocabulary size, and working memory data. His other research interests
include international education, CALL (computer aided language learn-
ing), research methodology, and language testing.
Philip Shigeo Brown has taught in various contexts in Japan since

2001, and is a lecturer and learning advisor at Konan Women’s
University. He is also a tutor on the University of Birmingham, UK’s
distance MA TEFL/SL program, a mentor for the International Teacher
Development Institute (iTDi), and a founding member of MASH
Collaboration. Phil is the co-editor of Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia,
and his principal interests include learner and teacher autonomy
and development, including self-access, negotiated learning, and
xv
xvi Notes on Contributors
vocabulary learning strategies. He is further interested in content-based

instruction, content and language integrated learning, critical thinking,
and global issues.
Junko Matsuzaki Carreira is Associate Professor at Tokyo Keizai Uni-
versity. She has published over 70 articles and book chapters on English
education. Her main publications have appeared in System: ‘Motivational
model of English learning among elementary school students in Japan’
(2013), ‘Motivational orientations and psychological needs in EFL
learning among elementary school students in Japan’ (2012), and
‘Relationship between motivation for learning EFL and intrinsic moti-
vation for learning in general among Japanese elementary school stu-
dents’ (2011).
Andrew Finch is Professor of English Education at the Teachers’ College

of Kyungpook National University, where he teaches graduate and under-
graduate pre-service and in-service Korean teachers of English (Teaching
Practice, Using Drama to Teach English, MALL, graduate thesis supervi-
sion, etc.). His research interests include bilingualism, heritage language
learning, education of the whole person, and task-based materials design.
He was visiting research fellow at the Graduate School of Education
(TESOL), Bristol University, UK, during his sabbatical year (2008), when
he visited bilingual and immersion schools in Europe. He has worked
in South Korea and in Hong Kong (testing consultant), and has authored
a number of ELT course books and resource books, some of which can be
downloaded (free) from www.finchpark.com/books/zip.
Sue Fraser teaches at Seisen Jogakuin College and Shinshu University,

Nagano, where her courses include teaching English through litera-
ture and drama, phonology, presentation skills, and academic writing.
She is also a tutor and dissertation supervisor on the University of
Birmingham, UK’s distance-learning MAs in Applied Linguistics and
TEFL, and is involved with local EFL teacher training in Japan. She has
published on attitudes to varieties of spoken English, learner autonomy,
and language learning motivation, and co-authors a series of Japanese
university entrance exam preparation textbooks. She is currently con-
ducting a comparative study of foreign language education at primary
and secondary levels in England and Japan.
Carol Goldfus is Senior Lecturer at Levinsky College of Education,

Tel Aviv, Israel and Head of the Adam Research Centre for Language
Abilities and Multilingualism. Her research focuses on reading compre-
hension with underachieving pupils with language-related disabilities,
Notes on Contributors xvii
who are unable to succeed in academic settings. She specializes in

literacy acquisition and metacognition with adolescents with/without
difficulties. In teacher education, she is researching and developing
the field of Educational Neuroscience. Carol is a member of the execu-
tive committee of the International Academy for Research in Learning
Disabilities (IARLD).
Mu He used to be a senior high school English teacher in mainland

China. From her teaching experience she recognized the importance of
extensive reading and pursued further study of extensive reading at the
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she received her PhD. She is
currently working in the School of Foreign Languages and Literature,
Chongqing Normal University, PRC. She is also Associate Member of the
Extensive Reading Foundation. Her research interests cover extensive
reading and secondary school English language curriculum in mainland
China.
Steven Herder is Assistant Professor in the Department of International

Studies at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto, Japan.
He teaches first-year TOEFL iBT preparation courses in speaking and
writing, and also leads a third- and fourth-year seminar on Exploring
Leadership. He is active in professional development within the ELT
community, co-founding www.mashcollaboration.com in 2007, an
online community devoted to professional development through col-
laboration. He is an avid user of Skype, Facebook, and Twitter, believ-
ing that ‘Collaboration creates just the right amount of tension to get
lots done.’ He also co-founded the International Teacher Development
Institute (iTDi.pro) in 2012. Steven works from the perspective that
‘being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to learning’. He
is proud of his editing role on Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia and Big
Dipper Series (I, II, and III). For more information about Steven’s teach-
ing beliefs and to view or download some of his writing, please visit
stevenherder.org.
Tomohito Ishikawa is Associate Professor in the Department of English

Communication at Soka Women’s College, Tokyo. He is also a part-
time instructor at Kokugakuin University and Komazawa University in
Tokyo. His current research interests cover issues relating to task-based
language teaching, especially those of the effect of manipulating task
complexity on aspects of second language performance. His publica-
tions include ‘The effect of task demands of intentional reasoning on
L2 speech performance’ in The Journal of Asia TEFL in 2008 and ‘The
xviii Notes on Contributors
effect of manipulating intentional reasoning demands on L2 writing’ in

C. Gitsaki and D. Baldauf (eds), The Future Directions of Applied Linguistics:
Local and Global Perspectives (2012).
Steven Kirk has been teaching English to speakers of other languages
for about 20 years, in the United States and Japan. He has also taught
in teacher training and certification programs. He currently teaches
English for scientific writing at the University of Tokyo, and CLIL
(content and language integrated learning) courses at the Kanda
University of International Studies. He is also currently a PhD candidate
at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research interests include the
development of second language fluency and related pedagogy, con-
struction grammar, and usage-based theories of language acquisition
applied to second language learning.
Theron Muller is Associate Professor at the University of Toyama, Japan.

His publications include exploration of TBL and academic publishing.
He is also lead editor of Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia. Currently his
research interests involve investigating the experiences of authors pursu-
ing academic publication and improvement of journal review systems.
He is active with JALT Publications and The Asian ESP Journal, and is part
of the University of Birmingham ELAL Open Distance Learning team.
Tim Murphey teaches at Kanda University of International Studies,

Japan, and most recently has been interested in appreciative inquiry,
teacher and student improvization, and languaging in medical and
health communication. He has taught in Asia since 1990, in six univer-
sities and nine graduate schools internationally. He is regularly an exter-
nal reader for PhD dissertations, has about a dozen books published
with half a dozen publishers, and has been a conference plenary speaker
about 16 times in 12 countries. He is the co-author with Zoltan Dornyei
of Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom, and TESOL International
series editor of Professional Development in Language Education. Most
recently he co-edited with Jane Arnold Meaningful Action: The Enduring
Influence of Earl Stevick (2013). He also has written a novel about the
Japanese entrance exam system in The Tale that Wags, published in
Japanese and English (2010, 2011).
Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School

of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand. His books on vocabulary include Teaching
and Learning Vocabulary (1990) and Researching and Analysing Vocabulary
(2011) (with Stuart Webb), both from Heinle Cengage Learning. His
Notes on Contributors xix
latest book on vocabulary is Learning Vocabulary in Another Language

(2nd edition, 2013). Two books strongly directed toward teachers
appeared in 2013 from Compass Media in Seoul – What Should Every ESL
Teacher Know? (available free from www.compasspub.com/ESLTK) and
What Should Every EFL Teacher Know? He is also the co-author of Reading
for Speed and Fluency, Books 1–4 (2007).
Sakae Onoda is Professor of English Education at Kanda University

of International Studies, Japan. He has over 15 years’ teacher training
experience as well as extensive experience teaching in high schools
and universities. His research interests include English teacher educa-
tion, listening and speaking fluency development, and self-regulated
language learning. He has published a number of textbooks, including
BBC: Understanding the News in English 10. He is a frequent presenter at
academic conferences and English education seminars.
Jason Peppard is currently working as an English lecturer at Yamagata

University, Japan, where he teaches mostly English Conversation and
English Reading. In addition to teaching, he is an active member of
JALT (The Japan Association for Language Teaching) and spent a term
as co-editor of The Language Teacher, JALT’s bi-monthly publication. His
main research interests include lexical and corpus-driven approaches
to syllabus design, lexicogrammatical fluency development, and task-
based language teaching.
Michael Rost has been active in language teaching, research, instructional

design and teacher development, particularly in Asia, for over 25 years.
He is the author of Pearson English Interactive (http://www.longmaneng-
lishinteractive.com/home.html), Teaching and Researching Listening
(http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781408205075/), and Active
Listening (http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781408296851/),
along with many other influential articles and book chapters on listen-
ing and oral communication. He is also series editor of three popular
classroom materials series, English Firsthand (http://www.eltbooks.com/
item_spec.php?item=480000), Impact Issues (http://www.longmanjapan.
com/search/onlinecatalog.html?id=708), and Contemporary Topics
(http://www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/skills/contemptopics/). Michael
is currently based in San Francisco, and works as a teacher trainer,
instructional designer, and educational game developer.
Gregory Sholdt studied Educational Psychology at the University

of Hawaii, and is Associate Professor in the School of Languages and
Communication at Kobe University, Japan. His teaching activities
xx Notes on Contributors
center on helping students build knowledge and skills necessary for

communicating in English, but he also teaches topics related to cross-
cultural issues, English for Academic Purposes, and statistics. Greg’s
research interests include professional development for teachers,
classroom-based research methods, English for academic purposes, and
fluency instruction. He has been exploring innovative approaches to
fostering interests and knowledge related to conducting classroom-
based research using quantitative methods for language teachers based
in Japan. In this area, he has provided numerous workshops and pres-
entations, and run online courses and collaborative training projects.
He currently serves as the consulting editor for the JALT Journal and the
chair of the JALT Research Grants Committee.
Ya-Chin Tsai is Associate Professor at National Chiayi University,

Taiwan. Her research interests include L2 acquisition, writing, listening,
and CALL. Her scholarly work has been published in peer-refereed jour-
nals such as Language Teaching, Perceptual and Motor Skills, and Journal
of Social Sciences. She is also the author of Asynchronous Peer Review and
Revision: On Written Argument (2009).
Rob Waring is Professor at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama,

Japan. He is an acknowledged expert in Extensive Reading and second
language vocabulary acquisition. He has published over 50 articles
and has lectured in 18 countries on foreign and second language
acquisition. He has written, edited or was series editor for three series
of graded readers, all for Heinle Cengage. He is Executive Board mem-
ber of the Extensive Reading Foundation, is Vice Chair of the Korean
English Extensive Reading Association, and was Co-Chair of the Second
World Congress on Extensive Reading in Seoul, Korea in 2013. He is
the administrator and co-founder of the Extensive Reading website,
www.ER-Central.com.
List of Abbreviations
ALT Assistant Language Teachers

ANOVA one-way analysis of variance
AT autonomous Group
BOE Bank of English
CG control group
CMI confidence, motivation, and independence
CP comparison group
CR complementary reading group
CRT complex reasoning task
DDL data-driven learning
EAP English for academic purposes
EFL English as a foreign Language
ER Extensive reading
ERF Extensive Reading Foundation
ESP English for Specific Purposes
FLG functional-lexicogrammatical
FR free reading group
GEPT General English Proficiency Test
HSECS High School English Curriculum Standard
IPSS Intervention Programme for the Secondary School
KEPT Korean English Proficiency Test
KWL what students know, want to know, and learn
L1 First language
L2 Second language
LA less-autonomous group
LLHs language learning histories
LSD Least Significant Difference test
xxi
xxii List of Abbreviations
MEXT Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and

Technology, Japan
NCT National College of Technology
NRT no reasoning task
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SG structural-grammatical
SPAFF scaffold participating, agencing, friending, and fluencing
SRT simple reasoning task
TBLT task-based language teaching
TR Timed Reading
wpm words per minute
ZPD zone of proximal development
Introduction
Philip Shigeo Brown and Theron Muller
Despite decades of language teaching and research, in the majority of

EFL contexts, English learning remains largely characterized by ‘relative
failure’ (Skehan, 1996, p. 16) due to the inability of many learners
to communicate competently in English once their formal schooling
ends (e.g. Gobel et al., 2013; Yoshida, 2013). Moreover, many if not
most learners in Japan, for example, leave school not only with a lack
of confidence in their abilities but also a strong dislike for learning
English (Benesse, 2007, cited in Yoshida, 2009). Similar patterns of low
confidence, low motivation, and low ability can be seen in numerous
contexts in Asia, with connections being drawn to a lack of interaction
(Wu et al., 2011). Rightly or wrongly, public perceptions and beliefs
toward English ability and English learning in many Asian contexts
remain stereotypically negative, as reflected in if not compounded by
mainstream news media, with headlines such as ‘I no speak English’
(Thanh Nien News, 2011, December 26), ‘Test scores don’t guarantee
English skills’ (Yoon, The Korean Herald, 2012, February 5), and ‘English
fluency hopes rest on an education overhaul’ (Clavel, The Japan Times,
2014, January 5).
Furthermore, while research points to a necessity for space in the
classroom to practice extensive language use or fluency (Nation,
2007, Chapter 1), in many EFL contexts, a focus on grammatical
form or accuracy remains the standard, with the majority of classes
following a teacher-fronted, grammar-translation methodology for
language learning. This is despite as many as three decades of calls
by education ministries across various countries for the development
and implementation of communicative language teaching that fosters
people who can use English fluently and effectively (e.g. Fang, 2012;
Yoshida, 2013).
1
2 Philip Shigeo Brown and Theron Muller
Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia is our response to help address these

issues as we make a case for more extensive language practice and
greater attention to development of fluent language skills in EFL class-
rooms in Asian contexts. Coupled with the desire to help our learners
achieve the often-stated goal of becoming ‘fluent in English’, this book
grew out of our seeking a way to redress their typically negative experi-
ences of compulsory language education, an experience that appears
to be shared by learners in various EFL contexts, including Korea and
China (Allwright & Hanks, 2009; Li, 2001).
However, in looking for solutions, we found that the majority of
research on the topic of language fluency originates in ESL contexts
(e.g. Riggenbach, 2000; Segalowitz, 2010), where the prevailing language
outside the classroom is English. Thus the needs of our students may
not be congruent with the findings of such research, and potential class-
room practices originating from that research may require extensive
adaptation in EFL contexts (Muller et al., 2012).
Furthermore, despite growing attention to reading and more recently
writing fluency, examination of fluency in the language learning litera-
ture has mostly focused on spoken language (e.g. Guillot, 1999) and
measurable construct definitions (e.g. Segalowitz, 2010), restricting
researchers to a narrow aspect of the larger concept of fluency as the
smooth, effortless use of any language skill. Meanwhile, several promi-
nent researchers have focused on examining fluency as part of the triad
of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (e.g. Housen & Kuiken, 2009;
Pallotti, 2009; Skehan, 2009). While we acknowledge these are impor-
tant starting points for research, and there are such investigations in the
pages of this book, we hope that through also exploring the importance
of fluency development using broader measures of language ability and
innovative teaching strategies we can help to improve language learners’
experience of classroom English learning.
Why EFL in Asia?
Nation (2013) explains EFL in the following way:

Teaching English as a foreign language occurs when the foreign lan-
guage, English, is not widely used in that particular country outside
of the classroom. This teaching situation determines three important
characteristics of EFL.
1. The classroom activities may be the only significant source of input

and language use for the learners …
Introduction 3
2. Often, there is no clear learning need. English is learned because it

is important, but not because the learners immediately need it for
communication …
3. The language is typically studied as a compulsory subject, so motiva-
tion and achievement may be low … (p. 7)
Similarly, we believe if EFL students are to experience and use English

extensively, these opportunities must be supported and provided in
their language classes. This is particularly the case in contexts where
high-stakes tests mean English in formal schooling is largely a subject
for examination rather than a means of communication. We feel that
through focus on fluency development in class (Nation, Chapter 1) and
students’ positive experiences of fluency activities, they may be encour-
aged to further their language development outside class, for example
through extensive reading (Waring, Chapter 12) and self-access listening
(Tsai, Chapter 18); but the motivational seeds for this are germinated
through classroom opportunities for fluency development. One tentative
picture that seems to emerge from the chapters in this volume is that
fluency practice appears to improve student performance on some of the
high-stakes tests that are often lamented as barriers to methodological
innovation in language education (Fraser, Chapter 10; He, Chapter 13),
a result we hope those interested in testing outcomes will take note of.
We are interested in English teaching in Asia because this is where
we are based, and so in the tradition of practitioner-research we explore
applications for teaching relevant to our context. In short, we are inter-
ested in speaking of English teaching in Asia, not speaking for language
teachers in Asia, and we restrict ourselves to Asia in the hope that
other teacher-researcher practitioners in other contexts will speak for
themselves.
Taking fluency beyond speaking
While fluency is commonly considered in general lay terms to describe

proficiency, as highlighted by Guillot (1999), in the language acquisition
literature it is often defined in narrow, theoretical terms as a measurable
construct related to speaking only and analyzed, for example, through
number of pauses, hesitations or length of run, even though many
researchers agree that fluency itself is multidimensional (Housen et al.,
2012). It is also often paired with complexity and accuracy in the CAF
model, which looks at how the three different dimensions influence
one another in spoken production (see, for example, Pallotti, 2009).
While we include language research examining spoken fluency from the

perspective of measurable speech characteristics (Ishikawa, Chapter 8),
here we challenge the common treatment of fluency as a language con-
struct representing speaking only. Through our experience of teaching
EFL, we also consider fluency as impacting the other three language
skills—reading, writing, and listening––and recognize that other key
factors may influence fluency development, including learner variables
(e.g. anxiety, attitude, and motivation) and learning variables (e.g.
instruction and task complexity). We believe that this broader perspec-
tive on fluency in language learning, while it might be in the minority
in the literature (see Nation, 2007 and Chapter 1 for a notable excep-
tion), better reflects the majority of learners’ experiences of studying
English and is thus worthy of further exploration.
Perspectives on fluency
In this book we have intentionally left it to the contributors to

define fluency in a way that is meaningful to them in their contexts.
While we understand this decision jars with calls in the research for
‘identification of a limited set of standardized measures to be used
across studies’ (Pallotti, 2009, p. 599), we disagree with a model of
knowledge that involves the discovering of ‘empirical facts that can be
reported as “truths” to the outside world’ (Jarvis, 1999, p. 181), taking
instead a perspective that believes, ‘There are few underlying empirical
facts that can be incorporated uncritically into a body of knowledge of
a curriculum to be taught and applied to practice’ ( Jarvis, 1999, p. 181).
Thus it is the responsibility of practitioner-researchers—like many of
the authors included here—to investigate the concept of fluency as it
applies in their context to their students, treating previous research into
fluency as offering ‘hypotheses to be tested’ ( Jarvis, 1999, p. 181).
Moreover, as notions of fluency are still evolving (e.g. McCarthy,
2010), this volume aims to explore how EFL fluency is actually being
defined and developed rather than attempt to prescribe what we think
it ought to be.
An overview of Fluency in EFL
Keeping in mind the rationale for this volume, we have intentionally

structured it to be more accessible to language teachers by beginning
with practical pedagogical ideas before moving into finer research and
theoretical issues. In addition, we feel research that we can test and verify
Introduction 5
in our own classrooms is often the most compelling to us, so by offering

suggestions for and examples of contextualized classroom research, we
hope to inspire others to further investigate and innovate their own
contexts. However, we have been careful to also include chapters that
present investigations into measures of fluency and quantitative tools
for evaluating fluency, as we feel these are an important part of the
fluency research tradition.
We hope that by moving from the familiar and more general to the
more complex and specific, we facilitate greater understanding as the
book progresses. Hence, we begin this volume by considering Fluency in
the curriculum (Part I) and the first five chapters examine some of the
considerations related to teaching approaches and methodology, mate-
rials, and curriculum design.
In the following four parts, we consider in turn each of the four main
language skills of speaking, writing, reading, and listening. We start
with Speaking fluency (Part II) since this is where traditional notions
and definitions of fluency lie. Next, in Part III we turn to another form
of output, Writing fluency, which has had its definitions traditionally
rooted in spoken fluency measures. Reading fluency (Part IV) attracted
our attention as a significant growth area, particularly with regard to
extensive reading. The final part (Part V) considers Listening fluency,
which, despite gaining attention over a decade ago (Prowse, 2000),
remains relatively under-researched.
Although we have tried to provide a logical structure to this volume, there
are many paths to understanding fluency, and we appreciate that readers
bring with them their own experiences, interests, and goals. For exam-
ple, for teachers interested in pedagogy, Chapters 1–7, 9, 13, and 15–17
highlight classroom practices. Although most chapters are situated in uni-
versity contexts, Muller (Chapter 9), Fraser (Chapter 10), He (Chapter 13),
and Goldfus (Chapter 15) examine high school settings. And while
Murphey (Chapter 3) includes junior high school, together with Nation
(Chapter 1), Kirk (Chapter 6), Waring (Chapter 12), and Rost (Chapter 16),
the findings and discussion apply to a wide range of contexts. Nation
(Chapter 1), Waring (Chapter 12), and Rost (Chapter 16), drawing upon
their extensive experience and expertise, highlight a number of areas and
research questions worthy of further investigation. For teachers interested
in research in context, nine chapters (Chapters 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17,
and 18) offer examples of classroom-based investigations that may be illu-
minating. Meanwhile, those interested in more quantitative and experi-
mental research might consider Ishikawa (Chapter 8), Fraser (Chapter 10),
Abdel Latif (Chapter 11), He (Chapter 13), and Atkins (Chapter 14).
Whatever your path through this book, we want to thank you for
entering onto it with us, and we hope your journey is as enlightening
and rewarding as ours has been. Our aim has not been to prescribe what
fluency should be but to share how it is being defined and developed in
a number of diverse EFL contexts. Last but not least, we hope to inspire
new possibilities for exploring and realizing fluency in your context, in
Asia and beyond.
References
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to Exploratory Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clavel, T. (2014, January 5). English fluency hopes rest on an education
overhaul. The Japan Times. Retrieved from: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
community/2014/01/05/issues/english-fluency-hopes-rest-on-an-education-
overhaul/#.Ux_30GQW1SY, accessed on April 23, 2014.
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Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia (pp. 9–22). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 461–473.
Housen, A., Kuiken, F., & Vedder, I. (Eds) (2012). Dimensions of L2 Performance
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Introduction 7
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Part I
Fluency in the Curriculum
As editors, we decided to front the chapters in Part I from a perspective

of integrating fluency into the whole language learning curriculum.
While we recognize the four skills as important to language learning, it
is the rare encounter with language that involves only speaking or only
reading; fluent users of language are those who are not only able to
speak, write, read, and listen to the language, but can also move seam-
lessly from one medium to another, explaining an email to a colleague,
for example, or summarizing the points from a conference call into
meeting minutes. While mastery of discrete language skills may be a
prerequisite to fluent language use, we felt it important to start Exploring
EFL Fluency in Asia by considering how teachers can promote develop-
ment of fluent language skills from a broad perspective.
Paul Nation begins by reviewing his four-strands concept and sharing
what he feels is important about one of those strands, fluency. He covers
some of the findings of current research into the teaching of language
fluency, suggests practical classroom activities to promote fluency devel-
opment in the language classroom, and finishes by suggesting future
potential directions for language learning fluency research.
Following Nation, Steven Herder and Gregory Sholdt examine the
teaching of TOEFL iBT test preparation in the language classroom,
and specifically how Herder integrates fluency practice for the vari-
ous parts of the test, having students work simultaneously to improve
their speaking, reading, and writing skills in anticipation of spending
a year studying outside Japan. Herder explains how the teaching strat-
egy involved not only instruction in discrete language skills, but also
informing students about the kinds of language skills important to suc-
cess and the purpose of the different activities they engaged in. Herder
and Sholdt finish the chapter by describing how they plan to go on to
9
10 Fluency in the Curriculum
expand classroom fluency research from one classroom to a number of

classroom contexts and a number of different teachers, to further inves-
tigate the effectiveness of fluency training in the classroom.
Tim Murphey builds on the affective concepts discussed in Herder,
exploring the psychological underpinnings of human motivation to
try new things and to succeed. He also explains how the handling of
English as a topic of study, rather than as a means for communicating
with peers, is at least partially to blame for students’ aversion to English
in Japan. He describes how scaffolding participation and agency in a
friendly class atmosphere leads to the cultivation of fluency among
language learners. Murphey shares how this was realized in two very
different classroom contexts, in Japan and in Hawaii.
Next, Andrew Finch examines fluency from a curriculum innovation
perspective, explaining how he approached the integration of language
fluency into the curriculum at two Korean universities. He addresses
how it was important to get the teachers on the programs to understand
and support the goals of the new curriculum, and shares how, while
this did not happen overnight, after some time with the new teaching
system, teachers were convinced of its efficacy; and anecdotal evidence
showed that students were more willing to use English both in and out
of class.
Completing this part of the book, Jason Peppard shares the design
and testing of a functional lexicogrammatical syllabus to address the
lack of a principled, corpus-driven treatment of lexicogrammatical pat-
terns in the majority of commercial ELT materials. The syllabus uses a
pedagogic corpus from which lexicogrammatical patterns are extracted
and linked to data-driven learning exercises and corpus-driven pattern
grammar, organized functionally and incorporated within a task-based
framework. His preliminary evaluation showed the syllabus to be effec-
tive for raising and retaining student awareness of lexicogrammatical
patterns, and confirms that traditional teaching approaches fail to
highlight their importance for students by artificially separating lexis
and grammar.
1
Developing Fluency
Paul Nation
What is fluency?
In general, fluency means making the best use of what is already known.
Fillmore (1979) has described several senses of the word fluency, of which
one was ‘the ability to fill time with talk’ (p. 93). If we apply this sense to
a wider range of skills than speaking, then fluency can be described as the
ability to process language receptively and productively at a reasonable
speed. In this chapter, this is the definition that I want to use, noting that
it is primarily a quantity-based definition rather than one that considers
quality of production. Lennon (1990) investigated several measures of
fluency in speaking using such a quantitative definition.
How should fluency fit into a language course?
Fluency development is one of the four strands of a well-balanced language

course. The strands include meaning-focused input, meaning-focused
output, language-focused learning, and fluency development (Nation,
2007a). Each of these four strands should get roughly equal time in a course,
so one quarter of the total time in a language course should be spent on flu-
ency activities. However, the other three strands also contribute to fluency.
The language-focused learning strand may involve the deliberate learning
of multiword units, which, as Palmer (1925) has noted, can be the basis
for early fluency in speaking—‘Memorize perfectly the largest number of
common and useful word groups!’ (p. 187). The language-focused learning
strand may also be where learners practice fluency in accessing individual
words. The meaning-focused input and meaning-focused output strands
are also likely to provide opportunities for fluency development if the
burden of unknown words is not too heavy in activities in the strands.
11
These, however, are not substitutes for the fluency strand, and it is
important that there is a fluency strand in the course from the very first
day of learning. Even with a very small amount of language knowledge,
learners should be able to use this knowledge in fluent ways. This is
most clearly seen in courses with very limited goals, such as a course on
survival English. The survival vocabulary for foreign travel (Nation &
Crabbe, 1991) contains around 120 items that are very useful for a
traveler spending a few days or weeks in another country. These include
items like Thank you very much, How much does it cost? It’s delicious, and
Goodbye. It may take just a few hours to memorize these 120 items,
but it is important that they are not only memorized and pronounced
correctly, but that they are also practiced so that they are fluently avail-
able for both reception and production under real time pressure.
It is important that each of the four skills of listening, speaking, read-
ing, and writing has its own fluency development focus. As yet, there is
no research looking at the effect of fluency development in one skill, for
example reading, on another skill, for example writing. It is likely that
there is some transfer between skills, but it is clearly most efficient to
give skill-based fluency practice. In the following section we look at some
of the most useful fluency development activities across the four skills.
What are the most useful fluency activities?
Fluency is important in the receptive skills of listening and reading as well

as in the productive skills of speaking and writing. Although we tend to
think of fluency as relating to speaking, people read at different speeds and
write at different speeds. While learners need to read at different speeds with
different kinds of material, they also need to be able to be flexible in their
reading so that they can adjust their speed when they need to. Similarly,
in listening, listeners have only small degrees of control over what they
listen to, and so need to be able to adjust to the speed of the speaker.
In line with a skills-based approach to fluency development, the fol-
lowing activities are divided up into the skills of listening, speaking,
reading, and writing.
Listening fluency
Listening to easy stories
The teacher reads an interesting graded reader aloud to the learners as
a serial, reading a few pages each day. As the learners get used to the
story the teacher gradually speeds up the reading. Lists of prize-winning
Developing Fluency 13
graded readers can be found on the Extensive Reading Foundation

website at http://www.erfoundation.org/erf/.
Repeated listening to CDs

The learners listen to CDs that come with graded readers. They listen
to the same story several times over several days until it is easy to listen
to. One of the most exciting recent developments with the potential for
improving listening fluency is the availability of digital recorders where
the playback speed can be adjusted to be either slower or faster without
distorting the pitch of the playback. This allows learners to listen slowly,
and to increase the speed of their listening as they listen again to the
same material or as their proficiency develops.
Focused repeated listening

The teacher writes the items to be learned, for example ways of refer-
ring to time (last week, next week, the day before yesterday, etc.), on
the board and then says them quickly in random order while a learner
points to them. Then the learners do this in pairs. The activity contin-
ues for several minutes until the learners are starting to get faster at
recognizing the phrases.
Speaking fluency
4/3/2
The learners work in pairs. Learner A talks to learner B on a very famil-
iar topic for four minutes. At the end of four minutes the teacher stops
them and tells them to change partners. Then learner A gives exactly
the same talk to their new partner for three minutes. They change part-
ners once again, and learner A for the third time gives exactly the same
talk to their new partner for two minutes. Then it is learner B’s turn
(Maurice, 1983).
The best recording

The learner makes a recording of a short text. Then she listens to it and
rerecords it until she is satisfied that this is her best recording of it.
Reading fluency
A speed reading course
The learners read very easy passages that are all the same length and
record their speed on a graph. They answer multiple-choice ques-
tions and record their comprehension score on a graph. For controlled
vocabulary speed reading courses, see Nation and Malarcher (2007), Paul
Nation’s website at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.aspx
for a free 1,000-word-level speed reading course, and Sonia Millett’s
website at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/sonia-millett.aspx for free
1,000, 2,000, and 2,000-plus Academic Word List reading courses.
A speed reading course takes around ten minutes per session. It should
run for around 20 sessions, which could be somewhere between seven
and ten weeks. It requires no real work from the teacher and brings
about substantial increases for most learners, meaning this small time
investment brings large benefits (see Atkins, Chapter 14).
Easy extensive reading

The learners quickly read lots of easy graded readers that are well below
their level. Working with very easy material means it can be processed
at a speed that is faster than learners’ normal reading (see Waring,
Chapter 12). This practice increases learners’ speed of access to these
very common and useful words and phrases.
Repeated reading
Each learner reads the same short text three times in immediate succes-
sion. This activity can be done silently or reading aloud.
Writing fluency
Ten-minute writing
The learners write for exactly ten minutes on a very familiar topic. They
count the number of words they wrote and put the number on a graph.
The teacher does NOT correct their work but praises them for quantity
of writing and responds positively to the content of the writing. The
learners do this kind of writing two or three times a week. Their goal is to
write as much as they can within the ten minutes (see Muller, Chapter 9).
Linked skills
The learners work on the same material through three successive skills,
for example (1) they read the material, (2) then they listen to it, and
(3) then they write about it. There are many such combinations. The
last activity in each series becomes a fluency development activity
because of the previous practice in the other two skills. We look more
closely at linked skills activities later in this chapter.
All these activities share common features that make them fluency
development activities. In the following section we look at these com-
mon features.
What characterizes fluency activities?
The fluency strand only exists if certain conditions are present:
1. The learners’ focus is on receiving or conveying meaning.

2. All of what the learners are listening to, reading, speaking, or writing
is largely familiar to them. That is, there is no unfamiliar language,
and there are largely familiar content and discourse features.
3. There is some pressure or encouragement to perform at a faster than
usual speed.
4. There is a large amount of input or output.
You can decide if an activity is a fluency development activity by see-

ing how well it involves these four conditions. For example, the 4/3/2
activity is message-focused because the speaker has to deliver the talk to
a listener. The listener changes for each delivery so that the task remains
message-focused even though the talk is repeated. The task is easy
because the speaker speaks on a very familiar topic, and repeats the talk.
There is pressure to go faster because the time reduces for each delivery
(from 4 minutes to 3 to 2), and there is quantity of practice because
each learner speaks for a total of nine minutes (4+3+2). The 4/3/2 activ-
ity thus meets all the conditions needed for a fluency activity. Not all
fluency activities meet all of these conditions, but at the very least they
should meet the easy material condition.
Easy extensive reading, for example, does not meet the pressure-to-
go-faster condition, but it meets the conditions of message focus, easy
material, and quantity of practice, and is thus a very useful fluency
development activity. Reading unsimplified text is not a fluency devel-
opment activity for most learners, and thus, as Beglar, Hunt, and Kite
(2012) have shown, is not an effective fluency development activity.
It is a useful teacher development activity to analyze potential fluency
activities to see how well they meet the four conditions. This analysis
has the benefits of developing awareness of the conditions, emphasiz-
ing the idea that it is the conditions that make an activity a fluency
activity, and suggesting ways in which activities can be turned into
fluency activities.
How can teachers design their own fluency activities?
The essence of designing new fluency activities is to make sure that

the four conditions of a message focus, easy material, pressure to go
faster, and quantity of practice are designed into the activities. Of these
conditions, easy material is the most important. It is hard to become
fluent when working with material that is too difficult. There are many
ways of making sure that the material the learners will use is easy for
them. For example, learners can practice fluent writing by:
• Writing about what they have read (in English or their first language)
• Writing about what they have written before
• Writing on a series of closely related topics
• Writing about what they already know a lot about
• Writing about what they have just experienced
• Writing where the language has been pre-taught
• Writing about what they have just discussed.
Note that all of the above writing tasks are easy because the learners bring
a lot of previous knowledge to them, either through past experience or
pre-teaching.
We have discussed linked skills activities briefly above. Let us now
look at them again in more detail because they provide a very effective
and flexible way of creating fluency development activities.
Linked skills activities
Linked skills activities have many benefits, and these benefits are
typical of those where a single topic or subject is focused on for a
considerable period of time, as in content-based learning. One of the
major benefits for a teacher is that they generally require very little
work to prepare and organize, but they get a lot of work from the stu-
dents. They can also provide very useful conditions for language and
content learning. Let us look first at how linked skills activities can
be made, and how to judge whether a linked skills activity has been
well made or not.
Designing linked skills activities

Let us take a typical piece of material that may be used when making
linked skills activities—a reading passage with accompanying ques-
tions. The example I have used in class when training teachers is from
the series Timed Readings (Spargo, 1989). The particular text is on food
handling safety in order to avoid food poisoning.
The activities are described in Table 1.1, which should be read
horizontally. It contains five sets of linked skills activities. Each row
Table 1.1 Five sets of linked skills activities
First activity Second activity Third activity
1 Read the questions without Listen to the Talk about the

seeing the text and try to text and check differences between
guess the answers (Read) and correct your your guesses and the
answers (Listen) right answers (Speak)
2 Read the text (Read) Listen to the Write guidelines for
questions and write storing food safely
answers to them (Write)
(Listen/Write)
3 Write guidelines for storing Talk about your Read the text and
food safely using your own guidelines with answer the questions
experience and background another student (Read)
knowledge (Write) (Speak)
4 Listen to the text being read Write what you can Do a 4/3/2 activity
to you by the teacher, taking remember about on the content of the
notes if you wish (Listen) the text (Write) passage (Speak)
5 Talk to a partner about what Read the text Either prepare and
you know about good food and answer the deliver a talk to your
storage procedures (Speak) questions (Read) partner about
(1) good food storage
procedures OR (2) the
danger of not handling
food carefully (Speak)
is one linked skills series of three activities. The item on the left is the
first activity in the series, which is then followed by the one in the
middle, and then by the one on the right. Theoretically, there are 24
possible linked skills sequences (four choices from listening, speak-
ing, reading, and writing for the first activity, a choice from three for
the second activity, and a choice for two for the third activity) if no
skills are repeated in the series. Note however that there can also be a
lot of variety in the nature of actual activity. That is, there are many
kinds of speaking activities, for example, so the total of 24 is clearly an
underestimate.
So, in the first linked skills series, learners read the questions by
themselves and try to choose the correct multiple-choice answers. Then
they hear the text being read to them by the teacher while they look
at the questions and their answers, correcting them when necessary. In
the third step, they talk to a partner about their guesses and the cor-
rect answers, and report orally to the whole class on the most difficult
questions. The last activity in the series is a fluency activity because the
previous work has made this final activity easy.
Note in the fifth linked skills series that the sequence is Speak–Read–
Speak. In the last step the learners work in pairs, one learner delivering
talk 1 about food storage, and the other student giving talk two about
food handling dangers. Linked skills activities need not use three differ-
ent skills but can repeat a skill, aiming for a higher performance in the
second use of the same skill.
Note that it is possible to mix and match some of the individual
activities in Table 1.1 to make a new series.
How can we judge which series of activities is likely to be the most
effective? We will look at this from the perspective of vocabulary learning,
and also from the perspective of the relative difficulty of the activities in
the series.
1. Ideally, all three activities in the series should draw very strongly on
the same piece of content material. This will ensure that the activities
become easier as learners proceed through the series and that the same
vocabulary and grammatical structures are repeated during the series.
2. Essentially, the three activities should make use of the same language
items, particularly vocabulary and multiword units. The recurrence
of the vocabulary will help learning through the opportunity for
repeated retrieval and hopefully creative use of the vocabulary.
3. Typically, the last activity in a series of three is highly likely to be a
fluency development activity, because at this point the material that
learners are working with is very easy because they have now worked
with it at least twice. That is, they should be well in control of the
content of the material and of the language used to express this con-
tent. The challenge to them is to use this now-familiar content and
language through a skill (listening, speaking, reading, or writing) that
has previously not been practiced with this material. If the teacher
does have a fluency goal for this final activity in the series of three, or
wants the activity to be done particularly well, the teacher should look
at the final activity to see if it is a receptive skill (listening or reading) or
a productive skill (speaking or writing). If it is a productive skill, then
it is probably important that one of the two preceding activities in
the series also involves productive use of the language. So, if the final
activity is a writing activity, it may be useful to make sure that one of
the two preceding activities is a speaking activity, or vice versa. This
is because productive skills (speaking and writing) are usually much
more challenging than receptive skills, particularly from a vocabulary
perspective. Having practiced the material with a productive skill once

makes it much easier to use it again productively in the next or later
activity in the series. Thus, in Table 1.1, the fifth linked skills series
beginning with speaking is likely to be very effective in preparing for
the final activity in the series. Similarly series four, where the produc-
tive skill of writing is followed by the productive skill of speaking, is
likely to enable better performance of the speaking activity than if
both of the preceding activities had been receptive activities.
Monitoring linked skills activities

The following things are worth looking for when linked skills activi-
ties are being used. They relate closely to the three design features just
described above.
1. Are the learners coping well with the activities, especially in the last
two steps of the series?
2. Do the same language items keep recurring in each of the three
activities?
3. Are the learners retrieving the target vocabulary in activities two and
three in the series rather than repeating them from the input sheet?
4. Do activities two and three involve generative use of the vocabulary
from activity one?
5. Are the learners handling the content of the activity more confi-
dently in the later steps?
The activities that are the last two steps in linked skill series are highly
likely to be experience tasks (Nation, 1990, 2007b). That is, they are
activities where learners bring a lot of background knowledge to the
activity. The early steps of the series of linked skills activities can create
and strengthen this knowledge. Because of this, typically the last activi-
ties in a linked skill series are likely to have many of the features of a flu-
ency development task. That is, the task is very easy to do and learners
can do it at a faster than usual speed. For this reason, it is important that
it is not just used as a throwaway activity (for example, for homework
write…), but is given the time and attention that it deserves.
Procedures
In many ways procedures share many of the possible helpful learning
conditions found in linked skills activities. A procedure is a way of
breaking down an activity into steps, partly to make sure that the learn-
ers do not shorten the activity by not doing all that is required, and
partly to improve conditions for language learning during the activity

(Nation, 1989). Here are some common procedures:
1. The Pyramid Procedure (Jordan, 1990), where learners do a task such

as a ranking activity, individually, then do it again in pairs, then in
a group.
2. The expert-groups/family-groups procedure (Nation & Newton,
2009, pp. 70–71), where learners split up into groups, and each
group prepares for a different part of a subsequent task. They then
reform their groups so that one person from each of the specialist
groups is in each reformed group. They then combine their specialist
knowledge to do the whole task.
3. Reporting back, where after learners complete a problem-solving or
ranking task, they report back to the class on the solution they reached.
4. Do and be tested, where after doing a task, learners from different
groups test learners from the other groups on the task.
Many common classroom activities such as ranking activities, reading,

presenting a talk, or listening to a talk can be adapted to have a fluency
goal. For example, a ranking exercise can be done as a pyramid activity,
starting with individual ranking, then ranking in pairs, groups of four,
and finally the whole class.
All true fluency tasks are experience tasks (Nation, 2007b). That is,
they are tasks where the learner brings a lot of previous knowledge to
the task and the only major aspect of knowledge outside the learner’s
knowledge is fluency. This means that the language features (vocabu-
lary, collocations, grammar, discourse) and the ideas involved in the
activity are all largely within the learner’s previous experience.
There are two major paths to fluency—through repetition (the well-
beaten path), and through meeting the same items in a variety of contexts
(the rich and varied map). Activities like 4/3/2 and repeated reading are
repetition-type activities as learners deal with the same material several
times. Activities like reading graded readers, speed reading courses, and
listening to easy stories are rich and varied map activities as learners meet
the same language items in a variety of different contexts.
How can we increase the effectiveness of fluency

development activities?
Most fluency development activities are effective, but their effectiveness

can be enhanced in several ways. Firstly, learners should understand
why there is a fluency development strand to a course, and they should

understand the nature of the strand, namely that it involves working
with easy material to reach a higher level of performance. When they do
a fluency activity they should be aware that it is a fluency activity and
should appreciate its purpose (see Herder & Sholdt, Chapter 2 below).
Secondly, learners should have opportunities to reflect on the value
of fluency development activities. Through discussion and reflection
they should consider the value of being able to process and produce
language at a reasonably fluent speed. This of course is particularly
important where learners have to sit timed tests and examinations,
but fluency also has more widely applicable advantages, such as when
having to read to use language under normal time constraints in daily
language use.
Thirdly, the teacher should make sure that wherever possible, fluency
development activities involve clear markers of progress. With speed
reading for example, the graph tracking reading speed and the graph
tracking comprehension level are very clear indicators of progress.
While 4/3/2 activities do not involve such an obvious marker of pro-
gress, with some thought a teacher may be able to include occasional
measures that will allow learners to see that their spoken fluency is
progressing through the use of such activities.
Fourthly, we can monitor and counsel learners who are not making
progress in a range of fluency development activities. There is evidence
from an unpublished study of a speed reading course that learners who
were not initially making progress in the course all made progress as
a result of one-to-one counseling with their teacher, suggesting that
speaking to learners individually may increase their commitment to the
learning program.
Fifthly, the teacher should make sure that fluency development
activities are done regularly and that commitment to the program does
not tail off toward the end of the program. Fluency development is a
very important strand of a course, and thus it is important to make sure
that it is properly done.
What evidence is there that fluency development

activities work?
Fluency development in the learning of English as a second or foreign

language is a largely unresearched area with regard to the effectiveness of
classroom-based activities (Rossiter et al., 2010). This is particularly strik-
ing when we compare the amount of research done on fluency with the
amount of research done on the other three strands of meaning-focused

input, meaning-focused output, and language-focused learning. Within
the area of fluency, most research has been done on speed reading courses,
although there is quite a lot of corpus-based investigation on spoken
English (Kirk & Carter, 2010).
Many of the studies of speed reading have not involved a control
group, although some of the earlier studies involved a comparison of
first language and second language increases, presumably as a result
of transfer of training (Bismoko & Nation, 1974; Cramer, 1975; West,
1941). In general, research has found reliable increases of a substantial
nature in speed reading courses. Beglar, Hunt, and Kite (2012) have
shown that reading speed increases from extensive reading, especially
extensive reading using simplified texts.
Research on the 4/3/2 activity (Arevart & Nation, 1991; Nation, 1989)
has shown an increase in speed during the activity, but there is no
research evidence to show that it affects speaking outside the activity.
What research needs to be done on fluency

development?
There is clear evidence from research on speed reading courses and

the 4/3/2 speaking activity that fluency improves during the activities.
Research is needed however to show that these increases in fluency
transfer outside of the activities. Even within the activities however
there is evidence of transfer of fluency from one part to another. For
example, in speed reading courses we typically see a gradual increase
in speed from one passage to the next, showing that increases made in
the previous passages are transferred to the next passage read. A student
project as part of an MA course (Wright, 2010) showed that when a
learner did the 4/3/2 activity on a different passage each day, the speed
on the first delivery of the day was greater than the speed on the first
delivery of a different passage the preceding day. That is, fluency gains
from previous uses of the activity on different texts transferred to the
following texts. More convincing evidence however would be of trans-
fer to different kinds of activities, such as transfer from a speed reading
course using hard copy materials to a reading text of a different nature
read on a computer, or to reading for pleasure.
A problem in interpreting these kinds of studies is what is bringing
about the increase in fluency. Clearly, there will be an element of task
familiarity. For example, in a speed reading course the learners need to
get used to the activity, which involves reading a text, recording their
time, answering the questions, and entering their scores on a graph.

This is why, in the Chung and Nation (2006) study, when measuring
fluency increases in the speed reading course, it seemed best to take the
average of the speed of reading the first three passages and compare
this with the average of the last three passages. However, the effect of
task familiarity should disappear quite early into a sustained fluency
development course.
It is interesting to speculate about what changes in the brain when
fluency develops (Schmidt, 1992; Segalowitz, 2010). One possible
change is at the level of vocabulary. As a result of doing fluency activi-
ties, the fluency of access to individual words could be increased. This
certainly happens, but we know that the majority of different word
forms in a typical speed reading course occur only once or twice. It is
likely that only the most frequent words get enough practice in such a
course to increase fluency of access to them as a result of repeated meet-
ings with those words. It could be that the increase in fluency of these
most frequent words is enough to bring about the speed increases that
we see resulting from a speed reading course.
It may be that at least the initial effects of fluency development are
at a lower level than this, in that a speed reading course, for example,
at first develops fluency in recognizing individual letters and combina-
tions of letters. As learners become more advanced in their knowledge
of the language, then fluency development courses could be developing
not only fluency of access to word forms but also to multiword units.
It is likely that fluency develops in two related ways: (1) by increasing
speed and automaticity, and (2) by increasing the size of the language
unit being worked with.
We know from research on the 4/3/2 speaking activity that fluency
development not only results in changes in speed but also in changes
in accuracy and complexity. It would be useful to see if a comparable
range of changes accompany fluency increases in writing. For example,
do learners doing the ten-minute writing activity produce better writing
at the end of the course in terms of amount written, quality of organi-
zation of the writing, number of grammatical errors, number of more
complex sentences, sentence length, number of more complex noun
groups, average length of noun groups, lexical richness, and quality of
information content? In such a study it would be essential to have a
control group that did not do the ten-minute writing activity but did
writing tasks without a fluency focus.
It could be more challenging but equally rewarding to measure other
changes that accompany increases in listening and speaking fluency.
Such measures could include memory span, comprehension (see Chang,

2010), and skill in comprehending more complex sentences.
Research in second and foreign language fluency development is still
in its infancy, but it promises to be a very rewarding area of research,
which is likely to support the idea that a substantial part of any well-
balanced course is a fluency development component in each of the
four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
References
Arevart, S. & Nation, P. (1991). Fluency improvement in a second language. RELC
Journal, 22(1), 84–94.
Beglar, D., Hunt, A., & Kite, Y. (2012). The effect of pleasure reading on Japanese
university EFL learners’ reading rates. Language Learning, 62(3), 665–703.
Bismoko, J. & Nation, I. S. P. (1974). English reading speed and the mother-
tongue or national language. RELC Journal, 5(1), 86–89.
Chang, A. C. S. (2010). The effect of a timed reading activity on EFL learners:
Speed, comprehension, and perceptions. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(2),
284–303.
Chung, M. & Nation, I. S. P. (2006). The effect of a speed reading course. English
Teaching, 61(4), 181–204.
Cramer, S. (1975). Increasing reading speed in English or in the national lan-
guage. RELC Journal, 6(2), 19–23.
Fillmore, C. J. (1979). On fluency. In C. J. Fillmore, D. Kempler, & W. S. J. Wang
(Eds), Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior (pp.
85–101). New York: Academic Press.
Jordan, R. R. (1990). Pyramid discussions. ELT Journal, 44(1), 46–54.
Kirk, S. & Carter, R. (2010). Fluency and spoken English. In M. Moreno Jaen,
F. Serrano Valverde, & M. Calzada Perez (Eds), Exploring New Paths in Language
Pedagogy: Lexis and Corpus-based Language Teaching (pp. 25–38). London:
Equinox.
Lennon, P. (1990). Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach.
Language Learning, 40(3), 387–417.
Maurice, K. (1983). The fluency workshop. TESOL Newsletter, 17(4), 29.
Nation, I. S. P. (1989). Improving speaking fluency. System, 17(3), 377–384.
Nation, I. S. P. (1990). A system of tasks for language learning. In S. Anivan (Ed.),
Language Teaching Methodology for the Nineties, RELC Anthology Series 24 (pp.
51–63). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Retrieved from: http://
www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED366181.pdf.
Nation, I. S. P. (2007a). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and
Teaching, 1(1), 1–12.
Nation, I. S. P. (2007b). Vocabulary learning through experience tasks. Language
Forum, 33(2), 33–43.
Nation, I. S. P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Speaking and Reading.
New York: Routledge.
Nation, P. & Crabbe, D. (1991). A survival language learning syllabus for foreign
travel. System, 19(3), 191–201.
Nation, P. & Malarcher, C. (2007). Reading for Speed and Fluency, Books 1, 2, 3, & 4.
Seoul: Compass Publishing.
Palmer, H. (1925). Conversation. In R. C. Smith (Ed.) (1999), The Writings of
Harold E. Palmer: An Overview (pp. 185–191). Tokyo: Hon-no-Tomosha.
Rossiter, M. J., Derwing, T. M., Manimtim, L. G., & Thomson, R. I. (2010). Oral
fluency: The neglected component in the communicative language classroom.
Canadian Modern Language Review, 66(4), 583–606.
Schmidt, R. W. (1992). Psychological mechanisms underlying second language
fluency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 357–385.
Segalowitz, N. (2010). The Cognitive Bases of Second Language Fluency. New York:
Routledge.
Spargo, E. (1989). Timed Readings: Fifty 400-word Passages with Questions for
Building Reading Speed (3rd edition). Lincolnwood, IL: Jamestown Publishers.
West, M. (1941). Learning to Read a Foreign Language. London: Longman.
Wright, A. (2010). Unpublished MEd course assignment on fluency develop-
ment. Temple University, Japan.
Additional resources
Paul Nation’s website: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.aspx
(Vocabulary Resource Booklet, publications, speed reading course, Vocabulary
Size Test)
Sonia Millett’s website: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/sonia-millett.aspx
(Free 1,000, 2,000, and 2,000 plus Academic Word List reading courses)
The Extensive Reading Foundation: http://www.erfoundation.org/erf/
2
Employing a Fluency-Based
Approach to Teach the TOEFL iBT:
An Action Research Project
Steven Herder and Gregory Sholdt
Introduction
The term fluency is commonly used when teaching L2 learners.

Regarding input, we say, ‘You must become a fluent reader in order to be
able to finish the test readings in time,’ and for output, we say, ‘You must
work on your speaking fluency in order to be better understood by others.’
However, in the classroom, the teaching of fluency is often implicit
or indirect, and even though fluency is mentioned in textbooks, flu-
ency rarely gets the time and focus it requires for efficient learning, as
described by Nation (2001).
Additionally, fluency is a primary factor in differentiating English as
a second language (ESL) from English as a foreign language (EFL). In
ESL, fluency is not a focus of the classroom because readily available
opportunities exist naturally to develop this skill in the surrounding
community. However, in EFL, access to fluent use of English is unfor-
tunately not an attribute of the environment outside the classroom.
Additionally, it is not focused on enough in the classroom, partly
because fluency activities can be poorly designed and perceived by
students as contrived, unreal, or meaningless. Subsequently, in EFL con-
texts such as Japan, we must recognize the importance of fluency and
consider how to incorporate fluency-building activities into our class-
room teaching. This chapter describes one such instance of a teacher
examining how to implement fluency-building activities in the context
of a TOEFL iBT preparation course.
In the main part of this chapter, Steven Herder, an experienced
EFL teacher looking to document and assess his implementation of a
fluency-based approach to preparing university students for the TOEFL iBT,
describes the rationale, methods, and results of an action research study.
26
Employing a Fluency-Based Approach to Teach the TOEFL iBT 27
This project also serves as the first stage in developing a collaborative

quantitative controlled study conducted by Herder and Gregory Sholdt,
a researcher with interests in professional development of language
teachers through collaborative classroom-based research. In the last part
of the chapter, Sholdt addresses directions and considerations for a con-
trolled quantitative study building from this project.
In the next sections of the introduction action research will be
defined, then the EFL context of Japan will be described. Following this,
the importance of considering fluency in EFL, particularly in Japan,
will be discussed, and the action research this chapter presents will be
addressed.
Defining action research

Action research is an approach to classroom-based research in which
teachers identify issues and problems, formulate and implement new
approaches and solutions, and make informed decisions for change
based on observed results. Goals for teachers engaging in action research
include making carefully considered improvements to their classroom
learning environment, gaining new insight into their students and
instructional methods, increasing opportunities to contribute to program
curricula and their professional community, and improving motivation
and job satisfaction through an enriched work experience (Brown &
Rodgers, 2002; Burns, 1999; Nunan, 1992). Additionally, action research
can be an excellent first step for teachers seeking to develop their
research skills and move toward more sophisticated research designs to
test theories and new instructional methods, which could ultimately lead
to results that generalize beyond particular classrooms.
EFL: the case of Japan

One of the most compelling differences between ESL and EFL relates to
the fluency component of language learning. There are many differences
between ESL and EFL, including the learning context, learner motiva-
tion, and the immediacy of needs to use English. However, within the
classroom, one similarity between ESL and EFL is that fluency is rarely
dealt with explicitly, one of the greatest differences between them. In
ESL, fluency, or fluency practice, is built into the context outside the
classroom, and so teachers don’t need to address it in class to the same
extent, as learners practice fluency in their everyday environment. On
the other hand, in the EFL context, chances for fluent English pro-
duction are relatively rare outside the classroom. Additionally, in the
classroom, particularly in Japan, fluency practice is rarely incorporated
because it is not a part of grammar-translation, the method of teaching

commonly employed by most Japanese teachers of English in high
school (Fenton & Terasawa, 2006) and secondary education (Nishino,
2008), which students appear to expect of their teachers (Matsuura
et al., 2001), and free production activities, such as role plays, can be so
contrived that most students don’t appear to invest much emotional or
cognitive energy into them.
Therefore, in Japanese EFL, fluency practice is rare and when part of
the classroom, it is often unnatural or contrived, perhaps one reason
why learning English in EFL contexts is characterized by ‘relative failure’
(Skehan, 1996, p. 17).
While asserting the importance of fluency, it is also necessary to be
clear that it is not the only skill important to language learning (Nation,
Chapter 1). However, in Japan, there is an imbalance in the direction
of accuracy, with much of the classroom time devoted to accurate
written language production and very little to fluent spoken use of
the language. So, while fluency as a classroom goal isn’t likely to be
adopted universally throughout Japan, partly due to embedded interests
invested in the current paradigm of university entrance test preparation
(Shiozawa & Simmons, 1993), I argue here that a strong, fluency-based
approach where possible can help to address the imbalance caused by
six years of secondary school where students concentrate almost exclu-
sively on accuracy in their language study.
Measuring fluency: seeing a holistic definition
In the English Language Teaching (ELT) literature, fluency tends to

be referred to as part of the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF)
trio coined by Skehan (1989); with fluency difficult to operationalize,
defining it in a way that can be objectively measured or quantified is
challenging (Riggenbach, 1991). It is this difficulty in expressing flu-
ency as a measurable construct that could decrease its quantitative, and
by extension, its pedagogic value, with the argument being that if our
teaching methods cannot be tested for whether they increase fluency,
then we shouldn’t bother teaching it. This CAF view of fluency sees it
as a relative construct, to be measured against other dimensions of lan-
guage production. Rather than taking a compartmental view of fluency
as an aspect of production, we are instead interested here in discussing
what fluency means in a more holistic pedagogical sense.
Thinking about fluency holistically leads to viewing it as an action-
able methodology or approach, whereby activities are designed and used
to promote learner fluency (see also Nation, Chapter 1). The relative
dearth of research and writing on this aspect of fluency (see Kirk,
Chapter 6 regarding speaking fluency) is one of the principal reasons
for this book, as our belief is that a fluency-based approach is crucial in
EFL contexts.
If an accuracy-based approach allows input to become intake, then
a fluency-based approach equally importantly allows intake to become
uptake. In this sense, input is the new information, be it a rule, a word,
a phrase, or a way to use a piece of language. Intake refers to cognitively
understanding that new information, and uptake means familiarity
with using that information in language production.
Brown (2003) points out that, ‘fluency can best be understood, not in
contrast to accuracy but rather as a complement to it’ (p. 2). Additionally,
Brumfit (1984, cited in Brown, 2003) claims, ‘In no sense is it [accuracy]
meant to imply that fluent language may not also be accurate language’
(p. 2). Furthermore, Brown (1996) explains that teachers can promote
fluency if they:
(a) encourage students to go ahead and make constructive errors, (b)

create many opportunities for students to practice, (c) create activi-
ties that force students to get a message across, (d) assess students’
fluency not their accuracy, and (e) talk openly to the students about
fluency. (Brown, 1996 cited in Brown, 2003, p. 8)
Utilizing a fluency-based approach to teach TOEFL iBT
The problem
Action research begins by identifying a problem or an issue to address.
In this case, the problem arose upon accepting a new teaching position
in the International Studies Department at a local woman’s liberal arts
college with coursework based entirely on preparation for the TOEFL
iBT, as the students are expected to spend their second year of univer-
sity studying abroad. In preparing the course syllabus, there were two
problems that clearly presented themselves:
1. My experience teaching high school students for many years con-

vinced me that many Japanese first-year university students would be
at a disadvantage when taking the high-stakes, high-pressure TOEFL
iBT test because of its intense time pressures. Their six years of focus
on accuracy would have ill prepared them for the need to think and
speak or write at the same time. In Japanese high schools, reading
usually means spending a full 45-minute period decoding every word

on the page (Powell, 2005); writing generally means writing one
sentence at a time, and these sentences require no original content,
only translation. Additionally, the students’ listening practice in high
school was likely minimal, with little strategic skills teaching and
slow, clearly enunciated textbook English. Finally, speaking practice
is hit or miss, with some students having no speaking opportuni-
ties at all during high school. Contrasting the students’ high school
English experience with the TOEFL iBT suggested the students would
need help with critical thinking, fluent typing, fluent reading, fluent
speaking, and listening to natural, fluent English.
2. The second problem was the need to develop a course that provided
sufficient attention to fluency but was also effective in preparing stu-
dents for the TOEFL iBT. There would need to be a balance between
focusing on improving their overall fluency and improving their
ability to take the TOEFL iBT test, with an aim of attaining the TOEFL
iBT score needed to attend the overseas university of their choice.
I therefore wanted to carefully plan and implement the best course

possible while at the same time measuring outcomes in order to make
informed decisions about possible changes to future courses. By engag-
ing in action research, I felt I could best address the needs of my stu-
dents and grow as an instructor.
The research question

Will focusing on fluency and fluency-based activities as part of a TOEFL
iBT preparation course produce demonstrable results that directly relate
to improvements in scores on the TOEFL iBT test itself?
The students
All the students in the program were first-year university students
(n 91), and of the 91, I taught 67 students all of the speaking and writ-
ing courses (3–6) listed below. Students were tested on the first day of the
term with a partial TOEFL iTP test (no speaking) and placed into eight
different levels. The highest levels had a number of returnees, while the
lowest level had students at roughly an elementary level (e.g. EIKEN
Pre-Second, TOEIC 350). All students entered the program with the knowl-
edge that they would be studying abroad in one of five English-speaking
countries for 8–12 months during their second year of study, meaning
their motivation was very high. It is a credit to the program design that
from the very first class everyone was focused on the same clear goal.
The International Studies program

The International Studies department is a four-year liberal arts program
that includes a university study abroad experience of 8–12 months.
Upon entering our program, the first 16 months focus on learning to
take the TOEFL iBT test and preparing students for life abroad. The
program in 2010 had 91 students, with eight non-Japanese English-
speaking teachers and four Japanese teachers of English.
Students are placed in one of eight levels (A to H) based on an initial
TOEFL-like placement test that measures reading, listening, structure,
and writing. For skills classes, students take 6 x 90 minute classes per
week based on the various sections of the test:
1. Reading (Section 1 of the TOEFL iBT)

2. Listening (Section 2 of the TOEFL iBT)
3. Public Speaking (Section 3—Independent speaking questions 1–2)
4. Integrative Speaking (Section 3—Integrated speaking questions 3–6)
5. Integrative Writing (Section 4—Question 1)
6. Academic Writing (Section 4—Question 2).
The TOEFL iBT

The new TOEFL iBT (since 2006) is a demanding English language
proficiency test, with TOEFL iBT scores used as entrance qualifications
for our students in universities in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand. It is four hours long and includes measurement of all four
skills as well as integrated skills. It is practical and meaningful in that it
requires students to be able to demonstrate the ability to integrate mul-
tiple skills, and requires written and spoken proof of having attained
those skills.
The description of the TOEFL iBT test clearly states, ‘The TOEFL
iBT test measures your ability to use and understand English at the
university level. And it evaluates how well you combine your listen-
ing, reading, speaking and writing skills to perform academic tasks’
(ETS, 2012). This focus on using English relates to fluency in all four
skills, both as input and output. Notice the ETS (2006) attention to
fluency-related ideas as described in the following testing goals and
scoring rubrics:
Reading to find information

• Effectively scanning text for key facts and important information.
• Increasing reading fluency and rate (p. 8, my emphasis in bold).
Listening for basic comprehension

• Comprehending the main idea, major points, and important details
related to the main idea (Note: comprehension of all details is not
necessary.) (p. 12, bold in original).
Delivery
• How clear was the speech? Good responses are fluid and clear, with
good pronunciation, natural pacing, and natural-sounding intona-
tion patterns (p. 26, my emphasis in bold).
Reading tips
• Practice frequently to increase reading rate and fluency (p. 29, my
emphasis in bold).
Speaking rubric: Score 4 [Maximum]
• It is highly intelligible and exhibits sustained, coherent discourse.
Generally well-paced flow (fluid expression). It exhibits a fairly high
degree of automaticity with good control of basic and complex
structures (as appropriate) (p. 44, my emphasis in bold).
Why a fluency-based approach suits TOEFL iBT preparation

There were a number of practical reasons why I thought a fluency-based
approach (i.e. focusing on fluency in class with fluency-based activities)
would work in these TOEFL iBT test preparation classes:
1. Students must upload recordings of their ‘best’ answers onto the com-
puter system in every class for feedback and assessment purposes, so
asking them to repeat an answer multiple times made sense to them.
2. Time was always an issue when students were making their record-
ings. Replicating test conditions, they were always given only 15 or
30 seconds to prepare and 45 or 60 seconds to respond, thus the
need to think and speak faster was obvious to them.
3. Students had to practice with multiple partners and give peer feedback
as a peer editor. The value of such exchanges was clear, as it allowed
them to hear other ideas and incorporate them into their own answers.
Instructional method
When designing my course with fluency as an approach, I maintained
three principles:
1. I wanted the students to be able to see the results of their efforts both
in class and outside of class, because I believe that giving students
clear data about their progress is a strong motivator.
2. I wanted them to work with me and with each other, not only
individually.
3. I wanted to start with a plan but be willing to make adjustments
based on regular feedback and reflection
The syllabus
The next section explains a three-stage approach in teaching the classes

from a fluency-based perspective where the students are first educated
about fluency, have ample opportunities to take part in fluency activi-
ties, and finally experience lessons with a balance of accuracy and flu-
ency awareness.
Stage 1 Promoting a fluency-based approach

In order to promote the concept of fluency to students, I clearly dis-
cussed terms and negotiated the common interpretation of those terms
within the Japanese context, an approach I would advocate for other
teachers in other contexts. This meant agreeing upon the nuances of the
four different Japanese words for fluency (Table 2.1), which resulted in
a lively discussion, which I followed with questions such as: ‘Is fluency
important?’, ‘Are you fluent?’, ‘Do you want to be fluent?’, ‘How does
fluency relate to your English studies?’, and ‘How can we focus on devel-
oping your fluency in class?’
I then negotiated a definition of fluency with students based on
our discussions. The resulting definition is included in Table 2.2. The
language is at a level the students can understand and the focus is goal-
oriented, with those goals endorsed by the learners.
After we had established pedagogical definitions of fluency for the
course, I made a first semester plan, arguing for a fluency-based approach
as a counterbalance to students’ six years of high school English, which
was focused on accuracy, which students accepted almost immediately.
I planned to focus on fluency in almost every class in introductions
to exercises and in feedback to individuals and groups. Students quickly
Table 2.1 Translations of Japanese words related to fluency
Romaji Japanese Translation Sense of the word
Ryuuchousa ὶࡕࡻ࠺ࡉ Fluency Linguistic definition

Namerakasa ࡞ࡵࡽ࠿ࡉ Fluency Smooth/natural
Yodominonaikoto ࡼ࡝ࡳࡢ࡞࠸ࡇ࡜ Fluency Without pauses/hesitation
Pera pera ࡮ࡽ࡮ࡽ Fluent Fluent/native-like
Table 2.2 Definitions of fluency based on student input
Output
Speaking – thinking and speaking at the same time in a relatively natural
speed with not so many errors, so that meaning is understood by the listener.
Writing – thinking and writing at the same time in a relatively natural speed,
with a focus on expressing meaning with a relatively average number of revisions.
Input
Reading – Reading and understanding English at a speed closer to L1 readers –
about 250 words per minute and understanding 75% is a good target, according
to Nation (n.d.).
Listening – Listening to and understanding spoken English, to the degree
necessary, in different situations. This implies that listening to friends,
a university lecturer, the police, or a YouTube video all have unique needs.
understood what I felt important, and this became a point of humor in

class. As an example, when asked, ‘Why am I asking you to do it again?’
students enjoyed yelling back, ‘FLUENCY!’
Stage 2 Emphasizing fluency-based activities

It was important to try a wide range of fluency activities––some were
directly related to the TOEFL iBT while others were related to fluency-
building more generally. The underlying tenet was that whether directly
or indirectly, fluency activities improve skills that carry over to overall
improvements in general English ability. Following are some examples
of fluency-based activities used during the course.
Speaking example
1. Students were shown a YouTube video of an entertaining four-year-old
American girl named Jessica (Dmchatster, 2009), who was thinking and
speaking at the same time at a speed of about 140 words per minute.
2. Students were told that while Jessica’s speed was not the goal, her unfil-
tered, unedited discourse was our collective goal, and students were
expected to speak as quickly and smoothly as they could about any
topic they chose (the weekend, yesterday’s schedule, their hobby, etc.).
3. Students formed groups of three and were given three chances in a
total of three rounds to attain their fastest speaking rate. While one
person spoke, the other two counted on paper how many words were
spoken, and the average of the two scores was used as their speak-
ing rate for that round. Students could repeat the same content or
choose new topics from round to round.
Reading example
1. Students were introduced to the concept of speed reading (see
Nation, Chapter 1) because they often could not finish the reading
sections of tests and so were eager to be able to read faster.
2. Speed reading activities from Nation’s university website (n.d.) were
introduced, and a baseline speed-reading score was measured. This
activity was done once or twice a week over 12 weeks.
3. I introduced various techniques for improving reading speed such as
using your eyes only (not listening in your head), using a finger to
set a reading pace on the paper, and experimenting with various size
word chunks while reading.
Writing example
1. In a computer lab, students were given a prompt and 30 minutes to
complete an essay, with a timer always visible as they typed.
2. At least six times, students were asked to write as quickly as possi-
ble because, especially at the lower levels, their fear of grammatical
mistakes kept them unable to type more than a paragraph or so in
30 minutes (two to three words per minute), and so with a focus on
speed, there was no need to think about grammar; they simply had
to type as many ideas as possible as quickly as possible.
3. Students shared their finished documents with the teacher, and
for homework were asked to look for careless mistakes or revise for
better vocabulary.
Stage 3 Returning to a fluency and accuracy equilibrium

I started out with an emphatic focus on fluency, but realized that if that
became the only goal, some students, especially those with considerable
fluency gains, would not be sufficiently challenged. Therefore during
the summer holiday between the first and second semester, it seemed
since most students were aware of the importance of fluency, it was
time to address other areas necessary to improve their TOEFL iBT scores.
To do this, I set the general guidelines presented in Table 2.3.
Table 2.3 General thematic approaches throughout the 2010 school year
Time frame General focus
Apr–Jul Fluency (speed, volume and smoothness)

Sep–Dec Vocabulary (academic words, chunking, useful phrases)
Jan–Mar Listening (academic and pop culture)
Results
Speaking and reading fluency

It may appear unnatural to combine speaking and reading fluency
measures, but for these students, these two measures were the main
fluency-targeted activities during the year. For the speaking and reading
exercises, I was able to gather data for almost all of the classes, although
data for reading is less complete. As Table 2.4 illustrates, fluency gains
were seen in most classes but particularly for classes D and H, students
who scored the lowest on the placement test at the beginning of the
year. Their high school experience seems to have resulted in considerable
potential to use English more fluently, which appears to have resulted in
dramatic gains during their first year of university. Conversely, with the
students who scored highest at the start of the year, class A, it appears
that fluency practice was not as useful. Perhaps because their fluency
started higher at the beginning of the year, it was difficult for them to
improve significantly over the course of a school year.
Writing fluency results

For the classroom research on writing, I was only able to collect data
from the two classes I taught. As Table 2.5 shows, at the beginning of
the year students’ writing speeds were disappointing. They began TOEFL
iBT essay writing practice in April and faced many obstacles, including
a lot of new information to process, such as typing as a skill, familiarity
with using computers, English essay structure, expressing their opin-
ions, and overcoming their anxiety to produce accurate language.
Table 2.4 Average speaking and reading words per minute (WPM) in the 2010
academic year
Class Speaking (WPM) Reading (WPM)
Start End % Change Start End % Change
A 100 130 30% 224 192 (8.4)%

B 76 114 50% 165 183 13%
C 60 93 55% 156 182 19%
D 55 116 110% 153 174 14%
E 54 104 93% X X X
F 56 103 84% X X X
G 50 73 46% 122 162 33%
H 46 83 80% 108 139 30%
Source: (X Data unavailable).

Table 2.5 Average words per minute in essay writing practice

for the TOEFL iBT
Class Apr 2010 Jul 2010 Oct 2012 Jan 2011
G 2.0 6.0 10.3 10.6

H 1.5 5.0 9.3 10.0
The July results in Table 2.5 show how little progress was made at
the beginning of the program, and after many fruitless attempts to get
students closer to the ten WPM goal. I finally asked them to focus on
speed exclusively, saying ‘Just type! Get 200 words on the screen and
we’ll clean them up later’, which seems to have worked, as there was a
gradual increase in their writing speed over the ten months and both
classes reached their goal, although there were remaining weaknesses
related to the following kinds of errors:
1. Careless mistakes: Errors resulting from not paying sufficient atten-

tion, but mistakes that the students could self-correct. I advised
students to fix these mistakes as soon as possible.
2. Individually recurring weak points: I worked to correct these mistakes
in feedback in hopes that intake would become uptake.
3. Mistakes beyond a student’s level: Rather than trying to correct
these mistakes, I encouraged students to try to express their ideas
with language at their level and not worry about creating complex
language.
Reflections and recommendations
Having completed one full year of the course, I would like to share
my thoughts on what worked and what didn’t, so in this section I will
present my reflections in relationship to what I am planning for future
courses. In particular, I will focus on what I hope to keep, drop, or add:
Keep
1. Discussing and promoting the idea of fluency heavily and clearly at
the start of the year
2. Investing time in developing learner autonomy
3. Utilizing students’ seniors as invaluable resources for learning
4. Continuing to create a strict but kind environment where humor is
encouraged
Drop
5. Trying to teach essay structure
6. Trying to teach test-taking skills too early
7. Using texts that are too difficult and thus demoralizing
8. Implementing the same ideas and approach across various levels of
students
Add
9. Giving students TOEFL iBT test information in Japanese
10. Spending more time building a sense of teamwork within the
group, e.g. including team-building activities like bowling or kara-
oke early in the year
11. Scoring that rewards effort in a portfolio-style system
12. Focusing on lexical chunks and ‘automatizing’ (Gatbonton &
Segalowitz, 1988) the use of small words. (For further discussion,
see Kirk, Chapter 6; Onoda, Chapter 7; Waring, Chapter 12)
By adjusting my curriculum and instructional approach in the above

ways, I believe I can improve and build on the courses I have devel-
oped. I will carefully observe them again in the coming years to exam-
ine the results of these changes. By maintaining this action research
cycle of observation, reflection, and change, I hope to continue to
refine and improve my classes and increase the benefits they provide
to my students. However, I would also like to grow as a professional
and continue conducting research at the university level, which leads
to another stage of this research, namely designing and conducting a
larger-scale study.
Action research in action
The typical components of a classroom-based action research study

include the identification of a problem or issue in the classroom, a care-
fully planned and executed solution or method to deal with the issue,
observations of effects of the new approach, and a decision on how to
proceed with some kind of change to improve classroom instruction or
learning (Nunan, 1992). This section documents and can serve as an
example of an action research study based on one instructor’s endeavors
to address fluency needs of his students while preparing them for the
TOEFL iBT.
Based on his experience teaching English at the high school level,

Herder recognized a need for fluency development of his incoming first-
year university students preparing to take the TOEFL iBT. Going beyond
a course based solely on test-taking skills and strategies, Herder devel-
oped a variety of fluency-based activities to incorporate into his classes.
In order to find evidence for improvement in fluency, he collected data
based on words per minute measurements for speaking, reading, and
writing throughout the year. The increases in rates for these three skills,
as shown in Tables 2.4 and 2.5, suggest some success in helping students
make fluency gains. In line with the goals of an action research project,
reflection on the classroom experience has allowed Herder to make
informed decisions regarding how to proceed with the next cycle of his
course. Furthermore, the positive and productive experience of engag-
ing in this small-scale action research project has led to interest in a
more sophisticated controlled quantitative research study investigating
the effects of a fluency-based approach in preparing English language
students for the TOEFL iBT.
Taking the next step: a collaborative quantitative study
The typical approach to teaching the TOEFL iBT courses at Herder’s

university is to follow a test preparation textbook and focus on instruc-
tion and practice of test-taking skills and strategies. While Herder
included the essential test-taking preparation instruction, he replaced
additional practice of those strategies and skills with general fluency
development activities. This decision was made with the belief that
a fluency-based approach was the best way to address a critical com-
ponent of language ability targeted by the TOEFL iBT. While Herder
concluded that the fluency-based approach was successful in terms
of student acceptance of the strategy and observed increases in word
production, these results may have also occurred had he taught using
a typical test strategies-only approach. While action research allows
teachers to make reasonably informed decisions for changes in their
classrooms, typically design limitations restrict the strength of conclu-
sions that can be drawn from results. A well-designed experimental
study can address some of these limitations. With a control group
receiving the typical test strategies-only instruction for comparison and
a wider range of fluency measurements taken throughout the year, the
effects of the fluency-based approach could be more clearly assessed.
At the time of writing, Herder and Sholdt have taken steps to outline a
collaborative controlled quantitative study based in Herder’s TOEFL iBT
classes. For this project, Herder will act as the lead researcher primarily
in charge of the literature review, collecting the data, and writing the
main parts of the manuscript. Sholdt will participate in the literature
review, design the study, conduct the data analysis, and write up the
methods and analysis sections of the manuscript. These duties will not
be entirely exclusive, and by working together, Herder and Sholdt will
both encourage and challenge each other to ensure a solid research
design, maintain project progress, and enjoy the process beyond what
might be achieved from working alone.
Conclusions: a fluency-based approach as part

of a balanced curriculum
There is a simple argument for a fluency-based approach with first- and

second-year university students. Students in Japan, and indeed in many
Asian EFL contexts, enter university after having had six or more years
of accuracy-based instruction. While getting students to buy into a flu-
ency-based approach seems an important and achievable first step, the
exact nature of the instructional methods and course curriculum that
best develop fluency for a particular group of students within a particu-
lar learning environment may be less easy to discern. Action research
such as that described here is an excellent tool to help guide teachers
in decision-making processes. Additionally, building this research into
a controlled quantitative study should help in generalizing beyond a
particular classroom, test the theories, and lead to further professional
growth. This chapter is an example of this, centering on one action
research study that demonstrates the value of a fluency-based approach
for TOEFL iBT preparation, which also lays the groundwork for future
inquiry.
References
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3
Scaffolding Participating,
Agencing Friending and Fluencing
Tim Murphey
Inging SPAFF
While Inging SPAFF may sound pretty strange to you (even foreign
and un-fluent) as you begin this chapter, I hope to show you that it
offers familiar concepts that can inform us about fluencing. I also call
upon your good will and tolerance to allow my gerundizing and acro-
nymizing of many conventional nouns. The ‘inging’ of nouns helps
us remember that these are indeed developmental processes and not
things. Talking about them as simple nouns sometimes clouds over the
‘continual becoming’ that they go through in our minds. We continu-
ally add accumulated meanings to words from our contexts like an ever-
upgrading corpus database. Dweck (2000) has found that some people
have an entity theory (we are good or bad learners), in contrast to
incremental theories (we can try and learn and change continually, i.e.
effort makes us different). Entity theories often box us into a static way
of looking at others and ourselves (e.g. ‘I’m just a test score’) rather than
seeing people as continually developing in changing worlds. Our daily
language usage also entifies our world to a great extent when we speak
of processes as nouns. (Some call this nominalization, ironically using a
noun to entify the process of nominalizing.) While I seek to switch to a
more inging way of expressing myself, I hope you will allow, and notice,
my inconsistencies (inconsistencing) at times.
Vygotsky (1962/1934) hinted at accumulated fluencing when he
wrote of how words gather meanings incrementally the more we use
and encounter them, and how minds are structured from the tools
(words, grammar, morphology, metaphors, etc.) we use. Some more
recent research has reported how hearing action sentences activated
the corresponding motor circuits in the brain, demonstrating the power
42
Scaffolding Participating, Agencing Friending and Fluencing 43
of verbs (Association for Psychological Science, 2009; Tettamanti et al.,

2005). So ‘inging’ nouns into verbs can change our conceptions and
reactions and eventually our bodies and our minds. Perhaps this is why
some of the leading experts in SLA have gerundized their main research
topics, grammaring (Larsen-Freeman, 2003) and languaging (Swain,
2009), to emphasize their dynamic, continually changing, processual
characters.
Inging is also a reminder that language is continually being played
with, recreated, and given new forms and meanings. Thus, the lan-
guaging (Swain, 2009) our students are doing is not wrong or right,
it is merely developmentally different. We are all on a journey and
constructing our path as we travel/talk/write. In my experience,
because I believe part of becoming fluent requires playfulness (ludo
ergo sum) with the languages being learned, I feel fluencing exercises
that require participation but not necessarily correctness, innovativity
but not necessarily found-in-a-dictionary, and communicability but
not standardization are an essential part of the language classroom.
The normal tension many teachers face is whether to teach language
(what’s tested) or learning processes through languaging and interac-
tion and more of an experiential Deweyesque quest (Dewey, 1910),
which seems to generate more agency and fluency, but may not be
tested or testable. Bolstering the argument for teaching through com-
munication, some recent research in Japanese high schools (e.g. Fraser,
2010, and Chapter 10) is showing that in classes that opt for interactive
language use, the students are actually outperforming their peers on
academic language tests, with the added benefit that they also learn to
communicate with the language. Hopefully this will cast doubt on test-
driven curriculums, allowing students to make greater gains in using the
language agentively with increasing fluency.
Below, I consider how we might ‘scaffold participating, agencing,
friending, and fluencing’ (SPAFF) in our classes and better facilitate
learning in general. I then provide a few case studies to illustrate how
these might look in pedagogical action, at advanced and beginning
levels. I propose many ways that this scaffolding can lead students to
experiencing more success in learning so that language study is less
frustrating. However, students do not always need to be successful—
mistakes and a measure of struggle are part of the territory. Later, in
fact, I propose that success is overrated, and that students can learn to
appreciate making mistakes and not always getting things right when
learning as signs that they are moving into new territory and challeng-
ing themselves.
Participating and excluding
Bateson wrote, ‘Participation precedes learning’ (1994, p. 41). Belonging

to a group and participating with them has long been known among
ethnographers as the principal means of socialization, which of course
includes language acquisition. Watson-Gegeo (1988) goes so far as to say,
The substitution of socialization for acquisition places language learn-

ing within the more comprehensive domain of socialization, the
lifelong process through which individuals are initiated into cultural
meanings and learn to perform the skills, tasks, roles, and identities
expected by whatever society or societies they may live in. (p. 582)
With beginning students, fluency and accuracy are probably not even
crucial goals, as we first need to make sure they are engaged with an
activity and joining the group, also termed legitimate peripheral par-
ticipation by Lave and Wenger (1991); thus language is a lesser con-
cern at lower proficiency levels. If students want to interact with the
group and belong then we have a measure of success and can proceed
to scaffold their increasing engagement with learning the language.
Participation precedes learning, which probably precedes fluency and
accuracy, as being involved in an activity and engaged and interacting is
the first requirement for learning. Hanks (1991) said, ‘Structure is more
the variable outcome of action rather than its invariant precondition’
(p. 17). To use this in our present context, I might substitute fluencing
for structure in the quotation because we participate (take action) in
order to become more fluent and learn, then we use what we know and
our fluency to scaffold into more participation and more development.
Continually helping learners feel welcome so they might begin iden-
tifying with the group and engender good group dynamics (Dörnyei
& Murphey, 2003) helps them feel they belong and participate more.
When students initially feel excluded, it is hard to counter those first
impressions, and often those students continue to exclude them-
selves from the community of interaction (Murphey et al., 2010).
Unfortunately, the less one engages, the fewer opportunities for learn-
ing are encountered.
Inging SPAFF through accessing personal knowledge
Scaffolding mainly seeks to adjust a task for learners so that the task
is at least partially doable. The trouble in too many language classes is
that students are asked to deal with new information and new language
at the same time. Teachers and texts often deal with the unfamiliar,
such as Billy in London or Alice in New York when the greatest scaf-
folding and mediating tools available are the students’ own lives. Why
teach about something that is not there and make it more difficult for
students when the people present can stimulate language learning with
their own lives? Most people naturally want to talk about things that
concern them and that they are more knowledgeable about, and within
such familiar contexts they can approximate fluency more quickly.
This is a great part of what student-centered learning is about; as Rivers
(1976) wrote, ‘We must find out what our students are interested in.
This is our subject matter. As language teachers we are the most fortu-
nate of teachers—all subjects are ours’ (p. 96). I contend that accessing
students and what they already know better enables fluency develop-
ment because it scaffolds new language learning with student interest
in socialization, facilitating knowing and sharing with others in a mini-
classroom culture. Fluent speaking depends at least partially on the
fluent imagining of meaningful content.
Inging SPAFF through looping input, and shadowing

and summarizing
In addition to using the students, their lives, and the immediate group as
the main focus for classroom material, it is also effective to reuse this same
material in a variety of activities so that it might be experienced recur-
sively multiple times in meaningful ways. Single-occurrence learning is
very rare. The great thing about extensive reading (Waring, Chapter 12),
for example, is that students have multiple chances to see words in
context and add meaning to them. We can do this as well with other
activities, and the case studies below give some examples of this. If you
need more convincing of the value of recycling, DeKyser (2007) offers
additional arguments for repeated practice (see also Kirk, Chapter 6;
Onoda, Chapter 7). Note that this can also be done in your regular
classroom action research (Allwright & Hanks, 2009) when you loop
back data from your students (Murphey & Falout, 2010). My research
colleagues and I have been amazed at the richness of our students’
responses to their own data and their subsequent investments in class.
Shadowing is simply repeating what another person is saying, and
can be conceptualized with three continuums: silent to out loud, partial
to total, non-interactive to interactive (Murphey, 2001). One can learn
a lot by simply shadowing silently in one’s mind what other people
are saying. Or one can engage with others more by shadowing partial
phrases out loud to show understanding, or not, and then participate
more. In class exercises, I often teach my students to shadow for a while,
and then to summarize what they have understood, using the same or
different words from their partner. We have found that only shadowing
is easy for students to do without really attending to meaning. However,
if they know they have to summarize at the end of a conversation, they
shadow more purposefully and mindfully, and end up being able to
summarize better. These are iterations that build fluency through intent
participation (Rogoff et al., 2003) and cognitive salience.
Inging SPAFF through inviting intelligent fast failure

and partial agency
Another piece of the puzzle for encouraging interaction that can also
lead to more fluencing is what Matson (1992) calls ‘intelligent fast fail-
ure’ (p. 35). He argues that we need to accept that we are going to make
a lot of mistakes and learn a lot from them in the process; as continual
effort to advance in the face of numerous mistakes is part of an efficient
learning process, those too afraid to make mistakes will not engage with
the language enough to learn (Matson, 1991).
Also, the old behaviorist idea that if you get something wrong once
it will stick with you forever needs revising. Kornell et al. (2009) and
Richland et al. (2009) found exactly the opposite; considering a question
first and getting it wrong creates curiosity, which creates a network for an
answer to be better remembered, and just receiving answers does not usu-
ally make us wonder. Questions make us wonder, the wondering creates a
neural network, and the answers held by that network can be changed in
the face of new data, but without wondering, the neural network neces-
sary to retain information is missing.
Regarding remembering, Sapolsky (2005) reports how having some
agency in a task, but not complete control, gets us excited. What we
really crave is a challenge in which our chances of getting things right
are around 50/50. Getting it right all the time, or even most of the time,
can be boring, and soon after we reach a certain level of competence,
we often seek another challenge. Risking getting something wrong is
exciting. Somehow we need to wean students off the idea that they
have to get it all right, and challenge them to improve and advance in
the face of mistakes.
To recap, intelligent fast failure tells us that it is intelligent to do a lot,
fail a lot, and find out what works; no experimentation, no learning.
Having questions first is more important than the answers because

the wondering creates spaces/networks for eventual answers. Finally,
Sapolsky shows us that getting things right 50% of the time is exciting,
and that challenges are themselves rewarding; whether we succeed or
not is not the point. Instead, it is the meaningful quest to succeed that
is important. The next section looks at how even low-level students can
feel linguistic agency, challenge, and fluency through mentions.
Inging SPAFF through mentions
‘Mentions’ (Murphey, 1994, p. 21) refers to short utterances that act as a

minimally adequate means for the transmission of comparatively com-
plex messages. ‘Would you like to go out for a coffee?’ might just as well
be said as a mention with, ‘Coffee?’ I often ask my students to play with
this idea, and ask each other as many questions as they can with only
one or two words, which results in their feeling more fluent and hear-
ing a lot of information quickly. I scaffold the activity through setting
up a context. For example, let’s talk about foods. They name a food and
respond with an excited or negative face with a word, communicating
fluently with minimal words. Basically, if you give a brief context (e.g.
What sports, songs, movies, actresses, etc. do you like?), then mentions
can handle a great deal of the rest of the interaction, and students can
have a small taste of fluent interaction with minimal words.
Inging SPAFF through group agency and near peer

role modeling
Inviting students to language collaboratively about known or imaginable

content makes fluent interaction more probable. Since students inter-
acting together have more proximal ‘zone[s] of proximal development’
(ZPDs) (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 87), they can help each other learn things
that they are ready to learn at their level better than materials presented
by a teacher because they have greater shared realities. While doing
activities, classmates also become models for each other and inspire
aspiration contagion, or the desire to be better and more proficient.
A student might admire the pronunciation of one student, the vocabu-
lary of another, and the ability to respond quickly of yet another. We
are hardwired with our mirror neurons (Iacoboni, 2009; Ramachandran,
2011) to observe and imitate others, but we imitate mostly those
people who seem to be like us and seem to be just a bit more success-
ful, our near peer role models (Harris, 1998; Murphey & Arao, 2001).
We become fluent through interacting with and modeling diverse people

in our learning groups, and we find we have more agency working
together, which is also called group agency (Murphey, 2009).
Inging SPAFF through confluence
Above I have discussed the scaffolding of content (with student-centered

material to facilitate fluency), skills (with students shadowing and sum-
marizing, and increasing rates of iteration through looping), beliefs
(about intelligent fast failure), fluency activities (with mentions), and
socialization (through group agency, near peer role modeling, and the
importance of making friends). All of these create a context in which
the development of more fluency becomes more probable. McCarthy
(2005) suggests that it is perhaps incorrect to talk about one person’s
fluency without also considering context, including who they are talk-
ing to, about what, when, and why. McCarthy (2005) uses the term
confluence to demonstrate how there are always at least two people
involved in fluent interaction, and so what often appears to be an
attribute of one person is actually the co-constructed confluence of two
or more interlocutors and their interactional context. More recently
Swain et al. (2011) illustrate the co-construction of fluency in a testing
situation among student pairs and how they scored less well when trying
to interact with a tester.
When we put students together to work in pairs, we can encourage
confluence by scaffolding activities with demonstrations, handouts,
and explanations, and by letting students know they are partially
responsible for helping their partners learn, and create fluency and
agency. We can also teach strategies for engaging more completely in
interaction through shadowing, summarizing, and rejoinders. Finally,
we can encourage a positive attitude toward group dynamics (Dörnyei
& Murphey, 2003), simultaneously promoting more humanism.
Next I turn to two case studies to illustrate how the principles discussed
above can be implemented in the language classroom.
Case study one: intermediate/advanced university

students
[Note: Activities and processes described below that facilitate increased

fluency development are italicized for your further consideration.]
In the first semester of 2009 I asked my first-year university class to
write their language learning histories (LLHs). Writing their own LLHs
immediately personalizes the content and turns it over to them, and

allows the teacher to learn many valuable things about the students.
Later they were asked to read each other’s LLHs, to discuss them with each
other using shadowing techniques, to analyze them for motivational and
demotivational factors, and then to write reports about them in small
groups. This iterative use of the same material allowed them to again
use familiar content with ever more academic language, thereby hope-
fully incrementally gaining more automaticity in their interactions through
languaging about a familiar topic. Note that I am not talking about boring
repetition and drilling, but rather communicative activities that revisit
the same concepts and terminology in a short time. Crucial to this
fluencing and agencing of students’ voices is to start from content that they
are already familiar with (themselves) and inviting them to teach others
through new language about themselves (for other examples of similar
activities, see Nation, Chapter 1).
Next, asking students to write about the motivational and demoti-
vational factors they discovered in their LLHs and to give suggestions
for students, teachers, and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) pushed them into a more aca-
demic written register. Since we had about 30 histories, they ended up
doing this exercise with five histories each week for about six weeks for
part of every class. Thus, they got into a routine of reading five histories
a week, highlighting the motivational and demotivational factors and
interesting things to discuss, and then discussing these in small groups.
Again, these iterative activities about similar but different readings helped
them gain fluency. These are also acts of languaging agencing, or creating
language that asks for change that matters to students and their peers,
such as how to express desires politely and diplomatically. Suggesting
they analyze their histories and write advice to students, teachers, and
MEXT was an incremental, scaffolded, pedagogic task, which itself invited
agency in that it presupposed they could create, language, and agence
their ways into better positions to be heard, by finding ways to voice
their opinions to other stakeholders, thereby confirming the authen-
ticity and validity of their beliefs. Many of them gradually did become
more fluent in academic discourse through the scaffolded activities of
discussing their own and classmates’ LLHs, and then collaboratively
writing their reports. Schilling and Schilling (1999) note how teacher
expectations are vital to success:
… classic studies in the psychology literature have found that merely

stating an expectation results in enhanced performance, that higher
expectations result in higher performance, and that persons with

high expectations perform at a higher level than those with low
expectations, even though their measured abilities are equal. (p. 5)
Finally, they had the chance to switch registers to the oral medium of
YouTube when we wrote a short script for a video statement summa-
rizing their views (Appendix 1). They took it very seriously and made
a creative three-minute video summarizing their findings about JHS
and HS English education in Japan, which was posted to YouTube
(Mitsmurphey, 2010). Then we exercised our agency by sending the
reports and the video link to MEXT. As of March 2014 the video had
had over 852,000 views.
In both the writing of the reports and the video-making, one could
definitely feel a sense of group agency and pride among the students. Just
before we posted the video, one student wrote in her weekly class log
about her sense of agency:
I never thought that we would make a video on YouTube. It’s just

GREAT! I was questioning how we learn English from middle school.
I didn’t like the way we learn English at JHS and HS in Japan. So
I could understand [how] people who don’t like English feel. Our
project, it could be just small steps to change MEXT! But a lot of
small steps come together to be big steps to make change in Japan.
Just watching and doing nothing, it won’t change anything. If we
want to change something, we have to make first small steps.
Another student sent me an email about the comments under the video
after it was up for six months:
I was very surprised at a lot of messages over the world. I was happy
that most of them knew our REAL VOICE and agreed with us. And
I hope this video will be a good opportunity to rethink about the
system or guideline of English teaching. I want JHS/HS students to
watch it and hope they feel something about their study.
To summarize, students started participating from known content

(LLHs) and gained some agency over their pasts and English when
recreating their stories. They then read their classmates’ LLHs, which
were similar but not the same, and through these various iterations of
content could further grasp more of the language and increase their
fluency over telling these types of stories. In groups they analyzed and
reread the histories, looking for specific aspects in order to write reports
to MEXT. Finally, they videoed themselves summarizing their reports
on YouTube and asking for change. Thus, writing, reading and discus-
sion, as well as performing on video, were all about the same topic,
themselves, and their schooling. Students went from simply describing
their pasts to asking for change in the educational system in the future,
displaying increasing agency and fluency in reading, writing, and speak-
ing. But most importantly, they positioned themselves as active agents
in their worlds.
Case study two: beginner-level JHS kids in Hawai’i
Chou, Lau, Yang, and Murphey (2007), a few of my graduate students

and I at Hawai’i Pacific University in the summer of 2006, wanted to do
something like the LLHs above, but the multilingual immigrant junior
high school students they were working with were near beginners, so
we needed to adapt the activity. We created a worksheet of sentence
frames (e.g. I like ) that students had to fill in with
information (mentions) and could further personalize by drawing some-
thing at the bottom of the page (Appendix 2).
As action researchers, my graduate students took the handouts into
class and asked students to fill them in and make their drawings. Of
course some of the phrases were unknown to them, and many students
needed help. However, students ended up helping each other, manifest-
ing group agency and near peer role modeling. They became very curious
as to what their partners were answering. This scaffolding through
personal knowledge helped them learn how to minimally express them-
selves in English: they were helping their partners and sharing with
each other, with recursivity to help them better grasp the input. As they
became more familiar with the prompts and what their answers were,
they started feeling more agentive, in control of the questions and their
personal answers.
We collected all the sheets and copied them to make a small booklet
with the students’ group photo on the back. The student teachers gave
copies to the surprised junior high school students in the next class and
did further tasks with them. Specifically, they learned how to ask their
partners the questions that went with the information they had on their
individual pages in the booklet. But, actually, they were most happy to
learn about their classmates and to increase their bonding. They were excited
to find friends (Murphey, 1998) who felt similar to them. Seeing their
work published as a booklet with their names and class photo was an
agentive boost as many beamed with joy and enjoyed showing their page
and looking through their classmates’ pages. The students ended up tak-
ing their booklets home and sharing them with their families, possibly
prompting further recursive learning and greater feelings of agency.
There could also have been aspiration contagion. For example, one
student filled in all blanks except ‘When I grow up, I want to be a
’ and drew a body surfer at the bottom. A second
student filled in that blank with ‘business men’ and drew a student at
the bottom in cap and gown graduating. One can easily imagine how
these two students sharing their answers might inspire each other with
different possibilities due to the powerful effect of near peer role modeling.
Reinforcing the importance of near peer role modeling, Harris (1998)
stresses how, after children start going to school, their number one
influence on their lives becomes their peers, not their parents.
To summarize, these students were scaffolded into participation through
asking for their personal information with sentence frames that required
minimal mentions to complete but held the possibility of interesting
sharing among their classmates. Fluency with mentions (one- or two-word
utterances) was possible, and a sense of agency about describing them-
selves and what they wanted for their future were shown in their
responses. Early positioning themselves as present and potential surfers,
college graduates, and business people may have further expanded their
horizons and provoked aspiration contagion.
Implications
I started this chapter stressing the importance of participating and

cultivating a sense of belonging to a group as precursors to learning
and fluencing. In the above case studies, students were dealing with
personal content, and could feel that the classes were not only about
them but that they could also make friends, an under-researched area
(Murphey, 1998), although acknowledged as important for classroom
dynamics (Dörnyei & Murphey, 2003).
We turn on or off to different degrees the possibilities of fluent
interactions through the structures and requirements of the activi-
ties we do. Thus we need to scaffold activities in a variety of ways to
help students feel at least partially successful. Tasks and materials can
be simple (e.g. mentions), repeated and looped, as with the LLHs, and/or
shadowed. We can make sure that students are talking about themselves
at first and are thus familiar with the information, if not the language
(student-centered content). Teachers can also see to it that students
have access to one another so they can help, ask for help, and not feel
alone. Fluent interaction is at least partially scaffolded by fluent friend-
ing and fluent imaging of familiar information.
Concluding
Inging SPAFF—scaffolding participating, agencing, friending, and

fluencing—are concepts that are still forming in my mind. They seem to be
circular in sequence and multilayered, overlapping and co-constructing—
while participation may precede learning, fluency also facilitates partici-
pating more, and gives more control and agency. SPAFF is a set of ongoing
developmental processes involving incremental languaging and agen-
cing with doses of intelligent fast failure through the iterative discussing
of meaningful questions that keep us in a state of creative flow with our
peers; i.e. confluence (McCarthy, 2008), thus exhibiting group agency
(Murphey, 2009). Fluencing interactions (those that lead to more
fluency) are at the same time agencing interactions, although they may
not be very fluent nor accurate in the beginning stages. Indeed, the fear
of mistakes is one of the main culprits prohibiting many learners from
speaking enough to nurture fluency development. Scaffolding through
content that students already know and want to communicate about
can facilitate their communicative fluency. I believe inviting students to
be agentive with the content and language at their present stages propels
them into wanting to be continuously more fluent and agentive.
Fluency is a great goal, but new and interesting ideas are most often
found through stumbling with our words and rephrasing/rewriting multi-
ple times to discover what we might mean (cf. Swain’s languaging, 2009).
Note importantly that learners/writers do not need to be successful all the
time and that an appropriate level of challenge is more important because
in order to become more fluent we actually need a lot of non-fluent itera-
tions, practice, and run-on sentences, like this one, if you know what
I mean, disastrous initial writing can sprout new ideas in our dis fluent
channels of communication. (N.B. The editors have left the previous
sentence unedited to provide an example of initial-pseudo-fluency. Read
it again and you will get it.) We learn to write and then we write to learn.
Most exciting is the challenge of learning more for which we are usu-
ally willing to fail half the time provided we can also succeed occasion-
ally (Sapolsky, 2005), meaning success is overrated and challenge is what
we desire (Murphey, 2010). Being able to get a new phrase out fluently
is a rush. So maybe that is why I began this chapter with a section titled
Inging SPAFF (although I doubt it will be in any dictionary soon!).
For researchers, it is much more interesting and challenging to see

how people can confluently create and develop fluency between them-
selves rather than trying to find a ‘fluency capacity’ within any one
person (cf. Ushioda’s person-in-context, 2009; Atkinson’s extended cog-
nition, 2010). Finding ways for students at any level to fluently interact
with each other is the challenge for teachers. Teachers should want to
do this, because fluency is not just an end product but a means of pro-
ducing more learning, first of all through the agentive excitement it cre-
ates, and secondly through the increased practice with peers it affords.
I think fluency can be problematized more productively when we play
with it. I am suggesting that interacting in non-fluent ways can actually
lead us to more fluency, and that fluency can be applied to many levels
with many criteria. (I can easily remember smiling people whom I feel
I have interacted with fluently, while saying almost nothing at all.) I
am enthusiastic about exploring McCarthy’s confluence, captured also
in Tomasello’s (2009) idea of shared intentionality. While most faculty
meetings may have fluent speakers guiding them, I doubt most teachers
would call them confluent experiences with shared intent.
As I finish writing this piece in a train, I momentarily make eye con-
tact with a small child whom I play the ‘peekaboo’ game with. As we
play, we both laugh and I feel excited (a dopamine rush) due to our
surprise at making a fluent connection. We are SPAFFing our world the
best we can with human connections, relationships, courage, and play.
We are daring to use and develop what we have at hand and in mind.
Certainly fluent languaging builds on such social bedrock.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Joe Falout, Yoshifumi Fukada, Tetsuya Fukuda, Philip Shigeo Brown,
Steven Herder, and Theron Muller for helpful SPAFFing comments on previous
drafts.
Appendix 1 The real voice of Japanese students 2010 –

university student comments on their English language
learning in JHS and HS (video script – read on
December 21, 2009 for a YouTube Video by students,
Mitsmurphey, 2010)
Our language learning histories
And our research / show that
Learning English in Japan / is not always easy
Many JHS/and HS students in Japan
Study mainly grammar /

for entrance exams
And end up/not being able /
to use English
After many years of study.
This is the inconvenient truth: / Honne not Tataemae
While most JHS and HS teachers mean well
And some of our teachers have been really great!
The truth is, many teachers are force-feeding grammar
This IS the inconvenient truth: / Honne not Tataemae
A bit of grammar,
At the point of need,
Can be useful
But too much, is too much!
Its BORRRRR ING (say slowly)
We want to TALK more (excited)
Use English!
Talk to our classmates
SING SONGS! (Everybody sing it!)
Give presentations
Write our own ideas
Think seriously
about improving our world
In short…
Do things with the language
Not just listen to teachers…
Talk in Japanese
When students speak English
We still use grammar/like now
We learn vocabulary
In language learning
You ‘use it or lose it.’
Narau yori nareyo
Asking may be a moment’s embarrassment
Not asking is a lifelong regret.
Kiku wa itoki no hadji, kikanu wa isho no hadji.
We ASK for CHANGE
In English education in Japan
For future generations
Students want to USE English
Less testing and grammar
We think our teachers need a break
from teaching to exams
We think Mombusho could help
By changing the exam system
Our exams are literally killing some of us
You know, this may not work…
It’s OK,/‘We can accept failure,
but we cannot accept not trying’
We dare / to hope for change

Thanks for at least trying
To improve education
For future generations
Arigato gozaimasu
Appendix 2 Language learning history sentence frames

The Story of ________________ (your name)
My name is ________________.
I come from ______________.
My favorite subject in school is _____________.
My favorite sport is ______________.
I like to ________________.
I like to ________________.
I like to ________________.
I don’t like to _______________.
I don’t like to _______________.
I don’t like to _______________.
When I grow up, I would like to be a(n) _______________.
I think learning English is _________________.
I have been in Hawaii for _________________.
Draw any picture you like.
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Quarterly, 22(4), 575–592.
4
Fluency through Attitude Change
Andrew Finch
Introduction
In the opening pages of this book, the editors draw attention to an

important dilemma for English teachers in Asia and other EFL contexts
when they describe their students’ ‘typically negative experiences of
compulsory language education’ ... ‘Coupled with the ... often stated
goal of becoming “fluent in English”’ (p. 2). Nation (Chapter 1) examines
this issue from a whole-language perspective, seeing fluency as ‘the
ability to process language receptively and productively at a reasonable
speed’ (p. 11), and offers valuable insights into the sort of classroom
activities that can be used to promote this definition of fluency, while
Peppard (Chapter 5), takes a lexicographic approach, showing that
prefabricated lexicogrammatical patterns ‘are necessary for real-time
language processing to appear fluent’ (p. 95). Nation and Peppard deal
with fluency from the perspective of the engaged teacher who wishes
to develop fluency effectively in his/her students. Murphey (Chapter 3)
takes a more student-centered approach, exploring the possibilities
and dimensions of scaffolding participating, agencing, and fluencing
(SPAFF), and shows how these might be realized in the classroom, ena-
bling teachers to facilitate learning though inging, looping, shadowing,
and summarizing.
This current chapter addresses fluency from a similar perspective
to that of Murphey, being concerned with ‘the provision of oppor-
tunities for engaging with language’ using ‘an ecological approach,
in which interactional contexts offer or provide affordances that the
learner or child may perceive and act on’ (van Lier, 1996, p. 53). This
approach acknowledges the problems associated with multilevel groups
of students who are forced to study English in their freshman year
59
of university, having previously negotiated a nine-year learning path

of traditional, teacher-centered, grammar-based, test-driven learning.
Building on Allwright’s (1984) dictum that students do not learn what
teachers teach, along with findings regarding the importance of affect
in language learning (Arnold, 1999), this chapter takes as its starting
point the typical freshman student who has been taught (and might
even have acquired) a significant amount of lexis and grammar, but
who has had very little practice in using these resources for anything
other than answering test questions.1 Such students see fluency as a
native speaker-like command of the target language, with the result that
even advanced students often label themselves as ‘poor learners’.
Given this situation, the three university Freshman English programs
described in this chapter attempted to empower students by promoting
confidence, motivation, and independence (CMI), on the premise that
confident, motivated, autonomous learners have the will and the ability
to identify realistic learning needs and achieve an appropriate fluency.
In this context, fluency was seen simply as the ability to express one’s
ideas. While this definition might seem over-simplistic, it recognizes
that adult learners are typically frustrated by their inability to express
themselves in the target language. This broad approach therefore pro-
motes the cognitive, affective, social (Murphey, Chapter 3), and psycho-
logical factors that enable fluency to develop.
The first program was designed and implemented in 1997–1999, and
the findings were replicated in two later programs (2004 and 2012), all
of which saw ‘the need to transact tasks … as adequate to drive forward
language development’ (Skehan, 1996, p. 39). In the first program
(Finch, 2010a), the focus was conversation-based, but this was extended
in the second (2004) to major-related ESP projects, and in the third to
academic speaking and writing. The process of development, imple-
mentation, and evaluation is described in this chapter in the hope that
EFL program developers interested in creating holistic, fluency-focused
programs might benefit from the findings. Materials and textbooks from
the programs are also available online for adaptation to other contexts.
The three programs, all of which were carried out at national uni-
versities in the Republic of Korea, were founded on a process view of
learning (Breen, 1987, p. 169) and on humanistic goals and methods
(OECD, 1998, p. 13). In this context, a task-based infrastructure was
seen as an appropriate vehicle for a student-centered, ‘language-learning
as education’ (Finch, 2006, p. 48) package, because it: (a) allowed a
focus on affective, psychosocial and sociocultural aspects of learning;
(b) promoted a problem-solving approach to language learning and
Fluency through Attitude Change 61
to learner training; and (c) encouraged learner autonomy (Ellis, 2003).

This approach allowed teachers to focus on higher-order thinking skills
and to help students learn how to learn (i.e. learning strategies) rather
than what to learn (e.g. rote memory-based learning), transforming
English into a tool for life rather than an examination subject. Such an
approach implied curricular attention to learner training, self-direction/
autonomy, self-assessment, peer-assessment, and reflection, along with
attention to affective variables such as lack of confidence, language-
learning anxiety, and unrealistic expectations—these being significant
factors in language learning in Korea (Finch, 2010a).
Oral assessments used in the course emphasized communicative crite-
ria for both evaluation and reflective feedback on student performance,
providing information for goal setting and improvement of fluency.
Additionally, self-evaluation and reflection were an important part
of the curriculum, providing information on how learners saw their
own (and the program’s) effectiveness. Qualitative and quantitative
results obtained through questionnaires, interviews, and self-assessment
instruments provided further data on whether students became and/or
perceived themselves as more confident, motivated, independent,
and fluent.
Evaluation was based on Parlett’s (1981) illuminative model (p. 221),
with the evaluator (who was also program designer and textbook author)
involved in the day-to-day running of the projects, and data (from inter-
views, questionnaires, observation, diaries, and student records) forma-
tively assisting decision-making and guiding implementation. His role
in this social-anthropological model was to produce an ‘interpretation
of a highly complex system’ (Parlett, 1981, p. 221), addressing questions
raised by participants, and investigating background, culture, politics,
aims, hidden curricula, and varying opinions (Williams & Burden, 1994).
The first program provided data that formed the basis for all three
programs, though data collection was ongoing in all of them. Data from
this first program came from six research instruments that were triangu-
lated and analyzed with reference to the following research questions:
• Did learner/teacher attitudes change during the research period?

• Did learners become more confident, motivated, and independent?
• Did learners/teachers perceive an improvement in students’ oral
skills and fluency?
The following sections present an overview of the research literature,

followed by the objectives of the programs and a description of program
content. Results from the research instruments are then discussed in

terms of the extent to which the programs achieved their objectives of
attitude change and fluency development.
Attitude change
If attitudes to learning and the perceptions and beliefs that determine

them have ‘a profound influence on … learning behaviour’ (Cotterall,
1995, p. 195) and on learning outcomes (Reid & Hresko, 1982; Weinert
& Kluwe, 1987), then it seems reasonable to expect language programs
and curricula to pay attention to attitude change:
If we attend to the affective and cognitive components of students’

attitudes … we may be able to increase the length of time students
commit to language study and their chances of success in it. (Harris,
1997, p. 20)
However, early research into task-based language teaching (TBLT)

(Crookes & Gass, 1993; Long, 1985; Willis, 1996) focused mainly on
pedagogical and methodological aspects. It wasn’t until the importance
of cognition (Skehan, 1998), affect (Cotterall, 1995; Dörnyei, 2003),
psychology (Dörnyei, 2005; Williams & Burden, 1997), and qualita-
tive research (Huberman & Miles, 2002; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) gained
consensual recognition in ELT research that beliefs, motivation, and a
positive attitude to language learning were seen as crucial factors:
Every learner will bring a different set of knowledge and experiences

to the learning process, and will ‘construct’ in different ways, their
own sense of the situation with which they are faced. (Williams &
Burden, 1997, p. 96)
In this ‘post-method’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2002, p. 69) climate, researchers

acknowledged that roles, interactions, self-perceptions, and beliefs about
learning influence learners’ receptiveness to the ideas and activities pre-
sented in the language class, ‘particularly when the approach is not con-
sonant with the learners’ experience’ (Cotterall, 1995, p. 203), as well as
influencing learning outside class. Sociocultural theory, psychology, and
counseling have also indicated that beliefs represent reality for the indi-
vidual (Rogers, 1951) and that independent learning agendas based upon
these beliefs drive learning. Wenden (1991) identified various origins for
student beliefs: (a) the mother culture; (b) the family; (c) classroom/social
peers; (d) recurring experiences; and (e) self-fulfilling (often negative)

prophecies. Thus in the programs under consideration, attention was
given to soliciting feedback from participants on personal variables such
as intentions, attributions, expectancies, perceptions, and beliefs about
learning abilities. There was also an attempt to present ‘a clear understand-
ing of attitudes and attitude-change theory in order to address these issues’
(Mantle-Bromley, 1995, p. 373), including curricular interventions to
maintain and improve student attitudes (Gardner, 1985; Mantle-Bromley &
Miller, 1991). In particular, Mantle-Bromley’s (1995) observation that
students do not develop more positive attitudes merely by being in the
language class was considered significant, and attention was given early
in the program to ‘deconditioning’ (Holec, 1981, p. 27) students through
identifying and modifying ineffective and harmful preconceived notions
of language learning.
In this context, Morgan’s (1993) four aspects of classroom persuasion
were applied to the curriculum as methods of attempting to change stu-
dent attitudes. These methods suggested that: (a) the learning content
should require active learner involvement; (b) the classroom environ-
ment should be one of ‘change or novelty’ (p. 73); (c) students need to
struggle with complex material and reach their own conclusions; and
(d) students should become aware of their attitudes toward language
and culture. A strong task-based infrastructure was seen as promoting
these aspects, along with self-assessment, which Harris (1997) proposed
as a means of attending to attitude change, since it encourages students
to become part of the whole process of language learning and to be
aware of their progress.
The final decade of the twentieth century also saw the application of
complexity theory to the social sciences (Byrne, 1998; Larsen-Freeman,
1997, 2008), with concepts such as connectivity, emergence, and sensi-
tivity to initial conditions (Finch, 2010b) offering a new perspective on
attitude change and the learning process. Research into critical incidents
(Farrell, 2008; Tripp, 1993) further identified the importance of percep-
tion and awareness in triggering insights about teaching and learning
(Richards & Farrell, 2005). Critical incidents and the ‘aha moments’
that accompany them (Koestler, 1967) were seen to ‘mark an important
change or turning point in the learner’s biography’ (Tripp, 1993, p. 9),
being influenced by the learning environment and resulting from ‘the
conscious registration of the occurrence of some event’ (Schmidt, 1995,
p. 29). These considerations were mirrored in the three programs under
consideration by the provision of non-threatening learning environments
(Finch, 2001) in which positive attitude change could occur.
Program goals
Taking the above factors into consideration, the three programs aimed
to promote fluency through positive attitude change, taking into
account student and teacher attitudes and beliefs, in addition to the
complexity, accuracy, and fluency criteria that have been the subject of
various studies (Housen & Kuiken, 2009; Pallotti, 2009; Skehan, 2009).
Promoting fluency at the freshman level is, however, not merely a case
of asking students to communicate, since their utilitarian learning his-
tory has been geared to passing accuracy-based high stakes tests. For
these students, learning the grammatical code of English (accuracy) has
helped them to enter university, whereas communicative competence
(fluency) and awareness of the interactive nature of the learning envi-
ronment (complexity) have not been keys to the future (to date), and
therefore have little perceived importance (Choi, 2006). Given this situ-
ation, along with the goals of the programs (as defined by the presidents
of three different national universities2)—to improve spoken (and in
2012, written) fluency—the modification of affective barriers to learning
and the raising of awareness of the language learning process were seen
as practical means of achieving these goals, in addition to promoting the
higher-order thinking skills that would benefit students in their future
careers. Research into linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992) was also
taken into account, the author being aware of the popular stereotyping
that brands Korean learners as innately passive. Such ‘received truths’
often use circular arguments along the line of ‘Korean students spend
their whole lives rote learning, therefore they prefer rote learning’ or
‘Korean students are not allowed to be creative in school, therefore
they cannot be creative’, whereas the author’s experience matched
Littlewood’s (2000) statement that educational contexts are more
responsible for Asian learning behaviors than the learners themselves:
The stereotype of Asian students as ‘obedient listeners’ … does not

reflect the roles they would like to adopt in class. They do not see the
teacher as an authority figure who should not be questioned; they
do not want to sit in class passively receiving knowledge; and they
are only slightly on the ‘agreement’ side that the teacher should
have a greater role than themselves in evaluating their learning.
(Littlewood, 2000, p. 33)
While being aware of the danger of ‘imposing autonomy’ (Bassano,

1986, p. 13) and employing western methods in an oriental context,
it was considered appropriate to employ a task-based framework to

promote higher-order thinking skills, social awareness, and positive
attitude change—these being goals of Korea’s traditional, humanistic
view of education (Choi, 2006; OECD, 1998).
The learning model that was used in the programs represented a
merging of the above research literature with the author’s own experi-
ence of the Korean context (Figure 4.1). It incorporated a humanistic
view of education, a sensitive classroom environment, attention to
affect, promotion of autonomy, an atmosphere of trust, formative
feedback, and recognition of the classroom as a complex system. These
student-centered factors are depicted in Figure 4.1 as feeding into the
task-based, problem-solving melting pot, which becomes the catalyst
and the vehicle for the complex interactions of the factors. This model
is flexible enough to allow unpredictable events to appear and play
themselves out, yet sufficiently organized to provide a framework and a
common direction for subsequent emergent factors, including (a) posi-
tive student/teacher attitude change, (b) communicative competence
(including fluency), and (c) lifelong learning. Within this structure,
teachers could provide the appropriate learning experience for the
Attention to
affect
Sensitive
Promotion of
classroom
autonomy
environment
Language- Task-based Relationships
learning as language built on trust
education program and respect
Formative The classroom

feedback as a complex
system
Positive attitude
change (CMI)
Communicative
competence
Learning for life
Figure 4.1 A formative learning process

Source: Finch (2010a, p. 416).
appropriate student at the appropriate time, by promoting awareness

(and acquisition) of learning strategies, encouraging learners to investi-
gate the language through meaningful interaction (Vygotsky, 1986) in
a non-threatening learning environment, and by initiating reflective
self-evaluation.
Program implementation
In devising the programs, it was necessary to take into account the com-
plex variety of factors outlined above and design appropriate textbooks,
since commercially available texts were inappropriate for the program
goals and methods. These in-house textbooks were themselves ‘agents
of change’ (Hutchinson & Hutchinson, 1994), promoting responsible
learning through structured sequences of tasks, with the proviso that
students should be encouraged to work through the tasks at their own
rate, discovering for themselves the aspects of communicative com-
petence that they needed to develop. These textbooks (Finch, 2012a,
2012b; Finch & Hyun, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c; Finch & Sampson, 2004)
can be viewed at www.finchpark.com/books/zip and www.finchpark.
com/KNUFLE.
Tasks in the textbooks began from the learner’s own situation and
personal knowledge (Murphey, Chapter 3), and progressed from static to
dynamic tasks, and from discovery to independent tasks (Table 4.1).
The books were also culturally sensitive, including regular activities that
encouraged students to examine their own culture and discuss others.
Learner training was promoted by the student-centered nature of
the textbooks. As with Legutke and Thomas’s (1991) project-task typo-
logy, the textbooks went ‘beyond the experience-activating exercises
of the humanistic approaches’ (p. 64) and focused on activities with a
language-teaching orientation. In this way, implicit and explicit atten-
tion was given to:
• Trust-building and relaxation

• Awareness and sensitivity training
• Information-sharing activities
• Thinking strategies and problem-solving
• Imagination-gap, fantasy, and creative expression
• Role-playing and creative dynamics
• Interaction and interpersonal responsibility
• Values clarification and discussion
• Process evaluation.
Table 4.1 Task types and activities
Task Types Static (One-way) Dynamic (Two-way)
Discovery tasks Word searches Dictionary activity (pair/group)

Internet-based language puzzles Language trivia games/puzzles
Matching activities Group matching games (cards)
Experience tasks Memory games Brainstorming
Review activities (one-way) Review activities (two-way)
Simple lexis activities Basic interviews
(grammar, vocabulary) Questionnaires (two-way)
Questionnaires (one-way) Storytelling
Guided tasks Classroom English Discovery activities
Structural activities (drills) Group project-work
Comprehension activities Role-plays
Dictation activities Mini-dramas
Shared tasks Pair-work (information gap, Pair-work (e.g. interviews)
Information transfer) Group-work (e.g. discussions)
Group-work (information gap, Jigsaw and pyramid activities
information transfer) Surveys
Tasks about class members Role-plays & simulations
Simple dialogs Error-correction
Language games Peer-assessment
Independent Homework Independent projects
tasks Self-study Writing to an email pal
Self-assessment
Source: Finch & Shin (2005, p. 240).
In terms of assessing student progress, the affective and cognitive goals

called for formative, rather than summative assessment. Based on further
reviews of the literature (e.g. Skehan, 1988), particularly in relation to
Korea (Lee, 1991), assessment in the study took the form of criterion-
referenced, task-based oral tests and performance projects. Following
teacher-led feedback and discussion, this approach was gradually
integrated into the learning environment, and assessment became a
process of ongoing self/peer-assessment and mid-term/end-of-semester
projects. This approach incorporated the principles of authentic assess-
ment (Kohonen, 1999), designed to promote learning as well as provid-
ing feedback on that learning. Junior students in the third year of the
first program (1999) also experienced more explicit learner training,
with evaluation sessions, in the form of ‘learning conversations’ (Harri-
Augstein & Thomas, 1991, p. 6), in which they discussed their goals and
achievements and their learning plans for the future. These conversations
were marked according to ‘range-fluency-delivery-attitude-interaction’

(Finch & Shin, 2005, pp. 282–291) criteria, but their share of the final
grade was reduced (from 25% in 1997 to 15% in 1999) since their purpose
was to provide information for the students rather than about them. The
remaining 85% of the grades were given to participation (see Murphey,
Chapter 3), interaction, assignments, and group project work.
Program evaluation
Based on the principle that new approaches cannot be evaluated by old

instruments, evaluation of the programs was formative and illumina-
tive, with emphasis on qualitative analysis of the opinions and percep-
tions of program participants in addition to documentation of changes
in attitude, fluency, and perceptions. As Parlett and Hamilton (1975)
point out, any evaluation, whatever its parameters, must take into
account the ‘social-psychological and material environment in which
students and teachers work together’ (p. 141). These cultural, social,
institutional, and psychological variables interact in complex ways in
the classroom to produce ‘a unique pattern of circumstances, pressure,
customs, and work styles which suffuse the teaching and learning’
(p. 145). In the ‘emergent, variable design’ (Guba, 1978, p. 14) of formative
evaluation, the emphasis is on ‘observing, describing, interpreting, and
understanding how events take place in the real world’ (Lynch, 1996,
p. 14), and on ‘stimulating learning and understanding’ (Rea-Dickins &
Germaine, 1998, p. 11). In this approach, the program is seen as a process
that is continuously changing, shaped by ‘the nature of the project
itself’ (Williams & Burden, 1994, p. 22) and evaluated through inter-
views, participant observation, journals, etc. (Lynch, 1996). This type
of evaluation is ‘participative, … principled, systematic, and an integral
part of curriculum planning and implementation’ (Rea-Dickins, 1994,
p. 72). The various stages of a formative evaluation are cyclical and
overlapping, and the program is ‘always in a state of being established,
implemented, evaluated, and reformed, each stage interacting with and
influencing the others’ (Long, 1984, p. 417), with the evaluator using
the information to modify the program as it is implemented rather than
making predictive generalizations (Cronbach, 1976).
Taking these considerations into account, six instruments were used
to triangulate data in the first program, in addition to class observations
and informal discussion. These consisted of four questionnaires and two
interviews/verbal reports (Cohen, 1996). In addition to their research
role, instruments one, two, and three were also formative components of
the program, raising consciousness and providing data for the ongoing
evaluation and transformation of the program.3
1. Research instrument one: My abilities (students’ deficiency analysis,

self-assessment)4
2. Research instrument two: Internal questionnaire (students)
3. Research instrument three: Internal questionnaire (teachers)5
4. Research instrument four: External questionnaire
5. Research instrument five: Student interviews
6. Research instrument six: Teacher interviews
It was not possible to give all these instruments to every student, so data
collection was selective. For example, the numbers of students com-
pleting research instrument one over the six semesters of the research
period (1997–1999) were 106, 106, 529, 206, 736, and 780. However,
research instrument four, part of the university student-evaluation
system, included all participating students, with statistical analysis sup-
plied by the university (www.finchpark.com/afe/appends/ab/a-70.html
and ../a-71.html). Students were invited to volunteer for the interviews
in instrument five, and all 20 teachers were interviewed a number of
times using instrument six as the program progressed.
Findings
It has been important to describe every aspect of the programs up to

this point since findings are meaningless unless the reader has the full
details of the theory and practice. From this point, a general overview
of results is offered, with particular attention to attitude change and
development of fluency.6
Results from instrument one showed modest stepwise improvement
in students’ perceived abilities in speaking English, with students per-
ceiving on average a 10% gain in their scores in 1997, increasing to as
much as 30% in 1999. While this instrument confirmed the (socially
determined) tendency for students (including English education stu-
dents) to perceive themselves as poor speakers of English, it functioned
more to raise consciousness than to measure fluency. On the other
hand, research instruments two and three, in addition to giving data
on students’ and teachers’ opinions regarding various aspects of the
program, also helped to identify and compare differing perceptions
regarding students’ needs, teachers’ needs, and each other’s perceptions
of those needs (Table 4.2).
Table 4.2 Student vs. teacher perceptions of changes in fluency and CMI
Q. 47. I/the students have improved my/their English speaking skills this year
Yes Maybe No n
Dec 1998 Students 166 29.5% 315 55.9% 82 14.6% 563

Teachers 4 57.1% 3 42.9% 0 0% 7
Jun 1999 Students 126 22.1% 299 52.5% 145 25.4% 570
Teachers 7 34.6% 13 65.4% 0 0% 20
Q. 48. I/the students am/are more confident about speaking English now
Yes Maybe No n
Dec 1998 Students 199 35.5% 296 52.9% 65 11.6% 560

Teachers 6 85.7% 1 14.3% 0 0% 7
Jun 1999 Students 182 30.9% 291 49.4% 116 19.7% 589
Teachers 16 80.0% 4 20.0% 0 0% 20
Q. 49. I/the students enjoy English more now
Yes Maybe No n
Dec 1998 Students 207 36.8% 266 47.3% 89 15.9% 562

Teachers 3 42.9% 4 57.1% 0 0% 7
Jun 1999 Students 171 31.1% 271 49.3% 108 19.6% 550
Teachers 9 45.0% 11 55.0% 0 0% 20
Questions 47, 48, and 49 (Table 4.2) of this Internal Questionnaire

show an overall positive perception on the part of students and teachers
at the end of the second and third semesters of the program. Differences
in opinion were apparent in various items, confirming Hills’ (1976)
conclusion that ‘students and teachers not only see their own needs in
ways which differ from each other, but they also see each other’s needs
in a somewhat different light’ (p. 28). Teachers in general saw more
evidence of communication and participation, greater development of
learning strategies, more confidence and enjoyment, and less need for
direction. Students saw themselves as more punctual, needing more
communication activities, games, correction, and grammar, showing
poor comprehension of the teacher, lacking learning strategies, and
preferring streaming. Given the focus on positive attitude change in the
program, these results can been seen to indicate that students in general
did not perceive notable progress. However, the change in teacher atti-
tudes was significant, and it could be said that positive attitude change
began with them. Teachers also noticed development of CMI in the stu-
dents, though the implicit nature of the learner training had not drawn
students’ attention to this change. Subsequent teacher-development

policy therefore encouraged teachers to use the interactive classroom
environment to talk to students individually about their learning, while
still being available as a language resource for the whole class.
Research instrument four was a student evaluation of the program,
administered by the university.7 The Language Centre scored higher than
all other university departments in December 1998, and increased its
score in 1999, indicating that students were satisfied with the program
and its teachers relative to other courses offered at the university. In par-
ticular, items regarding teacher preparation, teacher punctuality, mutual
respect, the textbooks, the evaluation method, and the advance notice
students received about tests and evaluation criteria received high scores.
Research instrument five gave students a chance to talk about
learning-related issues, and there was noticeable warming to this topic
as the interviews progressed over the semesters. Awareness of learning
strategies appeared undeveloped at first, though there was evidence of
students increasingly appreciating the value of learning English and
thinking about their learning problems.
The greatest amount of change in attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions
occurred with the teachers, as reported in research instrument six.
Responses to questions in this instrument showed positive attitude
change regarding the program and its effect on the students, and
remarkably frank comments from teachers who had not ‘bought in’ to
the program at the beginning (Extract 4.1). Teachers also saw an enthu-
siasm for learning in the students that was not apparent in the other
instruments, reporting notable attitude change, along with improve-
ment in CMI and fluency (Extracts 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4).
Extract 4.1 Teacher perceptions of the program

innovation
In this program there’s more speaking that goes on in class. … It’s

a major improvement from what I’ve been doing. (Teacher A, after
5 weeks)
I see trust in the students. The trust inspires confidence, the con-
fidence inspires motivation, and the motivation inspires learning.
(Teacher B, after 1 year)
I’ve definitely developed an appreciation for the effectiveness of task-
based activities. (Teacher C, after 2 years)
Fluency improves, if not accuracy. (Teacher D, after 13 months)
I have several students who at the beginning of the semester rarely

said anything in class, but a few weeks into the semester they opened
up a lot and became really interested in speaking English. (Teacher
E, after one semester)
I see all sorts of hypothesis testing. I see all kinds of inter-languages
that have been built up, that have been elaborated, that have been
reformed, through the whole process of speaking, taking risks in
an environment where they’re not punished for making mistakes.
(Teacher F, after 4 semesters)
I’m very impressed with the way the program has got the students
speaking straight away … and they’re very enthusiastic about it and
I think the success is generating more enthusiasm as they go along.
(Teacher G, after 7 weeks)
Extract 4.2 Teacher reflections on whether

learner/teacher beliefs changed
I noticed an extreme attitude change in some of my classes from the

first semester to the second semester. (Teacher E, after 13 months)
[In the class I had for a whole year] they think themselves much bet-
ter [with an] average 20% increase on the self-assessment instrument.
In that class there are some attitude changes for the better. (Teacher
F, after 9 months)
Most of the [ Junior] students do have good attitudes now. …
Generally, they enjoy the projects. (Teacher G, after 9 months)
I think my role as a teacher has certainly changed from controller to

the other side of the spectrum. (Teacher G, after 31/2 months)
At first I didn’t really buy into your ideas. … This year I am really
happy with the program. (Teacher H, after 1 year)
Extract 4.3 Teacher reflections on whether learners

and teachers became more confident, motivated, and
independent
The students seem more confident, even when I meet them outside the
classroom. They actually want to speak English to me. … Motivation
from lesson to lesson went up. (Teacher G, after 31/2 months)
I’ve seen confidence develop … in the classes from day 1, when the
students … can’t even look at me … then months later, you see them
on campus, and they’ll even come across and say something to me. …
Probably [the] English class is their favourite class. (Teacher H, after six
semesters)
It’s been tremendous to see the growth and the confidence. (Teacher
I, after 1 year)
Extract 4.4 Teacher reflection on whether learners

perceived an improvement in fluency
I had a nice experience [when] I took a train to Seoul. … A Freshman

student … sat down and stopped to talk to me. … We had a little
conversation for a few minutes. … Twelve months ago, if you’d said
to him ‘you’ll be able to sit down with a NS [native speaker] and
have a little 5 minute chat’, he wouldn’t have believed it. … I felt
really satisfied that he felt comfortable enough to do that with me.
(Teacher J, after 9 months)
Conclusion
What emerged from the original program and was confirmed in 2004
and 2012 was a view of the language classroom, not only as an affective
extension of the process paradigm (Breen, 1987), but also as a complex
extension of the education paradigm in general (Houghton, 1989).
CMI emerged in a dynamic, complex, trust-based learning environ-
ment, in which linguistic aspects of language functioned as mediums
for the acquisition of learning and social skills (Aoki, 1999). It was also
significant that teachers saw their students becoming more confident,
motivated, and independent, and because of this, ready to overcome
affective barriers to production. As curriculum innovation progressed,
attitude change was observable in student readiness and willingness to
speak in English, both in class and on campus.
It would appear from the responses to research instrument six8
that a task-based, CMI program can empower students by developing
their communicative competence and their ability to express their
ideas orally and also non-verbally. These initial results were mirrored
in the later programs, in which students often went beyond the
expectations of their teachers in their mid-term and end-of-semester
projects. Not only were many teachers pleasantly surprised by these
results, but student evaluations of the Freshman English classes
(2012 program) often commented that the final test (presentation
project or print media project) was their favourite part of the course.
Other comments confirmed that students were aware that they had
acquired spoken and written skills in English, which would help them
now and in the future.
These three programs were case studies in nature, particularly given
the uniqueness of every learning environment, so it cannot be claimed
that another research team, dealing with similar students, teachers or
conditions would have similar results. However, if we take a broader
view, asking whether a similar approach could produce equivalent
growth, positive attitude change and consequent fluency, then it is pos-
sible to suggest that a task-based program that satisfies the following
criteria can promote the development of fluency.
• The program recognizes the process nature of task-based learning.

• The program sees the language classroom as a dynamic and complex
learning environment.
• Education-of-the-whole-person is implicit in the program.
• The program reflects upon and transforms itself through formative
evaluation.
• The program fosters unconditional trust between participants.
• The program is in continuous transition (growth).
• The program encourages positive attitude change in its participants.
The original program began as an attempt to see whether a TBLT

approach could be effective in promoting fluency in the Korean uni-
versity context. However, it soon became evident that affective factors
(lack of confidence, instrumental motivation, anxiety, competition,
and stress) were powerful inhibitors of language performance, and
that the learning environment itself is an important factor in promot-
ing fluency (Murphey, Chapter 3). The program therefore adopted
attitude change into its formative structure, since students could not
be expected to enjoy the wash-forward benefits of fluency develop-
ment without positive modification of their beliefs and perceptions.
This issue is easily overlooked in teacher-training textbooks, which
often ignore the personal, social, and psychological factors that
impede otherwise effective pedagogy. The failure of method-based
approaches (Kumaravadivelu, 2002), along with research into learn-
ing styles, preferences, and multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993)
has highlighted the fact that students do not respond predictably
to external stimuli such as decontextualized learning materials; they
are social beings, for whom self-esteem, confidence, motivation, and
the emotional input they experience in the classroom are important
facilitators of learning.
This chapter has attempted to show that attention to the learning

environment and personal, affective factors is indispensable in the
promotion and development of fluency in adult university students
whose history of passive, code-based learning often presents a barrier to
effective self-expression and consequent fluency in the target language.
Having said this, the final words are left to Legutke and Thomas:
Whatever is available to teachers in terms of tasks, techniques, or

principles, there is no substitute for personal warmth, tolerance, and
a positive attitude to people: to oneself and to others. (Legutke &
Thomas, 1991, p. 35)
Notes
1. This situation was addressed by the 2008–2013 Korean government by the
commissioning of a projected National English Ability Test (NEAT), which
would assess all four macro-skills. However, the planned test was dropped at
high school level by the incoming government in 2013, though at the time
of writing, the level one version, for adults, continues to be available and is
used by some universities as an entrance test.
2. Andong National University (http://www.andong.ac.kr/), Seoul National
University of Technology (http://www.snut.ac.kr/), Kyungpook National
University (http://www.knu.ac.kr/).
3. All research instruments were written in English and in Korean.
4. Research instruments one to six can be viewed at http://www.finchpark.com/
afe/tables3.html.
5. Research instrument three (teachers) was the same as research instrument two
(students), except that it was directed at the teachers. This made it possible to
compare students’ and teachers’ perceptions.
6. A full discussion of results can be found in Finch (2010a).
7. Results of this evaluation can be seen at www.finchpark.com/afe/appends/
ab/a-70.html and ../a-71.html.
8. The complete responses and transcripts can be seen in Finch (2010a).
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5
A Lexicogrammatical Approach
to Fluency
Jason Peppard
This chapter investigates the internalization of lexicogrammatical

patterns (e.g. collocation, colligation, and collocational frameworks)
as an important first step toward developing fluency in English as
a foreign language (EFL). Recognition of the role lexicogrammar
plays in language development has gained considerable ground in
recent years, supported by a growing body of research demonstrat-
ing that much of the mental lexicon consists of prefabricated lexical
chunks treated as single units for the purposes of real-time language
processing. These revelations have all but invalidated the traditional
grammar/vocabulary dichotomy common to many currently popular
EFL courses.
In order to evaluate the pedagogic significance of these relatively
new insights into how words are stored in the brain, a functional-
lexicogrammatical (FLG) approach to syllabus design was developed,
implemented, and evaluated with three groups of beginner-level
Japanese university students. A comparative analysis was conducted
between the FLG syllabus, a structural-grammatical (SG) syllabus,
and a communicative control syllabus with no focus on form. While
all three syllabuses were based on the same texts and communica-
tive tasks, it was hypothesized that the FLG group would outperform
the SG group and the control group on a cloze test designed to
measure the students’ level of awareness of lexicogrammatical pat-
terns found in the pedagogic corpus. The three syllabuses were con-
currently implemented over a ten-week period following a pre-test/
post-test quasi-experimental design. A comparison of the gain scores
with Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that students under the FLG syl-
labus demonstrated a significantly higher level of lexicogrammatical
awareness (p 0.0047) than the SG syllabus group (p 0.043) and the
79
control group (p 0.18). These findings support the argument that

both traditional SG approaches and strict communicative approaches
with no form-focused activities fail to highlight the importance of lexi-
cogrammatical patterns for fluent communication.
The chapter will begin by introducing current views from the litera-
ture regarding a lexicogrammatical view of language, describing how
fluency could be developed through a focus on lexicogrammatical pat-
terns as the primary units of meaning in a language syllabus. This will
be followed by a description of the FLG syllabus and an explanation of
the research, including methods, participants, and results. Finally, the
implications of this research for language teaching will be considered.
Emphasis will be given to providing readers with sufficient information
to develop their own FLG syllabuses to facilitate the implementation of
similar investigations in their own contexts.
Lexicogrammatical patterns and fluency
In second and foreign language teaching, a distinction is often drawn

between learner fluency—the ability to communicate effectively and
with ease—and accuracy—the ability to produce grammatically cor-
rect language (Richards & Schmidt, 2002). From a lexicogrammatical
perspective however, no clear distinction is made between fluency and
accuracy (Kirk, Chapter 6), but rather, a large part of fluency is seen as
being dependent on the ability to accurately store and recall prefabri-
cated lexicogrammatical patterns. The importance of these patterns for
fluent language processing is now widely accepted, with considerable
evidence demonstrating how they make up a large part of the mental
lexicon of native and highly fluent speakers (e.g. Nattinger & DeCarrico,
1992; Sinclair, 1991; Wray, 2008).
In order to develop fluency through lexicogrammatical awareness,
repeated exposure and repetition of the same patterns are necessary (see
Kirk, Chapter 6; Nation, Chapter 1), and learners need to be informed
at an early stage of the role lexicogrammatical patterns play in fluent
language processing (Willis, 2003). This is even more important in an
EFL context where students are not exposed to the same levels of input
that can help trigger awareness of frequently used patterns that their
English as a second language (ESL) counterparts receive (Segalowitz,
2003). However, many learners are not aware of the usefulness of these
patterns for fluency development, with the majority of ELT textbooks
and learning materials failing to highlight their importance (Koprowski,
2005; Onoda, Chapter 7).
A Lexicogrammatical Approach to Fluency 81
Lexicogrammar explained
The term lexicogrammar refers to the interdependent nature of lexis and
grammar. With only a few exceptions, most notably Halliday’s Systemic
Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985), grammar and vocabulary
have traditionally been treated as separate entities (Hasan, 1996). This
distinction is most poignant within the field of language teaching,
where the majority of coursebooks and syllabuses have traditionally
included separate sections for grammar and vocabulary, with vocabu-
lary usually taking on a secondary role (Sinclair & Renouf, 1988). A large
and growing body of research, however, much of it corpus-based, now
provides evidence supporting what Halliday (1961, 1977) has long
argued: The grammar/vocabulary dichotomy is invalid—lexis and
grammar are better understood as a single system to convey meaning
(e.g. Hasan, 1996; Hunston & Francis, 2000; Sinclair, 1991; Willis, 1990).
Language consists of grammaticalized lexis rather than lexicalized gram-
mar (Lewis, 1993), and grammar is simply a byproduct of communica-
tion that emerges through repetition of discourse (Hopper, 1998).
Here, the term lexicogrammatical pattern is being used as an umbrella
term for all forms of prefabricated lexical chunks and patterns. While
numerous terms are used to refer to and classify these chunks and pat-
terns, such as lexicalized sentence stems (Pawley & Syder, 1983), lexical
phrases (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992), morpheme equivalent units (Wray,
2002), and formulaic sequences (Kirk, Chapter 6), lexicogrammatical
pattern is preferred here as it directly refers to the interdependency of
lexis and grammar. Furthermore, the concept of the lexicogrammtical
pattern extends beyond a strictly lexical approach, which often focuses
mainly on collocation, to include everything along the lexicogrammati-
cal spectrum, from idioms and phrasal verbs such as hit the books and sit
down, to collocation (e.g. go snowboarding), colligation (e.g. interested
in), and collocational sentence frameworks (e.g. from ____ to ____).
Fluency explained
In everyday English, the term fluency is commonly used as a syno-
nym for overall linguistic proficiency in a second or foreign language
(Onoda, Chapter 7) as in ‘She speaks Japanese fluently.’ In the field of
Communicative Language Teaching, fluency is often used to describe
communicative competence—how effectively the target language can be
used despite any limitations in linguistic knowledge (Nation, Chapter 1)—
and in this sense, it is usually contrasted with accuracy (Chambers,
1997). This notion of fluency as communicative competence can be
Table 5.1 Aspects of fluency
Quantity Quality
Speech rate: (words per minute) Lexical richness: The contents of the
faster speech is often perceived mental lexicon, including lexical
as more fluent variation and lexical economy
Pause rate: Excessive pauses can Lexical complexity: Lexical
indicate a lack of fluency sophistication, phrasal complexity of
Pause position: Fluent speech lexis, multi-word lexical units, and
contains pauses between clauses metaphoricity
rather than within clauses
further divided into aspects of quantity and quality (Raddaoui, 2004) as

shown in Table 5.1.
Developing fluency through lexicogrammatical accuracy

Evidence supporting a lexicogrammatical link to fluency comes from
both corpus studies (Kirk, Chapter 6) and spoken discourse analysis.
In his seminal work with the COBUILD corpus project, Sinclair (1991)
formulated his well-known idiom principle, which states that the choice
of any particular word affects or prospects the words that will follow,
and concluded that language users have access to ‘a large number of
semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices’ (p. 110).
This assertion is backed by Kjellmer (1991), who pointed out that learn-
ers pause much more frequently than native speakers, and postulated
that this difference is due to the automatization of collocations (for
more in-depth discussions on automaticity and automatization, see
Kirk, Chapter 6; Onoda, Chapter 7). In an earlier influential study of
native-like fluency and selection, Pawley and Syder (1983) concluded
that collocations ‘form the main building blocks of fluent connected
speech’ (p. 214). Further support for this argument can be found in error
analysis: Learners continue to make lexicogrammatical errors long after
they have developed a sufficient knowledge base of general syntactic
rules (Little, 1994). Lewis (1993) argued that many grammar mistakes
are caused by insufficient vocabulary and lack of collocational aware-
ness in particular; as evidence, he provided the following example:
… a student may say We made some studies to get informations about

what the people want. … the temptation is to see a student with
grammatical problems. The student would have little problem with

the grammar if (s)he knew the collocation market research: We made
some market research. There would be no problem if the student knew
the collocation do market research. (p. 171) [italics and bold in original]
Having the collocation do market research stored in the mental lexicon as

a single item would have allowed for instant retrieval; one verb conjuga-
tion will produce We did some market research, a very natural and fluent
utterance. As learners build up their mental lexicons with lexicogram-
matical patterns, their fluency will develop both quantitatively and
qualitatively (see Table 5.1). Quantitatively, speech rate will increase
as processing and retrieval time is reduced dramatically, which in turn
reduces pause rate and moves pause position to a more natural point
in between clauses, or at least, between lexicogrammatical patterns
(Raddaoui, 2004). Qualitatively, lexical richness and lexical complexity
will naturally develop as more lexicogrammatical patterns are incorpo-
rated into the mental lexicon.
The functional-lexicogrammatical syllabus
Frustrated with the lack of a principled, corpus-driven treatment of

lexicogrammatical patterns in the majority of commercial ELT mate-
rials, I developed the FLG approach described here by building on
Willis’ (2003) integrated model of syllabus design to foster awareness of
lexicogrammatical patterns in context with the aim of promoting flu-
ency through lexicogrammatical accuracy. First, a pedagogic corpus of
authentic or natural texts was compiled to match the level, needs, and
interests of the learners. The corpus was then scanned for frequent and
useful lexicogrammatical patterns, which were incorporated into exer-
cises that paired corpus-driven pattern grammar (Hunston & Francis,
1998, 2000) and data-driven learning (DDL) (Johns, 1991, 1994), which
involves inductive learning through the examination of corpus con-
cordance lines. Each lesson was based on one or more of the texts from
the pedagogic corpus and consisted of several lexicogrammatical pat-
terns organized functionally within a task-based framework.
Nation (Chapter 1) notes that there are two main paths to fluency:
through repetition and through repeated exposure to the same items
in various contexts. A carefully designed FLG syllabus will incorporate
both of these methods. First, learners encounter the same lexicogram-
matical patterns numerous times in various texts as they process the
pedagogic corpus and complete the DDL exercises and, second, the
corresponding tasks are designed to encourage repetition of the target

patterns by having the students speak to many different classmates to
complete the task.
The pedagogic corpus

The first step in developing an FLG syllabus was to compile a core set
of texts to produce what Willis (2003) terms a pedagogic corpus. Using
a pedagogic corpus as the foundation of the FLG syllabus is advanta-
geous for two main reasons. First, it is argued that the study of text is
the primary way of understanding how language operates (Halliday &
Hasan, 1985), and provides much-needed context for any lexicogram-
matical patterns of interest. Second, basing the syllabus on a pedagogic
corpus allows the syllabus designer to customize the content to the
level, needs, and interests of the specific group of learners in question.
The texts should be authentic, or what Brazil (1995) labels used
language that is purposeful and produced for real communication as
opposed to artificial texts. Texts contrived solely to present specific
grammatical structures are almost always unrealistic and do not reflect
language as it is actually used (Carter, 1998; Shortall, 2007). Willis
(2003) notes, however, that the material chosen for a pedagogic corpus
can include texts that have been simplified for specific purposes, refer-
ring to such texts as being natural texts that still retain their communi-
cative purpose. Also, texts of different types should be used, including
dialogue and continuous prose in both written and audio form, and
they should be recycled throughout the syllabus to reflect how we
encounter text in our everyday lives (Lewis, 1993; Murphey, Chapter 3)
and to ensure that the learners are repeatedly exposed to the same items
in different contexts.
Corpus-driven pattern grammar

Once the pedagogic corpus had been compiled, it was scanned for
frequent and useful lexicogrammatical patterns, which were identi-
fied and notated using corpus-driven pattern grammar. Developed by
Hunston, Francis, and Manning (1997) and Hunston and Francis (1998,
2000), pattern grammar is a descriptive lexicogrammar based on lexical
patterns, which Hunston and Francis (2000) define as ‘a description of
the behaviour of a lexical item, or one of the behaviours of that item,
as evidenced in a record of large amounts of language use’ (p. 247).
They developed a simple and transparent notation system based on
words and word classes that is capable of dealing with any form of
lexical behavior, from patterns found in traditional grammars and ELT
classrooms such as ‘V to-inf’ and ‘V-ing’ (e.g. I started to follow him up the
stairs and Snow began falling again), to patterns not traditionally found
in pedagogic materials such as ‘V about n’ (e.g. I heard about the accident)
and ‘V n against n’ (e.g. You have to weigh the responsibilities against the
rewards) (Hunston & Francis, 1998, pp. 50–51).
Pattern grammar is especially useful for a lexicogrammatical approach
since it clearly reflects Sinclair’s (1991) observation that sense and pat-
tern are interrelated when groups of words with a shared pattern are
observed. This opens up the possibility of exposing learners to a more
meaningful and principled system of lexical sets than they are used to
for developing the mental lexicon. Rather than listing lexicogrammati-
cal patterns by type or grammar structure, a common practice in current
coursebooks (Koprowski, 2005), they can be grouped together according
to shared functional patterns. For example, the pattern ‘V about n’ takes
many related mental and verbal processes (e.g. read, learn, hear, think,
forget, talk, say, comment, complain etc.).
Hunston et al. (1997) argue that the focus on patterns in pattern
grammar leads to the development of four key elements of language
learning: (a) understanding is improved owing to the shared meaning
of patterns, which can help when guessing the meaning of unknown
words; (b) accuracy can be improved through an awareness of word
and pattern compatibility; (c) fluency can be developed by incorporat-
ing more prefabricated lexical chunks into the mental lexicon; and
finally, (d) flexibility in expressing ideas can be developed through an
awareness of different patterns that share the same meaning. From a
lexicogrammatical perspective, where accuracy and fluency are inter-
dependent, all four of these elements contribute to the development
of fluency.
Data-driven learning
The next step, after selecting a number of lexicogrammatical patterns
from the pedagogic corpus for a particular lesson, involved creating DDL
exercises to draw the learners’ attention to the specific patterns, which
are represented in the form of pattern grammar notation. Developed
by Johns (1991) on the premise that ‘research is too serious to be left
to the researchers’ (p. 2), DDL is a method of consciousness-raising
where language learners are presented with either raw or pre-selected
corpus concordance lines in order to draw their own conclusions about
the subtleties of language usage. DDL can provide an effective comple-
ment to pattern grammar for highlighting lexicogrammatical patterns
by promoting inductive language processing, and has been supported
by both qualitative and quantitative classroom research (e.g. Boulton,

2008; Johns, 1991, 1994; Tian, 2004).
Concordance lines containing the patterns can be compiled from the
pedagogic corpus itself, if it is large enough, or from any other relevant
corpora. To maintain the focus on context, it is important that the stu-
dents process the text or texts containing the patterns for meaning before
working on the corresponding DDL exercises. As the learner scans the
concordance lines they can see the lexicogrammatical pattern repeated in
the examples of the language used, which helps to reinforce the pattern.
The lexicogrammatical patterns are presented in this way in an attempt to
replicate, albeit artificially, the repeated exposure to the pattern that first
language learners and ESL students would encounter. Figure 5.1, taken
from the FLG syllabus developed for the present study, demonstrates a
Let’s talk about your family. [V about n]
I read about it in the paper

It helps you learn about new cultures,
I was shocked to hear about the violence.
I think about the future a lot.
I think about job security all the time.
They don’t care about the harm they are doing.
Don’t worry about it.
Whatever you know about the brain – please adapt it.
Forget about gym and aerobic classes.
Let’s talk about something else.
He wouldn’t talk about himself, or his wife,
All I can say about the software is WOW!
I have nothing to say about him.
Listening to them chat about each other,
Brian refused to comment about the coming struggle.
There is much to cheer about in China’s state firms.
I’m not going to complain about anything.
They would lie about other things too.
I want to ask about something else.
I haven’t asked about it.
• What kinds of words go before about in the examples above?

___________________________________________________________
• What does she usually __________ about? (run/try/sing)
• I like to __________ about historical events. (draw/write/play)
• He needs to talk to you __________ your homework assignment.
Figure 5.1 ‘V about n’ DDL exercise

guided DDL exercise using the ‘V about n’ pattern discussed above. The
extract containing the targeted lexicogrammatical pattern is taken from
the pedagogic corpus and paired with its pattern grammar notation. This
is followed by the concordance examples and several questions designed
to draw the learners’ attention to the components of the pattern.
Task-based framework
Following Willis’ (2003) model, the final step of the FLG design process
involved developing communicative language tasks that corresponded to
each lesson. A well-designed task provides opportunities for the learners
to use at least some of the lexicogrammatical patterns focused on in the
lesson, but without forcing them to be used, as is typical in the practice
and production stages of the Present, Practice, Produce methodology often
paired to SG syllabuses. For example, the first lesson of the FLG syllabus
designed for this study was based on the function of self-introductions. For
the pre-task activity, the students processed an example text from the ped-
agogic corpus and then completed a handout consisting of eight DDL exer-
cises for lexicogrammatical patterns considered useful for introductions.
This was followed by the main task, where the students circulated around
the room introducing themselves to each other while taking notes on their
classmates to discover similarities and differences. This task ensured that
the students needed to use the same lexicogrammatical patterns numerous
times, thus fulfilling the requirement of repetition for fluency develop-
ment (Nation, Chapter 1) (for more task and activity ideas that can be
used for fluency development, see Murphey, Chapter 3; Nation, Chapter 1).
Comparative analysis of the functional-lexicogrammatical

syllabus
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the FLG syllabus for raising

learner awareness of lexicogrammatical patterns, an abridged FLG syl-
labus was developed based on two texts, and corresponding SG and
control syllabuses were developed and implemented around the same
texts and communicative tasks. Following a pre-test/post-test quasi-
experimental design, a comparative analysis was conducted using a
cloze test designed to evaluate lexicogrammatical awareness of patterns
found in the pedagogic corpus.
Participants
The participants for the study (see Table 5.2) consisted of three groups
of Japanese engineering students enrolled in an introductory English
Table 5.2 Study participants
Syllabus Department Students Year of study n
Male Female 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
FLG Electronic 26 5 29 1 0 1 31
SG Mechanical 17 0 14 0 1 2 17
Control Electrical 12 0 12 0 0 0 12
conversation class. As the students were enrolled according to their

respective department, random assignment was not possible, necessitat-
ing a quasi-experimental design. Students who missed classes during the
study were not included in the statistical analysis.
Method and materials

The pedagogic corpus
Two texts were developed for the experiment to form the pedagogic
corpus from which four lessons would be based. The texts cover the
social functions of introducing and talking about oneself and asking
biographical questions, appropriate topics for the beginning of a low-
level general conversation course.
1. The self-introduction text

The first text, a self-introduction, is a speech written to introduce
myself to the students at the beginning of the term. It consists of six
paragraphs outlining my basic personal information (e.g. name, age,
nationality, hometown, etc.), personal history (e.g. education, career
path and current situation), family, hobbies, interests, and future
plans.
2. The interview text

The second text, an interview, is a script for a fictitious student radio
program and is directly linked to the Self-introduction text. Following a
brief introduction, a Japanese student from the university interviews me
in English, asking questions that match the same biographical informa-
tion revealed in the self-introduction text. To accompany the written
script, the Interview text was recorded onto CD for audio presentation:
I read my own part and two Japanese speakers of English read the intro-
duction and interviewer parts.
Functional-lexicogrammatical lessons
In developing the four lessons that made up the FLG syllabus, a number
of lexicogrammatical patterns were first identified and selected from
the texts that were deemed relevant and useful for the corresponding
communicative tasks, and DDL exercises were then created to draw the
learners’ attention to the patterns. Once a pattern was selected for inclu-
sion in one of the lessons, the entire Bank of English (BOE, 2010) corpus
was searched to find examples of the particular pattern in use. Since the
focus was on lexicogrammatical patterns, no attempt was made to limit
the concordance examples to any specific grammatical structure; both
statements and questions, in various tenses and aspects, were included,
as long as the functional meaning of the pattern was consistent. The
concordance lines were trimmed both before and after the sentences
containing the target patterns.
Each lesson consisted of handouts containing eight lexicogrammati-
cal patterns with corresponding DDL exercises, of which there were two
types of questions. The first type, as shown in Figure 5.1, asks the
learners to look at the concordance lines in order to answer questions
and complete cloze exercises designed to reinforce their collocational
or colligational awareness of a lexicogrammatical pattern. The second
type involves categorization, where the learner is asked to match words
to their respective lexicogrammatical patterns or to match concordance
lines to their respective patterns. Figure 5.2 shows an example of this
type of categorization exercise.
After processing the lessons’ text or in some cases texts from the
pedagogic corpus and completing the DDL exercises, the students spent
the remainder of the lesson working on the corresponding communica-
tive tasks. The tasks consisted of information and opinion gap activities
where the students would interview each other and take notes in order
to find others with similar interests or determine who had the busiest
schedule, etc.
Structural-grammatical lessons
The SG syllabus also consisted of four lessons based on the same tasks
and source material used for the FLG syllabus, the Self-introduction
and Interview texts. Like the FLG lessons, the SG lessons were paper-
based and prompted the students to read the texts before working on
the exercises. Rather than lexicogrammatical patterns, however, the SG
lessons were structured around traditional grammar points common
to ELT coursebooks, and vocabulary was presented separately, mostly
Do you like natto? [like n/to v/v-ing]
a) Do you like to sing?

b) Do you like her?
c) Did she like the movie?
d) Do they like to watch TV?
e) Did he like the book?
f) Do you like driving?
g) Do you like baseball?
h) Does he like cars?
i) Do you like dogs?
j) What do you like to do?
k) I like coffee.
l) He really likes motorcycles.
m) They like to read and discuss books.
n) He likes gardening.
o) I really like reading.
p) I think they like Chinese food.
q) We like living here.
r) She likes working at the hotel?
• Sort the examples above into the following patterns for like:
like n:
___b___________________________________________________________
like to v: ___a_______________________________________________________
like v-ing: ___f______________________________________________________
• They like __________ watch movies.
• I __________ driving.
Figure 5.2 Categorization DDL exercise
to complement the isolated grammatical structures. Where the lexi-

cogrammatical patterns of the FLG syllabus were loosely organized by
communicative functions, the SG lessons were organized by perceived
difficulty and complexity of the grammatical structures, as often pre-
sented in traditional SG courses.
Besides the obvious difference in pedagogical content, the SG lessons
followed the same organization as the FLG lessons. For each exercise,
an isolated grammar or vocabulary point was presented in traditional
subject-verb-object/complement notation, followed by corresponding
sentences or clauses extracted from the texts. Next, a grammar box
displaying examples of the structure and its variations was presented,
followed by a series of cloze exercises to check the students’ understand-
ing of the particular grammatical structure.
Control lessons
In addition to the FLG and SG syllabus groups, a control syllabus was
implemented with a third group of students. This group was exposed to
the same two texts and performed the same communicative tasks as the
FLG and SG groups, but did not work through any FLG or SG exercises,
giving them extra time to complete the tasks. Thus, the control group
followed a strong form of communicative language teaching with no
explicit focus on form.
Test instrument
The test instrument (see Appendix A for some example problems) was
designed to measure the students’ levels of awareness of lexicogrammat-
ical patterns found in the self-introduction and interview texts. The test
consisted of 46 cloze questions, with three of the questions containing
two blanks to test for awareness of collocational frameworks (e.g. They
work ____ 9:00 ____5:00 on weekdays.) and question-answer sequences.
Hypothesis
It was predicted that students in the FLG group would outperform
students in both the SG and control groups, with significantly higher
overall score gains between the pre-test and post-tests. This hypothesis
reflects the main rationale behind developing the FLG syllabus: prefab-
ricated lexicogrammatical patterns make up a large part of our daily
social communication and play a major role in fluency, but learners are
unaware of this as these patterns are rarely integrated into ELT syllabus
design. The purpose of the FLG syllabus is to specifically draw the learn-
ers’ attention to common lexicogrammatical patterns found in authen-
tic or natural texts. Students under the SG syllabus, who only focused
on the grammatical structures of the same texts, were not expected to
develop an adequate awareness of the lexicogrammatical patterns inci-
dentally on their own. Likewise, students under the control syllabus,
who did not receive any focus of form, were not expected to show gains
in lexicogrammatical awareness.
Procedure
The experiment was conducted over a ten-week period at the beginning
of the school year. All three classes were 90 minutes long and taught
consecutively on the same day.
The Mechanical Engineering group (n17), which met during the
first class of the day, was taught under the SG syllabus; the second class,
the Electrical Engineering group (n12), was used as the post-methods
control group; the last class, the Electronic Engineering group (n31),
was taught under the FLG syllabus. These designations were chosen to
strengthen the evidence, subject to significant results from the study,
in support of the FLG syllabus, as larger classes are typically viewed as
a handicap for communicatively oriented teachers (Miller & Aldred,
2000). Along the same line of reasoning, the smallest class was used
as the control, providing a perceived pedagogical advantage, as the
students had a much greater proportion of time on task and direct face-
to-face contact with the teacher.
To begin the experiment, the pre-test, which was presented as a ‘quiz,’
was first administered to all three groups and took between 25 and 30
minutes (although no time limit was set) for most students to complete.
The four experimental lessons for each group were then taught in four
consecutive weeks following a two-week break due to national holidays,
and the post-test was administered at the end of the fourth week of
lessons. Finally, a delayed post-test was administered four weeks after
the post-test to check for memory decay effects. All test scores were
recorded as averages out of 100.
Results
A preliminary analysis of the pre-test scores was performed using a
one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (p .05) to determine if any
pre-treatment differences were present between the groups. The
mean pre-test scores for the FLG group, SG group, and the control
group were 58.9%, 53.4%, and 62.6% respectively. The ANOVA
results, F(2, 57) 1.3, p 0.28, indicate that no significant pre-test
differences were present. It can be assumed, then, that there were no
major differences among the groups concerning their lexicogram-
matical awareness of the test items before the syllabus treatments.
Next, the pre-test and post-test scores for each group were compared
using Mann-Whitney U tests (one-tailed, p .05) to determine if any
significant gains were made that could be attributed to the syllabus
treatments. The same analyses were then performed with the pre-test
and delayed post-test scores (see Table 5.3).
The pre-test/post-test analysis revealed a highly significant gain in
test scores for the FLG group (p .01), with an average gain score of
11.8%. Although less significant than the FLG scores, the SG group also
showed a significant increase in test scores (p .05), with an average
gain score of 8.8%. Gain scores for the control group did not increase
significantly, with an average increase of only 5.2%.
Table 5.3 Test results
Syllabus PrT PT / DPT Gain score U p

mean (%) mean (%) mean (%)
FLG 58.9 70.7 11.8 665.5 0.0047**

67.6 8.7 610 0.034*
SG 53.4 62.2 8.8 195 0.043*
60.7 7.3 186 0.079
Control 62.6 67.9 5.2 88.5 0.18
68.4 5.8 95.5 0.092
Note: PrT pre-test; PT post-test; DPT delayed post-test *p .05. **p .01.
While the average gain scores for all three groups decreased from the
post-test to the delayed post-test, the results confirm the FLG syllabus’s
superiority over the SG and control syllabuses. The average gain scores
for the FLG group dropped 3.1%, from 11.8% to 8.7% but remained
significant, while the gain scores for the SG group failed to reach a level
of significance, dropping 1.5%, from 8.8% to 7.3%. The delayed post-
test scores for the control group remained relatively unchanged from
the post-test scores.
Discussion
Implications of results
The results of the comparative analysis clearly show that the FLG syl-
labus was more effective than the SG and control syllabuses for raising
student awareness of lexicogrammatical patterns. Furthermore, the
gains in lexicogrammatical pattern awareness made by the students in
the SG group were lost after a one-month period while the FLG group
maintained a significantly higher level of awareness. The pedagogic
implications of these results suggest that typical EFL learners cannot be
expected to notice and internalize lexicogrammatical patterns inciden-
tally by simply processing text—they need to be made aware of them,
and they need to be informed of the role that lexicogrammatical pat-
terns play in fluency development. The FLG approach to syllabus design
employed here appeared to be successful in raising student awareness of
the lexicogrammatical patterns tested. As learners internalize more and
more frequent and useful patterns into their mental lexicons, they will
improve their fluency owing to quicker processing and retrieval times
during real-time communication.
Limitations of the study and future research

Due to time constraints, a communication/task evaluation and analysis
was not considered feasible for the present study. Considering the impor-
tance placed here on pairing meaning-based communicative tasks with a
focus on lexicogrammatical patterns, testing only declarative knowledge
of the target lexicogrammatical patterns proved to be a major limitation
of this study. Other limitations included the inability to randomly assign
participants to the treatment syllabuses, necessitating a weaker non-
parametric, quasi-experimental design, and the relatively short interval
between the post-test and delayed post-test.
Despite the limitations noted above, the successful implementation
and significant results of this investigation are promising, and open the
door for further research and development of an FLG approach. First,
considering that the FLG syllabus used was based on only two texts and
four lessons, the next step is to develop a full course based on a much
larger pedagogic corpus. Additionally, future evaluation would benefit
from participant randomization and a true experimental design, in
addition to qualitative analysis in the form of student questionnaires.
Most importantly, a process-oriented, spoken evaluation needs to be
carried out to determine if the FLG approach can go beyond awareness
and promote the automatization that leads to improved fluency during
actual communication. Thus some form of interview or conversation/
task analysis needs to be performed.
Classroom applications of the FLG syllabus

One of the main benefits of the FLG approach to syllabus design is in its
utility and flexibility. An FLG syllabus can be implemented as a whole
course in itself or as one element of a larger course, and a well-designed
FLG syllabus will have a balance of the four strands of meaning-focused
input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency
development as advocated by Nation (2007, and Chapter 1). Further-
more, basing the syllabus on a pedagogic corpus allows for unlimited
applications, most notably within the field of English for specific pur-
poses (ESP). Essentially, a pedagogic corpus can be compiled for any
genre, register, or mode of English (e.g. business, newspapers, medical,
American spoken, academic written, etc.), and with each specialized
corpus there will be specific lexicogrammatical patterns and appropriate
functional tasks. My vision here is a series of genre- and register-specific
coursebooks, so that the main DDL problems of preparation time and
computer labs are bypassed. For teachers who do want to teach in
a computer lab, or for students’ home study, an interactive FLG syllabus
in a digital format could provide a paperless course (the four-lesson

FLG syllabus developed for this study was very paper heavy). Such a
digital course could potentially include several sub-pedagogic corpora
with highlighted lexicogrammatical patterns, allowing development of
interactive DDL exercises.
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that prefabricated lexicogrammatical patterns

make up a large part of our mental lexicons and are necessary for real-
time language processing to appear fluent. Despite these revelations,
however, frequent and useful lexicogrammatical patterns are often not
fully integrated into ELT syllabus designs. With the increasing recogni-
tion of the need for fluency development in many EFL contexts, it is
imperative that learners be made aware of the role lexicogrammatical
patterns play in fluent communication. This chapter introduced the
FLG approach to syllabus design as an effective tool for raising student
awareness of lexicogrammatical patterns, an important first step in the
development of fluency. A preliminary evaluation of the FLG syllabus
approach showed it to be effective for raising and retaining students’
awareness of lexicogrammatical patterns extracted from a pedagogic
corpus. The study also confirms that traditional SG approaches, which
artificially separate lexis and grammar, fail to highlight the impor-
tance of lexicogrammatical patterns, and that EFL students cannot be
expected to notice these patterns on their own or passively internalize
them without teacher intervention. Following the success of this pre-
liminary study, it is my hope that other teacher-researchers interested in
promoting learner fluency take the initiative to further develop, refine,
and evaluate the FLG approach to syllabus design described here.
Appendix A Selections from test instrument
Fill in the blanks:

1. She ____________ a university student.
2. I ____________ an English teacher.
3. They ____________ studying engineering.
4. Yamagata ____________ very beautiful.
5. You ____________ late for class!
6. He ____________ a baseball player.
7. I’m ____________ Canada.
8. I ___________ in Yamagata.
9. He graduated ______________ high school ___________ 2007.
10. He majored ____________ engineering.
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Part II
Speaking Fluency
The second part in this book turns to speaking fluency since this is
where traditional notions and definitions of fluency lie. Steven Kirk
(Chapter 6) reviews the literature on oral fluency, highlighting some
of the important distinctions that need to be appreciated by both
teachers and researchers to avoid confusion and support fluency-
based pedagogy. After reviewing cognitive fluency, automaticity, and
formulaic sequences, Kirk summarizes the discussions surrounding
complexity, accuracy, and fluency as well as perceived fluency and con-
fluence, before turning to classroom activities, including repetition and
memorization. Putting Nation (Chapter 1) into practice, Sakae Onoda
(Chapter 7) investigates a course intervention to promote speaking flu-
ency through increased attention to formulaic sequences with three
instructional stages of (1) input, (2) automatization and practice and
(3) practice and production incorporated within a task-based learning
framework. He describes how fluency and accuracy development appear
to interact, and how students improved. Lastly, Tomohito Ishikawa
(Chapter 8) analyses spoken corpus data using six measures of fluency
to determine the effects of increasing task complexity in terms of inten-
tional reasoning. His results show that increasing intentional reasoning
demands appears to slow speech and decrease the mean length of fluent
runs.
99
6
Addressing Spoken Fluency
in the Classroom
Steven Kirk
Defining fluency
Fluency is a central concept in applied linguistics and language learning,

but is surprisingly not well understood and ‘is used with a confidence
which hardly seems justified in view of the scarcity of accounts gover-
ned by anything other than intuition’ (Guillot, 1999, p. vii). It is very
often used without definition, sometimes with a definition that lacks
a theoretical grounding, and is used to refer to many different inter-
related concepts within language. Fluency is a complex phenomenon,
and using it as a simple concept on a single continuum from low to
high fluency is oversimplified and results in confusion and equivo-
cation when discussing how to address fluency in the classroom. In
this chapter, I would like to clarify the concept of fluency, and then
discuss what kind of activities can help to address these areas in the
classroom.
Fillmore, in his classic paper (Fillmore, 1979, 2000), suggested four
kinds of fluency—all dealing with spoken English of proficient speakers
such as native speakers, but allowing varying abilities even of native
speakers. The first is the ability to fill time with talk. This is sometimes
referred to as ‘DJ fluency’, and refers to the temporal aspects of speech. The
second is the ability to speak in ‘coherent, reasoned, and “semantically”
dense sentences’ (Fillmore, 2000, p. 51). This refers not to speed of
speech, but rather to the complexity and quality of the sentences
uttered. The third is the ability to have appropriate things to say in
a wide variety of contexts. This definition touches on the fact that a
given speaker’s fluency can vary with the situation or topic. The fourth
is imaginative and creative language use, as if the speaker is quickly pre-
editing what they say in order to choose, for example, the funniest way
101
102 Speaking Fluency
to say something. This definition relates to speed, in that the speaker

needs to select among alternatives rapidly enough to speak before the
conversation has moved on. This does not refer to the speed of the
speech itself, but rather to the speed of the thought processes behind
the speech.
Koponen and Riggenbach (2000), in a review of research on flu-
ency, discuss several broad categories of perspectives that researchers
have taken. One is to look at fluency as a set of measurable temporal
variables, such as speech rate, mean length of uninterrupted run, and
duration and location of pauses. Other researchers have conceptual-
ized fluency as automatization of the underlying processes of speech
production. Another view is to look at fluency as a component of pro-
ficiency in the language, usually determined by the judgment of raters
listening to the particular speech sample. Finally, there is a pedagogical
notion of fluency, which is opposed to accuracy. For example, one of
the most often-quoted definitions of fluency is Lennon’s: ‘the rapid,
smooth, accurate, lucid, and efficient translation of thought or com-
municative intention into language under the temporal constraints
of on-line processing’ (Lennon, 2000, p. 26). Lennon’s definition is
related to automaticity of speech production, and is quite different
from Hasselgreen’s definition, ‘the ability to contribute to what a
listener, proficient in the language, would normally perceive as coher-
ent speech, which can be understood without undue strain, and is
carried out at a comfortable pace, not being disjointed or disrupted
by excessive hesitation’ (Hasselgreen, 2005, p. 134). Ejzenberg (2000)
and others have argued that fluency must be looked at from both a
‘speaker-based’ perspective as well as a ‘listener-based’ perspective,
which will be discussed further below.
In a more detailed recent analysis, Segalowitz (2010) distinguishes
three types of fluency from a cognitive perspective. The first type
is cognitive fluency, which is the efficiency of the underlying processes
of speech production. This is similar to Lennon’s definition above.
The second is utterance fluency, which is related to the observable and
measurable features of the utterances, that is, the temporal variables
mentioned above, such as speech rate. Cognitive fluency is obviously
an important factor in utterance fluency, but not the only factor. For
example, pauses may be due to pragmatic considerations, and not
only due to limitations of the speaker’s ability to access and produce
language. The third type is perceived fluency, which is defined as the
listener’s impression that the speaker has efficient language produc-
tion skills. Perceived fluency is obviously influenced by utterance
Addressing Spoken Fluency in the Classroom 103
fluency, but this is not the whole picture. This will be discussed in
more detail below, but before that, the next section will look at what
makes up cognitive fluency.
Language production
To understand cognitive fluency, it is necessary to understand the

process of language production. Currently, the most widely accepted
model of speech production is Levelt’s (1989, 1999), which has three
main modules: the conceptualizer, the formulator, and the articulator.
The conceptualizer converts communicative intention into a preverbal
message, which contains all the necessary information that the for-
mulator needs to select needed lexical items and apply grammatical
encoding, and then output a surface structure or internal speech. This
can be used by the articulator to produce actual speech. This model
was modified by de Bot (1992), to include a system for producing L2
speech, and later modified by Kormos (2006) to the system shown in
Figure 6.1. Kormos added more detail such that memory consists of
episodic memory as well as a lexicon. She also added a separate section
for declarative knowledge of L2 grammar rules that is separate from
any automatized grammar operations, which, as she notes, corresponds
to neuroimaging studies that have shown that declarative grammar in
L2 production does not use the same areas of the brain as procedural
grammar knowledge.
Levelt’s (1989, 1999) model also accounts for self-monitoring, by
having feedback loops from the output of each module back to the
conceptualizer, which contains the monitor. Thus, it is possible to
change one’s preverbal plan before formulating the language itself or to
recognize problems in the linguistic output before the words are actu-
ally articulated. Alternatively, a speaker may recognize mistakes in their
own speech, which could result in dysfluencies such as restarts or self-
corrections. Problems in cognitive fluency can appear at many points
in this system (Segalowitz, 2010), such as problems choosing language
appropriate for the situation, accessing needed lexical items (or missing
needed lexical items), or grammatical encoding.
As explained above, declarative knowledge is separate from procedural
knowledge in this system, and it is generally accepted that cognitive
fluency arises from automaticity of the language production system,
rather than the speeding up of declarative rules (Hulstijn, 2007). The
next sections will deal with automaticity and efficiency in language
production.
CONCEPTUALIZER
104
Message
generation
Parsed speech
Monitoring
LONG-TERM MEMORY
Preverbal message
SPEECH
LEXICON
FORMULATOR COMPREHENSION
L1 & L2 Concepts
EPISODIC Lemmas SYSTEM
MEMORY Lexemes
Lexico-grammatical encoding
L2
Morpho-phonological DECLARATIVE
encoding RULES
Phonetic encoding SYLLABARY
Internal speech
ARTICULATOR AUDITION
Overt speech
Figure 6.1 Kormos’s model of bilingual speech production

Source: Kormos (2006, p. 168).
Automaticity
It is often said that cognitive fluency depends on automatization of the

underlying processes of speech production, but like fluency, automaticity
is not clearly understood. Automaticity has many definitions in the psy-
chological literature (Dörnyei, 2009), including processes that are ballistic
(unstoppable), stable (resistant to interference), and unconscious (not
requiring attention). However, regardless of exactly what kind of auto-
maticity is occurring, ‘automaticity’ in the general sense is necessary for
fluent speech and involves some kind of efficiency in language processing.
It is generally agreed upon now that the development of automatic-
ity of language processing (or any other skill for that matter) depends
upon repetition. Under connectionist theories, this would be explained
by strengthening of neural connections to particular memories with
repeated access. Connections that are not accessed become weaker and
may result in forgetting. Efficiency, and therefore fluency, can also be
improved by the use of formulaic sequences.
Formulaic sequences
Formulaic sequences can contribute to efficiency in language produc-

tion by providing prefabricated chunks of language, which therefore
do not need to be constructed from individual words and grammar.
Formulaic sequences are stored and accessed as whole units in memory,
which eases the cognitive load in language production, and takes less
working memory than if the utterance was constructed from scratch
(Wray, 2002). Formulaic sequences can be multi-word lexical items (for
example, by the way) or may contain slots (e.g. ___ thinks nothing of ___ ),
which can be filled to complete the phrase (Schmitt & Carter, 2004).
Corpus research has shown that native speakers rely on formulaic
language to a large extent in speaking (O’Keefe et al., 2007; Schmitt &
Carter, 2004), and they do not use the infinite possibilities that the
grammar of the language theoretically allows (Pawley & Syder, 1983).
The use of formulaic sequences, therefore, has benefits for both fluency
and accuracy—particularly in the sense of the use of native-like colloca-
tions and phrases. Furthermore, in first language acquisition research,
it has been shown that children rely on formulaic sequences first, and
only analyze language later and as necessary (Tomasello, 2003). These
findings have led to theories known as usage-based language acquisition.
In usage-based theories of language acquisition, instances of usage (of
language) are stored in memory. Repetition is critical to develop faster and
more efficient access to the stored examples of language for production or

comprehension (Bybee, 2006, 2008; Ellis, 2002). In connectionist theories,
this is explained by the strengthening of neural pathways to particular
memories with repeated access (for a review of the literature, see Dörnyei,
2009). Connections that are not accessed become weaker and may be
forgotten. This results in the creation of different kinds of formulaic
sequences. Which parts of the formulaic sequence become lexical and
which parts become slots depends upon the type and token frequencies of
items encountered by the language learner (Bybee, 2008). Token frequency
is the number of occurrences of the actual words, while type frequency is
the number of different lexical items that occur in a particular pattern.
For example, the past tense forms of irregular verbs (went, did ) have a high
token frequency (they are very common), so the strength of access to the
particular lexical item is very strong. On the other hand, the regular verb
pattern (-ed) occurs with many different verbs, and so has a high type
frequency, which results in a more easily generalized pattern. Verbs of the
pattern blow/blew, throw/threw are somewhere in the middle—there is a
pattern, but it tends to be associated with particular lexical items.
It is also possible for formulaic sequences to be constructed of all slots.
These are usually labeled as constructions (Goldberg, 2003). For example,
the sentence I sent her a letter and He baked her a cake have the same
underlying construction, which can be described as someone gives someone
something or SUBJECT VERB OBJECT1 OBJECT2. In this case, all the slots
in the construction have high type frequency, although there are par-
ticular verbs that tend to be associated with it (such as give). It has been
shown in psycholinguistic studies that native speakers and high-level L2
speakers have constructions (Goldberg et al., 2004; Gries & Wulff, 2005),
while learners of lower proficiency, e.g. B2 and C1 in Common European
Framework terms, do not (Kirk, in preparation), implying that this is an
area that could be addressed in language teaching.
Construction-based and usage-based theories of language are incom-
patible with theories based on grammar rules (Eskildsen, 2009).
Language production, including rule-like behavior, can be accounted
for within this kind of system by drawing patterns from usage based on
input (Bod, 1998; Hoey, 2005). A memory-based system (Daelemans &
Bosch, 2009) is an extreme example. In this system, memory contains
only instances of usage, that is, actual examples: language production
is achieved by either directly using previous examples or creating new
cases based on extrapolating from similar examples.
Many studies show that L2 acquisition involves many of the same
processes as L1 acquisition, including memories of usage, frequency,
recency and context effects, and the use of analogy to extrapolate to
new uses (The ‘Five Graces Group’ et al., 2009). However, an important
distinction between L2 and L1 acquisition is that because of the tuning
of attention mechanisms by L1 knowledge, details of L2 structures, which
are often phonologically reduced, are less likely to become salient.
Therefore, explicit instruction is necessary to focus learners’ attention
on these structures. Otherwise simplification may occur, as in pidgins
(The ‘Five Graces Group’ et al., 2009), and lead to fossilization with
continued repetition. Furthermore, although L1 learners are very con-
servative with learned language and use it without initially analyzing
it, adult L2 learners have a tendency to analyze or break up formulaic
language, even when it is not helpful for them to do so (Wray, 2004).
These similarities and differences need to be considered when designing
teaching methodologies.
Fluency, accuracy, and complexity
It is common in discussions of task-based language teaching and

communicative language teaching to distinguish fluency, accuracy, and
complexity (for example, see Skehan, 2003). There are certainly distinc-
tions between them. It is not uncommon to hear someone say that a
particular L2 speaker speaks fluently, but not accurately, or vice versa.
However, on more careful analysis, it is often difficult to clearly separate
them. For example, mean length of run is a common measure of utterance
fluency in fluency research, but it used to measure complexity in research
on tasks (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Larsen-Freeman argues that this should
be looked at as a dynamic system with interrelationships between
these three areas of language performance (Larsen-Freeman, 2009).
Furthermore, many authors talk about trade-offs between these areas (for
example, Skehan, 2009), and this is implicit in talk about fluency activi-
ties, which are opposed to activities that focus on accuracy. However, in
general, there are not likely to be trade-offs between fluency and accuracy
for L1 speakers, although speakers may slow down to choose their words
more carefully or otherwise control their language more consciously. On
the other hand, there can be trade-offs between complexity and fluency:
Length of fluent runs decreases when speech contains more embedded
clauses, for example (Pawley & Syder, 2000). In language teaching, the
distinction between fluency and accuracy is usually more of a case of
monitoring versus not monitoring, or employing declarative knowledge
versus only relying on procedural knowledge.
This is the reason that it is crucial to distinguish between senses of
fluency. If researchers are measuring ‘fluency’ by counting words pro-
duced per minute, for example, then they are measuring one aspect
of utterance fluency, and not cognitive fluency. A theory is needed to

explain the relationship between measurements and cognitive aspects
of fluency (as in Towell et al., 1996). By conflating definitions of fluency,
researchers can make measurements of mere speech rate, and wrongly
draw conclusions about efficiency of processing.
Perceived fluency and confluence
The perceptions of the listener are very important as well. In fact, one
of the ultimate goals of language learning with regard to fluency is
to enable the perception of fluency for the listener. Perceived fluency
clearly depends on utterance fluency and cognitive fluency, but has also
been shown to vary between raters (Esser, 1996). A listener’s perceptions
of the speaker’s fluency may also be influenced by noticing communi-
catively unacceptable elements in speech (Segalowitz, 2010). Perceived
fluency for interlocutors in conversation may not be so much a matter
of the impression that the speaker’s language processing is smooth, but
rather the lack of attention drawn to language problems through dysflu-
encies, such as restarts and hesitations. McCarthy (2005) introduces the
term confluence to refer to the fluency of the conversation as a whole,
co-constructed by the participants, in spite of dysfluencies in the speech
of any particular member. For example, interlocutors can scaffold each
other’s performance by completing each other’s sentences, or suggesting
words that the speaker might be having trouble finding.
There are other interactive elements in conversation that influence
perceived fluency. Bavelas et al. (2000) found that listeners’ backchan-
nels helped speakers to construct narratives. Fiksdal (1990, 2000) found
that speakers had the impression that conversation was fluent when
both speakers were aligned in tempo (the rhythm and rate of stressed
words). Other researchers have found similar features of alignment in
conversation with speech rate (Street, 1984), and syntactic and lexical
choice (Garrod & Pickering, 2004). Wray (2002) also discusses speaker–
hearer alignment through the use of formulaic sequences. These are the
particular formulaic sequences used by the particular speech group, that
is, ‘nativelike selection’ (Pawley & Syder, 1983, p. 191). An L2 speaker
must learn and use these expressions to be more accepted by a particular
speech group, and their use will also help the L2 speaker to be perceived
as more fluent because these expressions are more easily processed by
speakers in the community (Millar, 2011; Underwood et al., 2004; Wray,
2002). They also signal the speaker’s group identity and that the L2
speaker can cope with ‘normal’ speech in that community.
Turn boundaries are also very important points in conversations.

Speakers in many languages generally avoid overlap and minimize
pauses between turns (Stivers et al., 2009), and alignment of tempo and
use of predictable language, as well as the appropriate use of intona-
tion at pause points in speech (Wennerstrom, 2000), facilitates this.
Furthermore, the use of pragmatic markers such as well and oh, also
known as smallwords (Hasselgreen, 2005) and turn initiators (Tao, 2003),
at the beginning of turns facilitates confluence by linking the turn
with the preceding one, and facilitates perceived fluency by giving the
speaker a kind of ‘free’ hesitation that is easy to produce.
Kirk found that the learner in his case study was able to create a
strong impression of fluency (perceived fluency), in spite of weaknesses
in traditional measurements of utterance fluency (Kirk & Carter, 2010).
This was mainly accomplished through interactive aspects of fluency:
in particular, the ability to use pragmatic markers appropriately at turn
boundaries, and a sense of timing (tempo) that was aligned with the
interlocutor. This resulted in very fluent turn boundaries, which appar-
ently compensated for the learner’s shorter runs and lower speech rate.
Classroom activities
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methods generally do not

facilitate the kind of repetitive practice that is necessary to build the
automaticity required for cognitive fluency. In CLT, fluency activities are
designed to allow students to speak without attention to accuracy. In
discussing these activities, Brumfit (1984) defined fluency as ‘natural
language use, whether or not it results in native-speaker-like compre-
hension or production’ (p. 56), and ‘the maximally effective operation
of the language system so far acquired by the student’ (p. 57). Activities
such as this are an important part of CLT, but they don’t directly address
cognitive fluency, utterance fluency, perceived fluency, or confluence
(see also Onoda, Chapter 7 below).
Furthermore, when teachers find the need to focus on form, they
often revert to non-communicative activities (Gatbonton & Segalowitz,
2005). Although the criticisms against repetition and memorization
(used in audio-lingual, direct, and situational approaches, for example)
that they are decontextualized and ineffective for building fluency are
valid, CLT has ‘thrown out the baby with the bath water’ by rejecting
these techniques completely. One of the reasons for this is that typi-
cal communicative activities often have an unclear language focus for
both teachers and students. Pattern practice gives them a clear lesson
target structure (Gatbonton & Segalowitz, 2005). Also, pattern practice

is typically teacher-centered, which is easy for teachers to control and
monitor.
Rossiter et al. (2010) list five activities that have been shown to build
fluency. These are: (1) consciousness-raising tasks, (2) rehearsal or repe-
tition tasks, (3) use of formulaic sequences, (4) use of discourse markers,
and (5) communicative free-production activities. This section will
describe some examples of activities of these types, but particularly
will look at how to adapt traditional activities—drills and dialogue
memorization—to address different aspects of fluency within a com-
municative framework.
Repetition
In order to address cognitive fluency, classroom activities need to be
designed that will help learners to build automaticity in accessing lan-
guage in memory, and improve the efficiency of storage that will lead to
less need to construct language from scratch, or to construct language
using explicit grammar knowledge. In other words, there need to be
activities that are focused on building formulaic sequences in the learner’s
mind, and making them easily accessible for speech production.
One kind of activity that addresses this is the 4/3/2 task (Nation, 1989,
and Chapter 1 above). In this task, students give the same speech three
times to different listeners, with increasing time pressure each time. It
has been found that not only do learners improve utterance fluency
over the three repetitions (which can be explained by practice effects,
reduced planning time required in retellings, and lexical and syntactic
priming), but also the proceduralization that results from this repetition
yields gains in fluency over the long term (de Jong & Perfetti, 2011) and
to different topics, which implies improvements in cognitive fluency.
Gatbonton and Segalowitz’s (1988, 2005) ACCESS methodology
is designed to facilitate repetition of formulaic language, while stay-
ing within a CLT framework. This method is centered on a main task
that is (1) genuinely communicative, (2) inherently repetitive, and
(3) functionally formulaic. For example, the main task could be a typi-
cal information-gap activity, which is then followed up with a task that
allows the learners to talk about the contents of the previous activity
and use the same formulaic language to accomplish it. A genuinely
communicative task, involving an information gap, ensures that
meaning is attended to, which facilitates transfer appropriate processing.
Transfer appropriate processing (Morris et al., 1977) in memory retrieval
means that the mental processes active at the time that the memory is
retrieved should be similar to those at the time that the item was first
learned (Segalowitz, 2010). The most important aspect of the task is
that it involves natural repetition of the targeted formulaic sequences,
for example, by involving reiterations of a smaller task, or by having
a series of related activities that involve the same formulaic language.
ACCESS provides teachers with an overarching methodology to include
activities that build cognitive fluency in any type of lesson.
ACCESS includes a follow-up step to the main task to address prob-
lems that learners have with the accuracy of particular language, which
can involve focus on form activities (Gatbonton & Segalowitz, 2005).
A more focused type of repetitive practice, similar to but different in
crucial respects from traditional pattern practice, can also be used to
facilitate the learning of new formulaic language.
Traditional pattern practice activities are typically teacher-centered
and involve the application of an explicit grammar rule or listening
and repeating. As a simple example, one could construct an activity to
practice subject–verb agreement with the verb be in present tense. This
would generally involve teaching a chart similar to Table 6.1.
A typical pattern practice activity would involve the teacher starting
with a sentence like I am tall, and then prompting with he, for example,
and the student applying knowledge of the verb table (Table 6.1) and
responding with He is tall. This activity reinforces the explicit applica-
tion of the verb table, while not requiring the students to attend to
meaning at all. As explained above, fluency is not a result of the rapid
application of declarative knowledge, so this activity does not directly
address fluency, although it might help the students with grammar-
oriented exams.
What is needed is an activity that helps students to automatize formu-
laic sequences, while attending to meaning in order to achieve transfer
appropriate processing. In a sentence such as He’s tall, it is likely that the
phrase He’s is formulaic, since it is frequent in the language. Therefore,
the practice should involve repetition of this structure, he’s, with varia-
tion of the following adjective. The activity can be done with students
in pairs or in small groups, with students taking turns describing people
Table 6.1 Conjugation table for the verb be
Singular Plural
1st person am are

2nd person are are
3rd person is are
in a textbook picture, for example. This activity is student-centered in

that students run their small groups on their own, and involves atten-
tion to meaning since students are making true sentences. The choice
of the adjectives to fill in the slot in the construction is up to the stu-
dent and their vocabulary level. Limiting the activity to he’s and she’s
at one time allows repetition of the target construction with minimal
interference from other forms of the verbs—in other words, avoiding
the confusion that can arise when trying to apply the verb table in
Table 6.1. Other forms of the verb can be dealt with at another time to
avoid confusion. This reinforces the subject–verb agreement as a con-
struction or formulaic sequence, rather than as a grammar rule, and
leads to both fluency and accuracy with the structure.
Repetitive practice activities can be based on any kind of formulaic
language. As an example, take the phrase a ____ ago (Nattinger &
DeCarrico, 1992, p. 35) as in a long time ago, a few days ago, a year ago.
Students, in small groups, take turns making true statements about
themselves with the time expression, as in A few days ago, I got a new
smart phone. The small group setting allows the students to not only
produce a few examples themselves, but also to listen to their class-
mates’ examples, which increases the number of instances of usage they
are exposed to. Another example is the phrase Would you mind … as in
Would you mind shutting the door? Students can make original requests of
their classmates in small groups, and additionally practice responding
to them with No, not at all or a similar appropriate expression. Taking
turns in groups allows for a high degree of repetition, and making their
own requests allows them to attend to meaning as they do what might
otherwise be a simple repeating exercise.
Based on principles of usage-based theories of language, which
are incompatible with systems of language based on grammar rules,
what are traditionally considered to be grammatical structures can be
addressed in a similar way (see Kirk, in press, for a more detailed expla-
nation). In the examples above, the fixed words in the expression have
a high token frequency, and the slots are due to high type frequency.
Extending this to more abstract expressions, we can design an activity
to practice the ditransitive construction illustrated by My parents bought
me a laptop, which might normally be taught as ‘indirect objects’. The
ditransitive construction consists of a subject, verb, and two objects. The
most common verb in this construction is give (Goldberg et al., 2004;
Gries & Wulff, 2005), which, because of its frequency, is the central
sense of the construction. The exercise can first be based on gave, with
students talking about gifts they have given, for example, substituting
subjects and objects as needed to express themselves. Later, the exercise

can be expanded to include other common verbs such as tell, show, and
teach (Gries & Stefanowitsch, 2004), and even other verbs that are not
mainly associated with this construction, such as bake and buy.
Another question that often arises when talking about fluency in
CLT is the question of whether it is acceptable to make mistakes. For
example, Bybee (2008) notes that repetition of incorrect phrases can
lead to fossilization. From the point of view of implicit acquisition
based on type and token frequency, mistakes could cause problems
with the quality of the input. On the other hand, as has been shown by
others (Murphey, Chapter 3), making mistakes can highlight learners’
awareness toward the particular aspect of language, making it salient,
and helping to acquire it by focusing attention on it. This is also a case
of conflating different concepts, where we need to be careful of what
we are talking about, or whether we are referring to implicit or explicit
knowledge.
Memorizing dialogues
The pedagogical techniques discussed above address cognitive fluency,
which should in turn result in gains in utterance fluency and per-
ceived fluency. However, there are also other interactive components
of perceived fluency and confluence that have not yet been addressed.
Although memorizing dialogues has fallen out of favor as a teaching
tool since the advent of CLT, it has the potential to address some of
these aspects of language.
Ding (2007) found that many successful Chinese learners of English
used text memorization and imitation as a large part of their language
learning. The learners felt that text memorization helped them to notice
the details of the language more, and to notice their own gaps in knowl-
edge (such as pronunciation). It also helped them to learn collocations
and phrases, and to ‘borrow for writing and speaking’ (Ding, 2007,
p. 277), that is, to apply memorized language to other situations. Ding also
suggests that time spent memorizing texts allows learners the freedom
to look and listen closely to the language, away from the time pressures
of actual conversation.
Dialogues can provide useful examples for students if they are real-
istic. One of the problems with the dialogues in traditional textbooks
is that they do not contain many important features of natural speech
(Gilmore, 2007) such as pragmatic markers and hesitations. Dialogues
can provide learners with opportunities to examine the use of pragmatic
markers, hesitations, and formulaic language, as well as learn what
language is pragmatically appropriate for the given situation (Walker &

Utsumi, 2006). Also, if the textbook contains well-acted audio or video
recordings of the dialogues, students can be exposed to the prosody
of the discourse markers, formulaic language, and pause points in the
dialogue.
An example of a more realistic dialogue is the text in Figure 6.2 from
Touchstone 2 (McCarthy et al., 2005, p. 26), which is based on data from
the CANCODE spoken corpus and designed to be realistic. The dialogue
features many examples of pragmatic markers, including really, well,
wow, yeah, oh, so, and gosh. The use of pragmatic markers, particularly
at turn beginnings, is important to confluence and perceived fluency
(see above). In the preliminary analysis of a case study of an L2 speaker
of Japanese, I found that pragmatic markers were often done in the L1,
without the speaker being aware of them at all. This points to the need
to highlight these structures for learners, and to give examples of how
they function in discourse.
Taking the conversation in Figure 6.2 as an example, there are several
activities that can be done with this material to work toward fluency
development. First, learners can be guided to noticing the locations and
uses of pragmatic markers—raising awareness of the language. As this
textbook provides students with a CD containing an audio recording of
the dialogue, students can listen for pauses and intonation units, mark-
ing them with slashes, for example. Then, learners can shadow or simply
listen and repeat each intonation unit in order to notice and copy the
stress, rhythm, and boundary tone intonation (Rossiter et al., 2010).
The memorized dialogue can, of course, be used as is for the basis of
a memorized role-play, but dialogues can also be personalized by the
students to make them more relevant. For example, the details of the
Adam I’m so tired.

Yuki Really? How come?
Adam Well, I’m working two jobs this semester, so I’m getting up at, like,
5:30 to study.
Yuki You’re kidding! Two jobs? Wow.
Adam Yeah. Just for a couple of months. I’m working in a supermarket after
class, and then I have my regular job at the restaurant till 11:00.
Yuki Oh, that’s late. So, what time do you go to bed?
Adam About 1:00 … 1:30.
Yuki Gosh. So you’re only getting about four hours sleep? That’s not much.
Figure 6.2 Dialogue from Touchstone, Student’s Book 2

Source: McCarthy et al. (2005, p. 26).
dialogue in Figure 6.2 can be changed so that the reasons for Adam
being tired correspond to the student’s real life, and then the responses
by Yuki can be changed as necessary to be appropriate for the new con-
tent. This customized version of the conversation can then be memo-
rized and performed in pairs, so that students are memorizing language
relevant to their own lives. It is important that the teacher assist learn-
ers in adapting the conversations so that the language is accurate and
realistic before students commit it to memory.
As a later and more difficult activity, the personalized dialogue can
serve as the basis of a more free conversation. For example, partners can
be changed so that the new listener (the Yuki role) doesn’t know the
content of the new speaker’s (the Adam role) conversation. The teacher
can direct the students to start the conversation the same way (‘I’m
so tired.’ ‘Really? How come?’), but then the listener must listen and ad
lib their part, based on the content of the speaker’s answers. This step
forces attention to meaning, but allows learners to employ memorized
expressions for more fluent performance.
One criticism directed at this type of activity is that memorized dia-
logues are not communicative in that students just memorize them to
please the teacher (Segalowitz, 2010, p. 175). Therefore, they are closed
tasks, rather than open tasks, tied to a particular context, and there-
fore cannot be more readily applied to different situations. This is a
valid point. Certainly memorized texts, such as songs, can be delivered
without attending to meaning (e.g. children singing the nursery rhyme
‘Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses’), but it is also possible and preferable to sing
songs while understanding what the lyrics mean. If learners are allowed
to adapt the dialogues as above, and guided toward using them as the
basis of freer conversations, then the task can become more communi-
cative. Additionally, memorizing dialogues is perceived by learners and
teachers in many settings to be very useful (Walker & Utsumi, 2006).
The dialogue in Figure 6.2 was chosen, in fact, because a former student
of mine mentioned that particular dialogue as one that she drew from
quite often in conversation.
Conclusion
Fluency is a complex phenomenon that cannot be conceptualized sim-

ply as speed or even as just efficient cognitive processing of language.
Therefore, it is important to be careful with our terminology, so that we
understand what kind of fluency is being referred to when discussing
teaching methodology or the results of research. For example, to define
fluency as referring to the ability to speak easily and smoothly, thinking

more about the meaning than the language itself, while then doing
a study that uses listener ratings to determine increases in fluency, is
mixing apples and oranges. While they are both fruit, they are not in
fact the same thing, and a rating by a listener is not a measure of the
cognitive processes of the speaker.
Finally, repetition is a crucial aspect of language learning, and is
something that many successful learners do on their own (Ding, 2007).
As teachers, part of whose job is to help less successful learners to be
more successful, incorporating repetition-based techniques into the
classroom is necessary to build cognitive fluency. However, this requires
careful consideration of the goals of the activities and how they can
function to build automaticity with formulaic sequences, so that repeti-
tion does not return to the mindless repetition often associated with
pre-communicative language teaching methodology.
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7
An Exploration of Effective
Teaching Approaches for Enhancing
the Oral Fluency of EFL Students
Sakae Onoda
Introduction
This chapter explores how second language fluency can be developed

through a focus on language automatization in a university-level
English class. This study draws on empirical results indicating that
automatization leads to fluency development in oral production
because it compensates for limitations in short-term memory capacity
by allowing direct retrieval from long-term memory (Wood, 2001).
Formulaic language units were used because they are easily automatized
through multiple repetitions and retrievals, and require little effort or
attention to produce (Boers et al., 2006). However, in a number of EFL
learner textbooks and teacher resource books, heavy emphasis is placed
on free-production tasks, with less focus on formulaic language units,
rehearsal, and repetition, indicating that the development of fluency is
neglected in many EFL classrooms (Rossiter et al., 2010).
This course design was based on Wood’s (2001) pedagogical model and
a task design derived from the four strands of teaching (Nation, 2006).
The model suggests that fluency be promoted through three instructional
stages: (a) input, (b) automatization through practice, and (c) practice
and production. This instructional design is supported by Rossiter et al.
(2010), who suggested that activities focusing on the use of formulaic
language units ‘can be incorporated effectively into various phases
of traditional Presentation-Practice-Production’ (p. 559; also see Kirk,
Chapter 6). At each stage, activities advocated by Nation (2006) were
introduced to enhance accurate and fluent control of language. Students
were 30 second-year English majors at a Japanese university who dem-
onstrated intermediate to upper-intermediate English proficiency at
the beginning of the intervention over the course of the academic year.
120
Effective Teaching Approaches for Enhancing Oral Fluency 121
Student oral fluency was measured at the beginning and the end of the
program in terms of speech rate, total pauses, frequency of pauses, and
the relationship between fluency and accuracy. Results showed that the
pedagogical intervention improved fluency and accuracy in oral produc-
tion, indicating that the repeated use of automatized formulaic language
units appears to be effective in developing fluency and accuracy.
The need for fluency in Japanese classrooms
In the past two decades, despite promotion of communicative language

teaching techniques, oral fluency development has virtually been
ignored in Japanese secondary and university-level English education.
In this framework, English interaction is deemed sufficient as long
as the message is conveyed. Typically, there is little emphasis on the
employment of explicit fluency and accuracy development because
of inherent constraints in the Japanese school environment, such as
limited class hours, the mandatory use of Education Ministry-approved
textbooks, entrance examinations, and a lack of teacher knowledge
(Onoda, 2010). While promoting the use of English in the classroom
is valuable in Japan where students often lack basic speaking skills,
such a singular focus does not serve the purpose of developing practi-
cal English fluency as prescribed by the Course of Study for the Upper
Secondary Schools (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and
Technology, 2009) for the reasons discussed above. Furthermore, the
teaching of English that sacrifices fluency and accuracy practice does
not lead to the development of communicative competence (Canale &
Swain, 1980, revised by Canale, 1983).
A compelling rationale for developing fluency may be provided by
non-native speakers living in English-speaking countries, whether just
studying English, taking courses at universities, or otherwise. They need
to communicate with their teachers, host families, and other inter-
national students on a daily basis. When faced with communication
breakdowns, especially derived from cross-cultural misunderstanding,
giving clear explanations and opinions to resolve these breakdowns
requires fluency. Without fluency one cannot get the conversational
floor nor have a chance to convey whole explanations or opinions,
because native speaker interlocutors do not tend to listen patiently to
disfluent explanations without interrupting (Murata, 1994). For example,
while native speakers may be tolerant of slow speech rate, hesitations,
and pausing in the beginning, these features may be perceived as annoy-
ing (Derwing et al., 2007) and affect listeners negatively (Derwing &
Munro, 2001; Munro & Derwing, 2001). In addition, as Firth (1988)

identified, at the slightest sign of hesitation by a non-native speaker,
a native English speaker tends to ‘shadow’: insert themselves into the
conversation and complete the sentence. Although the main function
of this behavior is to help a speaker express their ideas (Firth, 1988), it
can negatively affect non-native speakers (Murata, 1994). Thus, promot-
ing oral fluency in the classroom is worth exploring and implementing
in Japanese tertiary English education.
The following sections will offer definitions of fluency and accuracy
as defined for the purposes of this study, discuss their potential interac-
tions and conclude with a description of how the present research adds
to current understanding of fluency and accuracy development among
intermediate to upper-intermediate English majors.
Defining fluency
The definition of oral fluency, generally characterized by spontaneous
oral production, is vague and somewhat controversial in L2 studies.
It is often used as an impressionistic cover term to describe general
proficiency (Lennon, 1990), and lacks a precise definition when used
in research. However, oral fluency has been treated as a facet of overall
proficiency, sometimes as opposed to accuracy, another component of
overall proficiency (Lennon, 1990). This is often the case in standardized
proficiency tests.
However, in oral fluency studies there are several variables represent-
ing key constructs of fluency in oral production, including speech rate
(Schoonjans et al., 2010), represented as speed fluency in Tavakoli and
Skehan (2005). Analyses of spoken fluency studies administered by
Wood (2001) indicate that speech rate correlated well with perceptions
of spoken fluency and overall measures of fluency. One of the fluency
measures employed in Nation’s (1989) study was the number of words
per minute spoken.
The second variable used in these studies is pauses, which break up
into three subcategories: total pauses, pause frequencies, and pause
locations as represented as breakdown fluency (Tavakoli & Skehan,
2005; Wood, 2001).
Tavakoli and Skehan (2005) identified a third key variable, repair flu-
ency: the number of false starts and repetitions. Other fluency measures
employed in Nation (1989) were the number of hesitations, repetitions,
and false starts per 100 words (see also Ishikawa, Chapter 8).
The importance of these variables for measuring fluency is evident
from a closer examination of the studies in which they were used.
For example, Lennon (1990) showed that the following three fluency
measures were significant: pruned words per minute, filled pauses per
T-Unit1 (the number of pauses). and percent of T-Units followed by a
pause (filled and unfilled). Pruned words exclude self-corrected words,
words that speakers repeated (very, very shocking), and ‘unpruned words’
include the total words produced by the speaker. Filled pauses are
non-words (er and oops). Riggenbach’s (1991) analysis of non-native
speaker conversations suggested that unfilled pause frequency is a key
indicator of spoken fluency. Drawing on these empirical results, Bei
(2010) suggested that complexity, accuracy and fluency studies employ
pruned speech rate (operationalized as the total words per minute
after deletion of reformulations, replacements, false starts, pauses, and
silence) and pausing (the number of pauses operationalized as any break
of 0.4 seconds or longer) as reliable fluency measures.
Taking these research findings into account, fluency was measured in
the present study in terms of pruned speech rate operationalized as total
words per minute after deletion of reformulations, replacements, false
starts, pauses, and silence, following Bei (2010), and total pause length,
and pause frequency during talk, with a pause defined as a break of
1.0 seconds or longer. One second was chosen, after considering the pro-
ficiency level of participants, and the practicality of data analysis in the
present study; Bei’s (2010) suggestion that pauses be operationalized as
breaks of 0.4 seconds appears to be too demanding and makes practical
observation and measurement problematic (see also similar discussion
in Ishikawa, Chapter 8). Fluency scores from the KEPT (Kanda English
Proficiency Test, 2005) Speaking Test, discussed further below, were also
used. In this test, fluency was operationalized as automatization, or
ability to formulate utterances quickly, and speak smoothly, measured
through speaking speed, frequency of hesitations, and pausing. The
KEPT Speaking Test is a global estimate of fluency by two judges, and
is roughly congruent with the above operationalizations of fluency.
However, KEPT Speaking Test scores are not based on analysis of numeri-
cal data, but rather on rater perceptions.
Thus a number of conventional fluency measures were used in order
to accurately measure valid improvements among the participants, but
Pallotti’s (2009) cautions on the use of measures are worth considering.
She argues that researchers are concerned with variations and differ-
ences, and therefore seek and employ valid measures that discriminate
differences among their participants. However, there are traits that do
not actually vary over time, and so even if a measure does not indicate
much change among participants and over time, it does not necessarily
indicate a poor measure. In addition, many studies employ multiple

measures in order to obtain statistically significant results, and it often
happens that only one out of many measures reaches significance.
Such results may mean the participants are very similar except in one
characteristic, or that significant differences are due to random chance.
Therefore, researchers should be careful in interpreting results on fluency,
accuracy, and complexity improvement data, especially when only one
or two measures reach significance when multiple measures are used.
Pallotti’s suggestions need to be considered when analyzing and inter-
preting the results of the present study. That said, Pallotti (2009) is in
agreement with the use of the three different fluency measures discussed
above: speed fluency, breakdown fluency, and repair fluency, as long as
each measure is clearly operationalized.
Defining accuracy
In the literature, neither has accuracy been free from controversy, but
compared with fluency, accuracy has been defined more consistently.
In general, accuracy has been characterized as the ability to produce
error-free speech (Housen & Kuiken, 2009), also described as the extent
to which L2 production is error-free (Schoonjans et al., 2010). That said,
what should be treated as errors in spoken English has been controver-
sial, particularly since the grammar of spoken English is different from
that of written English (McCarthy, 2006).
One way accuracy is operationalized is as the ratio of error-free clauses
to the total number of clauses and the number of errors in every 100
pruned words (Bei, 2010). In this study, the second criteria suggested by
Bei (2010), the number of errors in every 100 pruned words, was used
with errors defined as grammatical and lexical errors. Pronunciation
errors were not taken into consideration, in keeping with Nation (1989).
In addition, the accuracy scores of the KEPT Speaking Test were used. In
the KEPT Speaking Test, accuracy is defined as correct grammatical form,
suitability of vocabulary, an ability to use (or attempting to use) different
grammatical structures and vocabulary suitably in context, and correct
collocation and word choice. Thus, the measure was a global estimate of
accuracy by two judges, and was roughly congruent with the above defi-
nition of accuracy. However, the KEPT Speaking Test scores are not based
on a numerical analysis of speech characteristics, but on rater perceptions.
The same cautions made by Pallotti (2009) are worth considering
in using a number of measures and interpreting the results in studies
investigating fluency, accuracy, and complexity improvement. Also
important, Pallotti (2009) suggests that accuracy and development
(or comprehensibility), frequently confounded, should be regarded as

separate constructs and therefore should be assessed using different
measures. This requires caution, especially when different weights are
assigned to errors according to the extent they affect communication—
in other words, according to the developmental stage of the second
language learners’ interlanguage. One may run the risk of confusing two
constructs, such as accuracy and comprehensibility, as relative degrees
of one construct. However, as she contends, ‘one can have perfectly
accurate but communicatively inadequate messages or perfectly intel-
ligible messages violating various L2 norms’ (Pallotti, 2009, p. 592).
Interaction between fluency and accuracy

It is a common belief among teachers and language learners that there is a
trade-off between accuracy and fluency. One can easily imagine that speech
production includes more errors because of the limited processing time in
more rapid speech. Ellis (1994) claims that in second language acquisition,
when fluency improves, accuracy and complexity might decrease owing
to the differential development of knowledge automatization in second
language acquisition. This trade-off might also be supported by the fact
that because of limited processing capacity, ‘to acquire [new language]
the learner must attend consciously to the input and, perhaps also, make
efforts to monitor output, but doing so may interfere with fluent reception
and production’ (Ellis, 1994, p. 107). Bygate (1999a, 1999b) and Skehan
and Foster (1999) make a similar argument that fluency and accuracy
compete for attentional resources. Larsen-Freeman (2006), based on an
increasing amount of evidence that fluency, accuracy, and complexity do
not operate completely independent of each other, but interact, suggests
that researchers should identify the development of the multiple, related
subsystems of performance. Additionally, the relationships among these
variables are not static, but change throughout the course of language
development. Therefore, a change in fluency may support development in
accuracy at one point, but may have a competitive relationship at another
point. Taken together, it would be worth investigating how the fluency-
promoting intervention in the current study influences both fluency and
accuracy in the speech production of the participants, and especially if
there are any interactions between fluency and accuracy.
Examining fluency and accuracy among intermediate

to upper-intermediate learners
With the exception of Bei (2010) and Larsen-Freeman (2006), most
of the studies described above use a small number of beginning to
low-intermediate participants, which means current understanding of

fluency and accuracy development is limited to relative beginners in
language learning. Thus the relationship between fluency and accuracy
development among intermediate to upper-intermediate proficiency
level university students is not clear, and is worth exploring. As learners
become more proficient, the relationship between fluency and accu-
racy for them might be different because they have more attentional
resources available during production. This means a different picture
might emerge with regard to how fluency and accuracy interact with
relatively proficient speakers. In this respect, Bei’s (2010) study, investi-
gating the relationship of fluency, accuracy, complexity, and lexis with
highly proficient students, indicates that with his highly proficient
speakers, although fluency did not improve significantly, accuracy and
complexity improved simultaneously.
Larsen-Freeman’s (2006) study with five Chinese high-intermediate
learners of English is also worth examination. The study, using written
and oral production data, indicated that as a group the fluency and accu-
racy of the participants improved, at the same time fluency and accuracy
development differed from learner to learner and over time. For some
learners, both fluency and accuracy improved in parallel, and for others,
at some points fluency and accuracy were in competition, with fluency
increasing, accuracy decreasing, and vice versa. Thus Larsen-Freeman
(2006) presents a complicated picture of the relationship between speech
variables among high intermediate learners. This research contributes
further to the discussion of intermediate to upper-intermediate level
English learners by investigating the fluency and accuracy development
of 30 such students over a period of one year. The next section addresses
how this classroom intervention was constructed and implemented.
Speaking fluency improvement interventions
This section describes two strategies that were identified as potentially

fruitful in the development of student speaking fluency: automatization
and formulaic sequences.
Automatization
Empirical studies in second language acquisition indicate that automati-
zation, facilitated by multiple encounters or retrievals of language items
(Schmitt & Carter, 2004), leads to fluency development in oral produc-
tion (Wood, 2001). It is well documented that fluent speakers and native
speakers have a greater repertoire of automatized chunks of language
that allows them to buy time to prepare their next linguistic sequence
(Wood, 2001). Swain (1985, 1995), who emphasizes the importance of
output, notes that successful language learners acquire automatic and
fluent production in L2 speaking. These ideas seem to be supported by
Swain’s (1985) ‘comprehensible output hypothesis’ (p. 259), which sug-
gests that in order to achieve native speaker-like fluency, learners need
to be pushed towards delivery of a message that is not only conveyed,
but is conveyed precisely, coherently, and appropriately.
Formulaic sequences
With a view to promoting automatization, formulaic language sequences
are a good place from which to start developing fluency (Chambers,
1998). As Schmitt and Underwood (2004) define them, formulaic
sequences can be diverse lexically and functionally, and range from
simple fillers (Let’s see) and functions (Excuse me) to collocations (Give a
presentation), idioms (To be on the safe side), proverbs (A rolling stone gath-
ers no moss), and lengthy standardized phrases (It is not too much to say
that…). A formulaic sequence is defined by Wray (2002) as ‘a sequence,
continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or
appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from
memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or
analysis by the language grammar’ (p. 9). A study conducted by Boers
et al. (2006) demonstrated that the mastery of formulaic sequences can
help learners come across as fluent and accurate L2 speakers. These find-
ings are congruent with Skehan’s (1998) assertion that, ‘We rely on such
chunks (i.e. formulaic sequences) to ease processing problems, using
them to “buy” processing time while other computation proceeds, ena-
bling us to plan ahead for the content of what we are going to say, as
well as the linguistic form’ (p. 40).
The use of formulaic sequences is validated by Anderson’s (1982) Adapt
Control of Thought theory of skill development, which includes joining
sequences into larger units, broadening the use of some rules, narrow-
ing the scope of others, and strengthening those that are most effective.
Thus, it is not possible to account for developments in fluency simply
through increased processing speed. Substantial increases in fluency also
involve changes in the nature of processing (see also Kirk, Chapter 6).
Developing fluency
Pedagogical interventions that promote fluency in oral production are

suggested by many researchers. Among others, Nation (2006) suggests
three major principles for task and material design: (1) activities are
meaning-focused; (2) learners take part in activities where all the
language items are within their previous experience; and (3) there is
support and encouragement for learners to perform at a higher than
normal level. In other words, essential factors for fluency development
include easy tasks (95%–98% of the running words should be famil-
iar), a focus on the message, time pressure, planning and preparation
time, and task repetition (Nation, 2006; see also Nation, Chapter 1). In
addition, Nation (2006) suggests that language-learning tasks based on
listening can easily be adapted for tasks that develop oral fluency, vali-
dating the incorporation of listening tasks that promote language learn-
ing or noticing in speaking-fluency development. Nation (2006) makes
another suggestion: In contexts where the second language is not used
outside the classroom, a quarter of class time should be devoted to fluency
development activities (see also Nation, Chapter 1). These suggestions
informed the fluency development course designed for this study.
Also, Wood (2001) suggests a course design that promotes oral flu-
ency. It is composed of four stages: (a) input (noticing of formulaic
language units and preparation), (b) automatization (preparation and
automaticity), (c) practice and production (repetition), and (d) free pro-
duction (repetition). However, considering participant proficiency and
the time available for this study, fluency was promoted through only
three instructional stages: (a) input, (b) automatization and practice,
and (c) practice and production. Thus, this course design integrates
automaticity, formulaic language units, noticing, preparation, and
repetition.
For this study, the underlying course structure was created based on
components of the task-based learning framework suggested by Willis
(1996), including pre-task, task cycle (task, planning, and report), and
language focus (analysis and practice). Based upon this structure, a
three-stage teaching approach adapted from Wood’s (2001) fluency
development course was built. Within the three different stages, a
sequence of language tasks were incorporated from Nation’s (2006) four
strands of teaching (i.e. meaning-focused input, language-focused learn-
ing, meaning-focused output, and fluency development). These tasks
included comprehension check (a language-focused learning/meaning-
focused task); discussion (a meaning-focused task); language analysis
(a language-focused learning task); shadowing (a language-focused
learning task); dictogloss (a language-focused learning/meaning-focused
task) and 4/3/2 (a fluency development task). Shadowing is a language-
focused learning task that improves accuracy (Nation, 2006), helps
students automatize formulaic language units, and improves fluency

(Wood, 2001). Dictogloss facilitates retrieval of formulaic language units
and promotes automatization, which improves fluency. Finally, 4/3/2
is a fluency development task that encourages students to prepare and
plan their story then repeat it a few times with increasing time pressure.
In fact, it is not only an effective fluency development task, but leads
to accuracy development (Nation, 2006; see also Nation, Chapter 1).
Regarding 4/3/2, Nation (1989) elaborated on its important features,
which include repetition, increasing time pressure, and a change of
audience; these features influence fluency by encouraging a focus on
the message while providing an opportunity for monitoring and learn-
ing. In other words, 4/3/2 enables the learner to integrate previously
encountered language items into an easily accessible, largely uncon-
scious language system as a result of a focus on communication of mes-
sages. Regarding accuracy development, repetition builds confidence
and provides more time for monitoring, resulting in an overall decrease
in errors in learner speech production (Nation, 2006). In discussion of
pedagogical tasks promoting automatization, other researchers suggest
employing similar tasks, such as shadowing and reading aloud (Kadota,
2007) and summarizing, and dictogloss (Muranoi, 2006). These output-
focused tasks can help learners internalize and automatize language
units (Kadota, 2009).
Research questions
Motivated by the aforementioned theoretical and empirical considera-
tions, the present study addresses the following research questions:
1. How does fluency in the English production by intermediate to

upper-intermediate learners develop over an academic year?
2. How does accuracy develop?
Methods
This section will describe how the research was carried out, starting with
the participants, then discussing the research methodology and finally
addressing how data was collected.
Participants
A total of 30 students enrolled in a Media English class from April 2007
to January 2008 participated in this study. There were 56 class meet-
ings during the year. The class met twice a week and each class was 90
minutes long. Instruction was in English, with Japanese use in class

prohibited by institutional policy. The students were also required to
take Advanced Reading and Advanced Writing courses, which met twice
a week, and were taught by native speakers of English. The participants
were between 19 and 20 years old, with 23 female and 7 male students.
They were second-year English majors and demonstrated intermediate
to upper-intermediate levels of English proficiency as measured by the
KEPT Speaking Test (which measures fluency and accuracy in university
student oral production) in January 2007.
Course components
As discussed earlier, exploration of the fluency development interven-
tion in this study drew on Wood’s (2001) fluency course design and
Nation’s (2006) four strands of teaching. The structure and the tasks for
this study in the Media English class are presented below. This lesson
structure was followed each week throughout the academic year.
(a) At the input stage:

1. A TV news story with a listening comprehension check (language-
focused learning and meaning-focused task): Students watch a news
clip three times about a controversial issue, such as the introduction
of English language teaching into elementary schools in Japan. Their
comprehension is then checked through a teacher explanation in
English.
2. Group discussion (meaning-focused task): In groups of four, students
discuss their opinions about the controversial issue from the first
task above, such as whether it is a good idea to introduce English
language teaching at elementary schools in the way prescribed by
the Education Ministry.
3. Follow-up DVD (language-focused learning and meaning-focused
task): Students watch a five-minute DVD twice, in which two native
speakers discuss the issue and express their attitudes and feelings.
The DVD was created by the researcher and his colleagues.
4. Comprehension check of the DVD (language-focused learning and
meaning-focused task): Students watch the DVD again while reading
the transcript and check their comprehension.
5. Noticing enhancement (language-focused learning task): In groups
of four, students discuss and report to the rest of the class effec-
tive formulaic expressions for expressing and eliciting opinions
(e.g. I think…, What do you think about…), agreeing (I agree), disa-
greeing politely (I don’t think so), confirming understanding and
summarizing what the other person has said (So what you are saying
is…), making comments (That’s a good point), and describing a news
story (I heard an interesting story).
6. Language analysis and uptake of the input (language-focused learn-
ing task): The teacher selects some of the reported expressions,
explains the usage, and has the students repeat chorally three times.
(b) At the automatization, and practice stage:

1. Shadowing (language-focused learning task): Students shadow (i.e.
simultaneously repeat) parts of the DVD that include expressions
selected in the first stage.
2. Dictogloss 1 (language-focused learning and meaning-focused task):
Groups of four students watch a one-minute part of the same DVD
three times while taking notes.
3. Dictogloss 2 (language-focused task and meaning-focused task): All
of the students reconstruct the dialogue using their notes and com-
paring their transcripts.
(c) At the practice and production stage:

1. 4/3/2 (fluency-development task): Students participate in a revised
version of 4/3/2 (Nation, 2006). After students are paired up, one
student describes a self-selected controversial news story in four
minutes with a first partner, three minutes with a second partner,
and two minutes with a third partner. The delivery includes student
opinions and reasons at the end of the story-telling performances.
The other students in the pairs listen to the story, try to understand
it and formulate their own opinions.
2. Opinion-sharing (meaning-focused task): At the end of each story-
telling, the student-listener gives an opinion on the theme and asks
questions to elicit their partner’s opinion, moving on to a short dis-
cussion, usually lasting three to four minutes.
3. The above two steps are repeated so that all the students fill the roles
of both storyteller and listener.
The KEPT Speaking Test

The KEPT Speaking Test is one section of the Kanda English Proficiency
Test (KEPT), which measures the speaking, listening, reading and writ-
ing skills of the students at Kanda University of International Studies.
The KEPT Speaking Test is a group test in which three or four students
are given a speaking prompt (e.g. Please discuss the following with your
group members: If you are traveling in a new place by yourself, who would you
ask if you did not know how to go someplace? Why? What else could you do
to find out how to go?). The examinees are encouraged to interact freely
and discuss the topic with one another, and although an examiner
intervenes in the discussion when necessary, the participants largely
control the session. Two examiners, native speakers of English, evaluate
the individual performances using a 0–4 scale (0–0.5 Unacceptable;
1.0–1.5 Poor; 2.0–2.5 Fair; 3.0–3.5 Very Good; 4 Excellent) and
four assessment criteria: (a) pronunciation, (b) fluency, (c) grammar
and vocabulary, and (d) communicative effectiveness. The rater raw
scores were analyzed using the multi-faceted Rasch model in FACETS
(Linacre, 2006), which adjusts for rater severity. This permits estimation
of Rasch fair-average scores based on the ratings awarded by the two
raters. The Rasch logit measures are used for placement purposes, while
raw scores are reported to the students. The speaking test yields high
internal consistency reliability every year, for example, in 2007 total
.97 ( .99 in the fluency section, and .96 in the grammar and
vocabulary section). In this test, fluency is operationalized as automa-
tization, or ability to formulate utterances quickly and speak smoothly,
speaking speed and hesitations and pausing. The grammar and vocabu-
lary section, which is purported to measure accuracy, is described as
correct grammatical forms, suitability of vocabulary, the ability to use
(or attempting to use) different grammatical structures and vocabulary
suitably in context and collocations and correct word choice.
The KEPT Speaking Tests were used for this research for a number of
reasons. First, the participants were familiar with the test and tended
to get actively engaged in the group discussion task led by a student
moderator in a less anxiety-provoking atmosphere (Onoda, 2002) and
there is a tendency that in natural conversations, speakers ‘scaffold
each other’s performance and whole conversation flow’ (McCarthy,
2006, p. 4), thus contributing to each other’s fluency. In other words,
there is a ‘confluence’ (McCarthy, 2006, p. 4) in the conversation.
Thus, this group oral test seemed to be pedagogically beneficial and an
advantage over the teacher-student interview test. Second, the group
oral test was an economical way of measuring participants’ speaking
performance; it enabled raters to observe and assess the performance of
several participants in one session, another advantage over a one-on-
one interview test (Van Moere, 2006). In addition, the speaking ability
data of the participants were easily available from the KEPT testing
committee upon request, as long as consent was obtained from the
participants. Methodologically and theoretically, the natural, authen-
tic, and extended conversation elicited by the group discussion task
is appropriate for measuring speaking ability (van Lier, 1989). Finally,

Van Moere’s (2006) study indicated that the KEPT Speaking Test can be
used as one facet of a speaking ability test. However, his study also sug-
gested that it should be used conjointly with other oral tests because it
lacked dependability and the inter-rater correlations were lower than
those of commercially available interview tests. Therefore there should
not be a serious concern with its inclusion in this investigation because
this study used other speaking measurements in addition to the KEPT
Speaking Test.
Measurements of fluency
Student oral production fluency was measured at the beginning and
end of the course in terms of: (a) speech rate (the total words per minute
after deletion of reformulations, replacements, false starts and pauses
that lasted one second or longer); (b) total length of unfilled pauses
that lasted one second or longer; and (c) frequency of pauses from the
news story telling task, in which students watched a BBC News clip
three times then summarized the story and gave their opinions on it in
three minutes (for further detail, see Appendices A and B). Finally, oral
fluency scores from the KEPT Speaking Test were also included.
Measurements of accuracy
Accuracy was measured as the number of errors in every 100 pruned
words and the accuracy scores from the KEPT Speaking Test.
Data collection
Speech data were gathered from the participants in the Media English
course at the beginning and at the end of the 2007 academic year by
using a story-telling task suggested by Lennon (1990). The participants
met the researcher individually at both of the two data collection points
and listened to a BBC news clip three times with a key information
sheet (see Appendix A and B). While listening to the story, the students
were allowed to take notes on additional information they thought
would help them narrate the story. They were given a few minutes to
ensure that they understood the news story, to ask about anything that
was unclear, and to ask for vocabulary assistance. This step was neces-
sary because in my experience, BBC news clips are difficult for inter-
mediate to upper-intermediate level students to understand, although
difficulty is topic dependent. After that, they were given two minutes to
prepare their narrations and were then asked to tell the story, including
their opinions. Each participant, using a wireless microphone, narrated
the story to the researcher in a university sound studio. The researcher

was the only person present, but studio staff observed from the studio
control room. The students were told not to speak with other students
about the news story after their narrations. Students who completed
the narration task were instructed to next go to another room. The
same procedure was employed using the same news story-telling task in
order to elicit speech data at the end of the course. Thus, the same story
was used for everyone at the two data collection times, on April 28,
2007, and January 30, 2008, in order to compare the two performances.
Practice effects, caused by using the same story twice, may be a concern,
but given that the same story was used after a one-year interval, such
effects were considered to be negligible. Recordings of the learner narra-
tives were automatically transcribed using computer software. The tran-
scripts were then checked for accuracy and analyzed in order to identify
reformulations, replacements, false starts, pauses, and errors. A colleague
familiar with applied linguistics reviewed all analyses to ensure accuracy.
Results
In order to determine how fluency developed over the year, the tran-
scripts of the earlier and later renderings were compared for each par-
ticipant. Six paired-sample t tests were conducted after confirming that
the following assumptions were met: (a) that the difference scores were
normally distributed and (b) that the cases represented random samples
from the population and the scores on the test variables were independ-
ent of each other (Green & Salkind, 2005).
Because making multiple comparisons can result in a Type 1 error,
rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true, the alpha () level was
adjusted for the pair-wise comparisons using the Bonferroni method
(Green & Salkind, 2005), by dividing it by the number of comparisons.
Then the six pairwise comparisons were run. Using the Bonferroni
approach to control for Type 1 errors across the six comparisons, a p
value of less than .0083 (.05/6 .0083) was required for significance.
First, a paired-samples t test was conducted to evaluate whether the
fluency, as measured by words per minute, improved from the beginning
to the end of the course. The results indicated the mean from the end
of the course (M 95.9, SD 11.82) was statistically significantly greater
than the mean from the beginning of the course (M 82.2, SD 6.46),
t(29) −7.32, p .0083. Second, a paired-samples t test was conducted to
evaluate whether the fluency, as measured by total pause length, improved
from the beginning to the end of the course. The results indicated the mean
from the beginning of the course (M 22.66, SD 4.57) was significantly

greater than the mean from the end of the course (M 11.65, SD 3.71),
t(29) 10.92, p .0083. Third, a paired-samples t test was conducted to
evaluate whether the fluency, as measured by pause frequency, improved
from the beginning to the end of the course. The results indicated that
the mean from the beginning of the course (M 17.77, SD 3.95) was
significantly greater than the mean at the end of the course (M 12.07,
SD 2.94), t(29) 8.14, p .0083. Finally, a paired-samples t test was
conducted to evaluate whether the fluency, as measured by the fluency
section of the KEPT Speaking Test, improved from the beginning to the
end of the course. The results indicated the mean from the end of the
course (M 2.99, SD .44) was significantly greater than the mean from
the beginning of the course (M 2.42, SD .34), t(29) −7.74, p .0083.
Thus these results suggest oral fluency, as measured by the four criteria,
improved as a result of the pedagogical intervention.
In order to address whether there was a relationship between fluency
and accuracy, a paired-samples t-test was first run to evaluate whether the
accuracy, as measured by the number of errors per 100 words, improved
from the beginning to the end of the course. The results indicated that
the mean from the beginning (M 19.87, SD 4.43) was significantly
greater than the mean at the end of the course (M 13.83, SD 3.86),
t(29) 8.40, p .0083. Second, a paired-samples t-test was run to evalu-
ate whether accuracy, as measured by the KEPT Speaking Test Grammar
and Vocabulary section scores, improved from the beginning to the end
of the course. The results indicated that the mean from the end of the
course (M 2.66, SD .35) was significantly greater than the mean from
the beginning (M 2.38, SD .31), t(29) −4.61, p .0083. Thus the
results indicated that accuracy, as measured by both criteria, improved.
With a view to further analyzing the results of the above t-test results,
correlation coefficients were computed between the KEPT Speaking
Test fluency and accuracy section scores at the end of the course. The
results of the correlational analyses show that the fluency and accuracy
scores were highly correlated (r .89). However, the results only suggest
that accuracy improved conjointly with fluency; it does not indicate
whether there is a trade-off between fluency and accuracy or not.
Discussion and conclusion
In order to investigate the influence of the pedagogical interventions

on language performance development, ratings based on four fluency
measures and two accuracy measures were compared.
The first research question asked how fluency changed over a period
of one academic year, from the beginning to the end of the course.
All the paired samples t-tests suggest that oral fluency, as measured
by the four criteria used, significantly improved over the one-year
period. Although one could conceive that the two other required
courses, taught by native speakers of English (Advanced Reading and
Advanced Writing) might have helped the participants improve their
fluency, it was unlikely that they had a direct and significant impact
on the participants’ fluency development. According to the teachers
of these two courses and the students, activities that were purported
to promote automatization and those that are congruent with Nation’s
(2006, Chapter 1) fluency development activities were not implemented
because of the objectives of these courses. Also, these courses did not
include materials using TV news stories and tasks such as summaries
and story writing. Therefore, the results appear to indicate the fluency
course structure was effective. However, it is conceivable that the par-
ticipants might have been a little unfamiliar with the story-telling test
and therefore a little anxious in the initial baseline test in April 2007,
which might have affected their performance.
The second research question asked how accuracy changed in rela-
tionship to fluency. The two paired samples t-tests and correlational
analyses results showed that accuracy improved, as well as fluency, and
that accuracy strongly correlated with fluency. Based on these results,
it cannot be judged whether there was any trade-off between fluency
and accuracy in the participants’ oral production, although this study
suggests that the course structure was effective in helping the learners
to improve their fluency and accuracy in speech production. Please note
that formulaic sequences were encouraged to be noticed at the input
stage and then automatized at the automatization and practice stage in
this intervention. These results appear to be congruent with the postu-
lation made by McCarthy (2006) that ‘formulaic chunks can be part of
that automaticity which enables effortless accuracy’ (p. 4).
However, here the cautions by Pallotti (2009) need to be considered
before drawing a final conclusion. She argues researchers should be
careful in interpreting fluency, accuracy, and complexity improvement
data, especially when only one or two measures reach significance when
multiple measures are used. This could mean that the participants were
very similar except the one or two characteristics, or that the signifi-
cant differences were caused by random chance. In the current study,
four measures were employed to assess fluency development and two
measures for accuracy development, and all these measures indicated
statistically significant results. This is strong additional support for

the effectiveness of the course structure. Also, as discussed earlier, she
concurs with the use of three different fluency measures; speed flu-
ency, breakdown fluency, and repair fluency, as long as each measure
is clearly operationalized. The first two measures were employed in the
present study. Thus, having considered the cautions by Pallotti (2009),
the results clearly indicated that the fluency and accuracy of the speech
of the students improved.
In order to investigate which tasks were perceived to be most effec-
tive by the participants, an anonymous survey and interviews were
conducted on the last day of the course. Students rated three tasks
very highly on a five-point Likert scale (1 Very ineffective, 5 Highly
effective): DVD viewing (M 4.5, SD .73), shadowing (M 4.3,
SD .94), and 4/3/2 (M 4.6, SD .53). In regard to DVD viewing,
the students reported that the talk between the two native speakers
was an exemplary model of effective discussion techniques and expres-
sions. They said the authentic interaction motivated the students to try
to speak like the native speakers on the DVD and made the students
more willing to communicate. Regarding shadowing, the students
felt it helped internalize and automatize effective formulaic language
sequences by simultaneously repeating the recording, a conclusion
supported by Kadota (2007, 2009). On the other hand, some students
did not like this controlled task because it did not allow them to com-
municate with each other. Similar comments were made on the use
of dictogloss, although the participants thought shadowing was more
effective because they had to immediately respond to the oral stimuli
through repeating what they heard. According to them, this process
helped create acoustic images of the formulaic sequences, stored in
their minds, which could be retrieved when needed, an observation
supported by Boers et al. (2009). Finally, concerning 4/3/2, they rated
this task highest because they felt the time pressure imposed on them
encouraged them to speak more quickly and repetition of the same text
under increased time pressure helped them improve their performance.
Earlier performances became preparation and practice for subsequent
performances, and task repetition provided opportunities for students
to monitor and reflect on their previous performance in terms of lan-
guage use and information. As a result, performance improved gradu-
ally, in terms of speed of delivery and accuracy, a conclusion supported
by Nation (1989). One important point that is worth considering is
that, compared with fluency development, accuracy did not improve to
the same extent, a finding also congruent with Nation (1989).
Thus it appears that the fluency development course design was

effective for fluency and accuracy development among this group of
intermediate to upper-intermediate proficiency English majors. The suc-
cess of the course may be from the fact that it included both language-
focused learning tasks and fluency development tasks, and that these
two elements allow repeated use of automatized formulaic language
units. However, the participants’ lack of familiarity with the story-telling
task in the baseline test needs to be considered, and replication of the
results reported here will be necessary for validating the effectiveness of
the course structure. Baseline tests, administered after a few practice ses-
sions, might solve the lack of familiarity problem and replication studies
using other fluency and accuracy measures will lend further support to
this fluency development course structure. Equally important, it might
be worth investigating pedagogical approaches to the improvement of
speaking fluency by promoting the affective facets of language learn-
ing, such as learner intrinsic motivation, confidence, and willingness to
communicate (Finch, Chapter 4) and interventions that alter cognitive
task demands, as suggested by Ishikawa (Chapter 8). Investigations of
these aspects of teaching might pave the way to finding new insights
into teaching approaches for promoting fluency development.
Appendix A
4/3/2 news story telling task and a news story telling

data collection task (Sample script)
(Please note that reformulations, replacements, false starts, and pauses that lasted
1.0 seconds or longer were deleted from the transcripts.)
I’d like to tell you an interesting story today. You like speaking English,
right? If you were a child, would you like to study English? I know you would say
yes. Well, to tell you the truth, recently the Japanese government has decided to
introduce English language teaching at the elementary school level. According to
the government announcement, English classes, or more accurately, ‘the English
activities classes,’ will be offered to the fifth and sixth grades at elementary schools
starting in 2011. They emphasize that the objectives of the classes are not so much
to teach English as language as to foster a positive attitude to communication
in English, to enhance students’ ‘international communication skills’ and make
them familiar with the English-speaking world. So the scheme is high-sounding.
Do you think it is a good idea to teach English to elementary school stu-
dents? Yes, in an ideal world, many people agree with the idea because earlier
English education will surely bring about a lot of benefits to students. For
example, young children can learn English orally and develop good pronuncia-
tion, they can easily develop a positive attitude to communicating with people
from other countries, and when they start learning English from elementary
school, they can learn for much longer than six years, and they are expected to
improve their skills more. In addition, they can develop interests in learning new
things, build their confidence, and create a good self-image, which will help them
develop positive attitudes towards their life-long learning. However, the scheme
seems to have some loopholes as you may expect. Critics say that English
activities classes will be very different from formal English lessons that are given
in other countries. First of all, students will be taught by unqualified teachers who
lack teaching skills and/or English skills. And the classes will take place only once a
week in large classrooms. Second, teachers will engage students in activities using
English without using any textbooks. The Education Ministry says that as long as
students can develop a positive attitude to communicating in English, that will
be good at this stage, so teachers do not necessarily have to have good teaching
skills and English language skills. The government says that it is OK for students
to make mistakes when using English because encouraging them to use English
is very important at this stage. They will learn to correct their English gradually.
What do you think of this scheme? Do you think it’s a good idea to start
teaching English even if there are some anticipated shortcomings? After
hearing about all these shortcomings do you think you can familiarize students
with English and foster a positive attitude to communicating in English? In my
opinion, I would say, the scheme will be counter-effective or even harmful
for student learning. They may have acquired incorrect English and there is
no instruction to correct it. It will stay in their minds for the rest of their lives,
and it is not easy to have them correct errors on their own that have once been
acquired. So I have concerns over the English education scheme. I don’t
understand why the Education Ministry will not think about the nega-
tive effects that such a scheme will cause. What is your opinion about the
scheme? Do you agree with me? (555 words)
Appendix B
News story-telling task sheet for speech data collection

Watch the news clip three times and understand the news story. The information
sheet, which gives the key information, will help you understand, and describe
the story, but you can take notes of additional information while listening. You
can ask questions if you do not still understand the story well.
You need to summarize the news story covering the controversial issue and
give your opinion on it in three minutes. You can begin your narration with ‘I
would like to tell you an interesting story today.’
Now you have two minutes to prepare your narration.
Key information pieces of the news story

The Japanese government has decided to introduce English language teaching at
elementary schools.
The English classes are called ‘English activities classes.’

To be offered to the fifth and sixth grades starting in 2011.
The purposes: (1) to make them familiar with the English-speaking world, (2) to
enhance students’ ‘international communication skills,’ and (3) to teach English
as language
Some are in favour of the scheme, thinking about benefits to students.

Others are opposed to the scheme, considering some shortcomings.
The government’s responses to some concerns.
Your opinion
Note
1. A T-unit or minimally terminable unit is defined as ‘the shortest grammatically
allowable sentence into which [text] could be segmented’ (Hunt, 1965, p. 21).
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University Press.
8
The Influence of Intentional
Reasoning on EFL Fluency
Using Tasks
Tomohito Ishikawa
Introduction
Recently, foreign and second language (L2) researchers have shown

increasing interest in the influence of task complexity on various aspects
of L2 production, leading to a number of questions related to this line
of research (e.g. Ellis, 2005; Garcia-Mayo, 2007; Robinson, 2011; Skehan,
1998). Some of the issues investigated include whether it is feasible to
direct learner attention to certain aspects of L2 forms by manipulating
task complexity, thereby encouraging greater retention/uptake of the
target L2 items (Révész et al., 2011; Robinson, 2007a), including investi-
gating what learner factors are influential in increasing what type of task
complexity (Albert, 2011; Ishikawa, 2006, 2012; Kormos & Trebits, 2011;
Robinson, 2005a, 2007b); what production measures should be used to
examine the influence of manipulation of task complexity (Housen &
Kuiken, 2009; Ishikawa, 2005; Robinson, 2007a; Robinson & Gilabert,
2007); how pedagogic tasks should be sequenced (Robinson, 2010);
and how manipulation of task complexity affects learner perceptions
of task difficulty (Gilabert, 2005; Ishikawa, 2011), to name only some.
The present study considers how manipulation of specific task design
features influences L2 speech production (Gilabert, 2007; Ishikawa,
2007; Robinson, 1995). More specifically, the present study investigates
the influence of one category of task complexity, proposed by Robinson
(2007b), on L2 fluency in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context.
Robinson’s triadic framework
Robinson’s (2001a, 2001b, 2005b, 2011) triadic framework categorizes

task characteristics into three types: task condition, task difficulty, and
143
task complexity. Task condition refers to interactive factors of pedagogic

tasks, including participation and participant variables. Participation
variables include the distribution and flow of information when per-
forming pedagogic tasks (one-way vs. two-way) and the relative degree
of freedom in the number of solutions (open vs. closed), along with the
number of participants and the degree meaning negotiation and partici-
pation are required for task completion. Participant variables concern
participant attributes relevant to task performance such as proficiency
level and gender. Robinson (2007a, 2007b, 2010) states that the nature
of the task is constrained by the target task, identified through needs
analysis, which is approximated by pedagogic tasks. In such situations,
task conditions are crucial for a series of pedagogic tasks to closely
resemble the real-world target task.
Task difficulty refers to learner factors that can influence their percep-
tion of task difficulty, which is a result of interactions between student
variables, such as proficiency, and the intrinsic cognitive complexity
of a task. Some variables within this category are subject to change
(such as motivation) and others are relatively stable (such as students’
working memory capacity). Concerning prospective task sequencing
decisions, learner perceptions are impossible to assess prior to task
implementation, and so prospective sequencing decisions based on task
difficulty are impossible, but represent important indicators for online
decisions during a language class.
Finally, task complexity refers to a pedagogic task’s information pro-
cessing demands on memory, attention, and reasoning, and is cognitive
in nature, with each dimension representing inherent and relatively
fixed task demands (such as [± intentional reasoning], explained further
below). These proposed dimensions are relatively stable (within tasks)
and can be manipulated (through task selection and design) prior to
task performance. Thus they can contribute to prospective decisions
in sequencing pedagogic tasks in the classroom. Robinson’s (2010)
cognition hypothesis clarifies that task complexity should be the sole
criterion for prospective task sequencing and constitutes the heart of
task-based syllabus design. The present study investigates how manipu-
lating one category of task complexity, intentional reasoning demands,
influences measures of learner fluency.
Intentional reasoning
Reasoning can be categorized into different types: deductive and induc-

tive reasoning. Deductive reasoning guarantees a successful solution in
Intentional Reasoning on EFL Fluency Using Tasks 145
a problem-solving situation (such as algorithms) or can help to draw a

correct conclusion given true premises (such as math word problems
given at school). In contrast, inductive reasoning does not necessar-
ily lead to a correct conclusion, but is instead an inferential process
used to abstract some patterns based on examples. The distinction
between deductive and inductive reasoning is convenient and can be
manipulated in task design (Holyoak & Morrison, 2005). Both modes of
reasoning are domain general, abstract, and logical to a certain extent
in that they themselves are applicable in many situations and have no
substantial content.
The dimension of [± intentional reasoning] in task complexity, pro-
posed by Robinson (2007a), addresses reasoning about other people’s
intentions, beliefs, desires, and relationships between them. Intentional
reasoning (IR) is specific to the human social/psychological domain (e.g.
Baron-Cohen, 1995) and notions implicated in appreciating and explain-
ing intentional behaviors with reference to mental states are termed
‘mentalizing’ (Frith & Frith, 2003, p. 459), ‘mindreading’ (Baron-Cohen,
1995, p. 31) or ‘theory of mind’ (Baron-Cohen et al., 1993, p. 335).
The present study addressed the following research question: What
is the influence on L2 fluency of increasing task complexity through manipu-
lating intentional reasoning? Here fluency is defined as a measurable
characteristic of learner utterance, or what Segalowitz (2010) calls utter-
ance fluency (see also Kirk, Chapter 6). To answer this research ques-
tion, this study re-examined the spoken corpus originally obtained for
Ishikawa (2008a, 2008b), which investigated the effect of increasing IR
demands on L2 speech production. The Cognition Hypothesis predicts
that increasing IR task complexity will lead to decreases in fluency. To
test this hypothesis, the present study employed six fluency measures
that may capture important characteristics of L2 utterances, including:
(1) speech rate, (2) articulation rate, (3) mean length of fluent runs,
(4) silent pauses per ten seconds, (5) mean length of silent pauses, and
(6) number of hesitation episodes per ten seconds.
The study
Participants
The participants for the present study were Japanese college students
learning English as an L2 (n 24; male 2, female 22). They were
either English majors or English for academic purposes (EAP) Economics
students at two universities in Tokyo. Their English proficiency
ranged from low to high intermediate, their mean length of stay in
English-speaking countries was approximately eight months, and the

mean length of English instruction prior to this study was approxi-
mately 11 years.
Materials
Three pedagogic tasks were employed, including two IR tasks, the simple
reasoning task (SRT) and the complex reasoning task (CRT) (the tasks are
reproduced in Appendices A and B), and a control task, the no reasoning
task (NRT) (reproduced in Appendix C). The three tasks shared the same
task characteristics and learners played the same roles in performing the
three tasks. First, all tasks were one-way monologic tasks as one of the
goals of the present study was to examine the effect of manipulating IR
demands on L2 speech fluency and not the influence of interpersonal
speech on fluency. Secondly, in performing the three tasks, the learners
played the role of a company’s general manager in charge of a new sec-
tion. The learners were asked to report to the company president about
their hypothetical human relationships with their section members.
After three minutes of planning time, learners made their reports by
pretending to leave a message on the president’s answering machine,
which formed the basis for the oral data analyzed here.
Whereas the three tasks shared certain characteristics, there were
differences in task complexity between them. In the NRT, learners
described current human relationships between their section members
as reported on the task sheet, divided between good and bad relation-
ships (see Appendix C), so with this task the information necessary for
the company president was available in the task materials. Thus the
learners’ main task was to transfer the information given, which meant
there was little demand for IR. In order to ensure sufficient speech data
for analysis, the number of employees to be reported on was increased
to four for this task condition, as there was relatively little incentive
for the learners to expand their talk beyond the information presented
on their task sheets.
In contrast to the NRT, the two IR tasks required the learner to report
to the company president about human relationship changes that were
not given on the task sheet. In performing both tasks, learners had
to select a ‘trigger’ out of four choices (e.g. one section member lost
a floppy disk, showed up late for a meeting, lost an important docu-
ment, or deleted data on a computer). The trigger was assumed to have
caused hypothetical relationship ‘trouble’ (represented by an arrow)
between section members. Each time the participant performed a task,
they chose only one trouble trigger and assigned it to one of the section
members, so the learners decided who had committed what kind of

mistake. This means that in order to complete the IR tasks, learners had
to ‘fill the gap’ between the initial task instructions and the required
language production, which required reasoning. Furthermore, in order
to perform the IR tasks used in the present study, where relationship
changes were required to be reported, it was natural for learners to
mentally represent and manipulate psychological concepts concerning
human relationships using IR.
Second, there was a minor difference in task demands between the
two IR tasks. The CRT was performed under exactly the same condi-
tions, except that the manager was in charge of four section members
rather than two, as shown in Appendices A and B. Furthermore, in
performing the CRT, four out of the six employee relationships were
assumed to have changed after the hypothetical office trouble. As a
result, learners’ accounts had to include explanations for four hypo-
thetical relationship changes in the CRT as opposed to a single human
relationship change in the SRT, where only two people were included in
the task design. It was therefore expected that in performing the CRT,
learners would have to engage in more IR than in performing the SRT.
Procedures
The experiment was conducted with participants individually. Before
the experiment, the researcher told the participants to perform the
three tasks. The researcher then passed the task-instruction sheets to the
participant. There were two kinds of task-instruction sheet: one for the
NRT (Appendix D) and the other for the SRT and the CRT (Appendix E).
All instructions were originally written in Japanese, and all participants
performed all three tasks in an order randomized using Latin square.
From the task-instruction sheet, two pieces of information were
intentionally left out: the number of section members involved and
trouble triggers (the latter for only the IR task). The purpose of leaving
the information out was to double-check participant comprehension
of the instructions. Participants asking questions about missing informa-
tion indicated they had read and understood the task instructions, and
provided the researcher an opportunity to redescribe the task instructions
in Japanese. After selecting the trouble trigger and being informed of the
number of section members (without knowing their specific relation-
ships), the task-instruction sheet was removed, the task sheet was handed
to the participant, and a three-minute planning phase began.
The participant was also informed in advance that recording would
stop after three minutes but they did not have to keep talking for three
minutes. After each planning session, the researcher read out the answer-
ing machine message, a beep followed, and recording started. After
completing each speaking task, the learner responded to a brief written
questionnaire to assess their subjective perceptions of task difficulty. The
issue of learner perceptions of task difficulty, however, is not addressed in
the present study, but see Ishikawa (2011) for more on this topic.
Fluency measures
The present study employed the following six fluency measures, con-
sidering the desirability of the use of multiple fluency measures that
tap different aspects of the target construct (see also Onoda, Chapter 7;
Segalowitz, 2010).
1. Speech rate: The speech rate measure was defined as total number
of pruned syllables divided by total speaking time (including silent
pauses) in seconds multiplied by ten (e.g. Freed, 2000; Gilabert,
2005). The pruned items included filled pauses and syllables/words
involved in repairs such as insertions, repetitions, deletions, replace-
ments, and explicit editings (e.g. ‘sorry’ in ‘she sorry he liked it’).
2. Articulation rate: The measure of articulation rate was defined as ten
seconds times the total number of pruned syllables divided by total
speaking time (excluding silent pauses) in seconds multiplied by ten.
Silent pause length was measured using spectrograms produced using
Speech Analyzer 3.0.1 and supplemented by perceptual checks.
3. Mean length of fluent runs: The measure of mean length of fluent
runs was defined as the average number of pruned syllables pro-
duced in utterances between silent pauses equal to and longer than
one second.
4. Silent pauses per ten seconds: The measure of silent pauses per ten
pruned syllables was defined as the total number of silent pauses
equal to and longer than one second divided by total speaking time
(including silent pauses) in seconds multiplied by ten.
5. Mean length of silent pauses: The measure of mean length of silent
pauses was defined as total length of silent pauses that are equal to
and longer than one second, divided by the total number of silent
pauses equal to and longer than one second.
6. Hesitation episodes per ten seconds: The measure of hesitation epi-
sodes per ten seconds was defined as total number of hesitation epi-
sodes, including filled pauses, repetitions, false starts, replacements,
deletions, and insertions, divided by total speaking time (including
silent pauses) in seconds multiplied by ten. The basic coding proce-
dures for the measure were based on Shriberg (1994).
Results
Table 8.1 presents the descriptive statistics for the six fluency meas-
u1res as a function of task complexity. Figures 8.1 and 8.2 graphically
Table 8.1 Descriptive statistics for the six fluency measures as a function of task
complexity
Fluency measure Task complexity
NRT SRT CRT
M SD M SD M SD
Speech rate 16.87 4.83 16.77 4.89 14.99 4.06

Articulation rate 22.67 4.28 22.14 4.09 20.64 3.37
Mean length of fluent runs 21.7 22.87 18.12 24.87 14.22 13.18
Silent pauses per ten seconds 1.31 0.6 1.54 0.65 1.48 0.55
Mean length of silent pauses 1.85 0.67 1.55 0.31 1.79 0.68
Hesitation episodes per ten seconds 1.4 0.75 1.53 0.9 1.5 0.83
Note: NRT No-reasoning task; SRT Simple-reasoning task; CRT Complex-reasoning task.
NRT SRT CRT

25
20
15
10
0
Speech rate Articulation rate Mean length of
fluent runs
Figure 8.1 Means of the fluency measures of speech rate, articulation rate, and
mean length of fluent runs in the no-reasoning task (NRT), the simple-reasoning
task (SRT), and the complex-reasoning task (CRT). The vertical scale is the num-
ber of syllables for each fluency measure
NRT SRT CRT

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Silent pauses per Mean length of Hesitation
ten seconds silent pauses episodes per ten
seconds
Figure 8.2 Means of the fluency measures of silent pauses per ten seconds, mean
length of silent pauses, and hesitation episodes per ten seconds in the no-reasoning
task (NRT), the simple-reasoning task (SRT), and the complex-reasoning task
(CRT). The y axis is the frequency of silent pauses per ten seconds, hesitation epi-
sodes per ten seconds, and number of seconds for mean length of silent pauses
represent means of the dependent variables. In order to test normality

of the distributions of the dependent variables, Shapiro-Wilk tests were
applied to the dataset. The results of the Shapiro-Wilk tests indicate the
distributions related to the measures of mean length of fluent runs and
mean length of silent pauses were not normal. Because the measures of
mean length of fluent runs and mean length of silent pauses did not
conform to the normality assumption for a repeated measures multi-
variate analysis of variance (MANOVA), two non-parametric Friedman’s
ANOVA tests were employed.
As the present study employed three statistical tests (a repeated
measures MANOVA and two Friedman tests), the sequential Bonferroni
correction method (Holm, 1979) was applied in order to control the
familywise error rate. First, two Friedman’s ANOVA tests were performed.
Table 8.2 summarizes the results of the Friedman’s ANOVAs. As Table
8.2 shows, the following statistically significant results were obtained:
The measure of mean length of fluent runs (χ2 (2) 6.333, p .042,
Table 8.2 Summary table of the Friedman test results: mean ranks in the three
task conditions, degrees of freedom, chi-square values, probability values, effect
sizes, and post hoc test results
Measure Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank df χ2 p-value η2 Post hoc result
in NRT in SRT in CRT
Fluent runs 2.54 2.04 1.42 2 6.33 0.042 1.29 NRT > CRT
Silent pauses 2.17 1.58 2.25 2 15.25 0.005 3.11 NRT > SRT < CRT
Note: Fluent runs mean length of fluent runs; silent pauses mean length of silent pauses;
NRT No-reasoning task; SRT Simple-reasoning task; CRT Complex-reasoning task. The
critical p-values for the measures of mean length of fluent runs and mean length of silent
pauses were .01667 and .05 respectively due to the applications of the sequential Bonferroni
correction method.
η2 1.292) (the critical p-value .05) and mean length of silent pauses
(χ2 (2) 15.250, p .0005, η2 3.113) (the critical p-value .01667).
Next, a repeated measures MANOVA also produced a statistically
significant result (F (8, 16) 4.467, p .005, η2 .691) (the critical
p-value .025). In what follows, the results of the post hoc compari-
sons of the Friedman’s ANOVAs will be reported first. Subsequently, the
results of the post hoc comparisons of the separate repeated measures
ANOVAs will be reported.
The results of post hoc comparisons following

Friedman’s ANOVAs
The Friedman’s ANOVA tests were followed up with two-tailed Wilcoxon
tests. Similarly to the previous analysis method, sequential Bonferroni
corrections were performed. The results of the two-tailed Wilcoxon test
for the measure of mean length of fluent runs produced a statistically
significant difference: NRT vs. CRT (z −3.400, p .001, r −0.69) (the
critical p-value .01667). The mean rank differences between NRT and
SRT (z −1.457, p .145) (the critical p-value .05) and between SRT
and CRT (z −2.000, p .046) (the critical p-value .025) were not sta-
tistically significant. This indicates that the mean length of fluent runs
in the CRT was statistically significantly shorter than the other two
conditions. In Table 8.2, only statistically significant results are shown
as ‘NRT CRT’.
Next, the results of the two-tailed Wilcoxon test for the measure of
mean length of silent pauses produced two statistically significant dif-
ferences: the NRT vs. the SRT (z −2.343, p .019, r −.48) (the criti-
cal p-value .025); the SRT vs. the CRT (z −2.400, p .016, r −.49)
(the critical p-value .01667). The mean rank differences were not
significant between the NRT and the CRT (z −.843, p .399) (the critical
p-value .05). This indicates that the mean length of silent pauses in
the NRT and the CRT was statistically significantly longer than the SRT.
In Table 8.2, these results are represented as ‘NRT SRT CRT’, where
only statistically significant relations are shown.
The results of the four separate repeated measures ANOVAs

and post hoc comparisons
In this section, the results of the four separate repeated measures ANOVAs
are reported. First, a repeated measures ANOVA on the measure of speech
rate showed that the effect of task complexity was statistically significant
(F (2, 46) 4.537, p .016, η2 .165). The post hoc comparisons revealed
that there was a statistically significant difference between the NRT vs.
the CRT (p .022), whereas the differences between the SRT vs. CRT
( p .051) and the NRT vs. SRT ( p 1.00) were not statistically signifi-
cant. Next, a repeated measures ANOVA on the measure of articulation
rate showed that the effect of task complexity was not statistically sig-
nificant (F (2, 46) 3.173, p .051). Third, a repeated measures ANOVA
on the measure of hesitations per ten seconds showed that the effect of
task complexity was not statistically significant either (F (2, 46) .918,
p .406). Finally, a repeated measures ANOVA on the measure of silent
pauses per ten seconds showed that the effect of task complexity was
statistically significant (F (2, 46) 3.974, p .026, η2 .147). The post
hoc tests, however, did not detect any statistically significant differences
between the NRT vs. the SRT (p .070), the NRT vs. the CRT (p .124),
and the SRT vs. the CRT (p 1.00). Table 8.3 summarizes these results.
Table 8.3 Summary of the effect of increasing task complexity along the intentional
reasoning dimension on L2 fluency
Fluency measure Obtained p-value Significance level Post hoc result
Speech rate 0.016 0.05 NRT CRT

Articulation rate 0.051 0.05
Mean length of 0.042 0.05 NRT CRT
fluent runs
Silent pauses per 0.026 0.05 n.a.
ten seconds
Mean length of 0.0005 0.0167 NRT SRT CRT
silent pauses
Hesitation episodes 0.406 0.05
per ten seconds
Note: NRT No-reasoning task; SRT Simple-reasoning task; CRT Complex-reasoning task.
Discussion and conclusion
The present study addressed the research question of What is the effect
of increasing task complexity along the dimension of intentional reason-
ing on L2 fluency? To answer the research question, the spoken corpus
originally obtained for Ishikawa (2008a, 2008b) was re-examined. The
hypothesis that increasing task complexity along the dimension of IR
will lead to decreases in fluency was derived from Robinson’s Cognition
Hypothesis, and six fluency measures were employed to test the predic-
tion. Analysis showed that overall the results were compatible with the
prediction of the Cognition Hypothesis, with Table 8.3 summarizing
the results of the present study.
As Table 8.3 shows, there was a general tendency for increasing
intentional reasoning demands to slow speaking speed. In this case, the
reduction of speaking speed from the NRT to CRT was approximately
two pruned syllables per ten seconds in the case of the measure of
pruned speech rate. Given Goldman-Eisler’s (1956) observation that
speech rate is largely determined by pausing, this tendency is also com-
patible with the results of the measure of silent pauses per ten seconds,
although the effect of increasing task complexity on this measure was
rather weak as it did not reach statistical significance in the post hoc
comparisons.
Table 8.3 also shows that increasing intentional reasoning demands
diminished the mean length of fluent runs. The contraction of the
mean length of fluent runs from the NRT to CRT was approximately
7.5 pruned syllables per fluent run. The reduction of mean length of
fluent runs when task complexity is increased is partially related to the
above-mentioned tendency for reduced speaking speed, which is in
turn dependent on pausing (Goldman-Eisler, 1956). This relationship
becomes clearer when the reciprocal of the number of silent pauses
plus hesitations divided by the number of pruned syllables is shown
to be equal to the measure of mean length of fluent runs (similar to
the fact that the reciprocal of the number of silent pauses divided by
the number of unpruned syllables is equal to the measure of mean
length of runs). In other words, the measure of mean length of fluent
runs is dependent on the likelihood of hesitations and silent pauses
when the speaker intends to produce his or her intended speech (i.e.
pruned speech).
The measure of mean length of silent pauses in the SRT was found
to be statistically significantly shorter than in the NRT and the CRT.
Performing monologic tasks including the NRT in a foreign language
is itself difficult (Garrod & Pickering, 2004), especially for EFL learners.
However, if coming up with a creative solution to the SRT was a relatively
easy task, with reduced necessity for silent pauses, this might explain
the shortened length of silent pauses with this task. The source of
reduced silent pauses may partially be affective in nature. Phillips (1999)
claims that speaking a foreign language is itself anxiety-provoking,
but creative tasks may attenuate the level of anxiety. The two IR tasks in
the present study did require creativity on the part of the speaker, which
might have provided the learner with a sense of control over anxiety
on the SRT (i.e. facilitative anxiety, see Oxford, 1999; Scovel, 2001). In
the case of the CRT, however, the attenuating effect of creativity might
have been overridden by the increased IR demands, producing negative
effects on fluency (Ishikawa, 2011). This is, however, just speculation
and whether these results are peculiar to the present study needs to be
answered through future investigations.
Finally, the results showed manipulating a dimension of cognitive
task complexity brought predictable consequences for foreign language
fluency when the features of task conditions remained consistent
(e.g. one-way and monologic task performance conditions). Regarding
some pedagogical implications, the results suggest that foreign lan-
guage teachers may need to devote more classroom time to practicing
more complex tasks. In order to promote fluency effectively, teachers
need to design different versions of pedagogic tasks by manipulating
task features, such as repeating similar tasks (see also Kirk, Chapter 6;
Nation, Chapter 1) and providing more planning time prior to task
performance while making features of task conditions consistent to
the target task, i.e. transfer appropriate processing (see Kirk, Chapter
6; Robinson, 2007b). In addition, manipulating task features to create
assessment tasks is also expected to contribute to fluent task perfor-
mance since to do so would potentially raise learners’ awareness of
useful linguistic items such as formulaic chunks in more explicit ways
(Kirk, Chapter 6).
Acknowledgments
I thank Professor Peter Robinson at Aoyama Gakuin University for his con-
sistent encouragement throughout my academic life. Thanks are also due to
Dr Elizabeth Shriberg at the Speech Technology & Research Laboratory, CA, for
her useful advice on disfluency analysis and coding, and Dr Francesc Tarrés at
the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, for his permission to use his
face database in the present study, which was created by F. Tarrés and A. Rama,
or ‘GTAV Face Database’ available at http://gps-tsc.upc.es/GTAV/ResearchAreas/

UPCFaceDatabase/GTAVFaceDatabase.htm).
Appendix A Simple-reasoning task
Section
Secretary
Chief
Mike Beth Mike Beth
Trouble
Appendix B Complex-reasoning task
Section Section
Staff Staff
Sue Bob Sue Bob
Trouble
Secretary
Section
Chief
Joe Ann Joe Ann
Appendix C No-reasoning task
Section Section
Staff Staff
Kate John
Section
Secretary
Chief
Nick Cathy
Appendix D Instructions for the no-reasoning task

In this task, you will play the role of a company’s general manager. Today you
are supposed to report to the president about the human relations between peo-
ple in your section, which was established a week ago. In order to report to the
president, you decide to make a phone call but the president was not at home.
Now, you have decided to leave a message on his answer machine.
Performance goal: As general manager, report to the president in English
about the human relations of the new section by leaving a message on the presi-
dent’s answer machine.
Below is an explanation of your task.
You will be given a task sheet. The task sheet contains the following
information:
1. Persons’ names, pictures, and positions in the section.

2. Links between the section members’ pictures: Good human relations are
represented by blue solid lines and non-good human relations by red broken
lines.
human relations,
names, pictures,
and positions
Information on the task sheet
When you report to the president, please keep in mind

the following point
• Describe the current human relationships of the office members to the presi-
dent. Assume that the president does not have any information about the
section.
If you have questions, you can ask now. If you have no questions, please read the
‘Performance goal’ one more time. You have three minutes planning time. Also,
note that the maximum time length for recording of the answering machine is
three minutes.
Appendix E Instructions for the simple and CRT

In this task, you will play the role of a company’s general manager. Today you
are supposed to report to the president about the human relations between
people in your section, which was established a week ago. But yesterday trou-
ble happened and human relationships between the section members changed.
In order to report to the president, you decide to make a phone call but the
president was not at home. Now, you have decided to leave a message on his
answer machine.
Performance goal: As general manager, report to the president in English
about the trouble and changes in human relations by leaving a message on the
president’s answer machine.
Below is an explanation of your task.
You will be given a task sheet. The task sheet contains the following
information:
1. Arrows (→), which represent unspecified processes of human relationship

changes.
2. Persons’ names, pictures, and positions in the section.
3. Links between the section members’ pictures: Good human relations are
represented by blue solid lines and non-good human relations by red broken
lines.
human relations human relations

before the trouble, before the trouble,
names, pictures, names, pictures,
and positions and positions
When you report to the president, please keep in mind

the following points
• You will receive a list of job mistakes. Choose just one mistake, which is
a trouble trigger, not the direct cause of the human relationship changes.
Assign the selected trouble trigger to one person.
• Please explain why the human relationships in your section changed. Assume
that the president does not have any information about the section.
If you have questions, you can ask now. If you have no questions, please read the
‘Performance goal’ one more time. You have three minutes planning time. Also,
note that the maximum time length for recording on the answering machine is
three minutes.
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Part III
Writing Fluency
Next we turn to another form of output, writing fluency, which has had
its definitions traditionally rooted in spoken fluency measures. Muller
(Chapter 9) explores free writing as a technique to improve students’
writing fluency at two different high schools in Japan. He finds that
at one high school the gains in writing speed are considerable while at
another they are less compelling, illustrating the importance of conduct-
ing contextualized research to verify the efficacy of interventions. Next,
after a brief discussion of the concept of fluency, Fraser (Chapter 10)
provides a working definition and framework to assess spoken and
written EFL fluency. Demonstrating how this framework was used to
evaluate and compare Japanese senior high school learners’ English flu-
ency quantitatively and qualitatively, Fraser suggests its possible appli-
cation in examinations and other classroom contexts. Finally, Abdel
Latif (Chapter 11) critically reviews the literature investigating writing
research and explains how current product- and process-based measures
may be inadequate to sufficiently measure writing fluency, drawing
comparisons with measures of spoken fluency and then concluding by
presenting an alternative measure that could be used in future research
into writing fluency.
161
9
Implementing and Evaluating
Free Writing in a Japanese EFL
Classroom
Theron Muller
Introduction
While English as an international language (EIL) fluency has its roots

in measurement and evaluation of speaking skills (Koponen, 2000),
there is increasing interest in the application of the concept of fluency
to other language skills as well, including writing. Activities such as
free writing (or extensive writing; Herder, 2009), described by Nation
(Chapter 1), appear to have considerable potential for classroom applica-
tion. Yet applying new methodologies uncritically in local contexts has
been raised as an issue in the past with other popular methodological
innovations and teaching theories (Shiozawa & Simmons, 1993). Thus if
writing fluency as a classroom objective is to be successfully integrated
into the syllabus, attention needs to be given to providing teachers with
the tools to evaluate, for themselves, how well the tasks are working
with their students and to consider ways to adapt the activities to their
contexts.
This chapter thus presents a longitudinal investigation of the appli-
cation of one writing fluency activity, free writing, over the course of
a school year at two different high schools in Japan. This chapter is
intended to evaluate the influence of free writing at the two high schools
researched, to present a template that other teachers could follow in their
own contexts to evaluate whether free writing works in their classes,
and finally outline how to potentially adapt free writing to a particular
classroom.
The chapter will start with a justification for the inclusion of a writ-
ing fluency development program in Japanese high schools, followed
by a description of the contexts in which the research was conducted.
Next the methodology used for this research will be described, then
163
164 Writing Fluency
the results of the research will be presented and discussed. Conclusions

include the observation that students in the two different contexts
responded quite differently to the activity, making it especially impor-
tant for teachers to take into account local variables when implement-
ing similar curriculum innovations.
The need for writing fluency in Japanese high schools

English teaching at Japanese high schools and the dominance of
Japan’s high stakes entrance exams over the curriculum is already well
documented (Gorsuch, 2000; Locastro, 2007), as are the prevalence of
grammar-translation as a preferred methodology (Gorsuch, 2001) and
students’ general aversion to the way English is currently taught at high
school (O’Donnell, 2003; Murphey, Chapter 3). Additional detail about
these factors will not be provided here, except to say that in the major-
ity of cases, Japanese high school students are generally given very little,
if any, opportunity to write freely, without having to worry about evalu-
ation of writing accuracy (Nakanishi, 2006). Additionally, while there
may be courses titled ‘English Writing’ in high school curriculums,
research seems to indicate that, at least in some cases, irrespective of the
title of a course, students report that teachers focus to a large degree on
grammar translation activities in those classes (Nakanishi, 2006).
This reality of high school education contrasts sharply with expecta-
tions of real-world English use (e.g. in the business world email is a pri-
mary mode of communication, but is rarely addressed in school), even
though the ability ‘to write messages, letters, etc. that correctly transmit
the writer’s intentions to the reader’ (MEXT, 2003, II.2.D.d) is included as
an overall goal of Japanese secondary language education. Additionally,
if high school is to be seen as preparation for post-secondary study, the
current lack of writing in the curriculum ill prepares students for the
writing requirements of university in Japan, where many graduation
theses are expected to at least have an English abstract, or study abroad,
where essays must be written in English. Thus in many high schools in
Japan there is an unmet need for writing to be incorporated into the
syllabus. However, before incorporating writing into a course, it is first
important to consider benchmarks and expectations for student perfor-
mance, the topic of the next section.
Finding a benchmark for fluent student writing

White (1988) explains that syllabus and curriculum planning should
begin with a needs analysis of the language that students will require,
and there are criticisms of using native speaker norms for EFL learning
Free Writing in a Japanese EFL Classroom 165
benchmarks (Pallotti, 2009), so it is necessary to find course goals

appropriate for EFL students. If one general benchmark of high school
education is preparedness for university study, then it is possible to
examine university entrance requirements to find goals that can be
applied to the high school English classroom. Unfortunately, none of
the major standardized commercial domestic Japanese tests require
writing, so it is necessary to turn to international exams to find criteria
on which to base goals for the teaching of English writing. Two such
internationally recognized exams that include writing components are
the TOEFL and IELTS exams. Examining those tests for writing bench-
marks reveals that on the TOEFL test, the objective on the independent
section of the writing test is to write an essay of at least 300 words in
30 minutes (ETS, 2011), which equates to a minimum writing rate of
ten words per minute, with the requirement that examinees attend to
clarity, accuracy, and essay organization. With respect to the IELTS gen-
eral training writing and academic writing exams, on the essay portion
of the tests examinees are expected to produce an essay of at least 250
words in 40 minutes, which equates to a slower writing rate of about
six words per minute, with the requirement that examinees take into
consideration their response, coherence and cohesion, lexis, and gram-
matical range and accuracy (UCLES, 2008).
Using these numbers as benchmarks for desirable student writing
speeds helps to mitigate Pallotti’s (2009) criticism regarding how goals
for learner production rates are set. Rather than relying on native speaker
norms, extracting requirements from tasks, such as those included on
proficiency tests, provides writing speed goals that can inform teachers
about when they can shift from a focus on improving fluency to improv-
ing other aspects of student writing. It also answers a criticism of many
fluency measurements, that faster is always judged to be better (Pallotti,
2009). Instead, using the test requirements, the criteria can be whether
the writing is sufficiently fast to accomplish the task at hand.
Following the underlying premise of extensive reading, where learners
are encouraged to read as fast as possible while maintaining a minimum
level of comprehensibility (see He, Chapter 13), the objective of the
free writing implemented here was for students to write as fast as they
could without attending to accuracy or complexity. The assumption
was that, as in speaking, there is a trade-off between speed and other
aspects of writing. As there is little information available on writing
speeds in different writing contexts for EFL learners, it was assumed
that writers writing for accuracy and complexity would approximately
halve their normal writing speeds, which would mean in order to meet
166 Writing Fluency
the length requirements of the tests, students would need a fluent (but
not necessarily accurate or complex) writing speed of between 12 and
20 words per minute. As this is a broad range, in class students were
given the goal of 15 words per minute as an objective of the free writ-
ing activities. This number is admittedly arbitrary, and future empiri-
cal investigation of writing benchmarks for fluent writing and their
relationship to exam writing speeds are welcome. It is also appropriate
to acknowledge criticism of writing speed as a benchmark of student
writing fluency (see Abdel Latif, Chapter 11) here. Explanation and jus-
tification for this choice of measurement is dealt with in the methodo-
logy section, below.
The contexts of this research
This section introduces the contexts of the two Japanese high school
classes where this research was conducted and in which free writing was
applied. At both of the schools the teachers were adjunct lecturers at the
time of the research, and so issues concerning curriculum planning at
the institutional level are not addressed directly. Although these issues
are important, this research primarily explores what individual class-
room teachers can do on a grassroots level to introduce writing fluency
into their classrooms without needing to rely on changes to institu-
tional curriculums. This is because many individual teachers have very
limited power to enact school-wide changes, and so incorporation of
writing fluency activities at the level of the classroom may be a practi-
cal way to meet the need for writing skill development in such cases.
The two schools involved in this research are described briefly in the
next two sections.
National College of Technology

I was responsible for teaching three out of five first-year high school
English conversation classes, 45 minutes per week for a total of 30
classes per year. There were approximately 40 students in each class,
making a little more than 120 students in total who participated.
Students had three years of English in junior high school prior to
enrollment at the high school, and have 135 minutes of English with
Japanese teachers in addition to my lessons, which primarily concen-
trate on grammar-translation, reading skills, and listening. The high
school has a five-year program from which students graduate with the
equivalent of an Associate’s Degree, and so these students are outside of
the high stakes university entrance examination system characteristic of
Japan. There was also some data gathered from the other two first-year
English classes, of about 40 students each, taught by a different non-
Japanese instructor but otherwise expected to follow the same syllabus
and to take the same end-of-year examination. The teacher of those
classes did general four-skills instruction and did not concentrate on
writing fluency. Data was gathered from the 2010–2011 school year.
Women’s private high school

A teacher participant in this research taught two writing classes of
approximately 30 students each at a private girls’ high school. These
classes were composed of seniors (third-year students) from the regu-
lar education program. The students will all go on to university, but
less than one quarter will ultimately attend public universities with
demanding admission policies. Others will attend private universities
where admissions are less strict (about half of the students) or trade
colleges (the last quarter of students). These students have had two
years of English writing at high school, although the emphasis in those
classes has tended to be grammar-translation, so this course is presented
to the students by their instructor as their chance to finally write their
own thoughts in English. Students at this school have about three
hours of English instruction outside of the writing class in their third
year, including 90 minutes of English conversation instruction with a
non-Japanese teacher and additional grammar-translation work with
Japanese teachers of English. Data was gathered from the 2010–2011
school year.
Hypothesis
Based on previous research into this topic (Herder, 2009), the hypoth-
esis was that student writing speed would increase over the course of
the year for all of the classes who that practiced free writing regularly
in the classroom and secondarily that writing speed would increase
among the National College of Technology students who performed
free writing weekly relative to the students who performed free writing
as a standalone activity.
Research methods
As Atkins (Chapter 14) attests, conducting research with intact classes

is always experimentally messy, and this research suffers from the same
issues he outlines, including inconsistent attendance, students dropping
out of the program, and the difficulty of guaranteeing that students stay
168 Writing Fluency
on task. That said, as classes are the groups that teachers use when
teaching, my position is that the benefits of conducting research with
these groups outweigh the drawback of a lack of experimental control.
If interventions are shown to work outside of the classroom in carefully
experimentally controlled circumstances, but those interventions can-
not be shown to work with intact classes, then the benefit to practical
pedagogy is limited. However, if intact classes can be shown to benefit
from a particular intervention, then the methods employed in investi-
gating that intervention can be deployed in other contexts, providing
an opportunity to verify that classroom tool, employed elsewhere,
engenders the same results.
With the above caveats in mind, free writing was conducted as out-
lined in Table 9.1.
Student free writing is characterized by considerable variability in pro-
duction quantity across sessions (Bonzo, 2008), and so at the National
College of Technology the second through fourth weeks of writing
were used in order to generate a picture of output more characteristic
Table 9.1 Timeline for free writing research
Week 1–3 (from 3–12 11–14 16–28 30 (February

April 2010) 2011)
National Ten minutes Five minutes Ten minutes Five minutes Ten minutes
College of free writing, free writing, free writing, free writing, free writing,
Technology, no topic optional optional topic optional topic optional
3 classes assigned topic provided provided topic
provided provided
National 6/24: Before and 11/25: Standalone free writing
College of Standalone after free
Technology, free writing writing
2 classes lessons,
general
four-skills
instruction,
no free
writing
1–10 11–20
Private high Ten minutes Ten minutes free writing, no topic assigned
school, 1 class free writing,
topic assigned
Private high Ten minutes Ten minutes free writing, topic assigned
school, 1 class free writing,
no topic
assigned
of student abilities. This information was then compiled and presented

to the students, and students who had writing rates of 15 words per
minute or faster were encouraged to concentrate on quality of writing,
not simply quantity (see e.g. Herder & Sholdt, Chapter 2), while other
students were encouraged to set for themselves a goal of first ten words
per minute and then 15 words per minute. The classes were only 45
minutes in length, and because of the difficulty of covering the other
required material with ten minutes devoted to free writing, and because
feedback from students indicated ten minutes was too long for free
writing, in weeks 3–12 only five minutes was allotted for the activity. In
weeks 11–14, in order to generate a picture of change over the course of
the semester, students were then asked to conduct three sessions of ten
minutes free writing. Conscious of Pallotti’s (2009) cautions about over-
emphasizing production speed in the classroom, students were asked to
self-select, depending on their writing rate, into either a quality group,
which would produce one essay over the total of 30 minutes, or into
a speed group, which would produce three samples of writing over the
three ten-minute sessions. However, while nice in concept, this led to
considerable confusion with the students, and concomitant difficulty
in encoding the data for analysis. In the second semester, students were
instead asked to concentrate exclusively on speed of writing, and on the
last day of class all students were asked to complete ten minutes of free
writing. Unfortunately, because of scheduling issues, it was not possible
to have the students complete several sessions of free writing at the end
of the school year. In order to have a group to compare the free writ-
ing students with, writing samples from the other two first-year classes
at the same school were collected twice during the school year. These
students were taught a four-skills curriculum without free writing, and
so on the two occasions they performed free writing, it was a standalone
activity. On both occasions the students were asked to write for ten
minutes, and the samples of their writing were collected for analysis.
At the private high school, the data was gathered to assess whether
students wrote faster when they were assigned a topic versus being
asked to write freely. While this will not be a variable considered for
this chapter, how the assignment of topics changed during the year is
reflected in Table 9.1. In both contexts students were asked to self-report
the number of words they wrote, and in about 10% of cases with the
National College of Technology classes this was verified by the teacher-
researcher, with the essays checked reporting their word counts accu-
rately. In-class free writing was not evaluated and did not factor into
students’ class scores.
170 Writing Fluency
Word count as a measurement of fluency

With the preconditions that this research be replicable and accessible to
as many teachers as possible, the decision was made to limit the research
instruments used to those widely available to language educators. There
has been a trend in language acquisition research in general toward
greater complexity of measures. For example, Abdel Latif (Chapter 11)
calls for use of ‘mean length of bursts’ (p. 206) as an ideal measure of
writing fluency. However, application of this measurement requires
extensive post-experimental coding of think-aloud protocols or use of
computer equipment and software capable of tracking student typing
speed and time intervals between keystrokes. There has been a similar
trend toward greater depth of analysis of data in the task-based language
teaching research, with a push from raw word count to t-units, to lexical
profiles of vocabulary complexity (Jarvis, 2002), to even more involved
speech measurements (see e.g. Ishikawa, Chapter 8; Fraser, Chapter 10).
While these more detailed measures offer researchers a more nuanced
picture of student production, I argue that they simultaneously restrict
the availability of the research instruments to researchers associated
with universities who have the research budgets and access to grants
necessary to make digitizing and encoding large amounts of data
practical, and the statistical expertise and software required to analyze
that data. While such analysis benefits our understanding of language
acquisition, I feel the inaccessibility of these instruments to language
teaching practitioners is problematic, and suggest there also needs to
be a body of research driven by language teachers exploring their own
classrooms in context. Thus the research tools used here are intended to
accommodate the reality of the majority of classroom teachers, includ-
ing limited access to budgets to digitize data and limited time available
for conducting research. This kind of pedagogical study should include
simpler measures and methods of analysis accessible to teachers who
may not be research specialists.
This research is a case in point: two adjunct lecturers at two differ-
ent high schools in Japan gathered the data for this research, neither
of whom received institutional funding to conduct the investigation,
and neither of whom were awarded by their employers at the time they
conducted this research for academic output as the institutions have no
salary scale or opportunity for promotion linked to records of academic
publishing for adjunct faculty. This is not to complain about this reality,
but to note that for many teachers the drive to do research in order to
publish may not be as pronounced as it tends to appear when consider-
ing university-affiliated researchers (Lillis & Curry, 2010).
Results
For the purposes of analysis, the seven different classes were divided
into three groups, comprising two groups from the National College of
Technology and one group from the private high school. One group from
the National College of Technology included the three classes that did
free writing as part of their classroom routine throughout the school year,
and the other included the two classes that only did free writing as a stan-
dalone activity twice, the first time approximately two months into the
school year and the second approximately two months before the end of
the school year. The initial data from these three groups was compared to
their final data. In the case of the National College of Technology students
who performed free writing regularly, the initial data was an average of
the students’ second through fourth performances, and the final data was
their writing performance on the last class of the year. In the case of the
students at the National College of Technology who did free writing only
twice as standalone activities, the initial data was represented by their
June performance and the final data by their November performance. In
the case of the private high school, data was available from the students’
first three and last three writing performances, and so these were aver-
aged separately to form the initial and final data from this group. In the
case of averaging, if there was partially incomplete data, such as a student
missing one class out of three, then the average of the two classes they
did attend was used. If data was unavailable for one of the conditions,
such as a student missing the first three weeks of class in the case of the
in-class free writing group at the National College of Technology, then
they were excluded from the dataset. Atkins (Chapter 14) describes some
potential alternative solutions to handling such missing data, but these
were not used here in order to present as simple a research design and
analysis as possible for other teachers to potentially replicate.
The resulting data was analyzed using R (R Development Core Team,
2010). Figure 9.1 illustrates the changes for the three groups between
the initial data and the final data. Please note that throughout this sec-
tion, word count refers to the total number of words the students wrote
during ten minutes of free writing; this raw data was not converted into
words per minute for the purposes of analysis.
Three paired t-tests were performed to determine the significance of
the difference between the data for each of the three groups, and the
results of those analyses are included in Table 9.2.
The National College of Technology students who did in-class free
writing regularly throughout the year did not significantly increase
172
NCT sFW NCT icFW phsFW

200
150
Word count
100
50
0
Before After
Before and after
Figure 9.1 Changes in ten-minute writing word count over time

Note: NCT sFW National College of Technology standalone free writing, NCT icFW
National College of Technology in-class free writing, and phsFW Private high school in-class
free writing.
Table 9.2 Differences between initial and final data for all three groups
Group Number of Initial average Final average p-value from

students word count word count paired t-test
National College of 119 94.3 (34.2) 90.7 (35.4) .896

Technology in-class
free writing
National College 77 90.7 (32.9) 69.6 (28.4) 1.66 10−8
of Technology
standalone free
writing
Private high school 46 91.4 (40.2) 132.9 (53.3) 1.77 10−10
in-class free writing
Note: Numbers in parentheses denote standard deviation.

their writing speed, while the students who did in-class free writing as
a standalone activity had a significant decrease in their writing speed.
With regard to the private high school students, there was a significant
increase in their writing speed over the course of the year. The implica-
tions of these results are addressed in the discussion section below.
Discussion
As is the case with much intact classroom research, particularly that

which is carried out over the course of the school year, there are too
many potentially confounding factors to consider the results of this
research conclusive. Just what these factors are, and how they could
potentially impact the classrooms involved, is discussed separately for
each of the different contexts below.
National College of Technology implications

On the face of it, the data from the National College of Technology
appears to be the most discouraging; not only did students who regu-
larly performed free writing not improve, but those who did other lan-
guage learning activities and performed free writing only twice during
the school year saw a significant drop in their writing rates. There are,
however, at least five issues that potentially confound the data gathered
from the National College of Technology.
One is that, in the first instance of free writing at the National College
of Technology, as the teacher I modeled for the students what they were
expected to do, performing free writing myself by writing on the board for
one minute as an example, giving the students a potentially rich input to
draw on in their own writing, which could result in the students writing
more than they would otherwise have, as Way et al. (2000) describe in their
investigation of learners of French. In the data from students who per-
formed free writing regularly, this influence was partially mitigated by tak-
ing writing samples from the second week of free writing (as I did not model
the activity a second time), but with the standalone free writing classes
there was no option to spread data collection out over several class periods.
The second issue concerns variability in writing time between data
collection and classroom free writing practice. The course started off
with ten minutes of free writing, but it quickly became apparent that
this was too much class time to devote to the activity out of a total
of 45 minutes for each class, and so the free writing practice time was
reduced to five minutes, but for the purposes of measurement, students
were asked to write for ten minutes. One might think a doubling of the
time to write would result in a doubling of word count, but this did not
174 Writing Fluency
appear to be the case in many of the journals I reviewed. Unfortunately,

more detailed data of all of the students’ writing performances is not
available for a more careful investigation.
Third, the original intention of the free writing activity, based on
Herder (2009), was to have the students write about any topic of interest
to them and not to offer topics for them to write about. However, early
in the semester students requested I provide them writing topics, and so
I tried to supply topics of potential interest based on themes from the
corresponding unit of their textbook. Unfortunately, this did not work
as well as it could have, as on the last day of class one student recom-
mended in the next school year I use themes from the student book
(which I was already doing), and another wrote:
Free writing theme is difficult, so please theme is easy.
Fourth, this was the first year for me as a teacher to implement free
writing in my curriculum, and so going into the school year it was not
clear to me what issues and challenges would arise as a result of trying
the methodology.
Fifth and finally, in this case free writing was used as part of a four-
skills communication class of only 45 minutes, not a writing class of 90
minutes, and it may be that more time and effort is necessary to help
improve students’ writing speed. Herder (2009) notes that one major
motivation for students appeared to be that they enjoyed reading each
other’s writing at the end of every ten-minute writing episode, which
simply wasn’t possible in a class where the textbook also needed to be
covered during class time.
The students at the National College of Technology are also first-
year high school students, and so it could be that they require more
support or prompting in order to write more quickly. On this note,
after the students completed their last free writing on the last class
of the year I asked them whether I should have the next group of
first-year students practice the activity, and out of 103 respondents,
95 said yes, five answered no, and three answered neither yes nor
no. Students were also asked to share any suggestions they had for
modifying free writing, and the majority of students who responded
requested:
• Restricting free writing to only five minutes

• Offering students more writing themes
• Offering easier writing themes.
As their teacher, perhaps the most heartening comment was:
Free writing is good because my ability is up! And my thinking ability is

wide. It’s very important. I want to free writing’s title became interesting.
No problem. Your class is very interesting. Thank you.
Private high school implications

The private high school data is much less ambiguous regarding the influ-
ence of free writing on student writing speed; there are clear, significant
increases in students’ writing speed over the course of the school year.
Keeping this in mind, it is important to note that these are third-year
high school students, and thus have two more years of experience with
English and so hopefully access to more English vocabulary than the first-
year students in the National College of Technology groups. Additionally,
the teacher in this context was implementing the methodology for the
fourth time; he had trialed the activity in the previous school years
(Herder, 2009), and may have been better prepared to effectively and
efficiently implement the teaching methodology in his context.
Conclusion
There is clear evidence from the private high school that the students’
writing speed improved over the course of the school year, but in the
case of the National College of Technology there was not an increase
in writing speed, even though as an activity free writing was popular
with the students and they recommended it be continued with the next
group of first-year students. That said, there appear to be a number of
issues teachers should take into account when considering free writing
as a pedagogical tool in their classrooms, including:
• The amount of time students practice free writing in class, as the

private high school data, where students consistently wrote for
ten minutes, shows significant gains in writing speed, while at the
National College of Technology, where students practiced writing
for five minutes and then wrote for ten minutes for the purposes of
measurement, there were not significant changes in writing speed.
• Whether to suggest a topic or several topic options to students, and
how to go about ensuring the topics are sufficiently easy, an appar-
ent mistake in my implementation of free writing at the National
College of Technology. One way this problem is by soliciting free
writing topics from students.
176 Writing Fluency
• How to make the activity communicative, such as by sharing writing

with other students (Herder, 2009) or potentially through secret
friend journals (Green & Green, 1993).
• How much input to provide students, whether to offer a rich writing
prompt, such as prose, or a sparser prompt, such as a single word.
• Whether to give students planning time before asking them to start
writing.
• Whether free writing as part of a four-skills syllabus will yield results,
or if it is necessary to include it as part of a writing class.
References
Bonzo, J. D. (2008). To assign a topic or not: Observing fluency and complex-
ity in intermediate foreign language writing. Foreign Language Annals, 41(4),
722–735.
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23, 2011, from: http://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt/about/content/.
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on teachers’ approval of communicative activities. TESOL Quarterly, 34(4),
675–710.
Gorsuch, G. (2001). Japanese EFL teachers’ perceptions of communicative,
audiolingual and yakudoku activities: The plan versus the reality. Education
Policy Analysis Archives, 9(10). Retrieved from: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/
view/339/465.
Green, C. & Green, J. M. (1993). Secret friend journals. TESOL Journal, 2(3),
20–24. Retrieved from: http://203.72.145.166/JOURNAL/TJ_2004/.
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ing in a Japanese high school. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of
Birmingham. Retrieved from: http://stevenherder.org/.
Jarvis, S. (2002). Short texts, best-fitting curves, and new measures of lexical
diversity. Language Testing, 19, 57–84.
Koponen, M. (2000). Overview: Varying perspectives on fluency. In H. Riggenbach
(Ed.), Perspectives on Fluency (pp. 5–24). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press.
Lillis, T. & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic Writing in a Global Context: The Politics
and Practices of Publishing in English. London: Routledge.
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A sociocultural analysis. World Englishes, 9(3), 343–354.
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R Development Core Team. (2010). R: A language and environment for statisti-
cal computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN
3–900051–07–0. Retrieved from: http://www.R-project.org.
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methodological innovation and implementation in post-secondary language
schools in Japan. Journal of International Studies, 12(11), 109–139.
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eign language classroom: The effects of prompts and tasks on novice learners
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Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
10
Assessing Fluency: A Framework
for Spoken and Written Output
Sue Fraser
As is evident throughout this volume, many varied, but inconclusive,

definitions and interpretations of the term fluency are presented in the
literature and in practice. What is apparent, though, is that there is
general agreement among theorists, practitioners, and learners alike
that being fluent entails having attained a level of second language (L2)
proficiency where communication is effective, efficient, and easy, and
is hence why fluency is the goal of language learning.
After a brief discussion of the concept of fluency, this chapter provides a
working definition and a framework of criteria against which to assess flu-
ency in both spoken and written L2 output. To test the practicality of this
theoretical framework, it is then used to assess the written and spoken
output of a cohort of foreign language (FL) learners. Although the context
examined in this preliminary study is the English as a foreign language
(EFL) classroom at the senior high school level in Japan, the intention is
that this framework can be applied to any FL learning context.
Following an analysis of oral and written data produced by the
sample learners, interpretations are given and conclusions are drawn
on the specific results of this study, and then the general applicability
of the proposed criteria for assessing fluency in wider FL contexts is
considered.
What is fluency?
Although a ‘multi-dimensional construct’ (Pallotti, 2009, p. 591), flu-

ency is frequently defined in terms of speed of spoken delivery as, for
example, ‘the capacity to produce speech at a normal rate and with-
out interruption’ (Skehan, 2009, p. 510), ‘the production of language
in real time without undue pausing or hesitation’ (Ellis & Barkhuizen,
178
Assessing Fluency 179
2005, p. 139), or ‘the speed and smoothness of oral delivery’ (Lennon,

2000, p. 25).
Fluency is generally perceived as the effect on the receiver (most often
the listener) of a language producer (usually speaker), and as such the
term fluency encapsulates factors of ease or effort needed by the receiver
to decode and process the message heard and/or read. Thus, speed, hesi-
tation phenomena, incomprehensibility of content, range of vocabulary
and expressions employed, and a comprehensible level of accuracy in
production on phonological, grammatical, and orthographical levels are
all involved.
Fluency is, therefore, an essential component within the overall con-
cept of communicative competence, although definitions do not always
include it as a separate factor (for a detailed discussion, see Fraser, 2010).
For example, whereas the seminal model of communicative compe-
tence by Canale (1983) and Canale and Swain (1980) makes no explicit
reference to fluency, the Council of Europe Framework of Reference
(Council of Europe, 2001) includes it under pragmatic competence, and
Faerch et al. (1984) categorize fluency as a discrete component cover-
ing ‘speakers’ ability to make use of whatever linguistic and pragmatic
competence they have’ (Faerch et al., 1984, p. 168). Hedge (2000, p. 56)
likewise defines fluency separately in her description of communica-
tive language ability, as ‘the ability to link units of speech together
with ease’ (Hedge, 2000, p. 409), while previously noting that the term
‘fluency’ is ‘normally reserved for speech’ (Hedge, 1993, p. 275). That
being said, the connection between fluency and the productive skill of
writing, both the product and the process, has been widely documented
(see Abdel Latif, Chapter 11 below). Furthermore, other linguists would
argue that fluency not only refers to output, but also to the receptive
ability of learners. Much has been written recently and within this
volume on developing reading fluency through, for example, extensive
reading (see Waring, Chapter 12), while Tsai (Chapter 18) and Rost
(Chapter 16) examine listening fluency. In the present case, however,
fluency is examined as a measure of L2 production ability in both spo-
ken and written modes.
Fluency defined
The following working definition of fluency as an integral component

of communicative competence is now proposed, with communicative
competence being interpreted as the ability to employ available resources
to convey information and ideas and make sense of messages received
180 Writing Fluency
through texts and interactions. More precisely, this involves drawing

on linguistic knowledge, sociolinguistic awareness of the situation, and
pragmatic strategies in order to understand input, and to formulate out-
put appropriate to the context in both written and spoken forms.
Fluency here is taken to mean the overall effect of the produced lan-
guage on the receiver, as Segalowitz’s (2010) perceived fluency. It therefore
encompasses flow in which fragmentation by lack of cohesion in writ-
ing and excessive pausing and hesitation phenomena in speaking are
reduced or avoided, and quantity, in which very short texts and simplistic
sentence patterns in writing and monosyllabic oral responses are mini-
mized, as well as effectiveness of actual content. As such, it also covers
several aspects more commonly categorized as linguistic competence.
Thus, fluency is defined as concerning the holistic impression on the
reader/listener; the quantity of output, text length, number and length of
turns; flow and combining of ideas, effective expression of meaning involv-
ing coherence and appropriate lexical choices, and levels of pause and
hesitation features that do not detract from understanding the message.
Fluency is therefore demonstrated in the production of appropriate
amounts of connected written or oral output to convey the desired
meaning under the pressure of real time and without excessive hesita-
tion. The production of understandable phonological and orthographic
conventions, syntax, and lexical expressions that do not cause a break-
down in communication is also assumed here.
From this definition of fluency, a framework of specific elements
relating to each component of communicative competence and criteria
for assessing learner output in both spoken and written modes can now
be constructed (Table 10.1).
Table 10.1 Framework for analysis of written and spoken data
Competence Focus Criteria
Fluency quantity word count; length of texts/turns

flow pause; hesitation phenomena
effectiveness of ideas holistic impression
Linguistic grammar; phonology accuracy; complexity
lexis lexical complexity; range
Sociolinguistic awareness of audience/ comprehensibility
context/ social relations
and conventions
appropriateness of situationally appropriate
content/topic expressions
Pragmatic use of communication interaction with reader/listener;
strategies turn-taking; clarification
The practical applicability of this framework can now be explored

through an analysis of written and spoken L2 data to address the
research question:
Is this framework sensitive enough to identify differences in fluency

in L2 output between individuals and/or populations of learners?
The research context in which the framework was tested and the meth-
ods used to investigate and assess levels of fluency are now outlined.
Research context
To control for variables in educational policies and circumstances, two

public (state-run) senior high schools, hereafter schools F and Y, within
the same prefecture in Japan, and with comparable student rolls, semi-
rural catchment areas, and facilities, were selected as research sites.
Participant cohorts consisted of 39 students (29 female, 10 male) fol-
lowing an International Understanding course (kokusaikyoyo) at school
F, and 41 students (23 female, 18 male) in a general academic class at
school Y. All had previously studied English for three years at junior
high school, and test and survey results from the start of the research
phase indicated that the groups had comparable L2 experience and pro-
ficiency levels. Practical differences between the two courses differences
are summarized in Table 10.2.
Table 10.2 Practical differences between first-year English courses F and Y
differences International Understanding (F) General Academic (Y)
Time: 7 or 8 45 minutes per week 5 65 minutes per week

315 minutes or 360 minutes per 325 minutes per week
week
Staff: three Japanese English teachers two Japanese English teachers
two native Assistant Language one ALT once in two weeks
Teachers (ALTs) twice a week
Class size: 39 or 20 students 41 students
Resources: CALL room; budget for visiting
lecturers; an international
exchange student each year
Materials: Ministry of Education-authorized Ministry of Education-authorized
English textbook; graded readers; English textbook; Supplementary
International EFL native-speaker exam preparation books
books
182 Writing Fluency
Data were obtained during the final phase of a longitudinal study

documented in Fraser (2010), with the research instruments used for
examining fluency being an oral interview test and a free-writing essay,
administered after one year of senior high school English lessons.
Measuring written fluency
A deliberate decision was taken in this study to investigate the ability of

learners to demonstrate fluency in written as well as oral communica-
tion contexts, since tests of writing ‘test … important skills which no
other form of assessment can sample adequately’ (Weir, 1990, p. 61),
and free essay writing is frequently used to assess learner L2 proficiency
and fluency; as well as to identify problems and enable a ‘more holistic
assessment … of learner competence’ (Savignon, 2002, p. 4).
Even though most writing done in Japanese schools falls into the cat-
egory of ‘sentence level reinforcement exercises’ (see Hedge, 1988, p. 7),
which do not ‘help students to write whole pieces of communication, to
link and develop information, ideas or arguments’ (Hedge, 1988, p. 8),
essay writing was deemed an efficient way of collecting information on
students’ ability to express their ideas, as well as a means of revealing
aspects of their fluency and linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic com-
petences. Although ideally all participants should have been given the
same topic and amount of time, circumstances prevented this (detailed
in Fraser, 2010, pp. 131–132). Group F wrote for 20 minutes about a book
or film they enjoyed, while Group Y were allocated 15 minutes to write
about their hometown. Both titles, however, involved description and
opinion, and still satisfied the conditions of ‘known/familiar content’
(see Weir, 1990, p. 60) and ‘no correct answer’, and therefore served to
elicit adequate examples of free written communication.
In an attempt to establish some reliability in the opinions of the asses-
sor, an inter-rater reliability check was conducted on a random selection
of essays with a native-English-speaker university lecturer. A consistent
assessment of subjective criteria between rater and researcher assured
reliability.
Analysis criteria for essays
The following criteria were selected to classify and evaluate appropriate

aspects of fluency as demonstrated within the collected data (see Table 10.3).
As written fluency encompasses quantity of output, clarity of content, and
overall flow and effectiveness, fluency was assessed initially by total word
count (a), holistic impression (k), and hesitation indicated by crossings

out (l) within the writing samples. A holistic score of 1–5 (1 poor, 5
very good) based on native-speaker and professional intuition reflected
the criterion of holistic fluency (k), covering flow (i.e. not fragmentation),
expression of meaning, getting the message across, and ease of under-
standing for the reader.
As clarity of expression of ideas is very important in written flu-
ency, occurrences of words, phrases or longer chunks that rendered
the meaning incomprehensible (criterion i) were coded. This category
included use of L1 terms unfamiliar to a non-Japanese specialist with
no L2 paraphrase or explanation, and expressions where no meaning or
logic could be determined. A category of lexical range (criterion h) was
also created, where examples of interesting, difficult or low-frequency
vocabulary or expressions demonstrating good L2 use for first-year sen-
ior high school level learners were totalled.
Categories of linguistic competence were also included in the analysis,
since expectations are that fluent writers can manipulate the grammatical
and lexical systems of the target language. For the criterion of accuracy (d), a
score was calculated from the total number of errors per 100 words (exclud-
ing spelling mistakes) in each essay. Complexity of writing was examined
by analysing both syntactic structures (e) and (g), and lexical range (h)
employed by the students. In view of the differing time allocations for writ-
ing [F 20 mins; Y 15 mins], all quantified data for F essays were reduced
by 25% to make the figures for both groups comparable, after which the
total number of words written per student (criterion a) was counted. The
calculation of a text complexity score (criterion e) was similarly adjusted.
Mean scores for groups F and Y are tabulated in Table 10.3 for comparison,
and the findings in relation to each of these criteria are now discussed.
Table 10.3 Analysis of written data (mean scores)
Criteria Group F Group Y
a Word count total 93.86 71.87

k Holistic fluency (0–5) 3.83 2.95
l Hesitation—total crossings out 0.84 0.00
i Total incomprehensible items 0.51 1.77
h Lexical range 4.51 2.87
d Accuracy—errors per 100 words 12.20 11.94
e Complexity—MLTU 7.61 8.30
g Complexity—words per sentence 7.61 7.40
f Number of sentences 12.41 9.78
184 Writing Fluency
As fluency is defined above as the ability to produce appropriate

amounts of connected output to convey meaning under pressure of real
time and without excessive hesitation phenomena, the data were firstly
examined in relation to three measures identified in Table 10.3, namely
word count (a), holistic fluency impression (k), and hesitation (l) within
the essay data. Clear differences between the written work of the two
groups were apparent.
Total word count

In accordance with this widely accepted measure of fluency (Way
et al., 2000; Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998; also see Muller, Chapter 9
above), the word count (a) per essay was totalled, and the mean
calculated. Whereas in general, group F students clearly managed
to write longer essays [mean word count (a): F 93.86; Y 71.87],
it is the extremes of the spread that generate the most interesting
data. Even though Y students represent both ends of the overall
range [Y 19–239 words per essay], with the exception of the outlier
Y15 (239 words), few Y students wrote extensively, with only five of
group Y (12.5%) producing over 100 words each. Although the total
word count range for group F was not so wide [F 41–172 words per
essay], the written output ability seems more homogeneous, with
13 F students (35.1%) writing over 100 words each. At the lower end
of the range, only two F students (5.4%) wrote 50 or fewer words, as
opposed to eight (20%) of group Y producing such short essays. This
difference in written output ability may be due to task unfamiliarity
of both writing extensively and giving opinions, but may also result
from overall motivation and willingness to communicate in English
(detailed in Fraser, 2010).
As well as text length, the measures of holistic fluency (k), the general
impression of text upon reader, and hesitation (l) are thought to influ-
ence the overall judgment of fluency in writing.
Holistic fluency
All 77 essays were initially graded on a five-point scale for holistic flu-
ency, with 12 randomly selected examples being subjected to an inter-
rater reliability check. When assessing students’ written work for this
criterion (k), native-speaker and professional intuition as to what con-
stitutes holistic fluency was relied upon, encompassing overall impres-
sion, flow of ideas, effectiveness of expression of message, selection of
appropriate linguistic items, and quality of content.
A clear difference in holistic fluency between groups F and Y was

evident in the evaluations of both the researcher and the second marker, as
demonstrated in the mean scores for this category (k) [F 3.83; Y 2.95].
A large proportion of F students were rated highly or very highly (4/5 or 5/5)
[F 64.9%; Y 37.5%], indicating that students following the International
Understanding course seemed more able to convey their message effec-
tively in the written mode. Indeed, 13 F students (35.1%) as opposed to
only five Y students (12.5%) were awarded the highest mark of 5/5 for
holistic fluency. In contrast, half the Y students (50%) were rated as poor
(2/5) or weak (1/5) in written expression, but only six students (16.2%)
of the F group received a low score of 2/5, and no one was rated at 1/5.
It is interesting to find that, although a subjective, qualitative meas-
ure, holistic fluency (k) corresponds to the more reliable quantitative
measure of total word count (a). Parallel scores for text length and
impressions of fluency co-occur within the data, confirming that word
count (a) and holistic fluency (k) seem to be measuring a similar ability.
All students, regardless of group, who wrote long texts (over 100 words)
were rated highly for overall fluency (4/5 or 5/5), and, with the excep-
tion of F15 (47 words; 4/5 fluency), all students who wrote short texts
(50 words or fewer) scored only 2/5 or 1/5 on measure (k).
Hesitation phenomena
Whereas in speech, pause and repair strategies are clear markers of
hesitation, a breakdown in flow in hand-written data can only be deter-
mined by cases where writers have changed their minds by crossing out
and altering items. In writing by Japanese students this is, however, very
difficult to identify, because of the national habit of writing in pencil,
and the early training of using erasers to remove any evidence of errors.
The few examples detected [total criterion (l): F 31; Y 0] may indicate
an emphasis on accuracy and a fear of producing incorrect work in
learning context Y, contrasted with a more relaxed, message-focused
approach to written work on course F.
In several essays, items that caused problems of understanding for the
reader, and as a result may have contributed to the overall impression
of fluency, were identified.
Incomprehensible items
Words and phrases within the essay data which caused the reader to
be unable to grasp the writer’s intended meaning easily, if at all, were
coded and totalled as category (i), and the possible source of misunder-
standing was then analysed.
186 Writing Fluency
Altogether, 90 examples of items causing a breakdown in communication

were identified throughout the written data [F=19; Y=71], creating
a mean score of incomprehensible items per essay [F=0.51; Y=1.77].
An explanation for this great difference can be proposed when the
source of the misunderstanding is examined. In total, 61 examples
result from unexplained use of L1 within the essay, and the remain-
ing 29 are linguistic problems caused by misuse of grammar, spelling
or word choice, which renders part of the text incomprehensible.
Comprehension problem examples arising from students’ use of L1,
such as for place-names, local foods, and pastimes, occur almost exclu-
sively within the Y data [F=2; Y=59], and may have been exacerbated
by their essay topic.
Linguistic competence
In order to be able to write, a certain level of linguistic competence

is necessary so that the result is decodable by the reader. Fluent writers
should be able to manipulate the orthographic code, follow the rules
of the syntactic and morphological system, and abide by orthographic
conventions, as well as employ a range of lexical items to express their
meaning. Although a detailed discussion of the linguistic competence
shown in these participants’ essays (see Fraser, 2010) is beyond the
scope of this chapter, it is evident from Table 10.3 that group Y, consid-
ered more academic, were only marginally more accurate [(d): F 12.2;
Y 11.94 errors per 100 words].
An analysis of syntactic complexity, measured in MLTU (mean
length of T-unit) (see Foster et al., 2000; Lennon, 1990; Mochizuki &
Ortega, 2008) revealed that Y students overall also employed more
complex structures [(e): F 7.61; Y 8.30]. However, when lexical
range (h) within the essays was examined, considerably more examples
of difficult, creative, low-frequency vocabulary were identified in the
F data [(h): F 4.51; Y 2.87]. The greater accuracy and syntactic com-
plexity within Y data may result from those students choosing to play
it safe by writing shorter, simpler essays to minimize the possibility
of making errors. In contrast, the disparity in knowledge, or use, of
L2 lexis may in part be accounted for by extensive reading, incorpo-
rated into the F course and widely acknowledged as beneficial for L2
vocabulary acquisition and overall L2 ability (see e.g. Nation, 2001,
and Waring, Chapter 12 below).
To establish whether there is any significant difference between the
written competence of groups F and Y, t-tests for equality of means
were conducted on 13 variables. Significant differences were observed

in three fluency-related indices, where p .005 or less:
(h) Lexical range (p .000)

(i) Incomprehensibility (p .000)
(k) Holistic fluency (p .001)
Although a statistically significant difference between the two groups

has been established, the relevance of these results needs to be inter-
preted, and explanations for the outcomes offered.
The evidence that group Y produced significantly less lexically chal-
lenging work, result (h), may suggest that they are conservative, cau-
tious learners who are concentrating on accuracy at the expense of
creativity. In contrast, the higher number of errors found in F essays
may result from their employment of a significantly more advanced
range of vocabulary and expressions (h).
The finding that Y students produced significantly more incompre-
hensible items (i) within their essays, the majority of which being caused
by using unexplained L1 words, supports the proposition that F students
are more aware of the need for clarification for their reader, but may
also result from the difference in task type. The final result (k) reinforces
the impression that group F are more fluent writers, by demonstrating
a significant difference in holistic fluency between the two populations.
Attention is now turned to spoken fluency, as demonstrated in
recordings and transcripts of interview data using EIKEN Pre-second
degree test materials (see Eiken Foundation of Japan, 2010; Fraser,
2010). Oral data of students’ L2 production are now analysed according
to the framework presented in Table 10.1.
Measuring spoken fluency
As the intention was to elicit a large enough sample of spoken data, a

more flexible approach to administering the EIKEN oral test was adopted
in that the exchange, although tape-recorded, was not conducted under
strict examination conditions, and the introductory questions and con-
versation were considered an important element. However, so that the
student data produced could be comparable, exam conditions in terms
of the order of questions and number and nature of prompts given by
interviewers were adhered to.
Ten students from each of groups F and Y were randomly selected to
undergo pre- and post-oral tests using the same materials, with EIKEN
188 Writing Fluency
pre-test scores demonstrating that the two groups were comparable in

terms of overall English proficiency at the start of the research project (see
Fraser, 2010). Only the results of the analysis of the second oral test data
are detailed here, in order to describe levels of fluency after one year’s
experience of high school English. Two unforeseen problems of student
absence and failure to record some interviews occurred, which resulted
in, instead of the planned 25% of each group taking the speaking post-
test, only 18% of F and 22% of Y students producing oral data, which,
naturally, may make any statistical claim less reliable. All interview record-
ings were transcribed, with pauses timed and marked in multiples of one
second, and phonological inaccuracies noted using phonemic script.
Oral test transcripts were then analysed according to criteria similar
to those used to examine the essay data. Factors included reflect the
Council of Europe qualitative aspects of spoken language use of ‘Range,
Accuracy, Fluency, Interaction, and Coherence’ (Council of Europe,
2001), and illustrate the four aspects of communicative competence
identified in Table 10.1.
Fluency is assessed by total number of utterances, total word count,
number of hesitations/false starts, total wait time in seconds, and holis-
tic impression. Accuracy is measured by the total number of grammati-
cal and phonological errors produced. The number and length of A-S
units, along with the range of lexical items and expressions utilized,
provide evidence of Range or Complexity. In addition, as the speech
mode is interactional, the number of turns taken by each student is
noted and their nature analysed. Single-word turns, and those in which
ten or more words are uttered are calculated, and an average length
of these turns is given. For ease of comparison, all occurrences within
the categories of Accuracy, Interaction, Turns, and Lexical Complexity are
calculated as per 100 words, owing to the differing lengths of the actual
oral contributions. Criteria and data related to fluency, complexity, and
accuracy are presented in Table 10.4.
Table 10.4 Analysis of spoken data (mean scores)
Fluency Group F Group Y
a Total utterances 154.57 125.88

b Hesitations 13.85 12.22
c False starts 20.42 17.33
d Total word count 140.71 113.66
e Wait time (seconds per 100 words) 93.67 109.05
f Holistic fluency mark 3.85 2.61
Table 10.4 Continued
g Total of errors (per 100 words) 17.43 22.16
h Grammatical errors (per 100 words) 7.56 8.18
i Phonological errors (per 100 words) 9.97 13.97
j [d–c] Word count 120.42 96.22
k Total A-S units 24.85 23.77
l Syntactic complexity 4.84 3.52
m Lexical complexity 3.71 1.99
Turns
t Total turns 16.14 17.44
u Single-word turns (per 100 words) 2.49 5.23
v Long turns (per 100 words) 3.10 3.03
w Average long turn length 22.58 18.71
x Average turn length 9.57 7.21
Fluency
Examining first the category of fluency, (columns (a)–(f)), a recurring fac-

tor in all definitions is that of quantity—fluent speakers tend to speak
more, and use longer turns (Luoma, 2004, p. 89). It is evident that F
students produced a greater number of overall utterances (a) [F 154.57;
Y 125.88]. When hesitations (b) such as ‘er,’ ‘um,’ and the frequent L1
filler ‘eto’ are discounted, the total word count (d) means show a distinct
difference [F 140.71; Y 113.66], indicating that F students may be
more capable of understanding their interlocutor, and more willing to
express themselves in English under such conditions.
Although a feature of natural native-speaker speech, false starts, repeti-
tions, and self-correcting (c) are considered as indicators of dysfluency
(Foster et al., 2000), and it is apparent that F students make more of these
[F 20.42; Y 17.33]. It could be argued, however, that self-correction
and reformulation are positive features of L2 development, as they show
awareness of progression along the interlanguage cline. Altogether 20
examples of self-correction or reformulation demonstrating awareness
of having made an error and subsequent attempts to rectify the prob-
lem were noted in F transcriptions, as opposed to only nine in those of
Y students.
As ‘pause phenomena are key markers of fluency’ (Wood, 2007, p. 211),
time lapses in the recordings were coded in multiples of one second.
Response time and thinking time are, however, recognised as longer in
Japan (Hadley, 2003) than the typically allocated five seconds (Richards &
Lockhart, 1994). Although mean wait time (e) per 100 words variation
190 Writing Fluency
was not so great between the two groups [F 93.67; Y 109.05], it was
overall fairly long. This suggests that both groups of learners need con-
siderable time to think how to respond, which words to select, and to
process their interlocutor’s contributions, and this emphasizes the need
for allowing longer wait time in teacher–learner classroom interaction
(Thornbury, 1996). However, when wait time before any attempt was
made at answering a question was calculated, F students on average
required less response time [F 29.85 secs; Y 46 secs] before reacting to
the prompt, which could be taken as an indication that the F students
comprehended the questions posed by the examiner with more ease
than did the Y students.
When looking in more detail at the data on wait time, it is noted
that the student who amassed the longest wait time (e) [182 secs per
100 words] in his oral test, Y4, was the one who produced the fewest
words [Y4: 50 words], and both F students who made long pauses [F9:
171.92; F25: 161.71 secs per 100 words] spoke less than the mean word
count (d) for their group of 140.71 words [F9: 114; F25: 128 words].
However, those pausing for the shortest amount of time within their
oral interviews [F28: 30.76; F6: 35.59 secs per 100 words] created the
greatest impression of being fluent speakers by receiving the highest
overall holistic fluency score.
The holistic fluency mark (f), the only purely subjective score, was
graded by the researcher on a five-point scale, with five being the high-
est, as to what seemed a more fluent performance. This was based on
professional and native-speaker intuition, which is commonly recog-
nised as a credible criterion for acceptability. As this score reflects only
one opinion, it cannot be considered reliable on its own, but when
taken as one of the factors for statistical analysis, it can contribute to
the evidence of a general trend in the results. Moreover, recording an
overall impression of the student contribution, as with the essay data,
also has its value. Interestingly, those learners receiving the highest
mark in the oral test do not necessarily score highly on written fluency.
Although F6 and F28 both attained 5/5 in the oral and written holistic
assessment, F17 only scored 2/5 for her essay, despite being evaluated
very highly (5/5) on oral ability. Conversely, whereas Y32 received the
top score of 5/5 for written fluency, his overall spoken performance was
estimated at the low score of 2/5, with no Y students being awarded a
holistic fluency score of 5/5 in the oral test, owing to reticence and a
lack of flow in their interaction.
In summary, in regard to the three markers of fluency examined
here—word count, hesitation and wait time, and holistic fluency—the
data analysed in these categories provide evidence of greater observable

and quantifiable oral fluency in students in group F. Aspects of accuracy
and range that affect the impression of fluency upon the receiver are
now briefly investigated.
It may be presumed that learners following an academic course with

more focus on grammar and exam preparation would, as a result, be
more precise in their grammatical production than those whose lessons
emphasize fluency and expression of meaning, such as in specialist
English courses. It is thus somewhat surprising to find that the overall
accuracy mean score in the oral test, as measured by the total number
of errors per 100 words (g) for the International Understanding course
students (F) is lower than for the academic course group (Y) [F 17.43;
Y 22.16]. However, when the sources of errors are examined, it is in
phonology (i) that the differences occur. Although performing simi-
larly in grammatical accuracy [(h): F 7.56; Y 8.18], when transcribed
data are compared against the ideal native speaker model, as generally
presented and preferred in Japan (see Fraser, 2006; Matsuda, 2003;
Matsuura et al., 2001), it is in errors of consonant articulation and word-
level stress patterns that differences arise [(i): F 9.97; Y 13.97].
The A-S unit (Analysis of Speech unit) was adopted for the analysis of
oral syntactic complexity, since the T-unit is considered ‘inadequate to
deal with full analysis of spoken discourse’ (Foster et al., 2000, p. 360),
particularly that of non-native speakers. As the resulting differences in
total A-S units (k) [mean (k): F 24.85; Y 23.77] reflect text length, the
mean A-S unit length (l) per group was calculated by dividing total word
count (d) by the number of A-S units (k): [mean (l): F 4.84; Y 3.52].
The difference between the two groups may be accounted for in part by
the length of turns, in that group F produced more items per turn [mean
(x): F 9.57; Y 7.21].
As in the essays, more examples of lexically complex items were identi-
fied in the F recordings [mean (m): F 3.71; Y 1.99 per 100 words], but
overall only a very low percentage of lexical complexity per transcript
(0–6.25%) was noted, possibly attributable to the spontaneity of the task.
To verify the impression that group F is markedly more orally flu-
ent than Y students, statistical analyses were conducted on the oral
interview data. As the number of subjects was so small (n: F 7; Y 9),
non-parametric statistics of Mann-Whitney U-tests, two-tailed, were
performed to assess the differences between the two groups F and Y.
192 Writing Fluency
Only holistic fluency markers showed significance at a 5% level

(p .025). Two further factors approaching the significance level of 5%
were those of phonological errors (p .055) and syntactic complexity
(p .055). These results prove that group F is significantly more fluent
under the circumstances of this oral interview than the Y sample, in
accordance with the above discussion.
Conclusions on written and oral performance
From a close analysis of the essays produced by the participants in this

study, it is apparent that, overall, evidence of more extensive, adven-
turous, and fluent writing is found in the data from group F. Students
following course F wrote, on the whole, longer texts, employing a wider
range of complex vocabulary and expressions, and containing fewer
incomprehensible items. Not surprisingly, though, their accuracy rate
was poorer, owing to greater risk-taking where ‘a measure of accuracy
may not reflect complexity’ (Foster & Skehan, 1996, p. 304), although
all markers of increased proficiency, fluency, complexity, and accuracy
do not necessarily all increase in tandem (Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998).
Moreover, their essays made a stronger impression of holistic fluency
on the reader, suggesting a greater ability to communicate their message
through this medium among F students, with a focus on ‘the primacy
of meaning’ (Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998, p.4).
The observations made on mean scores are reinforced by the statisti-
cal analyses on the essay data, which confirm, in particular, that there
is a significant difference between holistic fluency, lexical range, and
incomprehensibility in the written work of groups F and Y.
Both objective and subjective analyses of the interview transcripts
provide evidence of a higher level of spoken communicative compe-
tence among group F students. By comparing mean scores of quantifi-
able oral data for each factor analysed, it is seen that learners following
course F produced fewer grammatical and phonological errors, and
displayed a higher level of both syntactic and lexical complexity in their
spoken contributions, thus signifying better linguistic competence.
Moreover, the holistic assessment of their oral performance reflected a
significantly higher level of overall fluency, which was supported by the
results of the statistical procedures.
It is therefore concluded that the learners participating in the
International Understanding course F were able to attain a higher level
of both written and spoken fluency on a wide range of measurable con-
structs than those at school Y who followed an EFL course more typical
of those taught in Japanese high schools.
Overall conclusions
This chapter has proposed a working definition of fluency, and applied a

framework of criteria for assessing fluency to a specific body of written and
spoken data from L2 learners. The above discussion has illustrated that the
criteria were successful for analysing these data and identifying differences
between the performance of the two groups in this particular EFL situation.
Thus, the original research question has been answered in the affirmative,
in that the above framework can identify, quantify, and describe differ-
ences in fluency among foreign language learners. Analysis of L2 produc-
tion by these criteria has distinguished between English output of learners
in both written and spoken modes. Furthermore, assessment in both quan-
titative and qualitative terms has been achieved. Therefore, this framework
may provide a useful evaluation tool for both examination and classroom
contexts, which could be used for formative and summative assessment of
learners, individually and in relation to other learners and/or groups.
At this stage, these criteria appear appropriate and manageable for eval-
uating linguistic output that affects the impression of fluency on both the
reader and listener, and therefore may be useful for other learning contexts
where an assessment system for aspects of fluency is required. However,
as this is only a pilot study, more research using this framework is desir-
able to establish whether the assessment criteria are sensitive enough to
identify meaningful differences between other populations of FL speakers.
More suggestions for frameworks of analysis and more research into both
spoken and written fluency are needed to explore the interrelationship
of these two aspects. What is then required is further research to test the
effectiveness of such frameworks and to examine the general applicability
of these criteria for assessing fluency in global FL contexts.
This research demonstrates that fluency should not only be considered
as related to speaking and that a reliable assessment of fluency is multi-
faceted (Tavakoli, 2010) and cannot depend on the use of the sole cri-
terion of length/quantity of output. It is necessary to develop, and assess,
varied aspects of spoken and written output produced by L2 learners.
Indeed, fluency in both skill areas is even more important in the mod-
ern world where increasing reliance on technological communication
via email and texting is blurring the traditional distinctions between
written and spoken language.
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11
Recent Developments in Writing
Fluency Measurement
Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif
Introduction
Fluency is an important aspect in writing performance and assessment,

particularly foreign language and second language (L2) writing. The
importance of research on writing fluency lies in that it can inform us
about the difficulties students have in written text production. Despite
such importance, fluency has been given peripheral attention in writ-
ing research. Therefore, what we mean by writing fluency and how it
can be validly assessed has yet to be decisively answered. As Bruton and
Kirby (1987) put it:
The word fluency crops up often in discussions of written composi-

tion and holds an ambiguous position in theory and in practice. …
Written fluency is not easily explained, apparently, even when
researchers rely on simple, traditional measures such as composing
rate. Yet, when … researchers referred to the term fluency, they did so
as though the term were already widely understood and not in need
of any further explication. … Research in composing has done little
to develop the notion of written fluency. (p. 89)
Bruton and Kirby’s conclusion indicates there is no agreed-upon defini-

tion of writing fluency, reflected by the various product-based and pro-
cess-based measures for assessing writing fluency that previous studies
have used (e.g. Bosher, 1998; Sasaki & Hirose, 1996; Muller, Chapter 9).
Product-based fluency indicators are based on student written texts
regardless of how these texts were produced (e.g. Ballator et al., 1999;
Bruton, 1986; Reynolds, 2005; Storch, 2009; Muller, Chapter 9), and
process-based indicators draw upon online observation of writers’
196
Recent Developments in Writing Fluency Measurement 197
composing processes (Bosher, 1998; Van Bruggen, 1946). This chapter

highlights recent developments in writing fluency measurement by
critically reviewing product- and process-based indicators of writing
fluency and discussing how this construct should be validly measured.
The chapter begins by sharing definitions of product-based indicators of
writing fluency, followed by process-based indicators. Next, it discusses
the validity of these product- and process-based indicators, and ends
with showing one satisfactory writing fluency measurement.
Product-based indicators of writing fluency
As has been pointed out above, researchers adopting product-based

indicators assess student fluency in terms of aspects of the written
text. According to some of those researchers, writing fluency implies
the sense of fluent production the written text can reflect (Argaman &
Abu-Rabia, 2002; Fraser, Chapter 10), the speed of lexical retrieval while
writing (Snellings & van Gelderen, 2004), and students’ keyboard or
typing skill (Schoonen et al., 2011). Hester (2001) adopts a more com-
prehensive product-based definition of writing fluency by viewing it as
a concept encompassing features of composing rate, text quantity and
quality, organizing ideas, and knowledge of writing conventions in the
target language (see also Fraser, Chapter 10 for an alternative product-
based writing fluency measurement).
Many first language (L1) and L2 composing process studies measured
writing fluency in terms of composing rate, or the number of words
written per minute obtained by dividing the text quantity in words
by the number of minutes spent writing (Bruton, 1986; Chenoweth &
Hayes, 2001; Ong & Zhang, 2010; Perl, 1979; Sasaki & Hirose, 1996;
Storch, 2009; Wang, 2005; also Muller, Chapter 9). Other reported
measures of writing fluency include holistic scoring of texts (Ballator
et al., 1999; Fraser, Chapter 10), text quantity (Baba, 2009; Yasuda, 2011;
Fraser, Chapter 10), t-units, or counting main clauses and all their sub-
ordinate clauses as a unit (Storch, 2009), number of correctly spelled
words, number of sentences, letter sequences (Rosenthal, 2007), text
coherence and cohesion aspects (Reynolds, 2005; Fraser, Chapter 10),
and holistic fluency, which encompasses readers’ overall impression
of the text, flow of its ideas, effectiveness of expression of message,
selection of appropriate linguistic items, and quality of content (Fraser,
Chapter 10). Taking a different perspective, Knoch (2007) distinguishes
between two aspects of product-based writing fluency: temporal fluency
and repair fluency. Temporal fluency is represented by the number of
198 Writing Fluency
words written, and repair fluency by the number of self-corrections, or

‘any instances of insertions or deletions a student has made to his/her
text’ (Knoch, 2007, p. 118). Of all the above product-based indicators,
composing rate and text quantity have been the most frequently used
for assessing writing fluency.
Process-based indicators of writing fluency
A few researchers have addressed or referred to the issue of writer flu-

ency from a process-based perspective. For example, van Gelderen
and Oostdam (2002) define fluent written production as accessing a
rich linguistic knowledge base and retrieving proposed ideas and text
efficiently, while Snellings and van Gelderen (2004) view it as speed of
lexical retrieval while writing. Bruton (1986) defines writing fluency as
‘a complex construct affected by the dimensions of the writer such as
cognition, language production ability and intuition or imagination, by
dimensions of the rhetorical and situational contexts and reflected in
the written text’ (p. 17). In a later work, Bruton and Kirby (1987) state
the developmental or multi-dimensional view of written fluency incor-
porates the richness of writers’ processes and ability to organize com-
posing strategies and the complexities of their use in a way that reflects
their mature awareness of task demands. It is worth noting, however,
there are some measurement and methodological difficulties in assess-
ing writing fluency as a process. That is, it is not clear how researchers
can measure the way writers access their linguistic knowledge base and
retrieve proposed ideas or lexical items. Additionally, Bruton and Kirby’s
(1987) multi-dimensional definition is not sharply enough defined as
it deals with the composing process as a whole and incorporates areas
outside the purview of writing fluency, such as composing strategies
and task awareness.
Some researchers used process-based writing fluency indicators that
draw upon online observation of the composition process. These indi-
cators include:
• Length of writers’ rehearsed text (e.g. Kaufer et al., 1986)

• Writers’ pausing (Bosher, 1998)
• Length of writers’ translating episodes (Abdel Latif, 2009b).
Two studies (Chenoweth & Hayes, 2001; Kaufer et al., 1986) used the
length of the newly proposed text, or the burst in their terms, as a main
process-related determinant of writing fluency. These studies define
the burst as the text writers rehearse, meaning they either orally try
out how to phrase it or it is text they transcribe for the first time. The
length of each rehearsed or transcribed burst was identified by a pause
of two or more seconds. Kaufer et al.’s (1986) study showed the length
of the rehearsed text interacts positively with writers’ language experi-
ence. Over three quarters of the words newly rehearsed as sentence parts
by Kaufer et al.’s (1986) L1 writers were included in their translating
episodes. Finding that writers with more L2 experience rehearsed and
wrote new text parts in longer chunks, Chenoweth and Hayes (2001)
point out that the length of the newly proposed text is a main indica-
tor of writing fluency, measured by composing rate, because ‘if a given
set of ideas can be translated into words in one burst, the total time
required for writing will be less than if two or three bursts are required
to produce the same word string’ (p. 83).
By videotaping her three participant writers, Bosher (1998) used their
pauses as an indicator of the fluency of their text production. Another
aspect of writing fluency referred to in writing process research is pro-
ducing the text in larger chunks. Perl (1979) refers to her twelfth grader
participants’ fluency by contrasting fluent writing that can be observed
when ‘sentences are written in groups or chunks’ (p. 322) to non-
fluent writing occurring ‘when each sentence is produced in isolation’
(p. 322). Describing the number of sentences her participants wrote
without interruption or engaging in other composing behaviors as an
aspect of their writing fluency, Raimes (1985) concludes that ‘fluency
of producing text within the sentence was for the most part extended
to fluency from sentence to sentence’ (p. 243). Similar remarks were
made by Kelly (1986) whose proficient writers produced their texts in
larger chunks, and by Wang (2005) who explained the flow of her par-
ticipants’ composing by referring to the length of their written chunks.
Though two of these researchers (Perl, 1979; Wang, 2005) used compos-
ing rate as an indicator of writing fluency, the observations they made
signal the possibility of measuring writer fluency in terms of mean
length of the text parts they produce.
The idea of using the mean length of the text parts written or translat-
ing episodes is not new but is rarely highlighted. Van Bruggen’s (1946)
study in which he examined the rate of flow of written words may be
the only relevant empirical study worth citing. Van Bruggen collected
data about the regularity of the flow of words written by 84 junior high
school students through using a motor-driven, time-recording kymo-
graph that records the movements of writers’ pencils. His participants
performed a summary or story reproduction task (a familiar topic) and
200 Writing Fluency
a narrative task (an unfamiliar task). Conducting a detailed analysis of

the rate of word flow of writers who wrote texts with the highest qual-
ity ratings and writers who wrote texts with the lowest quality ratings,
Van Bruggen found the rate of word flow was slower and their texts
were shorter and of lower quality when writing for the unfamiliar topic
than the familiar one, and that more fluent writers had longer pauses
between groups of words and shorter pauses within groups of words
than less fluent writers.
Van Bruggen’s study implies there is a positive relationship between
writing in thought units and word flow, suggesting the role linguistic
maturity may have in increasing word flow rate. Another observation
from this study is that less fluent writers are more likely to have more
regular and steady word flow than more fluent writers, implying that
with more fluent writers they plan their compositions in word groups,
rather than a single word at a time.
Taking into account Van Bruggen’s (1946) research, Abdel Latif
(2009b) pursued the idea of word flow rate using think-aloud proto-
cols instead of the kymograph. The observations made by Perl (1979),
Raimes (1985), Kelly (1986), and Wang (2005) in their think-aloud
protocol studies inspired him to pursue Van Bruggen’s (1946) early idea
by examining the mean length of the translating episodes in writers’
think-aloud protocols. Abdel Latif (2009b) defines the translating epi-
sode as a segment of the protocol that represents a chunk (one or more
words) that has been written down (i.e. translated and terminated by a
three-or-more-second pause or any composing behavior). The following
four-minute think-aloud protocol sample shows how a writer produced
his text chunks or translating episodes (Transcription conventions:
1. [Italicized text]: speaking in English without writing; 2. [Underlined
text]: text that is being read; 3. …: a three-second or more pause; 4.
[Bold text]: English text that is being written and verbalized; 5. [Text]:
deleted text):
I think that er I think I think that I think that who studying English
in the faculty I think that I have not to taken not to take I have not to
take long vacation. Er for this er there is another idea I not I I Many
students many many students especially especially who study lan-
guages, who study languages er memorize memori memori not memo-
rize … keeping words by heart keeping many words hundreds or more
words by heart … so if they take a long time without they a long
time without er without er revising all these words, they will they will
forget forget them. This will actually this will actually make them
spending a lot of time in recalling these words. Recalling these

words This is this is what happened what happened to me.
Abdel Latif (2009b) developed the following rules for counting the
translating episodes in writer think-aloud protocols:
• All the English episodes or segments translated (i.e. written down)

are counted except for the titles, subtitles, and all revising and edit-
ing operations. The reason for excluding these revising and editing
chunks from writing fluency assessment is that they are more likely
not produced as a result of natural flow of written language produc-
tion but the writer makes them in response to spotting an error or
discovering a need to refine the text; they result from the writer’s
monitoring or reviewing rather than planning or retrieval. That is
why the writer decides in advance upon the length of the chunk to
be included in the text when making these changes.
• All the translating episodes in final drafts, in case of writing more
than one, were also not considered in the fluency assessment process
owing to the possibility that writers tend to copy the text produced
in their previous draft(s) to the final one; therefore it may not reflect
their writing fluency.
• Polio’s (1997) word count guidelines were used:
Counting contractions as one word whether correct or not

(e.g. can’t)
Counting numbers as one word
Not counting hyphenated words as single words (e.g. well-written
two words)
Counting words as they are written even if they are incorrect
(e.g. alot one word), including erroneous words in the above
think-aloud protocol sample (e.g. adobt).
Applying these guidelines to the above think-aloud protocol sample will

give us the following description of the translating episodes produced
by the writer:
I think that … I have not to … take long vacation. … I … Many

students … especially … who study languages, … memori … words by
heart … so if they take a long time without … revising all these words,
they will … forget … them. This will actually … make them spending a lot
of time in recalling these words. … This is … what … happened to me.
202 Writing Fluency
As this four-minute protocol sample shows, the writer produced 57

words in 18 translating episodes. Accordingly, his mean translating
episode length or writing fluency score in the four-minute composition
is 3.2 words. In Abdel Latif’s (2009b) study, the mean length of partici-
pant translating episodes was found to be a valid indicator of their flu-
ency as it had significant positive correlations with student vocabulary
and grammar knowledge, and with the language use, vocabulary, and
total quality scores of their essays.
The above discussion shows that the area of using process-based
indicators for assessing writing fluency has seen major developments in
the last few years. It also highlights the various product-based indica-
tors used for measuring fluency. However, the question remains of how
writing fluency should be measured. This is the topic of the next part
of the chapter.
How should writing fluency be validly measured?
As shown above, previous studies used various product-based indicators

of writing fluency, including composing rate (e.g. Perl, 1979; Wang,
2005), text quantity (Yasuda, 2011; Muller, Chapter 9), holistic scoring
of the text (e.g. Ballator et al., 1999; Fraser, Chapter 10), number of
t-units (e.g. Storch, 2009), number of correctly spelled words written
(e.g. Rosenthal, 2007), number of sentences written, number of letter
sequences (e.g. Rosenthal, 2007), and number of changes made to the
text (e.g. Knoch, 2007). On the other hand, writing fluency in the com-
posing process studies was assessed in terms of writers’ rehearsed text
(e.g. Kaufer et al., 1986), their pauses (e.g. Bosher, 1998), and their trans-
lating episodes (Abdel Latif, 2009b). Overall, product-based indicators of
writing fluency are more frequently used than process-based indicators.
Additionally, the composing rate and text quantity are the two most fre-
quently used indicators of all product-based and process-based writing
fluency indicators. With all these indicators of both types, researchers
may find themselves confused about how to assess their participants’
writing fluency: Should they use a process-based or product-based indi-
cator? And what is the most appropriate process-based or product-based
indicator to use? These two questions can be answered by discussing the
issue of the validity of each indicator in light of reviewing the empirical
findings and comparing speaking fluency indicators with writing flu-
ency indicators.
As for the product-based indicators of writing fluency reviewed here,
these are easier to use than process-based indicators. However, it may
be argued that their validity is questionable. Some of these indicators,

such as the number of t-units or sentences written, are more likely to
reflect quality aspects in written texts than the flow of composing pro-
cesses. The idea of using the changes made to the text, the composing
rate, and text quantity as indicators of writing fluency has been derived
from speaking fluency research. Skehan (2003) identifies four indicators
of speaking fluency:
a) Breakdown fluency assessed by silence

b) Repair fluency: Reformulations, replacements, false starts, and
repetition
c) Speech rate or the number of words per minute
d) Automatization or length of bursts that occur between pauses.
Two of these speaking fluency measures, repair fluency and speech

rate, were used as product-based indicators of writing fluency. It is
worth noting that repair aspects (reformulations, replacements, false
starts, and repetition) are not markers of speaking fluency, nor do the
changes made to written text appear to indicate writing fluency. These
are regarded as communication or composing strategies in the majority
of studies, depending on whether the studies are investigating speak-
ing (e.g. Dörnyei & Scott, 1997) or writing (e.g. Roca de Larios et al.,
2006). For example, the review of empirical correlates of speaking flu-
ency reported by Chambers (1997) does not include any of these repair
aspects referred to by Skehan (2003). Meanwhile, it seems that Knoch’s
(2007) attempt to use text-changes as an indicator for assessing writer
fluency was influenced by Skehan’s (2003) work.
Regarding composing rate and text quantity, it is worthy of remark
that real-time language processing is different in both oral and written
production. The time needed for performing speaking tasks is far shorter
than the time needed for performing writing ones. Because the mean
length of students’ pauses is not often expected to exceed a second or
so while performing a speaking task, it is not surprising that speech
rate, a temporal measure, is an essential element in oral fluency assess-
ment. Researchers can assess speaking fluency through recording oral
production and counting real-time speech rates by dividing the words
produced by the time taken to perform the task. The issue is different
when students perform writing tasks. Previous studies have not used
the composing rate or text quantity as real-time indicators of writing
fluency. Rather, they used them in terms of the final text produced
without taking a real-time dimension into account. Writing is generally
204 Writing Fluency
considered the most cognitive of all the four language skills. Composing
written text is a problem-solving activity that involves coordinating
between a set of mental processes and using domain, linguistic, prag-
matic, and procedural knowledge types, thus placing extremely high
demands on the limited capacity of working memory (Alamargot &
Chanquoy, 2001). Normally, writers allocate much more time and effort
to the processes of planning, monitoring, reviewing, and retrieving
than to transcribing and changing their texts. For example, in Abdel
Latif’s (2009a) study, participant transcribing behaviors accounted
for 26% of their composing process, while the text-changing behav-
iors accounted for only 4%. Accordingly, the assumption that writers
allocate more time and effort to planning, monitoring, and reviewing
processes, and the fact that the composing process is far more reflective
than speaking, seems to suggest composing rate and text quantity may
not predict writing fluency.
Producing longer or shorter texts may be dependent on factors such
as writer pre-task decisions to include a specific amount of words, lines
or paragraphs in the text and/or their familiarity with the topic. In addi-
tion, judging student writing fluency through dividing the amount of
text they produce by the time they spend on the task may be refuted
by the assumption that some students do not spend much time per-
forming a given task owing to their negative attitude toward writing
(see Muller, Chapter 9 for additional discussion of issues concerning
writing time and text production). Similarly, some competent writers
may produce fewer words per minute not because they are less fluent
writers but because they monitor their text production more than their
counterparts. Also, it is worth noting that none of the reviewed studies
using the two indicators to measure writer fluency has attempted to
validate the measures.
Using correlational analyses between his participants’ analytic writing
quality and linguistic knowledge scores and their composing rates and
text quantities as well as retrospective interviews, Abdel Latif (2009b)
tested the hypothesis that composing rate and text quantity may not be
valid indicators of writing fluency. The results of Abdel Latif’s (2009b)
study confirmed the hypothesis tested as they revealed that partici-
pants’ linguistic knowledge (grammar and vocabulary knowledge) and
text quality scores had non-significant negative correlation with their
composing rate and non-significant positive correlation with their text
quantity (cf. Fraser, Chapter 10 for contrasting results). In addition, the
retrospective interview data revealed that participant composing rates
and text quantity were influenced by their projected ending strategy,
topic familiarity, and composing time. Accordingly, the assumptions

adopted by the previous studies employing the composing rate and/
or text quantity to assess writing fluency do not seem convincing. To
conclude, the above discussion indicates the answer to the question of
the appropriateness of process- or product-based indicators for assess-
ing writing fluency is that the product-based indicators reviewed here
should be avoided due to the questions raised about their validity.
Given that the validity of product-based indicators of writing fluency
is questionable, process-based indicators would appear to be preferable
for assessing writing fluency as they are based on real-time observa-
tion. A resulting question is: Which process-based indicator should
researchers use – mean length of writer rehearsed text, pausing, or mean
length of translating episodes? It can be argued that the use of mean
length of proposed burst as a measure of writing fluency by Kaufer et al.
(1986) and Chenoweth and Hayes (2001) is also derived from speaking
research using the mean length of bursts that occur between pauses as
an indicator of oral production fluency. It is possible that this indicator
does not strongly correlate with writing fluency as it has its origin in
measures of verbal ability. Further, even if we accept the mean length
of proposed burst as an indicator of writing fluency, there are some
methodological problems related to using it for two reasons. One is that
demonstrating text rehearsing behaviors is likely dependent on writer
ability to verbalize internal thoughts. The other is that examining the
length of the proposed burst for writing is complicated by difficulties
in differentiating between rehearsed ideas and rehearsed text, and the
tendency of some L2 writers to plan text in L1.
I agree with Kaufer et al. (1986) and Chenoweth and Hayes (2001)
that the mean length of proposed burst is an indicator of fluency, but as
measured by the mean length of writer translating episodes and not by
composing rate. This is supported by Abdel Latif (2009a), where a positive
relationship was found between the mean length of writer translating
episodes and rehearsed text. Similarly, the same study found the mean
length of writer translating episodes negatively correlates with intra-
sentential pausing and positively correlates with inter-sentential pausing
(Abdel Latif, 2009a). That is, writers pausing more within sentences than
between them seem to transcribe short translating episodes and vice
versa. Accordingly, it can be argued that pausing is also a correlate of
mean length of translating episodes.
Given that neither the mean length of rehearsed text nor text-pro-
duction processing loads seem to be real indicators of writing fluency,
fluent written production may be validly measured through using the
206 Writing Fluency
mean length of writer translating episodes. The results of Abdel Latif’s

(2009a) study that the mean length of translating episodes has strong
positive correlations with writers’ linguistic knowledge and text qual-
ity aspects support this view. Furthermore, adopting the mean length
of translating episodes as an indicator of writing fluency is congruent
with Schmidt’s (1992) definition of L2 fluency as ‘the processing of
language in real time’ (p. 358). Moreover, when taking into account
the findings that the mean length of bursts is currently the most valid
indicator of speaking fluency (Towell et al., 1996), the mean length of
writer translating episodes should be an equal indicator of writing flu-
ency, an indicator that provides a process-based method for assessing
fluent written production.
Conclusion and implications for classroom practices
This chapter reviewed recent developments in the area of writing fluency

and dealt with the issue of how this construct should be measured. The
chapter reviewed the product- and process-based indicators of writing
fluency and evaluated the validity of the reviewed indicators in light of
related literature. One conclusion is that the product-based indicators of
writing fluency used in previous studies may not be valid for two rea-
sons. First, they only mirror some aspects of text quality. Second, they
were derived from speaking fluency measures, which focus on real-time
features of oral text production inapplicable to writing. Additionally,
through reviewing the results of my two related studies (Abdel Latif,
2009a & b), I argued that the mean length of translating episodes is the
most valid writing fluency indicator considered here because it examines
the rate of production of text parts through real-time online observation.
As for the mean length of writer rehearsed text and text production pro-
cessing loads, these are correlates of the length of translating episodes
and do not seem to be real indicators of fluent written production.
There is a possibility of limiting the use of the think-aloud method
in some writing research to explore process-based writing fluency.
Future researchers whose participants may find difficulty in verbalizing
their thoughts can require them to verbalize the text being written.
Some future studies may attempt to further validate the mean length
of writer translating episodes as an indicator of writing fluency using
the think-aloud method in handwritten tasks and keystroke logging in
computer-based tasks. On the other hand, future critics of drawing
upon the think-aloud protocols to collect data about writer translating
episodes can make use of keystroke-logging software, which offers a
more accurate account of these episodes and is particularly relevant to

the computer-based tasks increasingly performed nowadays by student
writers.
In light of the proposed conceptualization of writing fluency, i.e.
writers’ ability to produce their texts in large chunks or spans, it can be
argued that written fluency is a function of control in accessing linguis-
tic knowledge. Therefore, the best way to facilitate students’ fluent writ-
ten production is to enhance their linguistic knowledge. Writers with
limited linguistic knowledge encounter difficulties in finding linguistic
alternatives, and struggle with producing sentences owing to their pre-
occupation with planning and retrieving the language in which to say
their ideas. Accordingly, enhancing students’ linguistic knowledge will
result in enabling them to write more fluently because accessing such
knowledge easily will help them have fewer problems in producing writ-
ten texts. Aside from this, L2 writing teachers can also help students by
using reading-to-write tasks and by providing them with language use,
lexical, and modeling activities to enrich their grammar and vocabulary
knowledge. Nation (Chapter 1) illustrates more specific suggestions for
in-class writing fluency development activities. The way teachers focus
on using linguistic activities in L2 writing classes needs to be depend-
ent on students’ proficiency levels and context. For example, the lower
knowledge level students have, the more linguistic activities L2 writing
teachers may wish to use, while the higher knowledge level students
have, the more writing skill-focused activities should be employed.
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Part IV
Reading Fluency
This fourth part addresses the role of fluency in reading with four
chapters, firstly focusing on extensive reading from a macro perspective
by Rob Waring and then from a specific Chinese context by Mu He.
This is followed by a study by Andrew Atkins into timed reading at a
Japanese university, and a description of a program to meet the needs of
secondary school pupils by Carol Goldfus for improving reading skills
among Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking adolescent pupils with learning
difficulties. Perhaps of some note here is the shift in contributions from
a wider, macro view of a definition of reading fluency to more micro,
localized contexts of practice and research.
Waring (Chapter 12) commences with a description of how extensive
reading contributes to fluency development, and notes that, despite
its increasing use in foreign language classes, it still has considerable
potential for further expansion. For practical advice, Waring encourages
classroom practitioners to instruct learners on how to choose appropri-
ate graded readers and to link extensive reading content with other
activities. From a research perspective, Waring argues that more research
into the relationship between reading rate, smoothness, and compre-
hension is necessary to better understand reading fluency development.
He notes that how reading rate and smoothness develop and impact
upon comprehension are areas particularly under-researched.
He’s (Chapter 13) chapter addresses a specific, local context of
Shanghai classrooms with regard to extensive reading and student aca-
demic achievement. He gives an overview of the program in operation
and then outlines her study with three groups: a control group exposed
to grammar-translation and two experimental groups, one engaged in
controlled extensive reading and another in autonomous extensive
reading. He’s findings indicate progress in listening, reading, and
211
212 Reading Fluency
English language competence among the two experimental groups

compared to the control group. Her implications suggest that extensive
reading should be introduced more widely as a supplement to more
traditional test preparation instruction.
The chapter by Atkins (Chapter 14) investigates timed reading and
reading fluency. His discussion of the literature is of interest as it looks
at varying operational definitions of listening fluency. The study itself
takes place in a Japanese university with streamed groups and asks
whether extensive reading is related to timed reading performance. His
conclusions show that for these learners timed reading appeared to lead
to improvements in their reading fluency.
The final chapter by Goldfus (Chapter 15) describes a classroom inter-
vention designed for EFL students with reading difficulties and disabili-
ties, such as dyslexia, for use with Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking English
language students, who read right to left in their native scripts. Goldfus
first describes the theoretical underpinnings of the intervention, then
explains the make-up of the intervention and how it encourages
improvements in cognitive reading fluency before describing its appli-
cation in a classroom with remedial students. The students involved in
the study were found to improve their reading skills to achieve parity
with their peers. After the study the remedial class was phased out and
the students moved into the regular language learning curriculum, sug-
gesting the potential of this intervention for fostering reading success
in the language classroom.
12
Building Fluency with
Extensive Reading
Rob Waring
Introduction
Recently, more and more learners, teachers, and administrators are

beginning to understand the central role that extensive reading plays in
the foreign language curriculum (Grabe, 2011; Waring, 2011) and with
the development of reading fluency. Several researchers have pointed
out that reading fluency has been an undervalued part of many EFL
curriculums (e.g. Gorsuch & Taguchi, 2008; Nation, 2009). This chapter
will first discuss the concept of reading fluency and suggest some ways
that this can be developed with special reference to extensive reading.
Then the benefits of extensive reading for developing reading fluency
will be reviewed and a research agenda will be proposed.
What is reading fluency?
Fluent reading has been characterized as a cornerstone of the develop-

ment of overall language skills (Grabe, 2009) as it expands not only the
automaticity of word recognition skills and develops both the breadth
and depth of vocabulary, but also increases a learner’s motivation to
read while fostering their growing autonomy (Gorsuch & Taguchi, 2010;
Takase, 2003). It also provides practice in dealing with large volumes of
different types of texts for both informational and pleasure reading.
Fluent reading is what most good readers do most of the time espe-
cially in their first language. To the layman, fluent reading is reading. It
typically refers to ‘a person reading at a reasonable reading rate, between
250–300 words per minute (wpm), using very efficient and fast word
recognition skills and combining information from various sources while
reading under fairly intense time constraints’ (Grabe, 2010, p. 72).
213
214 Reading Fluency
There is considerable debate regarding the definition of reading

fluency especially since the definitions have changed over the years
as new concepts and notions in reading circles have appeared and as
educational and societal needs have changed (Breznitz, 2006). However,
there is a growing consensus in L1 that reading fluency involves accu-
racy, speed, and effortless comprehension even though researchers
cannot agree on what the components of reading fluency are (Kuhn &
Stahl, 2004).
However, within L2 circles, there seems to be even less agreement
about the reading fluency construct, probably because there has been
little serious discussion of it. Grabe (2004, 2009, 2011) suggests the lack
of consensus and discussion is probably due to most reading research-
ers tending to focus on the role of comprehension and examine the
development of reading skills more generally rather than examining
decoding accuracy, smoothness, reading rate, and the specific skills and
strategies readers use to achieve fluency.
The development of fluent reading skills is a gradual process that can
only be achieved through extensive experience (Hazenberg & Hulstijn,
1996; Rosszell, 2008), and is influenced by frequency, recency, and regu-
larity of practice (Hulstijn, 2001). Koda’s (1996) research in both L1 and
L2 contexts indicated a causal link between word recognition efficiency
and reading comprehension. Hunt and Beglar (2005) concluded that
meaning-focused reading is ‘the primary means by which to immerse
students in a word-rich environment that can result in incremental
increases in vocabulary size, the elaboration of lexical knowledge and
the development of reading fluency’ (p. 39).
One foundation of reading fluency is the ability to process text
quickly not only at the alphabetic, word, sentence, and discourse levels
but also the lexico-grammatical level, and in tandem with background
knowledge and so on. When a reader is skimming a text, the reader
is not reading every word, but is trying to understand the general
meaning of a text. Although this is a form of fluent reading because it
involves fast comprehension of text, it is not the same as reading every
word smoothly and consecutively to understand each thought in the
sentence. Carver (1990) ranked five basic processes of reading into a
rough order of cognitive load. Scanning for a word only requires lexical
access to a word whereas skimming demands some semantic encoding.
The other three processes are rauding (a term coined by Carver to refer to
the consecutive reading of each word to understand each thought in a
sentence), learning, and memorizing. L1 adults reading English raud at
about 300 words per minute with a high comprehension rate, whereas
Building Fluency with Extensive Reading 215
they scan at 600 wpm. When natives read to consciously commit

certain facts to memory, the reading rate is the slowest (about 138 wpm)
owing to its cognitive demands.
However, many studies show that EFL learners tend to read consider-
ably slower than L1 readers – even as low as 120 wpm when reading
fluently (Chung & Nation, 2006). One explanation for this is that in
some learning contexts, reading equals text decoding where the read-
ing is often mediated by word-by-word translation to gain a ‘careful’
or ‘deep’ understanding of the text. This practice still dominates much
of foreign language reading practice and pedagogy despite considerable
research showing that a deeper appreciation of a text occurs not at the
word-by-word level, but at the meaning unit, or idea, level of reading
when reading fluently.
The automatization of the reading process is often mentioned as a
component of reading fluency. It often is taken to mean the automati-
zation of the lower-level bottom-up processes (e.g. the ability to recog-
nize words), through reading practice. The aim is to free up attentional
resources to allow for fluent reading and comprehension (e.g. LaBerge &
Samuels, 1974). However, higher-level processes beyond the word level
(such as grammatical parsing and text coherence and cohesion) that
impact comprehension also need to be added to the list of processes
to automatize, so that the learner can move beyond the language and
focus on the whole meaning of the text. Without this extra component,
it is likely that texts can be understood word-for-word but only as a
whole with difficulty.
Timed reading is a commonly used technique designed to build
reading automaticity and improve reading speed, and is dealt with
extensively elsewhere in this volume (Atkins, Chapter 14) so will only
be described superficially here. Timed reading focuses on encouraging
readers to read short texts of similar lengths and difficulties faster than
normal and against the clock so that they can build lexical access speed.
Repeated reading is related to timed reading as it involves the reread-
ing of very short texts numerous times and recording reading speed
increases. Because of their primary focus on lower-level decoding skills
rather than on the comprehension and enjoyment of a variety of texts,
we should categorize these as forms of word-attack reading instruction
rather than as activities for comprehension practice. Another way to
put this is to say that timed reading and repeated reading are primar-
ily designed to assist the automatization of word-level knowledge and
some element of high-level textual coherence and cohesion, but not
essentially to increase the encoding speed of the comprehension of a
216 Reading Fluency
passage. This is not meant to devalue either activity, because fluency

gains can be made from such instruction and they can play a valuable
role in the development of reading fluency (see Atkins, Chapter 14), but
is to distinguish them from another form of reading fluency activity –
extensive reading.
What is extensive reading?
To many learners and teachers, extensive reading simply means reading

a lot at, or within, one’s fluent reading level to develop fluency, moti-
vation, and reading confidence. However, despite the term extensive
reading having been around for almost a century, there is no commonly
held definition of it. Day and Bamford (1998) prescribe the following
criteria for effective extensive reading programs:
1. Students read as much as possible.

2. A variety of materials on a wide range of topics is available.
3. Students select what they want to read.
4. The purposes of the reading are usually related to pleasure, informa-
tion, and general understanding.
5. Reading is its own reward.
6. Reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the
students.
7. Reading is individual and silent.
8. Reading is usually faster rather than slower.
9. Teachers orient students to the goals of the program.
10. The teacher is the role model of a reader for students.
Unfortunately, these criteria have often been interpreted as a definition

of ER, rather than as guiding principles for ER programs, and has led to
considerable confusion among ER practitioners (see Wells, 2012 for one
example), with their validity and appropriacy being questioned (e.g.
Rosszell, 2008). Day and Bamford’s (1998) guidelines have led many
practitioners to believe that if their learners were not self-selecting
materials, were not reading of their own volition (i.e. doing it as a
course requirement), were reading only a small amount or that the
learners were not reading graded readers, that the learners were not
doing extensive reading.
Part of the reason for this confusion stems from seeing extensive read-
ing only as one thing – an entity (see Murphey, Chapter 3) and not also
as a process. Defining extensive reading both as a verb and a noun helps
pull apart its definitions. Defining extensive reading as a verb focuses on

the processing of reading text, smoothly and with adequate comprehen-
sion, or rauding as Carver (1990) terms it. Defining extensive reading as
a noun (or gerund) refers to its associated pedagogy – the selection of
certain materials, levels, building and maintaining libraries, follow-up
activities, assessment and so forth.
In practice however, ER is not one thing, and it should not be mis-
characterized as being so. There are several valid forms of extensive
reading all of which are underpinned by a simple notion – that the
reading should be (a) fluent, (b) with high levels of comprehension, so
(c) the reading is not disturbed by language issues (e.g. the need to use
a dictionary). The Extensive Reading Foundation’s (2011) mnemonic
READ is a useful guide:
• Reading something quickly and

• Enjoyably with
• Adequate Comprehension so the learners
• Do not need a dictionary.
These criteria focus on an individual’s reading experience rather than

the classroom environment, the materials and so forth. They dispel
with the requirements put forward by Day and Bamford that the read-
ing only be pleasurable, individual, that it be part of a program, and
that the teacher be a reading role model. The READ mnemonic suggests
it is perfectly valid for all the learners to read the same teacher-selected
text in lock-step fashion, only study one chapter a week followed up by
discussions or to do it reluctantly as required reading. The only condi-
tion, however, for the above reading activities to be called extensive
(in the L2 context), is that they READ. It goes without saying that the
more the learners read, and the more varied and personalized the read-
ing is, the better – these are not preconditions for extensive reading
programs, rather they are ideals. The harsh realities of many classrooms
suggest the ideals are not always easy to achieve especially as the course
requirements provide a lot of their motivation to read (see He, Chapter 13
for an example of local constraints on an ER program).
Another source of confusion in ER circles comes from the term
extensive. Before the days of Harold Palmer and Michael West early last
century, the term extensive reading was taken to mean reading widely
on a variety of subjects and in great volume. It was essentially an L1
construct loosely based around the notion that a well-read person was a
well-educated one. Palmer and West realized that native materials were
218 Reading Fluency
unsuitable for many nonnatives as they could not develop their reading
fluency. They therefore developed the notion of graded reading as a form
of reading that used materials ‘graded’ at various difficulty levels, which
led to the creation of graded readers (or language learner literature).
Within L2 circles, however, as we have seen from the Day and
Bamford (1998) criteria, extensive reading is often taken to be synony-
mous with graded reading. However, there is no necessary requirement
that extensive reading be in volume, of a wide variety of materials and
scaffolded (as is often done with graded readers). Foreign and second
language learners who are reading non-graded (i.e. native) materials
fluently and with high levels of comprehension cannot be said to not
be doing graded reading because the materials have not been graded for
language learning, rather they are just reading as they would in their L1,
and thus this is extensive reading, and since the materials are at their
level, they are of their grade, even if they have not been ‘graded’.
The benefits of ER
Research has shown that extensive reading can improve vocabulary
development (Nation, 2001; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Waring & Takaki,
2003), overall engagement, and reading confidence (Mason & Krashen,
1997), and good reading habits (e.g. Nash & Yuan, 1992), such as
improved ability to guess successfully from context. Numerous studies
have also found that learners who engage in extensive reading show
gains in reading proficiency (e.g. Cho & Krashen, 1994; Elley, 1991;
Hafiz & Tudor, 1990), in motivation and confidence (e.g. Mason &
Krashen, 1997), in productive skills (e.g. Cho & Krashen, 1994; Mason,
2004), and in learner autonomy (e.g. Rosszell, 2002). Krashen (1993)
summarizes the research in the following way:
Reading is good for you. The research supports a stronger conclusion,

however: Reading is the only way, the only way we become good read-
ers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced
grammar, and the only way we become good spellers. (p. 23)
Let us look at some of these points in detail.
Vocabulary development
Numerous studies have shown that learners develop their vocabulary
from reading (Nation, 2001, 2009). Gains are evident from numerous
short-term studies (for example, Brown et al., 2008; Day et al., 1991)
and from reading several graded readers (Waring & Takaki, 2003), as
well as very long-term projects lasting a year or more (Mason, 2011).

Nishizawa et al. (2010), in a four-year study of the impact of ER with
reluctant learners, found considerable gains in overall language ability
and gains superior to all other classes that did not have an extensive
reading component.
The incremental and gradual nature of language development from
extensive reading suggests the necessity to devote considerable time to
developing reading fluency. Nation (1997) points out that ‘the benefits
of extensive reading do not come in the short term’ (p. 16), and suggests
that learners read a book a week at their level or more (Nation & Wang,
1999), and at least seven books at each level of a publisher’s series to
provide enough re-exposures to foster vocabulary acquisition.
A major source of input for students is their course books. However,
course books are typically linear in design, with new grammar points,
new vocabulary, new reading skills, and new pronunciation points in
each unit, which rarely, if ever, return to the same items later in the
book or series. This ‘teaching causes learning’ model of introducing
language items allows for minimal practice, but because of the linear
design cannot consolidate this fragile knowledge well. This learning
tends to be discrete and quickly forgotten unless supported by large
amounts of contextualized and consolidating practice.
To demonstrate this, the entire text (225,000 running words includ-
ing audio and workbook activities) of a typical five-level course book
series Sequences (Thomlinson et al., 2009) was entered into a computer
for analysis. It is a fairly standard 4 skills thematic-based course with
readings, listening, speaking activities, and so on. The text was analyzed
to determine how many words were statistically likely to be known at
the end of the two-and-a-half-year course.
There is considerable research (e.g. Nation, 2001; Pellicer-Sánchez &
Schmitt, 2010; Waring & Takaki, 2003) to show that that it takes 20–30
meetings with a word to ‘learn’ it – at least receptively. We could there-
fore categorize the knowledge of a word that has been met between 5
and 19 times as probably partial or incomplete and slow to access. If the
word is met fewer than five times over the two and a half years there is
a good chance it will be forgotten.
Table 12.1 shows that only around 962 (523210229) words of the
total 3,275 words in the five books meet the ‘known’ criteria of 20 or
more meetings, with many of these being grammatical function words.
Another 1,052 (472580) words could be labeled partially known,
while 1,261 are likely to be forgotten or unlearnt. If, however, we add
one or two graded readers (about 12 hours of reading) per week at their
220 Reading Fluency
Table 12.1 The relative probable uptake of vocabulary from coursework and
graded reading based on the number of meetings over two and a half years
Probably known Partially Probably

known unknown
Occurrence rate 50 30–49 20–29 10–19 5–9 1–4 Total tokens
Course books only 523 210 229 472 580 1,261 3,275
Add one reader a week 1,023 283 250 539 570 1,325 3,990
Add two readers a week 1,372 380 367 694 877 2,882 6,572
Note: 1,029,000 tokens from Sequences (225,000), Foundations (60,800), Page Turners
(570,000), and Footprints (174,000), published by Heinle Cengage.
level of difficulty, then the learners’ vocabulary would more than dou-
ble to 2,119 words ‘learnt’ and a further 1,571 words partially known,
probably because their input quadrupled to over a million words. This
volume of text allows them to pass the threshold of ‘learning’.
These figures only look at probable vocabulary gains and under-
represent other gains such as increases in reading speed and fluency. Nor
do they consider heightened awareness of one’s ‘sense’ of language, col-
location and colligation, text structure, and many aspects of discourse that
stem from reading at one’s ability level and that from completing vocabu-
lary activities associated with their reading. However, to counter-balance
this, the data over-represents learning gains because the computer analysis
was done with word families (e.g. composing, composition, decompose are
part of the family compose, etc.) and assumes that 20 meetings with any
of the word family members means the whole family has been learnt.
Nevertheless, the data set is still impressive.
Autonomy
Several studies have shown increases in autonomy from fluent read-
ing. Learners who have finished an ER course are more likely to read
on their own in English than if they had not (Rosszell, 2002; Takase,
2009). Rosszell (2002) also shows that learners prefer to choose their
own materials rather than have them chosen by the teacher. However,
their enjoyment of the reading was reported to be lower than that for
learners who had done class reading, replicating a finding in Robb and
Susser (1989). This suggests that teachers must continue to monitor
their learners’ reading fluency development and intrude when they are
reading inappropriately, while at the same time allowing learners to
self-select reading materials.
Motivation and affect

In a meta-study of ER research Waring (2001) found that a general
increase in motivation was the most often reported finding. Earlier stud-
ies had found similar results (Hedge, 1985; Hill, 1992; Mason & Krashen,
1997; Nuttall, 1996). It is not clear, though, whether learners’ increases
in motivation from fluent reading stem from a general interest in the
materials themselves, from the freedom to self-select and self-pace their
reading, from a feeling they might be getting to grips with the language,
as a reaction to a long history of intensive reading instruction, or indeed
from something else. Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000) point out that while
ER might be inherently motivating, this does not necessarily mean that
more intensive activities are unmotivating, but suggests that a lack of
challenging tasks and goals can demotivate some learners whose needs
are not met by their reading. This indicates that teachers should be
aware of their learners’ needs and provide tasks that motivate them, and
that teachers should not assume all learners will be motivated by fluent
reading practice itself. Learners might be motivated by other aspects of
reading, such as the social interaction stemming from discussion of it.
Opportunities for flow

The above findings that reading a lot of pleasurable easy material can
lead to increases in motivation and autonomy might be at least partly
explained by ‘flow’. Csikszentmihalyi (1990, cited in Grabe, 2009) sug-
gests that ‘flow’ (p. 180) refers to completely focused motivation and
a single-minded immersion in the learning experience whereby one’s
emotions are channeled and energized to such a level that one is lost
in the task. Csikszentimahalyi (1990, cited in Grabe, 2009) identifies
several aspects of flow than can be present (but are not necessarily
required) in the flow experience – loss of sense of time, few feelings of
self-consciousness and bodily needs, clear goals and high sense of con-
trol, high concentration, direct and immediate feedback, and a chance
to adjust behaviors within a highly rewarding task. Moreover, the task
should be at an appropriate level so as to provide a challenge but not
deter a learner. All of these are feelings easily understood by anyone
who has read a ‘good book’, lost track of time while playing video games
or who has engrossed themselves in something they love doing.
Flow is not a state someone can decide to be in, but will probably only
occur as a result of performing an activity such as reading a ‘home-run’
(Trelease, 2001, p. 136) book. Many extensive reading programs are
designed to maximize the chances that flow will emerge but cannot
222 Reading Fluency
guarantee it. For example, extensive reading programs tend to have

clear goals and directions (e.g. reading at a suitable speed, focusing on
the message, stopping if it is too difficult, etc.) and allow learners to
select their own materials at their own level.
Implicit knowledge
Grabe (2009) found that fluent reading can also help learners link the
implicit and explicit learning systems. He outlines several ways that
implicit knowledge can be developed by extensive exposure to fluently
read text, and shows that consistent exposure to text through meaning-
focused extensive reading has facilitating effects on the implicit learn-
ing systems. As this information accumulates, it builds up to a critical
threshold whereby fluent reading can be established and maintained.
Table 12.2 shows that the deliberate practice of the reading subskills are
an important component of building explicit knowledge that can be
automatized and made less conscious (i.e. implicit).
Several variables impact the development of these implicit systems,
including time for practice. Implicit knowledge is initially fragile and
needs constant repetition to develop (Kirk, Chapter 6).
Text processing
Grabe (2009) points out that there is a very strong correlation between
reading comprehension and reading fluency, which suggests that
word-by-word-level reading does not necessarily lead to fluent compre-
hension. Fluent reading practice allows the learner to move from letter-
by-letter processing to word-by-word-level processing to the ‘idea’ level
of processing by ‘reading in phrases’, or chunking (Allington, 2006).
The ability to segment sentences into chunks or phrases allows the
reader to be more focused on the ideas embedded in phrases and clauses
than on the individual words (Hijikata, 2005; Kadota, 1982; Kadota
et al., 1999). However, Yamashita and Ichikawa (2010) found that this
relationship is not clear.
Extensive reading focuses learners on the message and higher-order
reading processes and away from a dependence on word-by-word or
word-for-word reading comprehension strategies. A word-for-word
strategy can lead to learners mistakenly believing in L1/L2 equivalence
for translations. This in turn can lead to interference effects that can
inhibit the development of fluent reading (Hedge, 1985; Summers,
1988) and may develop the habit of focusing exclusively on word mean-
ings rather than textual meaning (Laufer & Hill, 2000). Prince (1996)
also suggested that too much reliance on translation, ‘may in some
223
Table 12.2 Reading tasks that involve implicit and explicit learning (based on
Grabe, 2009, 2011)
Implicit learning Explicit learning

(as a by-product of reading)
Improving word recognition with Learning new words on first

known words though fluent text encounters through explicit
reading and rereading. encounters.
Stabilizing and expanding word Learning new word meanings by
meanings by being exposed to words noticing new uses of words and
again (and again) in a similar and new figuring out their meaning.
contexts.
Expanding word meanings through Learning new word meanings by
multiple incidental contacts with a intentionally making inferences
word in consistent supporting contexts. from context information.
Processing letter-sound correspondences Attending to letter-sound
by reading easy texts. correspondences by direct
instruction.
Increasing word reading fluency Attended to words that are not
through large amounts of fluent well established by noting words
reading. that reappear or intentionally
using the word.
Increasing text reading fluency by Intentionally practicing passage
rereading texts and by extensive reading to improve reading
reading with easy texts. accuracy.
Processing syntactic parsing Attending to syntactic structure
information through fluency practice to maintain comprehension with
and extensive reading. difficult texts.
Building semantic propositions through Attending to meanings of words
fluency practice and extensive reading. and sentences to maintain
comprehension.
Linking propositions into a network of Attending to comprehension
main ideas. difficulties to establish
connections across main ideas.
Routinizing common reading strategies Learning to use new reading
though extensive reading. strategies through direct strategy
instruction.
Tacitly recognizing discourse structure Attending to discourse structure
through extensive reading. to support comprehension with
discourse structure exercises.
Making bridging inferences to support Attending to reading
text coherence during extensive comprehension difficulties
reading. to maintain a coherent
interpretation of a text.
224 Reading Fluency
cases be detrimental to the establishment of the skills and strategies

required to handle discourse … they [L2 learners] are overdependent
upon translation links and so have failed to develop certain processing
strategies crucial to the effective use of context’ (p. 486).
Formulaic sequences
Another benefit of using extensive reading to develop reading fluency is
increases in the automatic recognition of formulaic sequences (Schmitt,
2004). Peters (1983), in a study of production errors, suggests that
formulaic sequences might be stored in units in a similar way to indi-
vidual lexical items, but this is unlikely to occur for all lexical chunks.
Chambers (1998) also suggests that formulaic chunks allow learners to
increase the length of fluent runs between pauses. Automatized reposi-
tories of prefabricated and formulaic chunks thus seem central to effi-
cient processing. This research seems to suggest that the more formulaic
sequences or chunks the learners have at their disposal and the faster
they can be accessed, the more efficiently they will find them in their
input. This in turn will lower the processing requirements in working
memory, leaving time to pay attention to the multitude of other tasks
necessary for fast and fluent comprehension.
Considerable research has been undertaken in the fluent production of
formulaic sequences (Wood, 2006), but relatively little has investigated
the fluent processing of formulaic sequences from input. Much of what
we do know comes from measuring reading speed. The assumption is
that well-learnt sequences should be easier and faster to process than
less well-learnt sequences. Conklin and Schmitt (2008) found that idi-
omatic formulaic sequences (e.g. a breath of fresh air) processed in short
stories were processed faster than similar phrases with minor changes in
structure (fresh breath of some air) for both native and nonnative speakers.
Eye movement studies provide additional evidence for the central
role of formulaic sequences in reading. These studies typically assess
the visual fixation time on the words in a sentence, using gaze tracking
devices by assessing the reader’s predictive ability in guessing which
word will occur next in a text. If the visual fixation is longer and the
eye-movement shorter, then the assumption is that the reader has not
spotted a formulaic sequence. McDonald and Shillcock (2003) found
that forward and backward transitional probabilities (the likelihood of
a word preceding or coming after another) predicted early processing
regardless of word frequency, word length, and launch distance. Words
with higher transitional probabilities (i.e. a higher chance they will
occur together) were more likely to be processed more quickly than
words with lower transitional probabilities. The above studies suggest

that learners will process text faster if they can notice embedded for-
mulaic sequences.
All the above provides compelling evidence to support the notion
that extensive reading can lead to the development not only of fluency,
but numerous other aspects of language acquisition.
What conditions are necessary for fluent reading

with ER to happen?
Learners cannot just decide to read a given text fluently because success
depends heavily on the learners’ lexical and grammatical knowledge
and their ability to access it, as well as their background knowledge
and other factors that affect reading fluency. The difficulty of a text is
the property of the learner, not a property of the text itself, because a
given text may be rated ‘hard’ for one learner but ‘easy’ for another.
Hu and Nation (2000) suggest that a lower vocabulary load (i.e. fewer
rare words) and a reduced need for background knowledge increase the
chances that fluency-oriented reading will occur with a given text.
Learner materials need to be approximately leveled for learners so that
there is enough known language (words and grammar, for example) so that
the learner is not unduly hampered and slowed down by lots of unknown
language. Research suggests that the more unknown language there is on a
page, the lower comprehension will be. Nation (2001) suggests that a text
with more than 10% unknown words results in very low comprehension
and poor fluency owing to the number of ‘reading speed bumps’ the reader
has to cope with. However, texts with 1 to 3% of unknown words lead to
much higher rates of comprehension and increased fluency.
Figure 12.1 shows, that if a learner only knows 90% or fewer of the
words in a text and has to therefore read it slowly, comprehension is low
and the reading can be characterized as painful and unhelpful (Nation,
2001). At this level, very little can be learnt because the text is too hard,
making the reading task tiring and potentially demotivating. However,
if the learner knows between 90 and 98% of the words, enough of the
vocabulary is known to enable sufficient comprehension to deal with the
text intensively (Schmitt et al., 2011). At this level, the reading will typi-
cally be halting and unfluent as the learner will need to look up words
in the dictionary quite frequently. A central aim of intensive reading at
this level is to allow learners to meet unknown words and grammar, and
intentionally learn them through activities and exercises. If, however,
the learner knows 98% or more of the words on the page, there will
226 Reading Fluency
Reading Intensive Extensive Speed reading

pain reading reading practice
(too hard, poor (instructional (fast, fluent, (very fast,
comprehension, level, can adequate fluent, high
high effort, learn new comprehension, comprehension,
demotivating) words and enjoyable) natural reading,
grammar) enjoyable)
90% 98% 100%

Low
% of known vocabulary
Slow High
Reading speed
Low High
Comprehension
Figure 12.1 Types of reading characterized by lexical density (ERF, 2011)
be little unknown language to slow down the learner. In order to read

at this level and speed, learners will typically already know about 98%
of the words in the text they are reading before meeting it. Therefore,
considerable care should be taken to select texts of appropriate difficulty.
Research agenda for reading fluency
This chapter has reviewed research into the relationship between exten-
sive reading and reading fluency. We have seen that while there is a
lot of research into vocabulary gains from extensive reading, there is a
corresponding lack of research in other areas. The lack of research into
L2 reading fluency makes it difficult to determine how reading rate,
smoothness, and comprehension work together to develop reading
fluency. Moreover, we know little about whether rate and smoothness
develop together or separately, and how they relate to comprehension.
We also do not know whether comprehension leads to increases in
reading rate and smoothness, or vice versa. The following are some sug-
gestions for future research:
What kinds of knowledge does a learner need to start reading fluently?

How does this develop over time?
What extra-linguistic knowledge is needed to read a text fluently?
What is the process underlying reading fluency development?
How does reading speed develop?
What activities best aid the development of reading fluency?

How are formulaic sequences noticed in input?
What causes increases in motivation from reading?
How is fluency affected by moving up a level in a graded reader series?
Does slow and careful reading or fluent reading lead to better
comprehension?
How are collocational and colligational knowledge affected by fluent
reading?
What is a good balance between teacher-selected and learner-selected texts?
What is an appropriate balance of timed reading, repeated reading, inten-
sive reading, and extensive reading at various levels of proficiency?
What is the difference in learning from required reading versus volun-
tary reading?
How can we best motivate reluctant readers?
What affects ‘flow’ in L2 reading?
How does implicit knowledge grow from fluent reading?
What are the differential effects on comprehension from reading a
highly interesting but very difficult text, versus a simple but less
motivating text?
Conclusion
Extensive reading is not yet fully established as a core component of

language curriculums globally, although there is a very strong case for
why it should be so (Waring, 2009, 2011). To facilitate the conditions
under which reading fluency can develop, teachers need to instruct
learners to select the most appropriate texts. The most obvious choice
for most foreign language learners is graded readers. If graded readers
are matched to the level of the learner and integrated with activities
related to their content, many benefits can stem from the extensive
reading, and reading fluency will develop.
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13
Extensive Reading and Students’
Academic Achievement:
A Case Study
Mu He
Introduction
Interest in extensive reading is growing worldwide, yet research on

extensive reading in mainland China is still relatively limited (see Wu,
2009; You & Chen, 2009 for some notable exceptions), despite China
representing the largest number of English language learners in the
world. To further contribute to the literature on extensive reading in
China, this chapter seeks to disseminate the results of an extensive read-
ing program implemented at a public high school in Shanghai.
One reason for interest in extensive reading in second and foreign
language learning is that the methodology is associated with numer-
ous language learning benefits, including development of automatic-
ity, enhancing background knowledge, improving comprehension
skills, and promoting confidence and motivation (Grabe, 2009;
Waring, Chapter 12), through encouraging development of good
reading habits and a liking for reading (Richards & Schmitt, 2002).
Krashen (1993) points out, ‘Reading is the only way, the only way
we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate
vocabulary, advanced grammar, and the only way we become good
spellers’ (p. 23). Such research describing the benefits of extensive
reading has led many teachers to set up extensive reading schemes,
defined as supplementary class library schemes, attached to an English
course in which students are given time, encouragement, and materi-
als to read pleasurably at their own levels as many books as they can
without the pressure of testing or marks (Davis, 1995; see also Waring,
Chapter 12). Yet the implementation of extensive reading in China
remains in its infancy, with research needed to demonstrate its effec-
tiveness in this context.
231
232 Reading Fluency
This chapter begins by providing an overview of the extensive reading

program implemented in Shanghai, then findings from the test results
are presented and discussed. Pedagogical implications are considered
along with suggestions for designers of other extensive reading pro-
grams in China, and which may also inform designers of extensive
reading programs in other EFL contexts.
Overview of the program
Grammar-translation is the dominant English language teaching

method in mainland China. As its name suggests, grammar-translation
focuses on teaching grammar and practicing translation, with a high
priority given to accuracy and the ability to construct correct sentences
(Griffiths & Parr, 2001). In such an environment, extensive reading, a
relatively new methodology, is met with considerable skepticism by
teachers and policy planners alike, and thus there is a need to dem-
onstrate to such critics that it indeed represents an improvement over
current teaching methods. In order to investigate this question, a public
senior high school in Shanghai was selected for pedagogical interven-
tion, where two groups received extensive reading instruction (the
experimental groups) and one class followed more traditional learning
methods (the control). The primary measure used to compare the two
groups was pre- and post-tests using the standard assessment tests for
high schools in Shanghai, as at the policy level a primary concern for
high school education is performance on standardized school tests.
A secondary research question involved investigating how to effec-
tively implement extensive reading in this context, and was examined
through using two different extensive reading pedagogies for the two
different experimental groups.
The school and the sample
The school chosen is typical of many in Shanghai, a public senior high

school run and managed by the Shanghai Board of Education, with
approximately 250 to 350 students in each grade and about 35 students
in each class. All of its English teachers graduated from two reputable,
local teacher-training colleges. The school follows the High School
English Curriculum Standard (HSECS) (Ministry of Education of China,
2003), which is standard for schools in Shanghai.
Another reason for choosing this school is that it is ranked exactly in
middle position among Shanghai high schools, as measured by its means
Extensive Reading and Students’ Academic Achievement 233
in the National Matriculation English Test, making the findings of this

study potentially applicable to other senior high schools in Shanghai.
This investigation was designed with two experimental groups (n 66)
and one control group (n 33). The groups were matched in that they
were typical of Shanghai senior high school students, all native speak-
ers of Chinese, with Standard Mandarin as their official language of
education with a Shanghainese dialect. All were born between 1993
and 1995, and had received formal education in mainland China for
nine years in primary and junior high school. They were all admitted
to the school through their performance on the Shanghai Senior High
School Matriculation Test. Furthermore, they came from families with
similar socioeconomic backgrounds: Most were only children whose
parents were factory workers; their family income was average for the
city, meaning their respective families’ investment in their education
should have been about the same; and none had studied or traveled
abroad, or had relatives or friends abroad. Such homogeneity makes
for considerable predictability in terms of students’ exposure to English
prior to this investigation.
The pre-test
After admission, students take standardized tests before beginning their

studies so that students can be streamlined into classes of similar level.
Every student was tested on math, English, physics, and chemistry
then randomly streamed into different classes by computer according
to the following criteria: their total scores on the placement test, their
scores in individual subjects, and gender. This helps to ensure classes
are similar in terms of total scores, individual subject, and gender bal-
ance. These tests were developed by the head of the teaching staff of
the school district, were made available to all senior high schools in the
district, and were used as the pre-test for this research.
In the 2010 academic year, the school admitted 294 new students,
who were streamed into eight classes, with the pre-tests administered
in August 2010. The English test was composed of six sections of 100
points in total: (1) grammar (10 points), (2) cloze (30 points), (3) read-
ing in the form of multiple choice (22 points), (4) reading in the form
of question and answer (8 points), (5) translation (10 points), and (6)
writing (20 points). There was no listening component on the pre-test.
One of the first concerns of this study was to ensure that English lan-
guage proficiency across the three groups was approximately the same
at the beginning of the treatment. As participants were streamed on the
234 Reading Fluency
basis of their performance on the pre-test, the three groups had almost
equal English language proficiency (as measured by the pre-test) at the
beginning of the program, as shown in Table 13.1. The abbreviations for
the three groups, CR, FR, and CG, are explained in more detail in the
Treatments section below.
The post-test
A similar test, the second final-term test at the end of the school year,
served as the post-test, and also marked the end of this program. This
was a large-scale standardized test developed by the Test Bureau of the
school district. Administration of such tests in Shanghai is a tradition
in which every school district monitors schools’ academic performance.
The post-test was administered in mid-June 2011, and was divided into
the following sections: listening comprehension (20 points), grammar
(20 points), vocabulary (9 points), text comprehension (cloze, 10 points;
reading, 16 points), translation (15 points), and essay writing (10 points).
Reading material
The reading material for this program was the Oxford Bookworm graded
reader series. One set of the graded readers was available to each experi-
mental group, comprising 235 titles, with one copy for each title shared
between the 33 students in each group. The 235 titles comprised seven
levels, from level 0 to level 6. The number of titles in each level was
roughly equal, with 25 at level 0, 41 at level 1, 47 at level 2, 43 at level
3, 39 at level 4, 21 at level 5, and 19 at level 6.
There were no special additional reading materials for the control
group. The only reading resource available to them was the textbook
Oxford English for Senior High School, Shanghai edition (Hu, 2002). In
each textbook 12 articles ranging from 300 to 500 words are arranged
into six units, with two articles in each unit. The teaching of the
Table 13.1 Descriptive statistics and results of One-Way Analysis of

Variance (ANOVA) from the pre-test
Group N Mean score SD F Sig.
CR 33 53.12 5.45 0.00 1.00

FR 33 53.12 4.88
CG 33 53.12 6.16
12 articles lasts the academic term, around 18 teaching weeks. For the
one-year program, two textbooks, comprising 24 articles, were taught
to both groups, with the experimental groups also having additional
access to the graded reading materials described above.
Treatments
The traditional grammar-translation method was employed for the

control group (CG). They did not read extensively and instead adhered
to the normal syllabus and teaching content, with their performance
on the pre- and post-tests serving the purpose of comparison and con-
trast with the two experimental groups. In the experimental groups,
extensive reading was used, and the classroom methods employed are
described here.
There are three major trends in defining extensive reading: extensive
reading as a reading style, extensive reading as a supplementary input
medium, and extensive reading as a teaching methods (Irvine, 2006).
The two treatments adopted in this study reflect the latter two defini-
tions – extensive reading as a supplementary input medium and as a
teaching method. Each of the experimental group’s pedagogies was
based on these two interpretations of extensive reading, with one group
following free reading (FR) and the other complementary reading (CR).
The key pedagogical difference between the two treatments was that
extensive reading was a medium of supplementary input for the free
reading group while it was a teaching method for the complementary
reading group. The FR participants came from different classes in the
same grade. They adhered to the normal curriculum in class and did
homework assigned by their respective class English teachers after
school. They read out of class when they had time for extensive reading,
mostly on the weekend, and were encouraged to read as much as they
could. They were advised to borrow books every week and to submit
book reports when returning books. None of the FR students repeated
reading the same book according to their borrowing records, and there
was no class time devoted to in-class reading as the FR participants came
from different classes. The researcher supervised the FR participants
mainly through reading and marking their book reports and checking
their borrowing records.
Because students from the same class formed the complementary
reading group, the CR participants were able to share their reading with
participants in the same group via in-class discussion, for which part of
class time was reserved. To provide a basis for in-class discussion, each
236 Reading Fluency
title at the same level was marked with a number. For instance, there
were 41 titles at L1. On Monday, student one would read book one and
student two book two. On Tuesday, student one would read book two,
and student two book three, etc. They exchanged their books with one
another each day, thus student one would pass his/her book to student
two and receive a book from student three. The name list for the class
was posted on the wall, so these participants knew to whom to pass
their books and from whom they should receive books. In this way,
none of the CR students read the same book in the program, nor did
students read the same book simultaneously, since there was only one
copy for each title.
For both groups the application of extensive reading in this study dif-
fered from standard approaches to extensive reading described by Day
and Bamford (1998; see Waring, Chapter 12 for details of their descrip-
tion of extensive reading) in the following distinct ways. First, there was
no sustained silent reading in class. The reading was done out of class,
before each session began. Second, participants were not able to choose
which titles to read, nor did they have the freedom to stop reading if
the title failed to interest them.
With the CR group there were five sessions of 40 minutes for English
every week. The frequency of in-class discussion was two or three times
a week, with ten minutes devoted to discussion each time. If the discus-
sion was heated, the researcher would not interrupt, but let the discus-
sion proceed. In-class discussion was student-oriented and focused on a
commonly read story. Every student took turns to arrange and lead the
discussion, with the student on duty responsible for reporting to the
whole class and the researcher about what he or she had read and then
organizing the discussion. Since the students were not very good at oral
English, students were allowed to speak in Chinese so they could be
actively involved without worrying about their oral proficiency.
The different conditions for the three groups are summarized below
and in Figure 13.1.
CR: The teaching of Oxford English for Senior High School (Hu, 2002)
was a core component in the standard curriculum, the absence
of which was strictly prohibited. This group of participants was
explicitly taught this text by their English teacher (also the
researcher). However, they did not do any additional grammar-
translation homework after school; instead, extensive reading was
complementary to their standard curriculum as their daily home-
work, and they read around 5,000 words every day after school.
FR: This group of participants was explicitly taught Oxford English for
Senior High School (Hu, 2002) in class by their class English teach-
ers. They did grammar-translation exercises assigned by their
teachers after school and read out of class only when they had
time without a specific amount of reading required.
CG: This group of participants was explicitly taught Oxford English for
Senior High School (Hu, 2002) in class by their class English teach-
ers. They did grammar-translation exercises assigned by their
teachers after school and did not read extensively. They were
taught using typical grammar-translation methods and were not
exposed to English in their schooling outside of their textbooks.
All groups: Standard curriculum with Oxford English for Senior High
School
FR: Grammar-translation exercises free extensive reading
CR: No grammar-translation exercises in-class discussion
(required/complementary) extensive reading of 5,000
words
CG: Grammar-translation exercises only
Figure 13.1 Representation of the control and experimental groups’ English

lessons
Basic information about students’ extensive reading
The extensive reading program started in September 2010 and ended

in June 2011. During the academic year students in the CR group read
110.9 books on average, approximately equal to 1,141,248 words per
student. The FR group read much less – 853 books in total, 25.8 books
per student on average, or approximately 226,732 words, one fifth of
the total for the CR group (see Table 13.2).
Table 13.2 Quantitative description of students’ extensive reading
Group Item N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
CR Number of books 33 98 141 114 12

Word count 33 959,541 1,297,610 1,144,279 70,181
FR Number of books 33 23 28 26 1.5
Word count 33 161,980 416,634 226,732 60,409
238 Reading Fluency
Test results
The post-test was administered in June 2011, and, as shown in Table 13.3,
both extensive reading groups had higher scores than the control
group in all proficiency areas and language knowledge components.
The Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) test revealed significant
differences among listening, grammar, cloze, reading, writing, and total
scores across the three groups.
The post-test shows statistically significant or practical differences
among the three groups in every proficiency area and language
knowledge component tested except vocabulary (see Table 13.3). To
detect where the differences were, a One-Way ANOVA was conducted.
Before the ANOVA, the researcher checked that the scale variable
(scores) was approximately normally distributed and that the spread
(variances) of the scores for the groups on the scale variables were
roughly equal.
Table 13.3 Descriptive statistics and results of ANOVA from the post-test
Sections (Points) Group N Mean score SD F Sig.
Listening (20) CR 33 14.48 1.77 3.38 0.04

FR 33 15.42 2.31
CG 33 14.06 2.41
Grammar (20) CR 33 15.88 2.67 2.68 0.07
FR 33 16.64 2.22
CG 33 15.03 3.44
Vocabulary (9) CR 33 7.15 1.39 1.92 0.15
FR 33 7.39 1.62
CG 33 6.61 1.95
Cloze (10) CR 33 6.55 1.35 9.20 0.00
FR 33 6.79 1.63
CG 33 5.33 1.43
Reading (16) CR 33 11.55 1.95 5.33 0.01
FR 33 11.58 2.08
CG 33 10.24 1.62
Translation (15) CR 33 10.55 1.42 6.48 0.00
FR 33 11.76 1.40
CG 33 11.15 1.28
Writing (10) CR 33 5.57 0.73 8.19 0.00
FR 33 6.39 0.77
CG 33 6.07 0.98
Total (100) CR 33 71.72 5.67 10.21 0.00
FR 33 75.97 6.57
CG 33 68.50 7.81
The LSD post-test illustrated which differences between the three groups
were significant. The two experimental groups were significantly better
than the control group in cloze, reading, and total score (as highlighted
in Table 13.4), but the two experimental groups were not equally good. In
fact the FR group was significantly better at translation and writing than
the CR group, despite the CR group having read the most. Further, the CR
group was weaker than the control group in translation and writing. The
broad implications of these differences are discussed below.
Table 13.4 The results of multiple comparisons by the Fisher’s LSD test in the
post-test
Dependent (I) Group ( J) Group Mean difference Std. error Sig.

variable (I–J)
Listening (20) CR FR 0.94 0.54 0.08

CG 0.42 0.54 0.43
FR CR 0.94 0.54 0.08
CG 1.36 0.54 0.01
CG CR 0.42 0.54 0.43
FR 1.36 0.54 0.01
Grammar (20) CR FR 0.76 0.69 0.28
CG 0.85 0.69 0.22
FR CR 0.76 0.69 0.28
CG 1.61 0.69 0.02
CG CR 0.85 0.69 0.22
FR 1.61 0.69 0.02
Vocabulary (9) CR FR 0.24 0.41 0.56
CG 0.55 0.41 0.19
FR CR 0.24 0.41 0.56
CG 0.79 0.41 0.06
CG CR 0.55 0.41 0.19
FR 0.79 0.41 0.06
Cloze (10) CR FR 0.24 0.36 0.51
CG 1.21 0.36 0.00
FR CR 0.24 0.36 0.51
CG 1.45 0.36 0.00
CG CR 1.21 0.36 0.00
FR 1.45 0.36 0.00
Reading (16) CR FR 0.03 0.47 0.95
CG 1.30 0.47 0.01
FR CR 0.03 0.47 0.95
CG 1.33 0.47 0.01
CG CR 1.30 0.47 0.01
FR 1.33 0.47 0.01
(continued)
240 Reading Fluency
Table 13.4 Continued
Dependent (I) Group ( J) Group Mean difference Std. error Sig.

variable (I–J)
Translation CR FR 1.21 0.34 0.00

(15)
CG 0.61 0.34 0.07
FR CR 1.21 0.34 0.00
CG 0.61 0.34 0.07
CG CR 0.61 0.34 0.07
FR 0.61 0.34 0.07
Writing (10) CR FR 0.82 0.21 0.00
CG 0.50 0.21 0.02
FR CR 0.82 0.21 0.00
CG 0.32 0.21 0.12
CG CR 0.50 0.21 0.02
FR 0.32 0.21 0.12
Total (100) CR FR 4.25 1.66 0.01
CG 3.22 1.66 0.05
FR CR 4.25 1.66 0.01
CG 7.47 1.66 0.00
CG CR 3.22 1.66 0.05
FR 7.47 1.66 0.00
Note: Significance was set at the p .05 level. Significant results are highlighted in grey.
Discussion of the test results
In this section the potential implications of differences in the test

results across the three groups are discussed. The grammar and vocabu-
lary components of the tests, which were not significantly different, are
not discussed below.
Listening
The FR group performed best among the three groups in listening,
with no significant difference between the CR and CG groups in their
listening scores. This indicates that for the dimension of listening the
FR group appears to have benefited most from the intervention, despite
their program including no class time devoted to the discussion of the
graded readers they read and their having read less than the CR group.
Also, as listening was not a component of the extensive reading inter-
vention, it perhaps demonstrates the interconnectedness of the four
skills and how improvement in one skill, such as reading, can lead to
improvement in other skills, such as listening.
Reading comprehension
The text comprehension section, which accounts for one third of the
score for the NMET(S), has two complementary components: cloze and
reading comprehension. While there was no significant difference in
cloze and reading comprehension among the three groups in the pre-
test, in the post-test differences between these sections were statistically
significant, with both the FR and CR outperforming their CG counter-
parts, indicating that extensive reading instruction provided them a
significant advantage in this section of the test.
Writing
The writing part was comprised of two sections: translation and
writing. In the translation section, students were asked to translate
sentences from Chinese into English. There was no room for students
to demonstrate original thinking, vocabulary size, wise choice of
expression, or humor. Although highly form-focused, translation
is still considered productive because students have to construct
sentences instead of choosing an appropriate answer from available
choices.
Here the findings in favor of extensive reading are less conclusive,
with the CR group not performing as well as the control group, yet the
FR group significantly outperformed the other two groups. The success
of the FR group demonstrates that supplementary extensive reading can
be more effective than grammar-translation alone even in form-focused
teaching and testing environments.
To conclude, this study indicates that extensive reading in tandem
with grammar-translation exercises seemed to benefit writing profi-
ciency as it was measured by this test, while the complementary reading
group, which did not include grammar-translation exercises as part of
their homework, did not demonstrate relative gains in writing ability as
measured by the NMET(S).
Conclusion
The major purposes of this study were to examine the potential for
extensive reading implementation in senior high schools in Shanghai,
and to provide a reference study to recommend feasible changes to
English language teaching and learning in China. The results suggest
that extensive reading resulted in greater improvement in listening,
reading, and overall English language proficiency than grammar-
translation alone. On this premise, the difference between the two
242 Reading Fluency
experimental groups deserves further discussion. With respect to how

to go about implementing extensive reading successfully, it seems that
the following points may help to shape extensive reading pedagogy in
subsequent Chinese ER programs:
• Free reading in tandem with grammar-translation exercises, as

described here, led to the greatest overall proficiency gains of the
three groups analyzed.
• The complementary reading group, which did not include gram-
mar-translation exercises, still outperformed the control group on
many measures, and so appears to be more desirable than only
grammar-translation.
• Where complementary reading is implemented, supplementary
grammar-translation practice may be appropriate in order to ensure
that students are not disadvantaged on this dimension of standard-
ized tests.
Considering policy recommendations, it appears there is sufficient

evidence here to recommend implementation of extensive reading in
Chinese classrooms, with the caveat that so long as tests are derived
from grammar-translation principles, it appears that students’ test
scores benefit from a blend of extensive reading and more traditional
grammar-translation practice. Should tests move toward more com-
municative designs, this may change, but nevertheless, even without
changes to the current testing regimens in Shanghai, teachers interested
in extensive reading should be encouraged by this research to push for
the resources necessary to implement similar programs in their schools.
References
Davis, C. (1995). Extensive Reading: An expensive extravagance? ELT Journal,
48(4), 329–336.
Day, R. R. & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive Reading in the Second Language
Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a Second Language: Moving from Theory to Practice.
Griffiths, C. & Parr, J. M. (2001). Language-learning strategies: Theory and per-
ception. ELT Journal, 53(3), 247–254.
Hu, G. W. (2002). Recent important developments in secondary English-
language teaching in the People’s Republic of China. Language, Culture, and
Curriculum, 15, 30–49.
Irvine, A. (2006). Extensive Reading and L2 development: A study of Hong Kong
secondary learners of English. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of
Edinburgh, UK.
Krashen, S. D. (1993). The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research. Englewood,
CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Ministry of Education of China. (2003). High School English Curriculum Standard.
Beijing: People’s Education Press.
Richards, J. C. & Schmitt, N. (2002). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics (3rd edn). Harlow: Pearson Education.
Wu, Y. (2009). Engaging advanced-level ESL students to read young adult lit-
erature in extensive reading settings. In A. Cirocki (Ed.), Extensive Reading in
English Language Teaching (pp. 349–373). Munich: Lincom.
You, C. & Chen, S. (2009). Applying authentic materials to EFL extensive reading
in senior high schools in China. In A. Cirocki (Ed.), Extensive Reading in English
Language Teaching (pp. 311–331). Munich: Lincom.
14
Improving Reading Fluency:
An Investigation into Timed Reading
Andrew Atkins
Introduction
Timed Reading (TR) in an L2 context has been researched since the

1960s, although the name given to it has often been different. Yet con-
clusive empirical research into the effectiveness of TR is still unavail-
able, and this chapter is an effort to move closer to understanding TR
and whether as teachers we should allot time to the practice.
This chapter begins by establishing definitions for reading fluency,
including a discussion of the issues involved in arriving at such a defini-
tion, and moves on to issues of choosing valid dependent variables for
use in a reading fluency study. Next a study examining whether regular
timed reading leads to gains in reading fluency is described in detail.
This study looks at both TR performance and whether the amount of
Extensive Reading significantly interacts with TR performance.
Reading fluency
While definitions of reading fluency abound, the amalgamated defini-

tion that Wolf and Katzir-Cohen (2001) arrived at from reviewing a
large number of other studies is concise and appropriate for the pur-
poses of this research: ‘reading fluency refers to a level of accuracy and
rate where decoding is relatively effortless; … and where attention can
be allocated to comprehension’ (p. 219). Thus when examining read-
ing fluency, the two key components that must be taken into account
are decoding and comprehension. It should be noted, though, that the
studies that Wolf and Katzir-Cohen (2001) examined were L1 studies
that used oral reading to measure reading fluency, unlike this study and
Goldfus (Chapter 15), which deal with silent reading.
244
Improving Reading Fluency 245
In order to create a more precise picture of reading fluency, it is

necessary to clarify what reading a text involves. Successful reading
involves ‘… a complex interaction of language, sensory perception,
memory, and motivation’ (Pikulski & Chard, 2005, p. 511), and ‘…
is a complex performance that requires simultaneous coordination
across many tasks … [requiring] instantaneous execution of component
skills…’ (Logan, 1997, cited in Fuchs et al., 2001, p. 239). To summarize,
reading as a skill consists of ‘at least two activities: (1) word identification
or decoding and (2) comprehension, or the construction of meaning of
text’ (Pikulski & Chard, 2005, p. 511), and these are the keys to reading
fluently. That there are ‘at least’ two processes that must be performed
together is what makes reading frustrating for the unskilled, because
both tasks cannot be focused on simultaneously; novice readers must
alternate between the two, while more skilled readers have automated
word identification so that attention can be focused on comprehen-
sion. This results paradoxically in many non-fluent readers reading little
because they do not understand what they read, when in fact they need
the practice to become fluent (Nuttall, 1996, p. 127).
The relationship between reading speed and comprehension may
intuitively seem to be inversely related, i.e. less time reading leads to
less comprehension, more time reading leads to more comprehension,
but research from L1 studies has found that up to a point the opposite
is true—the faster someone reads, the better their comprehension. This
should be qualified by suggesting that there is a range for reading speed
within which comprehension is optimal, but that reading below this
speed leads to poor comprehension owing to forgetting the beginning
of a sentence by the time the end is reached, and that at the other end
of the spectrum, passing eyes over a sentence too quickly results in not
recognizing words and therefore not comprehending what has been
read. Perhaps this phenomenon, as Breznitz (2006) suggests, is related
to working memory constraints.
The main question this research considers is to what extent practice
helps learners to develop reading ability and skills through the use of TR.
Timed reading
Timed reading, according to Champeau de López (1993), and for the
purposes of this research, is the reading of texts of equal length and
equal lexical difficulty regularly over a period of weeks or months
with the purpose of increasing reading fluency, and this is achieved by
increasing what Samuels (1994) termed automaticity. Texts are timed
as they are read, and reading is followed by comprehension questions,
246 Reading Fluency
which are answered without referring back to the text. The pressure of
timed reading is thought to be the catalyst for improvement in reading
fluency, as this provides what Nation (2007) calls ‘encouragement to
perform at a faster than usual speed’ (p. 7). Research indicates that read-
ing speed and comprehension generally increase with practice (Utsu,
2004, 2005).
Recent attempts to assess the effectiveness of L2 TR include studies
by Chung and Nation (2006), Crawford (2008), Macalister (2010), and
Utsu (2004, 2005). Chung and Nation (2006) suggested there was no
established way to measure gains, and explored three similar methods to
assess gains using only percentage increase in reading rate, with most stu-
dents improving their reading speed. Macalister’s (2010) study also used
increases in reading rate to measure fluency. The study was a small pre-
liminary study, but reported increases in reading speed for most. Utsu’s
(2004, 2005) studies measured changes in reading rate, adding separate
comprehension scores as another variable, reporting improvement in
both reading rate and comprehension as percentage changes. Crawford’s
(2008) study analyzed reading rate growth via repeated measures
ANOVA, and provided some positive support for the use of TR, although
the author suggests there were issues of validity, such as apparently inac-
curate measurement of times, which call his conclusions into question.
Current understanding of timed reading

The studies above essentially considered reading rate as a measurement
of improvement, which is problematic because only measuring the rate
of reading fails to take into account whether students are comprehend-
ing what they read, an issue raised by Rasinski et al. (2009). The impor-
tance of looking at both speed and comprehension is that there is the
possibility to read quickly without understanding or remembering the
contents of what is read. Therefore, it is prudent to combine compre-
hension with reading rate in an investigation of timed reading. Thus
this study incorporated measurement of both reading rate and student
comprehension, offering the possibility of a more complete examina-
tion of the potential benefits of TR in the EFL classroom.
The interplay between TR and Extensive Reading is unstudied
(Macalister, 2010, p. 113), and my quite lengthy attempts to discover
any relationship between these variables in online academic databases
have been unsuccessful.
The studies by Chung and Nation (2006), Utsu (2004, 2005), and
Crawford (2008) are all from EFL contexts, with those by Utsu and
Crawford being from Japanese university classrooms, and that by Chung
and Nation from South Korea. These are therefore highly relevant to
the context of this study, which was conducted in a Japanese univer-
sity. Aside from these studies there are few others that I am aware of
that have attempted to assess the effectiveness of TR in an EFL context.
Macalister’s (2010) study is from an ESL context, although at the univer-
sity level, and therefore has some relevance to this chapter.
The purposes of this investigation

Keeping in mind the limitations of previous research and the lack
of conclusions based on quantitative analysis, this study sets out to
investigate:
• Whether TR leads to improvements in reading fluency as quantita-

tively measured by both reading rate and comprehension.
• Whether improvements in reading fluency are related to the timed
element of TR.
The questions were investigated by measuring student performance in

TR over the course of a semester using a combination of reading rate
and comprehension, and by also keeping a record of the number of
books students read over the same semester. The hypothesis is that the
answer to the two research questions above will be yes, although read-
ing fluency gains will be less pronounced but greater than for students
who do the readings without time pressure.
Skill acquisition theory (DeKeyser, 2007) and the power law are
phenomena that apply to practiced skills of this kind (Newell &
Rosenbloom, 1981; Ritter & Schooler, 2002), where gains at the begin-
ning of a study will be pronounced, but will slowly level off to a stage
where the participants become more skillful, and gains become almost
unnoticeable (Logan, 1992). To my knowledge, however, in the L2 con-
text these theories have not been shown by anyone to apply, and it is a
smaller goal of this study to examine these phenomenon.
Methods
This section describes the participants, materials, and procedures used

in the study.
Participants
Five intact classes of Japanese university students (n 101) took part in
the study. The participants were all first-year students taking a required
248 Reading Fluency
English course at a mid-level private university in western Japan. They

had much in common with participants studied by Herder and Sholdt
(see Chapter 2) and He (see Chapter 13) in that they had received years
of accuracy-based instruction prior to the intervention. The classes for
this course were streamed into five levels according to scores on a uni-
versity-made proficiency test. Although reliability data is not available,
as someone who taught at the university for three years, I can say that
levels were generally well separated into groups of similar proficiency,
with some misfit in the highest and lowest levels. Level five is the high-
est ability level and level one is the lowest. Two classes (lower untimed
TR and lower TR) were from level two (n 17, n 17), two classes (mid-
dle TR 1 and middle TR 2) were from level four (n 22, n 23), and
the final class (upper TR) was from level five (n 22). I taught all of the
classes, thus avoiding any teacher differences. The middle and upper-
level classes did TR as part of their regular twice-weekly lessons over a
period of ten weeks. Lower TR 2 did TR in one of their weekly lessons
for a period of 12 weeks. The remaining level two class (lower untimed
TR) acted as a comparison group. They did the first and twelfth reading
of the series (see below) as TR, but readings 2 to 11 were studied with-
out time constraints to assess whether timing reading had any effect on
performance.
Materials
The textbook used for the TR practice was Reading for Speed and Fluency,
Book 1 (Nation & Malarcher, 2007). The book was written for L2 learn-
ers, using a controlled lexicon, and consists of 40 readings each with
300 words, followed by five comprehension questions (see Atkins, 2009,
for a more detailed review).
Procedures
The students were introduced to the textbook and the aims of the TR
course were explained in detail—instructions regarding how to read were
given in Japanese and included advice about not skimming, but trying
to read the passages to understand what they were reading. The com-
prehension objective was set at 80% or higher (four questions correct
out of five on the readings), and students were told that a composite of
reading rate and comprehension would be used to check their progress.
The composite score was calculated by dividing the total time taken to
read a 300-word passage in seconds by the raw score on the five-point
quiz (thus a higher score would represent less reading fluency, a lower
score greater reading fluency; see Table 14.1 for examples). While one
Table 14.1 Examples of the composite scoring system
Time (seconds) Comprehension score Composite score
Example 1 100 5 20
Example 2 60 5 12
Example 3 60 1 60
of the stated goals of the course was for students to lower their scores
on the composite measurement, the scores were not part of class grades.
After the objectives of the TR had been explained, all students agreed to
participate in the study.
To ensure most students had sufficient vocabulary to do the readings,
before the first reading, student vocabulary knowledge was measured
using the Vocabulary Size Test (Nation & Beglar, 2007), the vocabulary
profiles for the first five passages were analyzed using the RANGE pro-
gram (Heatley et al., 2002), and then the two results were compared
to estimate vocabulary coverage (Webb & Nation, 2008). I decided the
readings were level-appropriate based on the results of the comparisons
and student abilities from previous cohorts. After explaining the task
and confirming student comprehension of the procedures, students
performed the first reading. Subsequent readings were included at the
start of each lesson. The middle and upper-level classes studied two pas-
sages a week (one every class) and the lower-level classes were only able
to complete one reading per week. Each reading started with a signal
from the teacher, and when students finished they recorded the time.
Once they had noted their time they turned the page, and without
referring back to the text answered the comprehension questions. I then
reviewed the answers with them, and they wrote their comprehension
scores, calculated their composite scores, and recorded both. For the
comparison group the procedure was the same for the first and twelfth
reading, but the other passages were not timed, and so students only
noted their comprehension scores. The rationale for conducting the
study in this way was to provide a comparison group with a pre- and
post-test measurement, as well as exposure to the test format and equal
or more time-on-task. It would have been unwise and perhaps unethical
to have not given passages 2 to 11 to the control group, as it could have
been argued that they were just unfamiliar with the test format and had
had less time-on-task, and as I believed the timed element of TR to be an
effective means to promote fluency they did the readings.
250 Reading Fluency
The time used in class for TR decreased as the semester progressed,

from about 30 minutes for the explanation and first reading, to about
15 minutes for the second reading, and by the tenth reading less than
ten minutes was devoted to the activity in all of the treatment groups,
and about 12 minutes were used in the comparison group. Although
there was only two minutes’ difference between the total time taken
to do the activity, in terms of actual reading time this meant that some
students were taking more than twice as long to read in the comparison
group. The remaining time in the lessons was devoted to tasks focusing
on speaking and listening. To test the effectiveness of TR it was neces-
sary to make it the only reading fluency activity completed in class.
The middle-level students were also taking a Reading Skills class, which
was a grammar class taught by a Japanese teacher. Based on discussions
with the teacher and students and prior knowledge of the course it can
be confirmed that fluency development was not the focus of the cur-
riculum or syllabus of this other class.
Attitude towards TR was generally positive, and there was a particu-
larly competitive atmosphere in the level four classes, with most stu-
dents comparing scores with their peers after each reading. In the last
two weeks of the term there appeared to be less effort, perhaps owing to
tiredness from assignment writing and exam preparation.
In addition to the TR investigation, which was restricted to my lessons,
the students involved in this research all took part in the extensive read-
ing program at the university, where they were encouraged to read books
for part of their class grade. To check that students had read each book
it was necessary for the student to complete and pass a ten-item quiz on
the book administered on the university Moodle system. Results of the
quizzes were recorded in a database. If a student read and passed quizzes
for five books in the semester they were neither penalized nor rewarded
for their efforts. Reading less than five books meant they would lose 1%
of their grade for each book they failed to read. Reading more than five
books resulted in a bonus of 1% of their grade for each additional book
read, with no upper limit set as to how many books could be read. In
reality this meant that students read between 0 and 22 books during
the semester, with an average of around six books. Thus students read
English outside of the context of the lessons described here, although in
varying amounts, and the data from the extensive reading program was
available to be included in this research, offering an additional variable
to be accounted for in analyzing the results of this investigation.
Participants completed a four-item open-ended questionnaire (see
Appendix A) at the end of the course. The main purpose of the
questionnaire was to assess what students felt about the usefulness of

TR. The questionnaire was given in English and only to the level four
and five students, as it was felt they would have the ability to answer
the questions. It would have been better in hindsight to have adminis-
tered the questionnaire to all of the students in Japanese.
Results and discussion
Missing data
In almost any longitudinal study researchers encounter missing data.
In the past, a common method for dealing with the issue was to delete
these cases from the data and analysis. However, this causes problems
with sample sizes for analysis, often excluding the most interesting cases
from the study and potentially distorting results. Another option is to
impute the values, that is replace a missing value with an estimate of
what it would have been had it been measured. Until recently, with the
development of specialized computer software programs, many meth-
ods of imputation were problematic and lacked a sound statistical base
(Darmawan, 2002). However, the freeware program NORM (Schafer,
1999) provides a means of imputing missing values using a method
of data augmentation called multiple imputation. It is not as good as
having the authentic data, but is an improvement on deleting cases
and superior to inserting group means or using only the Expectation
Maximization (EM) algorithm to generate values (Allison, 2001). The
scope of this chapter does not provide space for a full discussion of the
procedure, but further details can be found in Allison (2000, 2001).
The missing data from this investigation for each of the treatment
groups is shown in Table 14.2, and is within the acceptable norms for
imputation to proceed.
All of the missing data was imputed using NORM (Schafer, 1999) and
therefore it was unnecessary to delete cases or variables from the study.
Measurement
As TR is intended to increase reading fluency (Nation, 2005) this
research utilized the composite score explained earlier as the measure-
ment of student reading fluency, with changes in the composite score
assumed to reflect changes in reading fluency.
The composite score was used because a TR study should account
for errors in comprehension. And while using the composite score is
not without its problems, and further assessment of the validity of the
252 Reading Fluency
Table 14.2 Missing data percentages for treatment groups
Class Variables Cases Values

level
Complete Incomplete Complete Incomplete Complete Incomplete
Upper 10 90 40.9 59.1 90.9 9.1

L5
(n 22)
Middle 1 40 60 36.4 63.6 93 7
L4
(n 22)
Middle 2 30 70 37.5 62.5 95 5
L4
(n 23)
Lower 50 50 58.8 41.2 96.1 3.9
TR L2
(n 17)
variable is necessary, it does mean that both reading speed and compre-
hension were included in the analysis.
Descriptive statistics
Once missing data had been imputed the descriptive statistics for the
dataset were calculated. The statistics for the treatment groups’ compos-
ite reading scores are shown in Table 14.3. The data has been divided
into stages of four readings each; this procedure was chosen instead of
using the raw scores for all 20 readings (or 12 for the level two class),
because there were some relatively large variations between readings
and the stage mean provides a more useful and stable view of skill in
a two-week period (or four-week period for the level two class). The
variations between the 20 readings also made it impossible for SPSS to
compute a solution using repeated measures ANOVA when all readings
were used.
It can be seen by the decrease in the mean composite reading scores
(shown in Table 14.3) that in the first four stages of the study that there
were continued improvements for all classes. However, for the middle
and upper classes the reading scores increased in stage 5, indicating a
decrease in performance. This decrease, however, was only caused by
the results of the performance on one reading. Even though for the
reading in question the average reading time remained consistent with
other readings, the average score on the comprehension questions was
almost one point lower than for the other readings. This appears to
Table 14.3 Descriptive statistics for treatment groups’ composite reading scores
Class Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5

level (1 to 4) (5 to 8) (9 to 12) (13 to 16) (17 to 20)
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Upper 33.97 10.88 29.66 12.33 24.61 10.66 20.79 8.18 23.25 7.20
L5
(n 22)
Middle 1 35.41 7.37 27.07 8.05 23.94 8.56 21.04 7.63 24.77 8.83
L4
(n 22)
Middle 2 34.35 8.39 29.70 7.33 22.78 8.97 20.77 4.74 21.96 6.33
L4
(n 23)
Lower 67.08 4.49 59.99 3.23 56.45 6.40
TR L2
(n 17)
have been owing to a combination of lack of subject knowledge on the

part of the students and one poorly written test item. Stage 4 appears
to be on average the point at which performance increases plateau, or
where asymptotic performance is achieved.
Table 14.3 shows the mean composite scores (M) and the standard
deviation (SD) by class for each stage (four readings) of the study. For
the level four and five classes, stage 4 has the lowest mean composite
score, indicating that the most fluent reading occurred in this stage. The
data also suggests that the power law of practice may apply to improve-
ments in TR performance. There is rapid improvement over the first
three stages followed by a leveling off of performance.
Repeated measures ANOVA

After the mean composite scores for each stage had been calculated for
each student the data was analyzed using SPSS to perform a repeated
measures ANOVA. For each of the treatment groups a separate one-
way ANOVA was performed, and the results are shown in Table 14.4.
For the level four and five classes it can be seen that they achieved
statistically significant improvements over the course of the treatment
period (p < .001). Lower class two, however, did not reach significance
(p .120). The strength of association (h2p) for the level four and five
classes was very high (h2p > .53).
254 Reading Fluency
Table 14.4 Repeated measures ANOVAs by treatment group
Class (level) df SS MS F 2p
Upper 1 L5 (n 22) 2.331 1993.33g 855.24 17.96*** .60

Middle 1 L4 (n 22) 4 1930.26 482.57 23.93*** .69
Middle 2 L4 (n 23) 4 2285.42 571.36 16.98*** .53
Lower 2 L2 (n 17) 2 772.70 386.35 2.47 .26
g
Greenhouse-Geisser correction applied because sphericity assumption was violated.
***p < .001.
Data for the middle and upper classes were combined, and another
repeated measures ANOVA was performed in order to compare changes
between stages within the study. A pairwise comparison was used to
assess differences in performance between the means of each stage with
all other stages. This revealed a decrease in performance for stage 5, as
previously explained, and this caused a non-significant pairwise com-
parison between stage 3 and stage 5. All other pairwise comparisons
were significant (p .001).
The same three classes were further checked at the group level for sig-
nificant interactions with a number of independent variables, including
gender, length of residence overseas, TOEIC scores, vocabulary size, and
the number of graded readers read over the course of the study. There
were no significant interactions with any of these variables, meaning
that they did not significantly influence TR performance. However, for
the upper class the interaction with the number of graded readers read
was approaching significance (p .098), and therefore we can start to
speculate that reading more graded readers may lead to greater improve-
ments in TR. However, the sample size for the class (n 22) means that
we cannot interpret this further. The data for the actual number of
words read was not available for this study, and this would have been
a better measure as books at lower levels contain fewer words per book
than those at higher levels. Future studies would benefit from using
total words read as a variable rather than total books.
Counterfactual comparison
The lower untimed TR class acted as a control group as they performed
the same readings as the lower TR class without being timed for read-
ings 2 to 11. The assumption would be that if the timed in TR is impor-
tant to improvement in reading fluency, then the lower untimed TR
class ‘would be expected not to gain at the same rate as the recipients
of the program intervention’ (Ross, 1998, p. 37). This is potentially
confounded by the fact that because the lower untimed TR class did
not have time pressure, they spent more time on task in total than the
lower TR class, so it is possible that the extra time on task could have
led to greater improvement. However, as Table 14.5 illustrates, the gain
in composite reading score between reading 1 and reading 12 is only
slightly higher for the lower TR class, suggesting that the importance
of TR is inconclusive; it may be that reading is sufficient without need-
ing to time the students’ performance, although the lowest proficiency
group were perhaps the least motivated. Some issues complicating the
clarity of this conclusion include the fact that the lower TR class had
the lowest scores on the vocabulary size test (Nation & Beglar, 2007),
and was chosen as a treatment group over the lower untimed TR class
because it had the lowest composite reading score in the first reading,
and so started and finished behind the lower untimed TR class one in
terms of reading ability.
Qualitative data
Anonymous qualitative survey data was gathered using an open-ended
questionnaire completed in English in the last class at the end of the
study (see Appendix A). The questionnaire was completed by all of
the students in the level four and five classes (n 67). Questions were
designed so as not to lead students, but they were answered in class
with the teacher present and before final grades for the class had been
submitted. Even though they were assured I would respect their answers
whether positive or negative, and in no way would it influence their
grades, some students may have felt pressured to answer positively.
Comments from students were almost all positive.
The most common reasons why students felt some readings were
more difficult than others were subject familiarity and unknown proper
nouns, which relates to schema theory in L2 reading (Carrell, 1984;
Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Landry, 2002). Schema theory (Rumelhart,
Table 14.5 Change in scores between reading 1 and reading 12
Class level Reading 1 Reading 12 Change
M SD M SD M SD
Lower 1 51.82 20.53 37.42 14.18 14.41 23.08

L2 (n 17)
Lower 2 59.53 14.80 43.43 9.38 16.10 15.63
L2 (n 17)
256 Reading Fluency
1977) states that when reading, background knowledge may help to

better understand any text. According to Yu-hui et al. (2010) the model
is more complicated, and three types of schema are necessary for under-
standing a text—language schema, content schema, and form schema.
Language schema is the ‘identifying the letters, words, and sentences
of the reading material’ (p. 61), and this is a prerequisite for the other
two types of schema. Content schema consists of two parts—situation
schema and background knowledge. Background knowledge schema is
of most importance for reading comprehension, as it is this that helps
the reader understand a text by relating it to ‘knowledge and experi-
ence stored in the reader’s brain’ (p. 61). Form schema is also important
for this study as it ‘refers to the extent that readers master the logic
structure and rhetoric knowledge in reading’ (p. 62). Criticism of the
simplistic nature of the theory does exist (Nassaji, 2007), but it has not
been displaced.
Some student comments that indicate problems with schema are:
• Some readings were difficult because I didn’t know meanings of

words.
• Some topics were difficult to understand and students didn’t have
knowledge about them.
Two students in the study said that they found TR stressful because they
were unable to read as fast as others. These were only two students out
of 67, and contrasted with the majority who enjoyed the competitive
nature of TR. One of the students commented:
• I felt pressure and stress, because I couldn’t read fast as other students.
One student thought TR a waste of time.

The majority of students (47 from 67), however, thought it beneficial
for their reading fluency, with some students asking for further read-
ings to do at home. Some of the more interesting positive comments
were:
• I think timed reading says to us ‘Think! think! You have to study

English more!!’ It’s just MY IDEA. I don’t know the truth.
• I know more phrases and vocabulary, so my English for reading is
better.
• I didn’t read so much before, and now I do. I was not good at read-
ing. I mean it was my weak point. But I think it’s getting better.
Conclusions
This study lends support to the assertion that TR leads to gains in reading
fluency, although results regarding whether the reading must be timed
are inconclusive (the level two control group failed to significantly out-
perform the level two experimental group). Had there been greater control
of vocabulary load, schema, and test item difficulty, the results may have
given more definitive support to the effectiveness of TR, but designing
studies with intact class groups that sufficiently controls for all variables
will always be problematic (see also discussion in Muller, Chapter 9).
With the middle and upper groups there was no significant statistical
relationship between improvement in reading fluency and the number
of graded readers read. Therefore, we cannot say with any certainty that
reading graded readers interacts with TR performance, although using
the number of books read as the unit of measurement may have been
the reason for this lack of interaction. The books that the upper TR class
read were generally much longer than the books that the lower classes
read because they were at a higher level, and had words read been used
the interaction may have been significant for the upper stream of the TR
class. Unfortunately, this data was not available for analysis.
Implications for TR in the classroom

TR appears to have the potential for increasing reading fluency. Although
this study did not find conclusive results for all of the groups involved,
reading fluency improved for the majority of learners. On top of this,
learners also readily did TR and accepted it as a valid classroom activity,
which is not always the case with experimental classroom interventions.
As TR is often relatively easy to integrate into an existing course
unless what is taught is strictly controlled by administrators, teachers
may want to consider it as a possible addition to their pedagogical reper-
toire. If they do, it is necessary to consider vocabulary load and student
background knowledge when choosing reading passages. While it is
possible to write suitable passages to match the theme of courses, this
requires considerable time, which is one of the reasons a published TR
book was used in this research, and may be the most appealing choice
to other teachers.
In this study TR was used as a standalone reading fluency activity to
avoid skewing the research, but for pedagogical purposes it would be
useful to integrate TR with other reading fluency development activities
such as assisted repeated reading (Gorsuch & Taguchi, 2010), extensive
reading (He, Chapter 13; Waring, Chapter 12), and activities beyond
258 Reading Fluency
reading skills (see also Nation, Chapter 1). For example, dialog journals
and/or extensive writing (Herder, 2009; Muller, Chapter 9) could help
to improve writing fluency in tandem with TR. Activities such as read-
ing circles (Furr & Bassett, 2007) could also be used to promote reading,
speaking, and listening fluency in an integrated manner. The best bal-
ance of activities is still unknown.
Implications for TR research

Regarding TR itself, the optimum length of a TR passage still needs to be
determined. Additionally, whether online delivery is as effective as paper
is also an issue. How to integrate measurements of reading speed and
comprehension in research also deserves more attention. Specifically, the
compound measurement used in this study requires additional validation.
Statistical methods currently in use to analyze TR, in many cases
repeated measures ANOVA, seem to fall short of providing the informa-
tion necessary for a study of this kind. An alternative method, such as
latent variable growth curve modeling, may offer a better analytical
solution because it can be used to examine individual and group growth
trajectories, rather than just group differences in performance.
There are a number of issues remaining for future investigation with
respect to TR. Specifically, vocabulary coverage and test item difficulty
should be more stringently controlled in future studies, which could
involve a means of weighting questions to make between reading compari-
son more valid. Additionally, student familiarity with the topics of readings
is an issue, and perhaps a more conclusive study would require writing of
new passages and questions, which take these issues into account.
Additionally, as the readings were all done in the same order, this may
have had an effect on the results of the study. It would have been bet-
ter to randomize the order in which the passages were read. In this way
more valid claims about improvements could have been made.
Regarding other variables, there are some variables that were not
assessed in this study that may significantly interact with TR performance,
which could include proficiency, language aptitude, engagement, cogni-
tive speed, IQ or working memory, among others. In future studies, where
possible, it would be prudent to include some or all of these variables.
Appendix A Timed reading questionnaire

Please answer each question with as much information as you can.
1. How did you feel about timed reading?

2. How did you feel about your performance on timed reading?
3. Did you think that some passages were more difficult than others? Why?
4. Do you think timed reading helped to improve your reading fluency? Why or
why not?
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15
Improving Fluency in EFL Reading
Comprehension in Adolescents
with Learning Difficulties
Carol Goldfus
Introduction
Timing and fluency play a crucial role in orchestrating the various

processes involved in reading comprehension (Breznitz, 2006). This
has been recognized at the behavioral level by psychologists and at the
neuronal level by neuroscientists. However, despite the importance of
fluency development, this issue has not received as much attention in
foreign language settings, and more research is needed (Grabe, 2004,
2009). The intervention methodology presented in this chapter will
address the issue of fluency development, which according to research,
seems to include attention to speed (Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001).
This chapter begins by explaining what the concept of fluency means,
highlighting those aspects addressed in the proposed methodology of
the intervention program. The theory’s practical application will be
illustrated, giving evidence from research in the field. The intervention
method was developed to meet the needs of the adolescent learner who
has been studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for about four
to five years. It assumes previous exposure to decoding as well as many
attempts at learning to read texts in EFL.
As the focus of this chapter is on the attainment and development
of fluency, a ‘difficult concept to define’ (Yamashita & Ichikawa, 2010,
p. 264), this aspect of reading proficiency alone is emphasized even though
the Intervention Programme for the Secondary School (IPSS) includes
consideration of many different cognitive processes, as it works in tan-
dem with metacognition, developing awareness of text structure and lan-
guage processing (Goldfus, 2001, 2013; Martin, 2009). It also illustrates
how problems with reading comprehension were alleviated within the
classroom for pupils whose native language was Hebrew or Arabic.
261
262 Reading Fluency
The intervention program, IPSS, was developed and researched in

a heterogeneous secondary school context, where it is imperative to
pass the matriculation examination at an upper intermediate level to
proceed to higher education and receive an accredited matriculation
certificate. In general, English and mathematics are the problematic
areas for students.
The chapter focuses on intervention to develop fluency while read-
ing silently, which is different from most research where fluency has
been measured by reading aloud, and attending to various aspects, for
example, intonation, word recognition, and decoding, which can be
measured. The target population includes those pupils who are at-risk
learners, those with language-related disabilities, such as dyslexia, and
those regular pupils who find that they do not achieve reading profi-
ciency. By attending to fluency development and attainment, the cycle
of failure can be broken (Goldfus, 2001, 2012). This method is based on
the theoretical premise that working memory is the locus of this suc-
cessful processing activity (Grabe, 2004).
Working memory is composed of a limited-capacity attentional con-
trol system—limited ability to carry out multiple processes simultane-
ously. Comprehension of language involves processing, storage, and
retrieval. Processing is needed to recognize the lexical items represented
by the surface forms of language, access their syntactic and semantic
specifications, and interpret the meaning of sentences. According to
most models of language understanding, the intermediate representa-
tions resulting from these processes need to be stored, as they provide
input to further levels of language processing activities.
Language processing is a trade-off between storage and retrieval of
information. Word-for-word translation expends too much attention,
resulting in not enough resources being available for comprehension
and constructing meaning (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993; Martin, 2009).
Defining fluency
Fluency is defined as the rapid, smooth, accurate, effortless, and auto-

matic reading of connected text with little conscious attention to the
mechanisms of reading (Meyer & Felton, 1999; Perfetti, 1994; Wolf &
Katzir-Cohen, 2001). Fluent reading is a result of rapid and high-quality
retrieval, and decoding, as well as phonological and orthographic
processing. It also integrates linguistic knowledge that includes mor-
phological, syntactic, and semantic knowledge of the written language
(Bashir & Hook, 2009). Standard definitions of reading fluency also
Improving Fluency in Adolescents with Learning Difficulties 263
emphasize fluent oral reading of large blocks of text (Kuhn & Stahl,
2003). In other words, fluency frees up processing resources and sets the
ground for reallocation of attention to higher language and cognitive
processes underlying comprehension (Perfetti, 1994; Stothard, 1994).
Automaticity lies at the heart of reading fluency, and develops over
time through constant practice of a routine procedure (Segalowitz &
Hulstijn, 2005).
As a pupil learns to read at the early stages of literacy acquisition,
fluency’s different aspects are initially slow and may not be high in
quality (Bashir & Hook, 2009). Children gradually move on from accu-
rate but slow and laborious decoding, being able to match phoneme
with grapheme (sound–letter match), to direct, fast, and effortless word
recognition (Tressoldi et al., 2007). In other words, as children develop
proficiency in word reading skills, they begin to use cognitive and
attentional resources to make meaningful connections within the text
(Meisinger et al., 2010). They gradually become readers who can con-
trol, balance, and integrate cognitive resources between the text’s topi-
cal and linguistic demands for accurate comprehension (Bashir & Hook,
2009). The development of reading fluency is crucial for students as
they move away from conscious focus on decoding words to emphasize
reading connected text for comprehension. Such fluent reading skills
are essential for children and adolescents’ academic success (Meisinger
et al., 2010). This is true of all literacy acquisition regardless of language—
one brain, two languages (Goldfus, 2011).
The intervention program
The word ‘intervention’ is the preferred term to address those pupils

who have difficulty in acquiring proficiency in language—a specific
intervention for a specific problem. The premise is that intervention
facilitates a change in cognitive functioning; producing changes in the
way the learner relates to and copes with written material. The program
is designed to enable at-risk adolescents to succeed. Initially, the first
steps in an intervention program should be easy so as to gain success at
the first attempt, but these early items should be drawn from relevant
material. Crockett and Kauffman (1998) explain, ‘Students in need of
intervention have in common the need for focused, intensive and con-
sistent instruction’ (p. 490).
The ‘what’ of learning is not important in the first stages of the
intervention, but repetition is essential. By repeating a certain process
constantly, automaticity is achieved, helping the adolescent foreign
264 Reading Fluency
language at-risk learner to process information effectively without

overload (Stanovich, 1990). In reading comprehension, being able to
construct the main idea of a text lies at the basis of effective reading
comprehension, which is a higher-level cognitive processing activ-
ity that involves the integration, organization, and understanding of
connected text, which is an area of difficulty in the student who has
an information-processing problem, and this is exacerbated in foreign
language reading comprehension. It is particularly ‘mission impossible’
for those at-risk adolescent learners with dyslexia, a reading disability or
other language-related disabilities.
Skilled readers have at their command a large body of conceptual and
procedural knowledge. Their rich declarative and procedural knowledge
facilitates new learning because new information can be readily added
to prior knowledge, resulting in speed and fluency.
Students who insist on doing word-for-word translation rarely make
much progress in language learning (Bernhardt, 1993). The interven-
tion program, the IPSS, assumes that the adolescent learner has already
been exposed many times to learning how to decode letters and words.
Therefore, this aspect of reading comprehension is not related to at all.
The premise is that the adolescent, experiencing difficulties in reading
comprehension, has an information retrieval problem that needs to be
addressed. There is a tendency in pedagogy in general and remedial
teaching in particular to infantilize learners, and to keep them in a
state of intellectual and emotional dependency on teachers and tightly
organized course materials. Cognitive intervention is seen as ‘cognitive
rehabilitation’ (Goldfus, 2009, p. 10) where, rather than focusing on
poor language skills and vocabulary, the older learner is given credit for
sophisticated ideas.
Theoretical underpinnings of the intervention program
Coherence
The theoretical model and its practical application incorporate
Gernsbacher’s Structure Building Framework Model (Gernsbacher, 1990,
1996) for identifying the cognitive processes and mechanisms used in
language comprehension. She states that ‘… the goal of comprehen-
sion is to build a coherent mental representation or “structure” of the
information being comprehended’ (Gernsbacher, 1990, p. 1). According
to Gernsbacher there are several processes involved, namely, laying the
foundation for mental structures, mapping coherent information onto
developing structures, and shifting to start new substructures.
When readers approach a text, they start laying the foundation by

understanding the main idea. In much of her research, Gernsbacher
(1990, 1996) has found that the first sentence usually takes the long-
est to process. She refers to this as laying the foundation so that com-
prehension can be facilitated. After the foundation has been laid, new
facts that relate and add to the initial information are mapped onto
the structure, and the reading process becomes more rapid. However,
if the incoming information does not match the existing information,
the shifting process occurs and a new substructure is started. Energy is
used in these cognitive processes; less energy is used in the mapping
process whereas more energy is used in the shifting process. Thus a goal
of fluency is being able to map information rather than to keep shifting
it. Gernsbacher (1990, 1996) proposes that there is coherence between
sentence and sentence. She identifies four sources of coherence: refer-
ential (who and what), temporal (when), locational (where), and causal
(why). The more referentially coherent two sentences are, the easier it is
to map the second sentence onto the structure representing the first. In
constructing the intervention program and developing its methodology,
this principle was taken into account. Emphasis is placed on construct-
ing meaning through identifying the main idea, finding connections
between words that form sentences (intrasentential connections), and
between sentences themselves (intersentential connections).
In attempting to attain fluency in silent reading for reading compre-
hension, coherence becomes the intermediate goal. This is achieved by
first constructing meaning through understanding the main idea, then
finding connections between words and between sentences so that the
cognitive processes cause more mapping than shifting to take place.
This is the focus of the methodology proposed. The goal is to enable the
foreign language adolescents, including those with language-related dis-
abilities, to create coherence across sentences so that fluency is achieved.
Discourse processing
Another model that has been adapted in the IPSS is the Construction-
Integration Model of Discourse Processing (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978,
and expanded on in van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). According to their
model, the reader constructs meaning by creating a situation for the
text, working through three levels. First, the processing consists of
the microlevel presentation (intrasentential) where the language is
understood verbatim. Next, the macrolevel (intersentential) processing
occurs, which involves the understanding of propositions and the con-
structing of the main idea of the passage. The third level is the product
266 Reading Fluency
of processing, integrating what is learnt. Further, related concepts can

be ‘chunked’. Chunking then reduces memory load, and it seems to
facilitate in-depth processing (Yamashita & Ichikawa, 2010).
Text processing is a sequential process. When a new sentence is com-

prehended, parts of the old network must also participate in the new
integration process. … Understanding always occurs in the context
of the previous text, but because it is not possible to maintain in
the focus of attention the whole previous text, only a portion of it
that is likely to be important for the overall coherence of the text is
maintained. Kintsch, 1994, p. 732
The comprehension of a text must involve something more than the

mere recognition of words. A crucial component of successful com-
prehension is the identification of relations between the various parts
of the text. These relations tie together the ideas and facts that are
presented. As a consequence, the text is perceived and represented in
memory as a coherent structure rather than as a disjointed assembly
of individual pieces of information. In the context of understanding
expository text, the term ‘coherence’ is synonymous with constructing
meaning from a text. Fluency facilitates this process.
Second language reading model

The influential sociocognitive model in second language reading develop-
ment (Bernhardt, 1993) also provides the theoretical underpinnings to the
cognitive intervention discussed here. The main contribution of this model
has been the integration of several perspectives into a theory of second lan-
guage reading comprehension. Bernhardt views reading cognitively, that is
to say, as a mental act, where ‘there are various steps that are separate and
measurable, although interdependent’ (Bernhardt, 1993, p. 8). In a descrip-
tion of her model, Bernhardt states that a cognitive view means that the
reader acts on information, and the processing of this information involves
the internal representation of the text, which is not a duplicate of the input
text, but ‘an individual’s intrapersonal conceptualization’ (1993, p. 9).
She further states that readers in an L2 situation are preset to read
texts in their mother tongue. The transfer to the second language may
be facilitated or there may be interference. This is one of the differences
between first and second language reading, which is taken into account
in the Bernhardt model. Accordingly, there are different levels of aware-
ness of language. Second language readers at the beginning levels, in
particular, need to develop syntactic knowledge as well as knowledge of
discourse-organizing principles and an awareness of various markers of
organization in L2 texts. The distinguishing aspect of her model is that

L2 learners must spend more time on the formal aspects of their second
language (see also Kirk, Chapter 6). The interaction of the reader and
the text, as well as the processing that takes place within the reader,
form integral aspects of the intervention program.
An additional factor of the Bernhardt Socio-Cognitive Model that is
of relevance to the reading of texts in EFL is that the reader makes indi-
vidual decisions about what is important in texts. The information that
is extracted from the texts is then processed. This processing involves
making sense of the input, and then reconstructing this information
according to individual decisions. The Bernhardt model posits an active
reader who selects information in order to build a representation of text.
Following is a practical application of the theoretical model that is
a combination of the various theoretical approaches discussed above,
with emphasis on the development and attainment of fluency.
Implementation of the cognitive reading

comprehension model
The initial stage of the cognitive processing reading comprehension

model (Goldfus, 2001) includes three important parts intended to help
adolescent learners attain fluency and reading comprehension in EFL.
These include working with the text, namely, marking the text, graphic
organizers, and the Reader’s Protocol shown below (Goldfus, 2001),
which are procedurally learned and practiced. In this section, I will pre-
sent the three parts and their contribution to the attainment of fluency
and reading comprehension.
Figure 15.1 Illustrates the process in attaining fluency.
Marking the text

When pupils receive a text, they are asked to mark the ends of sentences
in the first paragraph. For example:
Bob & John
Although they are brothers, Bob and John are quite different. / Bob is
tall, fair, and slim; John is short, dark, and fat. / Bob is never happier
than when he has something practical to do. / John, on the other
hand, is very clumsy with his hands. / Bob does not make friends eas-
ily and prefers his own company; but John is always surrounded by a
group. / In fact it is hard to believe that the two men are brothers. /
268 Reading Fluency
Text intrasentential connections
Meaning intersentential connections

(main idea)
Figure 15.1 The cycle of learning to achieve fluency

Source: Goldfus (2001).
The pupils are then asked to count the sentences. This exercise improves
fluency and reading comprehension in different ways. It also improves
eye movements, increases speed, and gets them away from word-by-word
translation. The process of reading requires the coordination of eye
movements that has to be practiced for the attainment of automaticity.
This is necessary for smooth, rapid, and automatic reading. Marking the
ends of sentences makes students practice the process of reading from
left to right, which differs from Hebrew and Arabic, the languages with
which they are familiar, where reading is from right to left. Eyes move
in saccades (jumps) and fixations. Research in eye movements (Rayner
et al., 2005) indicates that skilled readers in their mother tongue see
almost every word in the text. Eye movement protocol illustrates that a
nonnative reader fixates more densely over a simple text in the foreign
language than a native reader (Bernhardt, 1993). This exercise attends

to this issue.
What distinguishes good from poor readers is not the number of let-
ters in a fixation, nor the number of words fixated per page but the
speed of the fixation—and the processes that occur during fixation.
(Alderson, 2000, p. 18)
Second, this seemingly easy exercise sensitizes them to paying atten-

tion to the period at the end of a sentence and the capital letter at the
beginning. Hebrew and Arabic do not have capital letters. In many
cases, those with visual processing disabilities do not see the period or
the upper case letters. This exercise also helps the pupils to not focus
on decoding but rather on connected text. Pupils who have difficulty
reading tend to get stuck on every word, and are most likely to get
frustrated and give up before they reach the end of the sentence. This
exercise helps pupils attain fluency since it makes them go through
the entire sentence up to the end. Therefore, it helps them to not get
stuck on the process of word identification, and to move on to reading
connected text.
Third, the exercise helps pupils pay attention to the text’s structure.
Many students who have difficulty reading lack knowledge of the basic
structure of text because they simply do not read as much as those
who do not have difficulty, increasing the gap between the two groups
(Stanovich, 1986). They do not know texts are composed of paragraphs,
which are composed of separate sentences. They also tend to ignore or
not notice full stops at the ends of sentences. Moreover, the cycle of
failure is broken (Garner, 1994), and motivation is increased, as this
exercise can be done with many texts and is not dependent on their
knowledge of the language. It also attends to the issue of speed. One
of the main characteristics of people with dyslexia is that they are
consistently slow and tire easily. These kinds of exercises build up their
mental strength.
After the students mark the sentences, they are asked to mark two
parts of speech that are very important for the process of reading com-
prehension: the verb and the subject. They are asked to circle the verb
and block the subject as in the example below:
Dan went to the shop yesterday. /

270 Reading Fluency
Marking the verb and the subject helps pupils answer the question of
who did what in the sentence. This focus on the structure of the sen-
tence enables the learner to ‘lay the foundation’ for understanding the
rest of the sentence. By identifying the different parts of speech, the
reader is able to ‘chunk’ the information and attend to the meaning of
the sentence rather than just the words. Another benefit is that students
become familiar with the sequence of words in sentences in English,
which differs from word sequences in Hebrew and Arabic.
After they have learned what to do, they are timed as they complete
these exercises. They are asked to work as fast as they can, and their
times at the end of each paragraph are recorded. Timing encourages
pupils to compete with themselves and with the other pupils in the
class, also contributing to fluency development by encouraging rapid
reading. Moreover, timing gives them a goal, motivating them to keep
practicing, and increasing their awareness of their progress. (On timed
reading, see further Atkins, Chapter 14.)
These two exercises improve pupils’ linguistic and metalinguistic
knowledge by helping them pay attention to syntactic and semantic
aspects of text, to their purpose for reading and its relation to read-
ing comprehension. After practicing the procedural tasks, attention
can be paid to processing the information and constructing the main
idea.
Graphic organizers
The implementation of the model includes the use of graphic organizers
to enhance comprehension. After reading the passage, pupils are asked
to complete parts of diagrams or flow charts. These graphic organizers
visually present the inner structure of sentences and paragraphs, con-
tributing to awareness of the different logical connections of ideas and
facts in sentences, paragraphs, or even in a whole passage.
The pupils become familiar with the method and practice until
it becomes automatic, which makes them more confident working
with texts in English because they feel that they know what to do at
every given point during reading. Initially the texts are simple, three
to five sentences, but gradually become more difficult lexically and
syntactically as the term progresses, and eventually, expository writ-
ing on different subjects is introduced, exposing students to a variety
of texts.
Please see Figure 15.2 for an example of graphic organizers.
First, the pupils mark the number of sentences, then they circle the
verbs, block the subject, and get to the end of the sentence. In the case
Read the passage.
Steve’s Eye Problems
I think Steve is having problems with his eyes. He holds the book very
near to his eyes when he reads. He doesn’t recognize his friends when
he sees them in the street. He often gets headaches. He probably needs
glasses.
Exercise 1:
In the paragraph the writer expresses an opinion, gives reasons, and

comes to a conclusion.
We can make an outline of this paragraph in the diagram below. Part
of the table is filled in. Please complete the rest.
OPINION: I think Steve is having problems with his eyes.
REASONS 1. He holds a book very close to his eyes when he reads.

SUPPORTING 2. ______________________________________
THE OPINION: 3. ______________________________________
CONCLUSION: ______________________________________________
______________________________________________
The main idea(s) is/are:________________________________________

(Answer in mother tongue)
Figure 15.2 A graphic organizer

Source: Goldfus (2001).
of exercise 1 in Figure 15.2, they then fill in the graphic organizers, read
the sentences, and construct the main idea written up in one sentence
in their mother tongue.
To illustrate this method, I would like to quote from M.O., a teacher
who implemented it in her tenth grade class with pupils who were all
272 Reading Fluency
at-risk and who had difficulties in acquiring the necessary skills in their
mother tongue, but who had to achieve success in EFL:
In this lesson I explained to the class in Hebrew about how the

eyes work while reading. I explained about saccades and fixations.
Then I explained that I wanted them to mark off the sentences of
the reading passages before they started reading. I explained that
this was important because I want their eyes to get used to going
from left to right when reading English. I want them to get used
to taking in the passage as a whole and I want them to get to the
end of the passage and not miss parts of it (that could be on the
following page).
I began the lesson by having the pupils mark off and count how
many sentences were in different passages in their book. Pupils who
found all the sentences helped others who did not ‘find’ sentences.
We reread the first paragraph silently and then I read it aloud to the
class. I then asked them to write down the main idea in Hebrew. After
hearing their sentences and ideas, we managed to narrow it down to
one sentence—‘Parents and teachers think that watching too much
TV is bad.’
The Reader’s Protocol (Goldfus, 2001)

A third method, which addresses memory, automaticity, and compre-
hension, can be found in the Reader’s Protocol. First, after their initial
reading, students turn over the page and write the name of the passage.
Adolescents with difficulty in reading sometimes do not pay attention
to the title of the text, so when they are asked to remember it as part
of the protocol, the title’s importance is continuously brought to their
attention.
After writing the title of the passage, pupils are asked to write eve-
rything they remember from the passage in their mother tongue. This
exercise trains their working memory, and makes them consciously
think about what they have just read and recall important pieces of
information. The purpose is not to test proficiency and writing abilities,
but to train working memory and to practice the procedure in the hope
of making it automatic. This is why pupils are initially asked to answer
in their mother tongue, differentiating between understanding (com-
prehension) and production. Production exercises where the answers
are in English, the target language, come later once the threshold level
(Alderson, 2000) has been reached.
The second and third steps come after the second reading. In the
second step, pupils answer what or who the passage is about, a ques-
tion which makes them focus on the passage’s main idea. To answer
the question, they have to separate the important information from
the unimportant information in the passage. In the third step, pupils
are asked about what changes they can make in their summary from
step one. The text is in English, but the procedure and discussion is car-
ried out in the mother tongue. Each text gets increasingly difficult, but
the process remains the same.
As language fluency depends on exposure to many texts (see also
Waring, Chapter 12 on extensive reading), the method presented
above ensures that they perform the same procedure repeatedly until
automaticity is achieved. A characteristic of a person with dyslexia is
that they are slow, and that there may be a problem with achieving the
automaticity and fluency needed to become a skilled reader. Filling in
the Reader’s Protocol, the pupils understand that paragraphs, texts, and
parts of texts should be read more than once as adding information
and monitoring what has been read improves reading comprehension.
In the fourth step, the pupils are asked to mark the words or lines
where they had difficulty understanding. This helps pupils to self-
monitor and become aware of their difficulties, and to take responsi-
bility for their own learning, thus improving their metacognitive and
metalinguistic abilities.
In the fifth and final step, pupils are asked to write the main idea of
the text in one or two sentences in order to assimilate information into
a coherent summary of what they have read. As they progress, they will
also be asked to write the main idea in English in their own words.
The Reader’s Protocol makes pupils reason strategically and practice
other strategic abilities (Figure 15.3). While answering questions, pupils
learn to pay attention to the title and to other important details in the
text, to summarize these details into a main idea, and to be more aware
of their own difficulties in understanding it. I would argue that these
make learners more aware of the whole process of reading, and there-
fore contribute to better reading comprehension.
In conclusion, using the Reader’s Protocol familiarizes pupils with
text structure and vocabulary, promotes speed, teaches them to distin-
guish between important and unimportant facts, helps them to find
the main idea, assists in constructing the gist of the text coherently,
and creates an awareness of ‘what I know and what I do not know’. All
of this teaches students to take responsibility for their learning and to
become fluent readers.
274 Reading Fluency
First Reading:
Name of Passage: _____________________________
Step 1: What do you remember?
Write down everything you remember in your mother tongue.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Second Reading:
Step 2: What or who is the passage about?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Step 3: What changes can you make in your summary in step 1.

(in your mother tongue)
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Step 4: Where did you have difficulty in understanding?

Mark the words or the line numbers.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Step 5: The main idea is …. (give only one or two sentences)

__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Figure 15.3 Reader’s Protocol
Intervention in an eleventh grade classroom –

pupils’ response
Research was carried out in two classes, one an intervention class (n 40)
who had a high percentage of underachieving pupils, including a group
of pupils with dyslexia. The other group, the control group (n 40) had
a similar number of pupils with dyslexia, but who were regular pupils.
The intervention group underwent cognitive intervention involving 21
training sessions that extended over a seven-week period, as 45-minute
sessions held three times a week. The pupils received photocopies of

the units at the start of each session, which were returned at the end,
together with the recall protocol and their comments. The protocols
were collected primarily to identify problems encountered in the pupils’
acquisition and application of the processes. It also checked their ability
to overcome some of the obstacles.
After the first four lessons using texts similar to the one illustrated in
this chapter, both the protocols and the verbal interviews in the inter-
vention group showed that the pupils had no idea about how to assess
their learning. They did not know how to fill in the recall protocol,
and all they could report on was whether the lesson was interesting or
boring. Many commented that this was not what they needed for the
matriculation examination (their stated goal). The very weak pupils
were still very disruptive, and commented that they knew all the mate-
rial and that it was much too easy. They did not see why they should
work hard because hard work still gave them a failing grade. The pupils
preferred to do the work orally, and were seen to be too ‘lazy’ to fill in
the answers in writing and to find the correct lines. Every effort that
they made seemed to be too much.
By the fourth week, the pupils’ motivation had changed, and they
became involved in learning and progressing. Several pupils reported
that it was a pity that they were being exposed to this kind of English
lesson at such a late stage in their schooling. Another pupil reported that
she felt she could and wanted to succeed, but that she had missed far
too much and would never get ahead. She was also upset that she had
not had this kind of training earlier. There was an increased awareness
of themselves as learners. By persevering with the procedures presented
above, and showing students how to work with the material, the recall
protocol placed them, and not the material, at the center of lessons.
In order to understand that learning takes time, I have included some
of the pupils’ comments. In the beginning, the comments related to the
texts themselves or the matriculation-type texts. They felt that this was
just another ‘hoax’ to get them to work. Examples of such comments
follow:
‘The passage was easy.’

‘I don’t like writing a lot.’
‘There are no matriculation type questions at the end—oof.’
At the end of the intervention program when the same method was
being implemented, but the texts were getting increasingly complex
276 Reading Fluency
and longer, with more challenging vocabulary, this was one of the
comments illustrating an awareness of schema: ‘The passage reflected
our daily lives so I found this passage easier than others because I know
what they were talking about.’
A prevalent description of pupils with dyslexia is that they are ‘pas-
sive’ learners and display ‘learned helplessness’. The following quotes
show how this method enabled them to understand where they were
having difficulties and to ask for help. They became involved in the
learning experiences and showed an awareness of their difficulties.
Please go over my passage and show me where I went wrong and

then explain my mistakes to me because the protocol shows that
I have not made sense of the passage. I understood all the words but
I cannot put together the main idea and my summaries of the para-
graphs do not make sense.
The lessons went far too quickly. Reading the text is still very dif-
ficult for me. The longer the passages, the more problems I have.
When I am tired, I cannot find the main point. I would like to do
shorter texts to gain more speed and practice more. I am, however,
able to get to the end of several paragraphs which I could not do
before. Please help me.
The results of this quasi-experimental study showed that the pupils

in the intervention group had improved more than the comparative
group. In a further study, both groups were given two reading pas-
sages from the upper intermediate level of the matriculation examina-
tion. Using a t-test for unmatched samples, no significant differences
between the two groups was found. Thus it can be stated, albeit with
caution, that the intervention group, which in effect consisted of all ‘at
risk’ learners, had broken the cycle of failure and closed the gap. On a
practical level, the pupils were placed in other parallel classes, and the
intervention class, which in effect was an ‘at risk’ class, ceased to exist.
Conclusion
This chapter has addressed the attainment of fluency in reading exposi-

tory texts in EFL. Cognitive intervention targets coherence of reading
comprehension by attending to processing the macrostructure (intersen-
tential connections) of texts. To achieve this end, fluency also includes
understanding the structure (syntax) of a sentence (intrasentential
connections), and promoting the integration of the meaning of each
sentence to form a coherent main idea. Attaining this fluency includes

strengthening eye movements and developing memory processing,
which lie at the core of all reading and learning. Reading in a second
language has been described as a multifaceted, complex construct in
that it involves a number of component operations, each dependent on
a wide range of competencies (Koda, 2005). The emphasis here has been
the attainment of fluency to be able to extract information, analyze,
and integrate the facts in order to comprehend connected text, which is
critical for academic and social success.
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Part V
Listening Fluency
The final part addresses listening and fluency in three chapters. The
first, by Michael Rost, gives an essential review of the literature from
macro and Asian perspectives, and advocates a practical ‘frames’ model
for listening development. The second, by Junko Matsuzaki Carreira,
explores the teaching of connected speech in songs to Japanese uni-
versity students, and the third chapter, from Ya-Chin Tsai, investigates
autonomous listening at a Taiwanese university using Moodle. These
three chapters focus on the perhaps under-researched area of listening
fluency, and approach this essential skill from both wider and local
Asian perspectives, a theme recurrent through this book.
Rost’s (Chapter 16) opening chapter on listening fluency notes that
general definitions of fluency tend to ignore the potential role of listen-
ing. In response, he offers an in-depth explanation of how regulation of
invisible mental processes underpinning listening is important in devel-
oping listening fluency. This regulation leads to improvement of gen-
eral communication skills. Rost then presents a practical three ‘frames’
model for listening fluency—top-down, bottom-up, and interactive—
each supported by research and learning activities. These frames, Rost
argues, are intended to complement each other, and activities associ-
ated with them need to be varied according to the teaching/learning
contexts and learner backgrounds in which they are applied.
Carreira’s (Chapter 17) chapter on connected speech at a Japanese uni-
versity involves the use of songs among a small group of freshmen major-
ing in early-childhood education. Carreira asks firstly whether teaching
connected speech with songs results in better dictation test scores, and
her study’s findings do show significant progress. Her second research
question examines whether this approach to listening fluency develop-
ment improves listening test scores, and again progress is evident.
279
280 Listening Fluency
The final chapter by Tsai (Chapter 18) is set in a Taiwanese university,

and looks at the relation between autonomous listening and listening
fluency. Data from Tsai’s eight-week program with three groups reveals
that listening fluency is seen to improve in test results, a finding that is
supported by perceptions of students in their written responses, espe-
cially among motivated students who enjoy the autonomous nature of
the study.
16
Developing Listening Fluency
in Asian EFL Settings
Michael Rost
Introduction: defining listening fluency
The term fluency is often used in relation to the language abilities of

speaking, reading, and writing, though much less frequently in relation
to listening. Listening would appear to be the one modality in which
the language user does not have any control over speed or smoothness,
the kind of characteristics that are most often associated with fluency.
How then can the concept of fluency even be associated with listening?
The key to defining ‘fluency in listening’ lies in understanding that
while most listening behavior is not visible, listening actually does involve
real mental processes that can be regulated by the listener. By learning to
regulate these processes more easefully, a language user can become a
more fluent listener, and therefore a more successful learner and more
proficient communicator.
As with speaking, reading, and writing, ‘fluency in listening’ refers to
an increase in performance capacities. The three most obvious capacities
are the ability to deal with longer stretches of spoken discourse, a growing
familiarity with a wider range of speech situations, and the capability to
give clearer responses to what is heard. Listening fluency is related to the
temporal aspect of performance, the ability to deal with progressively more
fluent speech. While the normal speaking rate in most situations is about
180 words per minute, it has been shown that competent listeners can
listen up to four times that rate, without any loss of comprehension,
if they are listening to texts on familiar topics. Listening fluency obvi-
ously entails the ability to decode incoming language quickly, and to
a large extent automatically. However, keeping up with fluent speech
actually involves processing larger units of input at one time rather than
decoding smaller units more rapidly.
281
All of these aspects of listening fluency can be targeted for improvement

by L2 learners, though there are some limitations to keep in mind. As
research consistently shows, a listener’s fluency in an L2 will rarely
reach one’s L1 fluency in terms of capacity and efficiency (Best & Tyler,
2007; Cutler, 2012a; Flege, 2003). Except for learning languages that are
extremely close in rhythmic structure (e.g. Dutch and English), most
learners will experience nearly insurmountable obstacles in achieving high
levels of automatic aural processing (Cutler, 2012b; Cutler & Weber, 2007).
In spite of the limitations, listening fluency for all learners can be markedly
improved, given appropriate training and opportunities for practice.
Three frameworks for developing listening fluency
It is important to address listening fluency as one aspect of overall lan-

guage proficiency. Most scales of language proficiency incorporate three
aspects of listening fluency: (1) ease with continuous listening and recall
of main ideas, (2) an ability to recognize specific words and phrases in
rapid speech, and (3) smoothness of listening behavior in face-to-face
interaction. Corresponding to these aspects of listening fluency, there
are three broad frameworks to use for developing fluency: top-down,
bottom-up, and interactive.
Frame 1: top-down fluency
Top-down fluency is the overarching goal of L2 listening. All serious

learners seek to be able to listen to progressively longer stretches of authen-
tic input with an acceptable level of comprehension. The instructional
goals in developing top-down fluency are engendering a receptivity
in listening situations, developing learners’ curiosity about new ideas,
engaging learners actively in listening tasks, and encouraging them to
use appropriate listening strategies when they encounter difficulties.
There are two key areas of language learning research that support the
instruction of top down fluency.
Pre-listening tasks promote top-down fluency

Background knowledge activation is the foundation for continuous
listening. Top-down fluency involves ‘elaborating’ what one already
knows and applying this knowledge while listening. The goal of top-
down instruction is guiding learners toward building meaning as they
listen, and eventually for learners to develop an intuition for what bits of
knowledge they need as they listen. This is no easy task, since top-down
Developing Listening Fluency in Asian EFL Settings 283
listening involves both activating knowledge quickly and discarding

irrelevant ideas as one continues listening. Because of this challenge,
many teachers feel it is essential to use simplified, highly predictable
texts in order to develop continuous listening, while other teachers
prefer structured comprehension tests in order to guide students toward
focusing on important ideas (see Atkins, Chapter 14 for a discussion of
comprehension tests in fluent reading).
Though text simplification can have some benefits in developing
learners’ attention, there is an overriding advantage in using authentic
texts and tasks, even with lower-level learners. Rather than employ-
ing authentic texts with only post-listening comprehension questions,
however, research supports the idea of using authentic texts with focused
pre-listening activities as a means to developing comprehension (Lustig
et al., 2001). A pre-listening task can be any activity that aims to stimu-
late thinking about concepts, vocabulary or comprehension points (i.e.
questions about the listening text) prior to listening. Expectations that
are activated before listening significantly influence both what is under-
stood and how well it will be remembered (Bransford & Johnson, 2004;
Woodall, 2010; see also Murphey, Chapter 3).
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of top-down flu-
ency include:
• Extended expositions (lectures, demonstrations, interviews, news

broadcasts, in audio or video or live formats) with pre-listening
images, lexical items, questions or guided note-taking; can be done
with autonomous online listening activities (Chang, 2007; Chang
& Read, 2007; Ginther, 2002; Herron et al., 1995; Tsai, Chapter 18).
• Extended narratives (readers, stories, films, in audio or video for-
mat or with accompanying written text), particularly those that are
highly structured and reiterative (i.e. experience with one chapter or
lesson serves as a kind of pre-listening for the next), with fluency-
oriented tasks (e.g. keeping track of how much you have read/watched/
heard; global summarizing, such as a ten-word summary; simple
evaluation form completion) (Rodgers & Webb, 2011; Waring, 2007;
Atkins, Chapter 14; Nation, Chapter 1).
• Listening-while-reading, using extended audio or video segments or
stories with high visual support for concepts and text support (subti-
tles for video, audio accompanying graded readers); narrow listening
(multiple inputs on the same topic) and repetitions (relistening mul-
tiple times) (Aldera & Mohsen, 2013; Chang & Millett, 2014; Vidal,
2011; Nation, Chapter 1).
While-listening and post-listening tasks promote

top-down fluency
Meaningful activities that the learner undertakes during and immediately
after listening will significantly influence engagement, comprehension,
and retention. Multimodal listening tasks can provide a more potent
encoding effect because the input is being processed in more than one
way, such as listening plus writing. Improved recall is usually observed
when while-listening tasks, such as note-taking, are paired with congru-
ent post-listening tasks such as oral summarizing (Armbruster, 2000;
Carrier & Titus, 1981). In particular, the most effective post-listening
tasks seem to be those that encourage interactive review (such as review-
ing a transcript or a set of notes) and appropriation of the input (such
as giving a presentation on the same topic) (Donato, 1994, 2000;
Thornbury, 2005).
Listening tasks work best when they help learners construct the
content on their own, in creative ways. According to the Semantic
Deficiency Hypothesis (Perfetti & Lesgold, 1977), poor comprehend-
ers typically show significant differences in the manner in which they
elaborate and organize what they hear or read. Elaboration, as noted
earlier, is the action of using prior knowledge in order to enrich one’s
interpretation. Organization, in this framework, refers to anticipating
the content that will be heard, regulating attention while listening,
and developing ‘an action plan’ for what to do while listening and
after listening.
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of top-down flu-
ency include:
• Drama and action sequences, which allow for extensive listening in

context, providing physical tasks to accompany input (Asher, 2003;
Brauer, 2002).
• Visual-guided listening tasks, such as demonstrations with physical
props, visuals or slides; or sequential texts (stories, lists, travelogues)
with continuous interactive questioning or content construction
tasks, such as selecting or drawing pictures that go with the narrative,
to build links between visual memory and language memory (Plass &
Jones, 2005; Suvorov, 2009).
• Reconstruction tasks, such as group or individual summarizing
from notes or from memory, summarizing using key words, KWL
charts (what students know, want to know, and learn), filling
out evaluation forms or follow-up tests on content (the principle
works most efficiently if questions are previewed before listening) to
build short-term memory (McNicoll & Lee, 2011; Thornbury, 1997;

Wajnryb, 1990)
Frame 2: bottom-up fluency
If the goal of top-down fluency is be able to deal with longer stretches of

spoken discourse, the goal of bottom-up fluency is to become comfort-
able attending to shorter bits of spoken language. Bottom-up fluency is
the ability to decode speech automatically, so that conscious attention
can be freed up to process ideas. Bottom-up processing in an L2 can be
very frustrating, as it is often difficult to recognize words or to parse
grammatical structures that we ‘know’.
The problems L2 listeners experience have a basis in the evolution
of the brain. Because of our early experience with our L1, our auditory-
linguistic ‘parameters’ in the brain are ‘set’ by the time we reach ado-
lescence. We have become ‘wired’ to perceive and decode our native
language automatically and effortlessly. However, as a consequence of
this process, we become distinctly less efficient at decoding the pho-
nology of all other languages (Escudero, 2007; Werker & Tees, 1984).
Similarly, the primary syntactic patterns (like word order, comparatives,
verb tenses) and semantic concepts (like colors, directions, personal
relationships) of our native language become a default template for all
language decoding. Consequently, we cannot process L2 syntax and
semantics as fluidly as we do in our L1. Even though this biological real-
ity may prevent perfect decoding in an L2, it is definitely clear that L2
learners will benefit from maximizing their bottom up-fluency.
There are two main strands of applied linguistics research that relate
to the role of bottom up listening fluency.
Teaching spoken language as a separate system increases

listening fluency
Nearly all students in Asian EFL contexts have had their initial exposure
to English in written form: written sentences for translation, written
texts for comprehension and analysis, written test formats for assess-
ment of learning. Throughout middle school and high school, most
students will deal with the L2 primarily as a written code. And only
occasionally will they hear the spoken form of the language, as many
teachers may rely entirely on the L1 in the classroom.
Given this background, many Asian students’ first exposure to exten-
sive, authentic spoken English may be overwhelming. In effect, they
need to ‘relearn’ the language as a spoken code if they are to become
fluent listeners. The most essential relearning involves overcoming the

tendency to anticipate individual words in their citation form with clear
inter-word boundaries, rather than hearing clusters of words that have
undergone phonological ‘distortion’ (see also Carreira, Chapter 17).
Beginning listeners typically believe they have to rely on identifying
every sound and every word sequentially in order to understand com-
pletely, when actually they need to become more comfortable with
hearing speech as clusters of words (Tsui & Fullilove, 1998).
Relearning the language as a spoken code involves other realizations
as well, including how to deal with different styles of organization and
speaking, multiple speakers, addition of visual elements, ellipsis of con-
tent, and higher frequency of idiomatic and figurative language. (See
Table 16.1 for a summary of some of these key features.)
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of bottom-up
fluency include:
• Word grab: Learners listen to a story of two to three minutes, then

are given a set of cards with words and phrases (or a worksheet with
multiple words and phrases). Working in small groups, they are asked
to identify which words and phrases appeared in the passage. They
then listen again to verify.
• Repeated listening: Same extract is repeated, three to five times in
subsequent classes, with the teacher reading in an animated voice;
best to use memorable stories, fables, plays, poems, jokes, famous
speeches. Variation: Teacher pauses from time to time to have stu-
dents predict the next word or phrase (see Nation, Chapter 1).
• 3–2–1 listening. An audio extract is manipulated (with software
such as Audacity) and presented in three versions (slowed down
10%–20%; normal, speeded up 10%–20%; or with normal pauses,
then pauses lengthened by one, then two seconds). Students listen
without a transcript, aiming to notice how speed and pausing affects
their perception (Field, 1998; Rost, 2011).
Training in ‘fast speech’ phenomena improves listening fluency

Speech rate is a commonly perceived problem for L2 listeners, but dif-
ficulties with normal fluent speech occur not so much because of the
speed itself, but because the L2 listener is often not prepared for fast
speech phenomena (Graham, 2006; Renandya & Farrell, 2011). These
perceptual phenomena are primarily consonant assimilations, vowel
reductions, consonant cluster reductions, omissions, and elisions
Table 16.1 Features of spoken language
Feature Example
Speakers always speak in a Situational exchanges, topical

situational context that has an conversations, songs
overall ‘gist’ meaning
Speakers speak in short bursts of The next time I saw him/
speech (two to three seconds), in He wasn’t as friendly/
‘idea units’ rather than complete I don’t know why
sentences
Spoken language contains more The people in this town – they’re not
topic-comment structures and as friendly as they used to be.
uses more topic restatement and
anaphoric reference
Speakers most often use additive He came home/
(paratactic) ordering with and, and then he just went to his room/
then, so, but but he didn’t say anything/
so I didn’t think much about it/
Speech is marked by a high ratio Written version: The court declared
of function (or grammatical) words that the deadline must be honored.
(particles, prepositions, pro-forms, (Content words, 4; function words, 5)
articles, be verbs, auxiliary verbs, Spoken version: The court said that the
conjunctions) to content words deadline was going to have to be kept.
(nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, (Content words, 4; function words, 9)
question words)
Speech is marked by incomplete I was wondering if… Do you want to
grammatical units, false starts, go together?
incomplete/abandoned structures It’s not that I … I mean, I don’t want to
imply…
Speakers frequently use ellipsis – (Are you) Coming (to dinner)?
omitting known elements (I’ll be there) In a minute
Speakers use the most frequent the way it’s put together
words of the (vs. its structure)
language, leading to loosely
packed, often imprecise language
Speakers tend to use more by sheer coincidence, How on earth…?, for
idiomatic and better or worse.
formulaic language:
Speakers in live situations use kinesic Baton signals: Hand and head
signals (body movements) to modify movements, associated with emphasis
meaning: and prosodic cadence
Directional gaze: Eye movement and
focusing used to direct the
listener or audience to a situational
reference or moment of relevance
Guide signals: Systematic gestures to
provide metaphoric shading of meaning
Source: Rost (2011).

that result in word variations that are different from their ‘canonical’
(citation) forms. (See Table 16.2 for common examples.) Consonant
assimilations in particular tend to give Asian learners special difficulties,
as consonant clustering does not occur in most Asian languages (i.e.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai).
Instruction in bottom-up processing aims to improve the learners’
perceptual capacity by highlighting the cues they attend to when they
process input (Field, 2008; Carreira, Chapter 17). The central goal of
bottom-up listening training is coming to recognize phonological pat-
terns directly and in larger chunks, without ‘mentally transcribing’ to
written form. Classroom studies have shown that bottom-up training
works best with contextualization and sufficient repetition (Larsen-Freeman,
2012; Serrano, 2011). Without contextualization, the listener must use
only audio cues to process input. While context-free word recognition
and parsing seems to be the goal of aural perception training, it is essen-
tial to have ample context in order for maximal perception to occur.
Table 16.2 Examples of assimilation in spoken English
/t/ changes to /p/ before /m/, /b/ or /p/ (labialization):

mixed bag
best man
/d/ changes to /b/ before /m/, /b/ or /p/ (labialization):
bad pain
good cook
/n/ changes to /m/ before /m/, /b/ or /p/ (nasalization):
Common Market
open prison
/t/ changes to /k/ before /k/ or /g/ (velarization):
short cut
credit card
/d/ changes to /g/ before /k/ or /g/ (glottalization):
bad girl
hard cash
/s/ changes to /f/ before /f/ or /j/ (palatalization):
nice yacht
dress shop
/z/ changes to /b/ before /f/ or /j/ (palatalization):
cheese shop
where’s yours?
/ / changes to /s/ before /s/ (palatalization):
bath salts
earth science
Source: Rost (2011).

(It is well-known that without sufficient context, even native listeners

experience frequent mishearings.) By providing contextualized audio, in
the form of a story, exposition, song, etc., the learner has the opportunity
to use contextual cues to make inferences to support aural perception
(Field, 2003; Hulstijn, 2003; Carreira, Chapter 17). It has also been found
that learners benefit from multiple exposures to the same input, multi-
channel exposures (audio and text), and spaced repetitions (encountering
the same speech phenomena at regular intervals over a period of weeks)
(Son, 2004; Xue et al., 2011).
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of bottom-up
fluency include:
• Shadowing: Learners are taught different forms of shadowing (full

shadowing, key word shadowing, last word shadowing, paraphrase
shadowing, silent/subvocal shadowing), and practice either as a
group or in pairs as the speaker (or teacher) narrates a short mono-
logue (Murphey, 2000; Tomlinson, 2003).
• Text monitoring: Students are given a transcript of an oral text; they
read along with audio and mark: stress, pauses, target sounds. Or the
transcript has some wrong words, based on confusable sounds, and
the students try to identify them (Al-jasser, 2008; Wilson, 2003).
• Partial dictation: An extended extract (e.g. with songs) is given with
a transcript that has some words and phrases gapped out. Students
fill in the missing parts containing lexical or syntactic items to focus
on, or on ‘problem’ sound combinations. Variation: Students can do
predictive work (filling in the gaps before listening) first, then listen
to check their answers (Davies & Rinvolucri, 1989; Nation & Newton,
2009; Carreira, Chapter 17).
Frame 3: interactive fluency
The third aspect of fluency involves the interactive nature of commu-

nication and the cooperative nature of language learning. Interactive
fluency refers not only to the act of the listener in collaborating with
a speaker, but also to the role of the listener in promoting a higher
quality of input (Antaki, 2008; Bremer et al., 1996; Heritage & Watson,
1979). The goals of developing interactive fluency are creating an active
mind-set in the listener, promoting inquisitiveness, and increasing the
motivation to understand. A listener who is interactively fluent gener-
ally wants to take an active part in developing a conversation.
Two key strands of research in applied linguistics inform this aspect
of fluent listening.
Teaching active listening strategies improves

interactive fluency
The central tenet of the ‘Active Learner Hypothesis’ (Gardner et al., 1985)
is that active learners create more opportunities to learn and therefore learn
more efficiently. This principle can easily be extended to listening, as
we know from studies of successful learners that active listening behavior
leads to better comprehension and therefore to higher-quality interaction
(Fujimoto, 2009; Oxford, 2011; Philp et al., 2014; Vandergrift & Goh,
2012). What does it mean to be ‘an active listener’? Even though active
listening is essentially an attitude of openness, empathy, and encour-
agement on the part of the listener, there are specific sub-skills (such as
leaning toward and ‘pacing’ the speaker, nodding, paraphrasing, and
summarizing), cognitive strategies (such as identifying the gist of what the
speaker has just said), and social strategies (such as asking for clarifica-
tion) that can be isolated, taught, practiced, and assessed (Macaro, 2003;
Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).
Active listening, when taught as demonstrable skills and strategies,
can benefit L2 learners by arming them with ways of dealing with
conversations that might otherwise be ‘over their heads’. In addition,
learning active listening strategies, even to a modest degree, can pro-
vide a motivational boost to L2 learners, an incentive to become more
affectively involved in learning English. As researchers on L2 motiva-
tion have frequently noted, affective involvement of the learner during
an interaction is a key determinant of the quality of understanding he or
she experiences (Robbins, 1996; Rost, 2011; Sampasivam & Clement,
2014; Ushioda, 2011). Listeners with greater involvement tend to be
more inclined to participate, to be open, to feel more confident in their
abilities, to reveal more of themselves, and thus have a more a more
valuable learning experience (Aniero, 1990; Sawyer et al., 2014; Yang,
1993). On the other hand, listeners who perceive themselves as not able
to participate, also tend to feel discounted or marginalized, and begin
to adopt an habitual low action orientation. Low action leads to greater
perceived social distance with speakers of the L2, which reduces motiva-
tion to interact, creating a downward spiral of demotivation (Ford et al.,
2000; Villaume & Bodie, 2007).
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of interactive
fluency include:
• Speaking circles: Learners work in small groups and take turns being
the designated speaker for a fixed period of time. As preparation, learn-
ers may write key words in response to a personal question. When it is
a person’s turn to speak, the other partners must ask questions about
the key words (Rost & Wilson, 2013).
• Interactive stories: Narrating a story with clear plot lines and
unknown to the listeners, a story teller (usually the teacher) pauses at
fixed intervals to elicit questions, answers questions, then continues.
(Stenson, 2003).
• Cloud discussions: Using online resources, such as VoiceThread,
to allow for interactive discussions, with student contributions
recorded; teacher poses a question or posts an image or short reading
for student responses (Alameen, 2011; Rost & Wilson, 2013).
Promoting listener-initiated negotiation leads to greater

listening fluency
The second line of research explores the contention that input alone
is not sufficient for L2 acquisition. In this framework, not only does
a learner need to be exposed to large amounts of listening input, the
learner must also acquire ways to make unclear parts of the input compre-
hensible. The listener does this by interacting with speakers to ‘tune’ the
input to an appropriate level. During these ‘negotiations for meaning’,
the speaker will then adjust for content (narrow the topic or use more
here-and-now orientation), for vocabulary (use synonyms, paraphrases),
for syntax (paraphrase complex parts with simpler structures), or for
phonology (repeat a phrase more slowly). Learning how to tune input
requires the use of listening strategies that will make the ideas in the
interaction more meaningful (Gass & Mackey, 2006; Pica, 2005). As
such, instruction oriented toward interactive fluency needs to promote
the use of clarification checks, comprehension checks, and collaborative
strategies for building meaning (Fujii & Mackey, 2009).
Activity types that are consistent with this principle of interactive
fluency include:
• Information gap: Students are given complementary pieces of an

information puzzle. In pairs, students work together to solve a
problem or complete a puzzle. For example, one student describes
a picture to their partner, who cannot see it; the listening student
asks for clarification to try to draw a comparable picture. Tasks can
be scaffolded to become more complex (Aronson & Patone, 2011;
Robinson, 2005; Yeldham & Gruba, 2014).
• Expert: Students work in pairs to share a skill they are expert in. To
begin, students write down five things that they are an expert in.
(Teacher can do a starter list as an example; skills can be as simple
as ‘weeding the garden’ or ‘making curry’.) After students have

written their lists, they circle the three that they think will be most
interesting to the other students in the class. Students then work in
pairs, with the listener student asking as many questions as possible
about the skills. After several minutes, students change partners and
continue. Task demands (time limits, numbers of questions) can be
increased to make the activity more challenging (Folse, 2003).
• Pair reconstruction: In pairs, students listen to (or read) separate
input about a topic or the same input on a complex topic, then
come together to share information and build a precise summary of
a story, news item or exposition. Texts can be made more complex to
increase task demands (Swain, 1999; Wajnryb, 1990).
Conclusion: integrating the three frames
This chapter has presented an introductory model for developing flu-

ency in listening within an EFL context. The model uses three ‘frames’—
top-down, bottom-up, and interactive—to represent key areas in which
listening fluency can be improved. For each frame, two areas of support-
ing research were outlined and three prototype learning activities have
been presented.
The frames are intended to be complementary: all three areas of devel-
opment are necessary for instruction in listening fluency. The types
of activities and the relative concentration and proportion of each a
teacher selects will vary by the teaching context. All contexts will differ
in terms of ages and learning styles of students, as well as situational
constraints and curricular expectations. The key to adapting a listening
fluency approach is in focusing on the underlying principles of each
‘frame’ and including all three types of fluency training.
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17
How Can We Enhance EFL
Learners’ Listening Fluency?
Teaching Connected Speech
to Japanese University Students
Using Songs
Junko Matsuzaki Carreira
Listening is a basic skill in language learning. Without listening skills,

learners will not learn to communicate effectively. However, the impor-
tance of listening in language learning has only been recognized rela-
tively recently (Celce-Murcia, 2001). In English as a foreign language
(EFL) classes, teachers usually speak standard, clear, comprehensible
English to get the message across to their students. Therefore, EFL
learners are often shocked to find, when they enter a context in which
native speakers are talking to each other or they listen to authentic
materials such as movies and songs, that they have considerable diffi-
culty in understanding what they hear (Brown, 1990). One of the main
reasons for this difficulty is connected speech. Connected speech can be
defined as ‘spoken language when analyzed as a continuous sequence,
as in normal utterances and conversations’ (Crystal, 1980, p. 81). This is
particularly true for EFL learners whose native language often does not
have strong and weak stress patterns (Norris, 1994):
Foreign students of English should not be expected to bring the same

strategies as native speakers do to any listening event. Without an
adequate grasp of how to decode a stream of sound into segments of
words, phrases, and sentences, it is impossible for learners to bring into
play such strategies as inferring, predicting, and using knowledge of the
topic, speakers, and context to understand a speaker’s message. (p. 77)
Brumfit (1984) states that fluency means, ‘to be regarded as natural

language use’ (p. 56). Nation (Chapter 1) states that ‘the essence to
297
designing new fluency activities is to make sure that the conditions of

a message focus, easy material, pressure to go faster, and quantity of
practice are designed into the activities’.
Listening fluency can be defined as the ability to recognize and
understand words and phrases quickly when hearing them. There have
been several studies focused on listening fluency. For example, Tsai
(Chapter 18) examines whether or not listening fluency is improved by
an autonomous listening program as pre-listening scaffolding (also see
Rost, Chapter 16). Nation and Newton (2009) propose three techniques
for developing listening fluency:
1. Focusing on techniques involving meaning-focused activities. They

involve listening to interesting stories, puzzles, quiz activities, and
activities with clear communication outcomes.
2. Using activities that place very limited demands on the learn-
ers, meaning that they focus heavily on language items, topics,
and experience with which the learners are already familiar. This
familiarity may come from having met or produced the material
themselves in a different medium or through drawing on knowledge
gained through the first language. The demands of the task may also
be limited through the use of controlled input and through the use
of supporting material, such as the use of pictures and written texts
to support the listening input.
3. Encouraging learners to reach a high level of performance through
the use of meaning-focused repetition, increasing speed of input,
and the opportunity for prediction and the use of previous back-
ground knowledge.
In order to enhance listening fluency, learners need top-down skills,

referring to ‘using background knowledge or previous knowledge of the
situation, context, and topic to interpret meaning’ (Norris, 1995, p. 47),
and bottom-up skills, referring to ‘decoding the sounds of a language
into words, clauses, sentences, and using one’s knowledge of grammati-
cal or syntactic rules to interpret meaning’ (Norris, 1995, p. 47; also see
Rost, Chapter 16). However, without the ability to distinguish word
boundaries in informal speech, EFL learners cannot possibly use context
and top-down strategies to comprehend what they hear, as ‘teachers
are asking a lot from their students, particularly lower-level students,
when top-down listening tasks are given without first assessing the
students’ ability to do bottom-up processing’ (Norris, 1995, p. 46).
When learners listen to informal natural speech, they may simply not
Teaching Connected Speech to Japanese Students Using Songs 299
recognize familiar vocabulary, or they may miss its existence entirely

(Ur, 1984). Learners with high-level English proficiency can infer the
meaning from the context even if they cannot catch some parts of con-
nected speech. However, most Japanese university students cannot be
expected to use the ability to infer meaning and predict what language
will be used based on familiarity with cultural contexts (Norris, 1993).
According to Field (2008),
Focusing on decoding skills rather than general comprehension is

probably the most effective means of improving a novice listener’s
performance. This is not on the grounds that decoding is in some
way ‘simpler’ than extracting information from a recording, but on
the grounds that efficiency in the fundamental process of matching
strings of phonemes to words and phrases allows the listeners greater
opportunity to focus on wider issues of meaning. (p. 140)
Therefore, EFL learners, in particular low-level learners, need to be

guided to recognize connected speech rapidly and accurately enough
to make intelligent guesses about the content of what they hear (see
also Rost, Chapter 16). In order to address this challenge of connected
speech, songs have frequently been used by teachers to help learners
acquire a foreign or second language (L2). Learners can be more atten-
tive and receptive to learning in L2 classes using songs, and their inhi-
bitions about acquiring an L2 can be lessened (Medina, 2002). Thus,
this study approached connected speech using songs with low-level EFL
learners, and investigated whether the instruction of connected speech
using songs would improve their listening fluency.
Connected speech
Connected speech includes contraction, elision, assimilation, reduc-

tion, and resyllabification. Contraction (e.g. I’ve, they’ll, we’re) refers to
‘a way of showing the reduced characteristics of spoken language in
written language’ (Brown & Brown, 2006, p. 4). Elision (e.g. in last night
the /t/ of ‘last’ is deleted) refers to ‘a process of elimination or drop-
ping of phonemes (vowels or consonants) that would be present in the
citation of a word or phrase’ (Brown & Brown, 2006, p. 3), and most
commonly occurs with /t/ and /d/ at the end of words (Field, 2008).
Assimilation (e.g. in don’t you the /t/ /j/ becomes /t∫u/) refers to ‘a pro-
cess whereby one phenomenon is changed into another because of the
influence of nearby phenomena’ (Brown & Brown, 2006, p. 4). Reduction
(e.g. vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced to schwa / /: could → /k d/)

e e
refers to ‘a process that occurs in connected speech, in which phonemes
of the language are changed, minimized or eliminated in order to facili-
tate pronunciation’ (Brown & Brown, 2006, p. 3). Resyllabification (e.g.
went in → /when tin/) refers to ‘transferring a consonant from the previ-
ous syllable’ (Field, 2008, p. 144).
Teaching connected speech
Brown and Brown (2006) suggest these principles for teaching con-
nected speech:
1. Connected speech is a very real part of language.

2. Students need to learn more than the traditional grammar, vocabu-
lary, and pronunciation that many language teachers present; con-
nected speech is an important subset of the new information they
need to learn.
3. Students need to be able to adjust their styles and registers in using
language; the ability to understand and use connected speech is
essential for making such adjustments.
4. Connected speech is not just lazy, sloppy, careless or slovenly lan-
guage; rather, it occurs in all levels of speech, including the most
formal manners of speaking.
Next we will turn to some different studies that have explored the effec-
tiveness of teaching connected speech, including studies by Brown and
Hilferty (1986), Brown and Hilferty (2006), Carreira (2008), Ito (2006a),
Matsuzawa (2006), Norris (1995), and Rosa (2002). Norris (1995) con-
ducted a study on Japanese students’ awareness of connected speech to
find out whether teaching connected speech would positively impact
listening comprehension, with dictation and cloze exercises used as
the main activities. At the end of this two-year study he found that
students’ listening comprehension had improved. Brown and Hilferty
revealed that teaching connected speech helped listening comprehen-
sion among EFL students in the People’s Republic of China. Matsuzawa
(2006) investigated the effect of explicit instruction of connected speech
among Japanese business people, finding that explicit instruction in
recognizing and understanding connected speech improved listening
comprehension. According to Matsuzawa, a flap, or ‘a single rapid con-
tact of the tongue tip with the roof of the mouth at the end of which
the tongue tip returns to a position of rest, resembling a very brief and
quick articulation of a stop’ (Demirezen, 2006, p. 88), was the most

difficult for the participants to understand. Weak forms of function
words and contraction showed little improvement, and still remained
problematic even after the instruction of connected speech. Ito (2006a)
investigated the influence of connected speech on the input–intake
process, revealing that listening comprehension is influenced by the
presence of connected speech, the type of connected speech, and
student language proficiency, concluding that connected speech may
hinder listening comprehension. Rosa (2002) carried out a study of L2
teachers’ attitudes toward connected speech teaching in Oahu, Hawaii
and, in terms of teacher familiarity with connected speech, came to the
conclusion that teachers consider teaching connected speech helpful
in improving listening comprehension despite spending little time on
teaching connected speech; 42% of the participating teachers stated
that their limited focus on connected speech instruction resulted from
a lack of time and materials. Carreira (2008) investigated the influ-
ence of teaching connected speech in English classes of non-Japanese
students taking an English preparatory course in Japan, demonstrat-
ing that (a) teaching connected speech did not improve the scores of
TOEIC Listening Sections, (b) teaching connected speech significantly
improved the ability to recognize words when listening, and (c) the
participating students, in particular students with low-level English pro-
ficiency (below TOEIC 300), enjoyed learning connected speech using
pop songs; however, students with high-level English proficiency (over
TOEIC 800) were not satisfied with the lessons.
Teaching English using songs
Several studies discussed why songs in English classes are effective. First,
the Affective Filter Hypothesis is one of five proposed hypotheses devel-
oped by Krashen (1982). Krashen explains that optimal learning occurs
when the affective filter is low. Songs are one of the methods for achiev-
ing a low affective filter, and developing a non-threatening classroom
atmosphere in which the four language skills can be enhanced (Lo & Li,
1998). ‘Song activities can become a useful tool to help students break the
inhibitions or psychological barriers they are experiencing’ (Laskowski,
1995, p. 55). Therefore, students can learn English in a relaxed atmosphere
in English lessons using songs. Second, Nation and Newton (2009) stated
that meaning-focused repetitive activities may develop listening fluency.
In songs, the patterns of sound and stress are sometimes repeated in regu-
lar sequences, which may enhance listening fluency (Laskowski, 1995).
Purpose of the study
As seen above, Carreira (2008) investigated the effectiveness of teach-

ing connected speech using a sample of students with mixed English
proficiencies, revealing that students with low-level English proficiency
enjoyed learning connected speech more than students with high-level
English. According to Field (2008), focusing on decoding skills is effec-
tive in improving a novice listener’s performance. Teaching connected
speech might be more effective for low-level EFL learners than for high-
level EFL learners. Furthermore, introducing songs into EFL classes can
make learners more attentive and receptive to learning (Medina, 2002).
Thus, this study investigates the effect of teaching connected speech
using songs with low-level EFL learners, discusses results, and suggests
some implications for English learning. The following research ques-
tions are addressed:
1. Does teaching connected speech using songs result in improving the

low-level EFL learners’ dictation test scores?
2. Does teaching connected speech using songs result in improving the
low-level EFL learners’ listening test scores?
Methods
Participants
The participants in this study were 35 freshmen majoring in early child-
hood education at a private college in Japan. The class was a required
course. There were 15 males and 20 females. Their ages ranged from
18 to 19 years old. The participating students’ English levels were low
(TOEIC 200–400).
Lessons
All participants received instruction on connected speech in listening.
The course met once a week for 90 minutes (15 lessons) from October
2009 through January 2010. The textbook Smash Hit Listening: Revised
Edition (Kumai & Timson, 2009) was used. It includes enjoyable, catchy
pop songs sung by famous international artists and demonstrates
connected speech throughout. The book is organized into 12 lessons.
Instruction consisted of teaching connected speech by means of lis-
tening and dictating songs. The teaching content included the con-
nected speech items: contractions, assimilations, elisions, reductions,
and resyllabifications. In each chapter the book first explains an idea
related to connected speech and then provides dictation exercises for

words, conversation, and songs.
Procedures
1. At the beginning of each class, I introduced from one to four new
patterns of connected speech. The students listened to the pronun-
ciation unconnected and then connected using a relaxed pronun-
ciation for each pattern. The students listened to eight sentences
containing examples of the connected speech form being studied.
Each sentence was played twice and the students repeated them.
2. The students listened to a tongue-twister several times and repeated it.
3. The students listened to the CD and filled in the full forms of
connected speech they heard. I played the tape three times: once
straight through, once stopping after each line to allow time to write,
and once more straight through to allow the students to confirm
answers.
4. The students listened to a dictation of the song with a few words
including connected speech missing (see Appendix A). I played the
song straight through once while the students listened without writ-
ing anything. Then I played the CD once more, stopping after each
line to allow the students time to write. Finally, I played the CD a
third time straight through.
Data collection and analysis
Dictation tests and EIKEN Grade Pre-2 listening sections were given
before and after the entire course. For research question one, the dic-
tation test scores before and after the entire course were compared
using paired t-tests. The reliability of the dictation tests was calculated
using Cronbach alpha. The value of Cronbach alpha was .90 and .88
for the pre-test and post-test, respectively. For research question two,
the scores of EIKEN Grade Pre-2 listening sections before and after the
instruction were compared using paired t-tests. In January 2010, near
the end of the course, a questionnaire of closed and open-ended ques-
tions in Japanese was administered. Each of the closed statements used
a four-point Likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to four (strongly
agree), assessing various student attitudes toward the lessons. The
students were told that all information was confidential. In order to
clarify student reactions toward the lessons, the four-point scales were
converted into two-point scales (agree or disagree) and chi-square tests
were conducted.
Results
Results of the paired t-tests for the scores on the dictation tests before
and after the instruction revealed that there were significant differences
between them, t (23) 2.82, p .05. The maximum and minimum pos-
sible scores are 22 and 0, respectively. The scores of the post-dictation
test were significantly higher than those of the pre-dictation test (see
Table 17.1).
Table 17.2 shows the connected speech comprehension results. The
pre-dictation test showed that ten reduced-form patterns out of 22 had
less than 20% comprehension. All the patterns of formulaic chunks
(three out of three) and flap (two out of two) had less than 20% compre-
hension. Formulaic chunks and flap were apparently the most difficult
for the participants to understand. Resyllabification and contraction also
seemed to be difficult for the participating students, as two out of three
and three out of four had less than 20% comprehension, respectively.
On the other hand, the post-dictation test showed that six reduced-
form patterns out of 22 had less than 20% comprehension. Resyllabi-
fication and contraction showed little improvement and still remained
problematic. For elision, formulaic chunks and flap, most improved in
comparison with the pre-dictation test.
Results of paired t-tests for the scores of EIKEN Grade Pre-2 before
and after the instruction revealed that there were significant differences
between them, t (23) 4.45, p < .01. The maximum and minimum pos-
sible scores are 20 and 0, respectively. The scores from the end of the
course on the EIKEN Grade Pre-2 exam were significantly higher than
those from the beginning of the course (see Table 17.2).
Regarding student attitudes toward the lessons, the chi-square tests
revealed that most students agreed with items 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 (see
Table 17.3).
Table 17.1 Differences between pre- and post-scores on dictation tests and
EIKEN Grade Pre-2 listening sections
Pre- Post-
M SD M SD t
Dictation tests 6.54 4.83 8.38 4.81 2.82*

EIKEN Grade Pre-2 listening 7.15 3.95 11.96 4.48 4.45**
*
p .05, **p .01.
305
Table 17.2 Connected speech comprehension results
Pre-dictation test Post-dictation test Category

comprehension (%) comprehension (%)
(n 32) (n 27)
Would you 53.1 88.9 Assimilation

Lend you 28.1 37.0 Assimilation
What you 34.4 25.9 Assimilation
Gonna miss 9.4 40.7 Formulaic chunks
Gotta be 3.1 22.2 Formulaic chunks
Wanna do 6.3 22.2 Formulaic chunks
Best 87.5 85.2 Elision
Hard 21.9 44.4 Elision
Part time 56.3 77.8 Elision
Seat belt 43.8 55.6 Elision
Look tired 37.5 70.4 Elision
Can I 96.9 100.0 Resyllabification
None of 9.4 7.4 Resyllabification
Make yourself 15.6 14.8 Resyllabification
You’ve got 3.1 11.1 Contraction
That’s 40.6 18.5 Contraction
There’s 3.1 33.3 Contraction
They’re 6.3 7.4 Contraction
Pick her 0 14.8 Weak forms
Make it 50.0 40.7 Weak forms
Better watch 15.6 29.6 Flap
Put off 18.8 29.6 Flap
Table 17.3 Results of chi-square of impressions toward the lessons
Agree Disagree 2
1. I enjoyed listening to songs. 24 3 16.33**

2. Listening to songs was useful to me. 22 4 12.46**
3. The exercise of listening to songs gave 16 11 0.93
me confidence.
4. I was satisfied with listening to songs. 21 6 8.33**
5. I enjoyed learning connected speech. 21 6 8.33**
6. Learning connected speech was useful 22 4 12.46**
to me.
7. Learning connected speech gave me 14 12 0.15
confidence.
8. I was satisfied with learning connected 14 11 0.36
speech.
*p .05, **p .01

The open-ended section of the questionnaire asked respondents to

write their impressions of the lessons. Selected student comments on
the lessons are as follows:
I enjoyed the lessons, which were not difficult. I looked forward to every
lesson and was not nervous in the lessons.
I felt that understanding spoken English was a little difficult, but I started
to understand more.
I was very happy to have the lessons where music was introduced.
I was able to have the lessons without feeling nervous because the textbook
included popular and familiar pop songs by such artists as the Carpenters.
I was poor at listening, but I have started to become better at listening.
I began to watch movies in English at home because I wanted to enhance
my English abilities more.
Learning connected speech helps me feel better about English.
Learning English using music holds my attention much better than any
other types of listening that I have done and I started to study English
at home.
I’m impressed, and I think learning connected speech is great for learning
natural speech.
Discussion
Regarding the research question one, whether teaching connected

speech using songs results in improving learner dictation test scores, the
results of the paired t-tests for the dictation tests show that 15 weeks of
connected speech lessons significantly improved performance on con-
nected speech dictations. That is, with connected speech instruction,
students improved their ability to recognize words when listening, con-
firming findings from Brown and Hilferty (2006), Carreira (2008), and
Matsuzawa (2006), all three of whom demonstrated similar improve-
ments through teaching connected speech.
As shown in Table 17.2, some forms of connected speech recognition
improved after the instruction, but others did not. For example, regard-
ing flap, some participants in the present study, as well as Matsuzawa
(2006), correctly understood flap after connected speech instruction.
For elision and formulaic chunks, most students improved, so teaching
flap, elision, and formulaic chunks seems to be effective for low-level EFL
learners. On the other hand, roughly consistent with results reported
by Matsuzawa (2006), this study showed that contraction showed little
improvement and still remained problematic. Resyllabification was also
little improved after instruction. From a teaching perspective, contraction

and resyllabification may deserve special attention when we teaching
connected speech to low-level EFL learners.
Furthermore, some types of connected speech had high comprehen-
sion among participants while another in the same connected speech
category had low comprehension. For example, regarding assimilation
in the post-dictation test, would you was answered correctly by 88.9% of
the participating students, but what you was only 25.9% correct. Thus it
would be worthwhile to categorize connected speech by phonetic pat-
terns in more detail to see which phonetic patterns are more difficult to
understand for low-level EFL learners. The availability of such informa-
tion would help teachers to teach connected speech to low-level EFL
learners more effectively.
Regarding research question two, whether teaching connected speech
using songs results in improvements in listening test scores, contrary
to Brown and Hilferty (2006), and Carreira (2008), teaching connected
speech significantly improved overall listening ability scores. Several
reasons can be considered for why scores improved.
Firstly, according to Nation and Newton (2009), in order to develop
listening fluency, we should incorporate meaning-focused repetitive
activities (see also Nation, Chapter 2; Rost, Chapter 16). From the point
of view of listening fluency, activities using songs incorporate these
important features. Songs involve repetitive phrases and some messages
that students might be interested in. Furthermore, songs can develop
a non-threatening classroom atmosphere in which the four language
skills can be enhanced (Lo & Li, 1998), so learners can relax by engaging
in an enjoyable experience. Also, according to the questionnaire, most
students were satisfied with and enjoyed the lessons, consistent with
previous studies (Katanoda, 2005; Soda, 1994). Such enjoyment and
satisfaction might enhance motivation for learning English, leading to
improvements in listening fluency.
Secondly, as seen in the open-ended questionnaire, one student stated,
Learning connected speech helps me feel better about English, and another
said, I was poor at listening, but I have started to become better at listening. It
seems that some students gradually became accustomed to natural con-
versation and came to understand some parts of natural English through
learning connected speech. Furthermore, one student said, Learning
English using music holds my attention much better than any other types of
listening that I have done and I started to study English at home, and another
said, I began to watch movies in English at home because I wanted to enhance
my English abilities more. That is, the students began to understand some
parts of natural English and to learn English intensively and pleasurably

outside class, potentially leading to enhanced listening fluency.
Finally, the questionnaire revealed that a majority of students reported
that learning connected speech using songs was useful for them. Also,
several students reported that learning connected speech helped them
build their confidence as they realized that they could understand real
conversational English, although the results of the chi-square tests did
not reveal that learning connected speech using songs gave them con-
fidence. It did seem to help make English input more comprehensible,
which might lead to improved confidence and listening fluency in the
long run.
In sum, the results indicate that the learners found studying connected
speech using songs interesting and helpful in improving listening com-
prehension. One of our responsibilities as teachers is to be aware of the
existence of connected speech and the problems it causes learners (Norris,
1995). It is unfair to expect learners to comprehend listening materi-
als without directing their attention to connected speech (Ito, 2006b).
Teachers must be aware of connected speech and the possible problems
students may face if not made aware of it (Coskun, 2008). We should help
learners recognize connected speech and offer practice to help them grow
accustomed to recognizing connected speech when it occurs, particularly
for low-level EFL learners. Furthermore, songs are effective in enhancing
learners’ motivation and creating a relaxed and enjoyable class atmos-
phere. I can suggest teachers use authentic materials such as songs in
teaching connected speech (see also Rost, Chapter 16).
Conclusions
This study demonstrates that the teaching of connected speech with

repeated listening to songs led to measurable improvements in stu-
dents’ listening fluency and performance on listening tests, revealing
important issues concerning teaching connected speech, but there are
several limitations to the present research. First, as this study included a
small number of participants, the results cannot be generalized to other
situations, so teachers are encouraged to investigate for themselves
whether similar methods will work in their contexts. Second, as it was
difficult to secure a control group because of the school curriculum, it
is impossible to conclude that the methods described here are superior
to other alternative teaching methods, so follow-on research should
include control and experimental groups to clarify the influence teach-
ing connected speech has on student listening performance.
Despite its limitations, this study reveals some of the potential benefits
of teaching connected speech to low-level EFL learners. This study has
shown that the low-level EFL learners made significant listening com-
prehension gains after the instruction of connected speech using songs.
Raising student awareness of connected speech is the first step toward
helping EFL learners understand the language they hear, and appears to
improve listening ability.
Appendix A Pre- and post- dictation tests

(Kumai & Timson, 2009, p. 12)
1. I don’t get you. ( ) please speak more slowly.
2. I’ll ( ) some money in case you need it.
3. You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t believe ( ) said.
4. I’m ( ) you a lot.
5. Well, I’m out of here. I’ve ( ) somewhere at 11:00.
6. What do you ( ) tonight?
7. Do your ( ), but don’t work too ( ).
8. She’s working ( ) as a model.
9. We’re landing soon. Please fasten your ( ).
10. You ( ). Why don’t we take a break?
11. Peter’s on another line. ( ) take a message?
12. Leave me alone! It’s ( ) your business.
13. Come on in and ( ) at home.
14. I’m afraid ( ) the wrong number.
15. ( ) quite all right. ( ) nothing to worry about.
16. I think ( ) the ones who broke the window.
17. I’m going to ( ) up at 7:00.
18. If we run, we can ( ) to the bus stop on time.
19. Be careful! You’d ( ) out.
20. Don’t ( ) the work till tomorrow.
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Press.
18
Does Autonomous Listening
Increase Fluency?
Ya-Chin Tsai
Introduction
Though listening skills are important to language acquisition (Nord,

1981; Rost, 2002; Vandergrift, 2007), issues related to EFL listening flu-
ency have not yet been adequately explored. This study investigates
how EFL tertiary learners develop their listening fluency. The chapter
begins by describing current models of language processing and how
those inform research into issues of listening comprehension, then
moves on to address current research into listening fluency and its
shortcomings, which this study intends to address. This is followed by a
description of the research methods used for this study. Finally, implica-
tions for pedagogy and future research will be addressed.
Listening fluency or listening comprehension
In contemporary studies on second language acquisition, listening flu-

ency is of great concern in the EFL/ESL field (Dunkel, 1986; Helgesen &
Brown, 2007; Carreira, Chapter 17; Rost, Chapter 16). Conceptually, the
notion of listening fluency is not simply hearing sounds, but also being
capable of cognitively processing what was said quickly, effortlessly, and
accurately (Brumfit, 1985; Nation, Chapter 1; Rost, Chapter 16). As a
general consensus, listening fluency is congruent with the degree of auto-
maticity in processing information (Segalowitz, 2003), while the notion
of listening comprehension refers to how much is understood. Listening
fluency is not isomorphic with listening comprehension; however, the
two constructs are closely related. One line of instructional research thus
indirectly touches upon the construct of listening fluency by exploring
how much spoken language is comprehended (Vandergrift, 2004, 2007).
312
Does Autonomous Listening Increase Fluency? 313
In spite of the vital role that listening plays in comprehension-based

approaches to language acquisition (Clark & Starr, 1986; Krashen,
1982), it is not uncommon for learners who have studied English as a
foreign language for quite a few years to still struggle to cope with lis-
tening (Chen, 2005). Listening fluently poses a serious challenge to EFL
learners in that they have yet to learn to process spoken language in a
timely manner. Contemporary listening research has almost exclusively
centered on immediate achievements after a single-shot treatment
rather than progress in proficiency as a result of repeated, long-term
treatments. To compensate for this inherent deficiency in the research
methods of previous research, an investigation is needed of the extent
to which EFL learners engage themselves in pedagogical practice that
helps them to utilize mental resources fast enough to listen fluently.
This study represents such an exploration, investigating how EFL learn-
ers learn to be fluent listeners, i.e. learners who understand what was
said to them with little difficulty as a specific situation requires.
Listening: from cognitive and social perspectives

From the cognitive perspective, the three-stage model proposed by
Anderson (1995) is frequently drawn on to illustrate how an utterance
is processed in cognition. In stage one, perceptual processing, mental
resources are operated by listeners to segment discrete sounds from
a speech stream—spoken language is received by the ears and tem-
porarily retained in short-term memory (Segalowitz, 2010). In stage
two, parsing, the segments are transformed into cognition to generate
mental representations in order to make sense of what was just heard
(Segalowitz, 2010). In stage three, utilization, interpretations are gener-
ated in preparation for making meaningful responses, or the listener
searches for schema in the long-term memory to interpret or respond
to the interlocutor (Segalowitz, 2010). The three stages are reported to
take place recursively and concurrently in an overlapping fashion. In
the field of listening research, Anderson’s (1995) model has been drawn
on as a theoretical foundation to illustrate the mental processing that
occurs in a listener’s mind.
Besides accounting for mental processing, Anderson’s (1995) three-
stage model serves to illuminate the difficulties arising from process-
ing aural input in cognition. The listening difficulties EFL learners
encounter are attributed to a number of factors in the three processing
stages, such as limited mental capacities, a lack of background knowl-
edge, heavy demands in processing input rapidly, failure to recognize
or understand words that are already known, lack of familiarity with
phonological features or unknown vocabulary (Chen, 2005; Chiang

& Dunkel, 1992; Goh, 2000; Underwood, 1989). Less proficient EFL
learners usually have problems with perceptual processing immediately
upon hearing spoken language. To some degree, listening fluency is
contingent upon how much vocabulary in the spoken language listen-
ers are able to immediately comprehend or are familiar with. Sometimes
speech runs so fast that listeners are unable to recognize what was just
heard, though they are able to identify the same words by sight (Field,
2001). Unlike the reading process, there is no chance for listeners to go
back and search to solve an immediate problem or stop to ponder. If
they do pause to contemplate form or meaning during real-time activi-
ties, they will be unable to catch up with the subsequent utterances, and
will soon get lost.
In addition to cognitive processing factors, learners’ difficulties also
arise from factors external to cognition such as the nature of input,
contexts or listener characteristics (Chen & Cheng, 2007). For instance,
the conventional method to present a listening comprehension test in a
classroom setting is to play the audio file once or twice at most, which
is reported to be of little help in increasing listening comprehension
(Vogely, 1998). For less proficient learners, speech stream simply goes in
one ear and out the other. Their feelings of frustration occur especially
when they are required to listen to a series of utterances and simultane-
ously respond to any listening comprehension questions. To develop
EFL learners’ ability to listen fluently, it is essential to maximize their
auditory perception by empowering them to make the best use of their
knowledge and skills (Littlewood, 1996).
Pre-listening scaffolding
Despite the role that listening plays in language acquisition, inquir-
ies into listening in relation to foreign language acquisition have not
drawn much attention until recently (Chen & Tsai, 2012; Nation &
Newton, 2008). Research interest in helping listeners with orchestration
of multiple processing has increased because it is considered helpful to
provide listeners with enough support to alleviate cognitive process-
ing burdens (Vandergrift, 2007). To this end, the impact of different
pre-listening scaffolding methods on listeners’ performance has been
discussed (Bacon, 1989; Liskin-Gasparro & Vequez, 1990).
Preparing listeners for real-time listening by way of reducing cognitive
processing load is reported to enhance listening performance (Chang,
2007), and techniques such as vocabulary preview (Chang, 2007), question
preview (Sherman, 1997), or multiple listenings (Berne, 1995) have been
investigated. Among all types of pre-listening scaffolding, vocabulary

instruction immediately prior to a listening test is reported to build
listener confidence (Vandergrift, 2004), though it may not substantially
assist listeners in comprehending the content (Chang & Read, 2006).
In comparison with vocabulary preview, question preview (a preview of
listening comprehension questions) improves listening comprehension
more effectively (Berne, 1995; Sherman, 1997). However, pre-listening
scaffolding does not increase listening comprehension substantially
unless listeners are exposed to the listening material multiple times
(Elkhafaifi, 2005).
Previous studies on pre-listening scaffolding have some method-
ological deficiencies in common. First, vocabulary or question preview
alone is ineffective. If the difficulty has something to do with the basic
acoustic aspects of the language, the previews that are received by sight
are unlikely to meet the various needs of the individuals. Second, pre-
listening scaffolding hardly helps when listeners are given limited time
to process the information they receive (Chang, 2007). For pre-listening
scaffolding to bring forth positive outcomes, Berne (1995) and Elkhafaifi
(2005) emphasized a necessary condition to make pre-listening scaffold-
ing work; that is, the listening test must be broadcast two or three times
after pre-listening scaffolding. If so, construct validity in Berne (1995)
or Elkhafaifi (2005) is open to question. It is unclear whether positive
results were due to the testing procedure (Sherman, 1997; Wagner,
2007), rather than any pre-listening scaffolding. Third, this line of lis-
tening research measures the effect of the treatment, not learning, and
thus the generalizability of any positive evidence is problematic.
This study addresses the methodological flaws in the current lit-
erature by investigating autonomous listening as a causal agent in the
development of listening fluency. Unlike previous studies putting a
spotlight on the textual aspects of the language, the participants of this
study consistently received aural treatment and learned to decode and
comprehend aural input automatically through multiple treatments
over eight weeks.
Method
Participants
A total of 39 undergraduate students enrolled in a compulsory course,
Freshman English, at a lower-ranked, national university in southern
Taiwan (M 15, F 24) participated in an autonomous listening program
over a period of eight weeks. Before they were admitted to the university,
the participants had received formal EFL instruction for six years on aver-
age. According to their performance in the Freshman English Placement Test
that was administered prior to the course, the participants were grouped
into Class C3—representing the least proficient learners, whose English
proficiency was inferior to Classes A (advanced), B1, B2 (intermediate),
C1, and C2 (low-intermediate) in the College of Education ranking.
Putting it another way, they were the least proficient EFL learners enter-
ing the university. In the classroom they were neither active nor critical
in learning English. With Comprehension Plus Level B (Lapp & Flood, 2002)
as the textbook for Class C3, the main goal of the course was to equip
them with reading competency, with very little emphasis on listening
skills. Therefore, the medium of instruction was Chinese.
Instrument
The instrument consisted of a pre-test (the Freshman English Placement
Test), eight listening tests (for fluency practice), a post-test (as a pro-
ficiency measure), and an open-ended questionnaire for students to
comment on their listening difficulties. Each of these instruments will
be described in turn.
The Freshman English Placement Test consisted of two sections: read-
ing and listening comprehension. It was administered to place fresh-
men into appropriate tracks for learning English as a required course.
The eight listening tests were taken from supplementary materials that
appeared in Studio Classroom, a monthly English magazine published in
Taiwan that aims to support high school and university students’ autono-
mous learning of English. According to the publisher, the magazine is
intended for EFL learners with a vocabulary size of about 3,000 words.
The magazine was not accessible to the participants while this study was
being carried out. Each listening test, containing an answer sheet and an
audio file (Appendix A), was composed of multiple-choice questions to
assess four aspects of listening comprehension: Pictures (four questions),
Best Response (four questions), Short Conversation (three questions), and
Short Talk (two or three questions). Each listening test was about eight
minutes long. While the tests were published at three levels (primary,
intermediate, and advanced) by the publisher, the intermediate level aimed
at university students was used with the participants. Since listening
activities are conventionally conducted as listening tests in EFL class-
rooms (Vandergrift, 2007), the autonomous listening program was put
into practice by means of listening tests.
To avoid fatigue resulting from lengthy testing, the proficiency
test used for post-testing was a shortened listening section of an
intermediate-level General English Proficiency Test (GEPT, 2013;

original version: 30 multiple-choice questions)—a criterion-referenced,
standardized, five-level assessment (Elementary, Intermediate, High-
Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior) developed in Taiwan for EFL
learners at all levels of English proficiency. GEPT’s reliability and valid-
ity have been previously verified (Pan, 2008; Shih, 2008; Weir & Wu,
2006). The items and content for each level were designed on the basis
of specific-level criteria, including a general-level description of the
overall English proficiency expected at that level and specific skill-area
descriptions for the four language skills. According to the statement
on the GEPT website, anyone who passes the intermediate level of the
test ‘can use basic English to communicate about topics in daily life.
His or her English ability is roughly equivalent to that of a high school
graduate in Taiwan’ (GEPT, 2013). The proficiency test used as a post-
test was a parallel version of the weekly listening tests, consisting of
15 multiple-choice questions to assess listening comprehension in the
areas of Pictures (five questions), Best Response (five questions), and
Conversation (five questions). It took the participants about ten min-
utes to complete the post-test.
The open-ended questionnaire contained three questions for the par-
ticipants to report their perceptions of the listening tests, identify their
real-time listening difficulties, and explain how they dealt with listen-
ing difficulties. To avoid any misunderstandings, the following three
questions were presented to the participants in Chinese:
1. Each audio file was ready for you to access on the Moodle platform
a week prior to each weekly listening test. Did listening to the audio
files outside the classroom help you with the listening tests in class?
Please explain your answer.
2. Did teacher-led discussion after the listening tests help you with
listening?
3. What difficulties did you encounter when you listened to the audio
files outside the classroom? How did you deal with them?
The participants were free to respond in Chinese or English.
Procedure
The autonomous listening program was implemented over eight weeks.
A week prior to each weekly listening test, an audio file recorded for the
listening test was uploaded to the Moodle platform for the participants
to freely access in order to autonomously listen in preparation for their
upcoming weekly tests. Upon completion of each listening test in class,

the instructor immediately went through the listening test and led a
discussion to highlight the correct answers. The same procedure was fol-
lowed on a weekly basis, for a total of eight different listening tests. At
the end of the autonomous listening program, the participants took the
post-test and responded to three open-ended questions in the question-
naire. Unlike the weekly tests, the audio file for the post-test was not
uploaded to the Moodle system for autonomous listening.
The participants were categorized into three groups according to the
number of weeks they accessed the audio files, as automatically tracked
in the Moodle system, representing different levels of autonomous
listening:
1. The autonomous (AT) group: Participants who accessed the audio

files to practice listening every week (n9); that is, the average
number of weeks each participant accessed the audio files during the
period was eight. The participants listened to the audio file at least
once (file length—7 minutes 35 seconds), but one participant in this
group repeatedly listened as many as 29 times in one of the eight
weeks (about 230 minutes 55 seconds), representing the maximum
amount of time spent on autonomous listening in this group.
2. The less-autonomous (LA) group: Participants who did not access
the audio files every week (n25). The average number of weeks
each participant accessed the audio files during the period was 3.7.
The Moodle records showed that one participant listened repeatedly
to an audio file ten times (about 77 minutes 30 seconds) during the
eight-week period, representing the maximum amount of time spent
on autonomous listening in this group.
3. The comparison (CP) group: Participants who never accessed the
audio files online (n5); i.e. the average number of weeks each par-
ticipant accessed the files during the period was zero.
The problem inherent in grouping participants according to natural

behavior is understood; the fact that the AT participants naturally lis-
tened more than the LA or CP students could be indicative of greater
motivation to learn or to complete the program successfully, and cer-
tainly influences the results of the study as reported below. However, as
the literature surrounding the amount of pre-listening and its potential
influence on performance is currently scarce, the findings as reported
here are intended to inform future studies, where more careful controls
are placed on participants regarding which experimental groups they are
assigned to. Thus this study is exploring what difference there is, if any,
in comprehension among populations who naturally select how proac-
tive they are in preparing for challenges in English listening. Future
researchers are encouraged to take additional factors into account.
With the small participant sizes, the assumptions of normal distribu-
tion and homogeneous variances could not be tested. The Kruskal-Wallis
Test, a non-parametric one-way ANOVA by mean ranks, was performed
for the pre-test, and the results showed little difference among the
groups (Table 18.1). In brief, the three groups were of approximately the
same proficiency prior to this study.
Results
Weekly performance
Table 18.2 presents the results of the weekly tests. The Kruskal-Wallis
Test was conducted to examine whether the weekly performance of
three groups significantly differed, with significance set to p ≤ .05.
When significant differences were revealed, the Siegel and Castellan
(1989) approach to post hoc comparisons was subsequently carried out.
The results of the Kruskal-Wallis Test are presented in Table 18.2, indi-
cating that significant differences were found in weeks 3, 4, 7, and 8.
The post hoc comparisons were subsequently conducted: the AT group
was found to outperform the CP group in the four weeks and the LA
group in weeks 4, 7, and 8 as well.
The differences among the three groups did not reach a significance
level in weeks 1, 2, 5, and 6. It is possible that autonomous listening
was just introduced to the participants in the first two weeks; therefore,
their unfamiliarity with the activity might explain the lack of signifi-
cant differences. Similar to the results in weeks 1 and 2, the differences
among the three groups in weeks 5 and 6 were not significant. One pos-
sible explanation is that the participants might have been influenced
by the mid-term exam sandwiched between the two weeks. While the
mid-term exam was designated as a course requirement, the participants
Table 18.1 Pre-test performance
Group n Mean rank df X2 p
AT 9 15.93 2 .41 .82

LA 25 18.72
CP 5 17.60
might have made a trade-off between the mid-term exam and autono-
mous listening, which was an extracurricular activity. Except for those
four weeks, engaging in autonomous learning on a weekly basis seemed
to give the students an advantage in self-educating themselves to be
fluent listeners.
The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for each weekly test as
a measure of their internal consistency are also reported in Table 18.2.
These ranged from .5 to .8. It is worth noting that some weekly tests
had lower reliability coefficients. One possible explanation for this
might be that the instruments were not standardized tests. However,
since the weekly tests were designed to measure achievement, not pro-
ficiency, and used as fluency practice, the results of the tests were not
compromised.
As Figure 18.1 illustrates, participant performance seems positively
associated with the frequency of autonomous listening. The LA group
Table 18.2 Kruskal-Wallis Test for weekly tests
Week () Group Mean rank df X2 P Post hoc
1 ( .6) AT 27.71 2 3.44 .18

LA 20.50
CP 16.21
2 ( .6) AT 27.08 2 2.68 .26
LA 20.88
CP 16.29
3 ( .8) AT 26.36 2 8.25 .02* AT CP
LA 19.27
CP 9.33
4 ( .5) AT 33.58 2 10.54 .00* AT LA, AT CP
LA 17.80
CP 16.00
5 ( .5) AT 31.17 2 4.45 .11
LA 19.78
CP 20.36
6 ( .5) AT 28.14 2 4.80 .09
LA 20.77
CP 13.75
7 ( .6) AT 30.67 2 8.70 .01* AT LA, AT CP
LA 17.12
CP 14.80
8 ( .8) AT 33.07 2 15.17 .00* AT LA, AT CP
LA 16.22
CP 13.20
Note: *p .05; The symbol ‘ ’ represents ‘performs significantly better than’.

AT LA CP
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
wk 1 wk 2 wk 3 wk 4 wk 5 wk 6 wk 7 wk 8
Figure 18.1 Weekly performance by mean rank
Table 18.3 Post-test performance
Group n Mean rank df X2 p Post hoc
AT 9 25.14 2 8.02 .02* AT CP, LA CP

LA 25 18.54
CP 5 6.63
Note: * p .05.
was generally better than the CP group (except for week 5), while the
AT group consistently performed better than the LA and CP groups.
Clearly, the AT group improved fastest during the period.
Post-test performance
To examine the relationship between autonomous listening and the
development of listening fluency, the post-test scores among the three
groups were compared. Table 18.3 summarizes the results. As the table
shows, the mean rank of the AT group was the highest, followed by that
of the LA group, and then by that of the CP group. It was apparent that
the group that had listened autonomously the most frequently exhib-
ited the greatest increase in fluency performance. As the Kruskal-Wallis
Test showed, a significant difference was found among the three groups.
The Siegel and Castellan (1989) approach to post hoc comparisons was
thus performed as a follow-up procedure for multiple comparisons. As
the post hoc comparisons demonstrated, both the AT group and the LA
group were found to be significantly better than the CP group. In sum,
as long as the participants engaged in autonomous learning over three
weeks, they made progress relative to the learners who did not listen
autonomously.
Questionnaire responses
Though the participants were encouraged to elaborate as much as pos-
sible, all of their written responses were relatively short and written
in Chinese. Using Vogely (1998) for the coding scheme, the written
responses were coded by the researcher and another coder. The inter-
coder reliability reached .87.
First, participants were asked whether autonomous listening helped
them with the weekly tests. Twenty-five participants (65%) answered
positively, 11 participants (28%) answered negatively, and three partici-
pants (7%) answered ambivalently. In addition to the positive answers,
the respondents reported autonomous listening helped them with
prior-knowledge activation (5%), vocabulary (10%), prediction (15%),
and content comprehension (23%). Those respondents who wrote
negative answers reported they were not interested in English.
Second, the participants were asked whether the teacher-led discus-
sion after each listening test had benefited them. Thirty-six participants
(92%) answered positively, one participant (3%) answered negatively,
and two participants (5%) answered ambivalently. Among the students
who answered that discussion helped, responses showed it helped
them with grammar (2%), comprehension of the questions (4%), con-
tent (6%), vocabulary (41%), and raised their general awareness of the
language (23%). Interestingly, the negative response was attributed to
personal reasons, as the student indicated they ‘disliked English’.
Third, the participants were asked to describe listening difficulties
they encountered and to explain how they resolved them. Listening
difficulties were reported to arise from the following sources: vocabulary
(51%), speech rate (44%), file quality (5%), accent (3%), and personal
factors (13%), such as ‘disliking the foreign culture’, ‘not working hard
enough’, and ‘low English competency’. Resolutions of listening dif-
ficulties included listening repeatedly (85%), seeking peer assistance
(10%), making use of dictionaries (51%), or doing nothing at all (8%).
Discussion
The primary goal of this study aimed to check whether listening fluency
would be improved by autonomous listening as pre-listening scaffold-
ing, using comprehension performance as an index of listening fluency.
Learners were provided with a venue to familiarize themselves with the
target language in aural form. Autonomous listening was found to lend

support to fluent listening in weekly tests, as the AT group consistently
outperformed the other groups, with statistical differences reaching the
significance level in four of eight weekly tests. This positive result was
replicated in the post-test, since both the AT and LA groups outscored
the CP group. The efficacy of autonomous listening was affirmed by evi-
dence from the statistical results and the participants’ written responses,
suggesting that if learners dedicate their time to listen autonomously,
this will improve their listening comprehension in test situations.
With the integration of the course management tool (Moodle) into
the pedagogical process, autonomous listening is made possible outside
the classroom on students’ own time. As the questionnaire responses
showed, participants had various difficulties in completing the listening
assignments, perhaps implying that a single type of pre-listening scaf-
folding is unlikely to succeed in improving listening comprehension—
a conclusion corroborated by other researchers (Berne, 1995; Chang &
Read, 2006; Elkhafaifi, 2005). By engaging in autonomous listening,
participants took steps in self-instruction (listening repeatedly, making
use of dictionaries), and social interaction (seeking peer assistance).
This could be because, as LaBerge and Samuels (1974) observed, listen-
ing repeatedly reduced conscious awareness of the mechanics of the
spoken language, diminished word recognition errors, and increased
content comprehension. Furthermore, just as repeated reading practice
results in drastically improved reading fluency performance (Roundy &
Roundy, 2009; Atkins, Chapter 14; Waring, Chapter 12), the same
appears to hold true for repeated listening according to the results of
this study. Since reading and listening are both receptive, meaning-
construction skills, the comprehension-upon-recognition principle in
relation to fluency is applicable to both reading and listening (LaBerge &
Samuels, 1974), implying that after substantial, repeated exposure to
aural language, the autonomous groups trained their ears to process
spoken English more readily and naturally than the other groups.
Consequently, their weekly achievements were carried over to more
general proficiency (see also Carreira, Chapter 17). Retrieving prior
knowledge without undue effort may have been achieved through
top-down processing as a result of repeated listening practice, a finding
similar to Field (2004). Listening multiple times may have strengthened
listener awareness of sound-meaning structure, which was transformed
into automatic processing. Moreover, using dictionaries or seeking assis-
tance from peers may have served as heuristics to compensate for gaps
in listener competence or complement what repeated listening failed
to offer, including information requests, comprehension checks, or col-

lective meaning construction. It should be noted that although some
of the learners did not take advantage of autonomous listening, it was
because of personal apathy toward English, not because of the nature
of the program. Finally, the lack of progress exhibited by the CP group
implied that teacher-led discussion alone failed to positively enhance
listening proficiency, though the pedagogy was perceived as helpful by
almost all the students. In contrast to repeated listening, teacher-led
discussion appears to have played a minimal role in promoting fluency.
To summarize, EFL learners seem to improve when they make a
commitment to study at their own pace and in an active manner. As
this study shows, autonomous listening empowers motivated learners
to resolve listening difficulties, indicating the autonomous listening
program was conducive to improving the listening proficiency of the
motivated learners in this study, and may benefit other students in
other classroom contexts.
Limitations of the study

This study suffers from four primary limitations. First, the groups were
not randomly assigned, as is the usual procedure in comparative statisti-
cal studies. It is left for future investigations to explore whether, when
students are forced into categories of listening exposures, the differ-
ences between groups exhibited here are retained, or if changes in pro-
ficiency are more closely linked to student self-motivation rather than
experimentally controlled exposures to the language. Second, owing to
personal preference, less-motivated participants were reluctant to spend
extra time each week undertaking autonomous listening, and so the CP
group failed to improve their English. Third, this study assessed fluency
performance with a locally developed proficiency test; international
standardized proficiency tests, such as TOEIC or TOEFL, could have
been administered to triangulate the results. Fourth, the participants
were homogeneous in English proficiency at the start of the research;
therefore, the results may not be applicable to groups of students with
different English proficiency levels.
Implications for pedagogy and future research

Individualizing autonomous listening is not easy to weave into the
teaching procedure inside classrooms because of class time constraints,
making a strong argument for the way this study administered the listen-
ings outside of class. However, the needs of only some of the students,
the nine autonomous learners who listened regularly, appear to have
been met through this program. In order to reach the other participants,
activities that offer more structural support, such as acoustic-trait train-
ing, introduction of American culture, or listening strategy instruction
(Graham & Macaro, 2008; Vandergrift, 2004; Carreira, Chapter 17; Rost,
Chapter 16), should be integrated into pedagogy prior to autonomous
listening in order to target learners’ difficulties and help motivate reluc-
tant learners to be more involved.
This study represents a promising first step into greater understand-
ing of listening fluency in a foreign or second language. Although there
is considerably more work to be done in the field, it is appropriate to
finish with encouragement for other teacher-researchers in Asia and
throughout the world to undertake their own independent investiga-
tions of listening fluency development.
Appendix A Sample listening test script
I Pictures
Listen to the questions. Then choose the best answer according to each picture.
For questions number 1 and 2, please look at picture A.
(B) 1. What is TRUE about the girl?

(A) She’s wearing pajamas.
(B) She’s stirring a drink.
(C) She’s carrying a tray.
(D) She’s chewing some food.
(C) 2. What is the girl doing?
(A) Designing a picture.
(B) Playing classical music.
(C) Solving a puzzle.
(D) Enjoying a concert.
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Index
Abdel Latif, M. 200, 202, 204–206 reading 214–215, 217, 222–223,

accuracy 1, 28–29, 35, 64, 80–82, 225–226, 241, 244–246, 248–249,
85, 102, 105, 107, 121, 125–126, 256, 261–264, 266–268, 273, 276
129, 132–133, 135–137, 183–188, connected
191–192 see also complexity output 180, 184
accuracy and fluency speech 297, 299–309
action research 27, 38–39, 45–46, 173 text 262–264
activities see learning activities consciousness-raising 85
assessment 61, 63, 67, 72, 132, 182, context 1–3, 27, 33, 59, 61, 64–65,
190, 192–193, 201, 232 see also 128, 163, 165–166, 178, 180–181,
examination 232–233, 247, 285, 288–289
framework 178, 180, 193 EFL see English as a Foreign
attitude change see learner attitude Language
change corpus see pedagogic corpus
automaticity 102–103, 105, 109–110, correction see learner self-correction
136, 213, 245–246, 268, 272–273 course book see textbook
autonomy see learner autonomy Crystal, D. 297
Brown, J. D. 29, 299–300 data 45, 61, 114, 126, 132, 220,
burst see writing, burst 206–207, 251–252, 255
analysis 123, 170, 171–173, 181,
Chang, A. C. S. 283, 314–315 182–193, 254
Chinese context 232, 242 collection 36, 39, 69, 133–134,
chunks see language, chunks 146, 167, 182, 303
clarification see negotiation of driven learning see learning, data
meaning, clarification driven 83, 85
classroom research see action research triangulation 68
cloze 91 decoding 215, 244–245, 263, 269,
communication 70, 121, 125, 182 281, 285, 298–299
competence 180, 183, 186, 188, 191 dictation 289, 303–307
communicative 81, 179
complexity 63–64, 183, 188 English as a foreign language 1–3,
accuracy and fluency 28, 107, 26–27, 81, 154, 165, 215, 267,
123–126, 136 285, 297, 299, 302, 312–314, 324
syntactic 186, 189, 191–192 errors 37, 82, 124–125, 187, 19, 224,
task see task complexity 251, 323 see also accuracy
composing rate see writing, composing extensive 3
rate listening 12–13, 284
comprehension reading 14–15, 22, 45, 165, 186,
listening 32, 130, 282–283, 290, 214, 215–219, 221–223, 226–227,
300–301, 304–305, 307, 312–317, 231–232, 235–238, 241–242, 246,
322–323 250
problems 186 writing 184, 192
328
Index 329
feedback 32, 61, 63, 65, 67, 103, 221 focus on form 89–90, 106, 109,
first language see L1 111, 120, 132, 191
flow 32, 132, 180, 183, 185, pedagogic 110, 112
199–201, 221 translation 164, 167, 232, 235,
fluency 1–4, 26, 48–50, 53–54, 237, 241–242
69, 82, 85, 95, 103–105, 113,
115–116, 120 see also complexity hesitation 121–122, 145, 148–150,
accuracy and fluency 153, 184–185, 188–190 see also
pedagogy 12, 15, 18, 20–21, 27, fluency, speaking
29, 32–34, 40, 64–65, 74, 80, high school 285 see also learner,
109–111, 113, 121, 127–131, 138, high school
164, 246, 257, 262, 267–268, 270, Japan 29–30, 51, 164, 166–167,
282, 285, 289, 298, 307–308 181
definition of 11, 34, 59–60, 81, Shanghai 232–233, 241
101–102, 122, 179–181, 261–263,
281, 297 Japanese context 27–29, 33, 49–50,
listening 13, 281, 298, 307, 312, 54–55, 121–122, 164–167,
323 see also extensive listening 181–182, 248, 299
measurement of 28, 31, 36, 70, Japanese Ministry of Education,
121, 123, 130–135, 145, 148, see Ministry of Education, of Japan
164–165, 170, 181–182, 197–199,
202–203, 251, 254, 316, 324 Korean context 60–61, 64–65
perceived 71–73, 108–109, 256 Krashen, S. 218, 231, 301
reading 13, 35, 213–214, 222–224,
244–245, 265 see also extensive L1 105–107, 197, 213–214, 245, 285
reading L2 186, 299
research 22–23, 30, 39, 91, 93, fluency see fluency
136–137, 149–150, 152–154, 181, listening 282, 285–286, 290–291
185, 187, 192–193, 205–206, 226, reading 22, 214, 226, 246, 255,
247, 320–321 266–267
speaking 13, 34, 114, 122, speaking 103–104, 106–108, 114,
126–127, 187–190 125–126, 143, 189
writing 14, 16, 35–36, 170, writing 197, 199, 207
182–183, 196, 201, 204 language
see also extensive writing chunks 81, 126–127, 183, 199–200,
focus on form see grammar, focus on 222, 224, 304, 306
form processing 80, 105, 203, 262,
four strands 11, 94, 120, 130 312–313
free writing see writing, free learner 1, 19–20, 26–27, 110, 113,
126–128, 143, 193, 215, 225–226,
goals 27 264, 276, 290, 297–299, 308,
learner 12, 33 313–314
teaching 60, 64–67, 165, 222, 249, attention 86–87, 89, 91, 93, 107,
282, 285, 289 114, 125, 143
Grabe, W. 213–214, 222 attitude change 59–60, 62–63,
graded readers 12–14, 219–220, 227, 70–74
234, 254, 257 autonomy 64–65, 220
grammar 55, 82–85, 103, 135, 225 comprehension see comprehension
see also lexicogrammar confidence 71–73, 101, 129, 305, 308
330 Index
learner – continued materials 52, 60, 88–89, 146, 181,

EFL see English as a foreign 225, 248, 316
language McCarthy, M. 48, 108, 114, 132, 136
elementary school see learner, meaning 42, 85, 111, 183, 215, 223,
primary school 262, 265, 268, 287, 291, 298–299
errors see errors and accuracy focus on 11, 22, 128, 130–131,
feedback for see feedback, for 214, 307
students methods 27–28, 32–33, 62–63, 85,
feedback from see feedback, from 88, 109–110, 129–130, 167–168,
students 205, 231–232, 235, 237, 247–248,
fluency see fluency 251, 270–273, 302, 315–316
high school see high school motivation 27, 49, 74, 221, 269
level 23, 30–31, 46–47, 106, learner 30, 62, 275, 290
225–226, 248, 298–299, 306–307,
317 see also fluency Nation, I. S. P. 2–3, 11–12, 14,
motivation see motivation, learner 19–20, 22, 35, 110, 120, 122,
needs 69–70, 83, 164–165, 221, 128–131, 137, 215, 219, 225, 246,
315, 324 298, 307
preferences see learning preferences non-native speakers of English
production 28, 102–106, 120, 131, 121–123, 268–269
133, 136, 143, 165, 169, 180, 203,
206, 224, 272 see also fluency output 34, 103, 127, 180, 184, 193
recordings of see recordings, of
students pausing see writing, pausing see also
self-correction 189, 198 fluency, measurement
strategies see learning strategies pedagogic 143–144, 175, 232, 235,
training 61, 66–67, 274–275, 257, 324
286–288 corpus 83–84, 86–88, 94
university see university grammar see grammar, pedagogic
learning 1, 11, 43–45, 53, 60–65, task see task, pedagogic
71, 74, 85, 116, 285–286, perceived fluency see fluency,
301–302 perceived
activities 11–18, 20, 34–35, processing see language, processing
48–49, 51, 67, 90, 109–113, 128, production see learner production
130–131, 138–139, 215, 220, 223, pupil see learner
250, 264, 268, 275, 286, 289–292,
298, 301 questionnaire 67, 69–70, 255,
journal see writing journal 258–259, 306–307, 317, 322
preferences 305–308
strategies 290–291 reading fluency see fluency, reading
Lennon, P. 102, 123, 133, 179 reading skills see skills, reading
linked skills see skills, linked reasoning see task, reasoning
listening 13, 32, 34, 240, 282, recording 13, 32, 187–189, 203, 291
284–286, 289–290, 301, 305–306, repeated
312–314, 318, 320–321, 323 listening 286, 303, 318
see also skills, listening reading 215
comprehension 300–301, 312, retrieval 83, 110–111, 120, 126, 264
314–315 Riggenbach, H. 102, 123
fluency see fluency, listening Robinson, P. 143–145, 153
Index 331
scaffolding 43–44, 47–48, 51, 108, 223, 282, 284, 298 see also learning
132, 298, 314–315 activities
participating, agencing, fluencing, based language teaching 60, 62, 65,
and friending 52–53 74, 87, 107, 115, 120, 128–129,
schema 255–256, 276 133–134, 137–138, 143–145
secondary school see high school complexity 143–145, 149,
Segalowitz, N. 38, 102–103, 108–111, 152–154
115, 145, 180, 313 pedagogic 66, 89, 91, 110–111,
shadowing 45–46, 131, 137, 289 130–132, 146–148
silent pauses 148–153 performance 149–152
see also fluency, speaking reasoning 153–154
Skehan, P. 28, 60, 107, 122, 125, teacher 43, 64, 109, 121, 164, 232,
127, 178, 192, 203 248, 264
skills 2, 16–19, 31, 34, 61, 65, 121, beliefs 45, 49–50, 65, 70–73, 301
127, 247, 323 development 71
four skills 12, 14, teaching see pedagogic
listening 240, 290, 298 textbook 66, 113–114, 219–220,
reading 213–215, 245, 263–264, 268 234–235, 248, 302
speaking 70 TOEFL 30–32, 37, 165
writing 36, 166, 182, 197, 204 transcripts 200
speech rate 82–83, 122–123, 133, translating episode, see writing,
148–149, 152–153, 203, 286 translating episode
see also fluency, speaking
speech, connected see connected speech vocabulary 12, 18–19, 81–82, 89–90,
speaking fluency see fluency, speaking 124, 186, 218–220, 226, 238–239,
speed 12, 21, 34, 102, 122, 137 249, 255–256, 299, 314–315
see also fluency
listening 281, 286, 298 writing 16–17, 23, 30–31, 34–35,
reading 13–14, 22–23, 35, 214–215, 48–51, 163–164, 168–169,
226, 245–246, 258, 268–269 171–175, 180, 192, 285
speaking 153, 178–179 assessment 37, 165, 181–186,
writing 35, 37, 165–167, 169, 173, 197–206, 238, 240–241
175, 197–198 burst 198–199, 205
strands see four strands complexity see complexity
strategy instruction 61, 66, 71, composing rate 197–199,
126–127, 223, 273, 290–291, 298 202–205
syllabus 29, 33, 79–81, 83–84, difference from spoken
86–91, 93–95, language 287
syntactic complexity see complexity, fluency see fluency, writing
syntactic pausing 205
skills see skills, writing
tape-recording see recording speed see fluency, writing
task 15–16, 19–20, 44, 46, 49, 51–52, translating episode 200–202,
67, 170, 198–200, 203–204, 221, 205–206

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Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia

Philip Shigeo Brown

1. Language and languages—Study and teaching—Asia. 2. Second language

Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

List of Figures and Tables ix

Part III Writing Fluency

4.1 A formative learning process 65

1.1 Five sets of linked skills activities 17

12.1 The relative probable uptake of vocabulary from

The idea for this book originated at a Chinese restaurant in Shizuoka,

In working with 22 authors and editors on this project, we have seen

What this book can do for you?

If you are teaching in an EFL context, whether in Asia or any other

Theron Muller and Steven Herder

Producing this volume has been a labor of endurance as much as it’s

Theron Muller, John Adamson, Philip Shigeo Brown,

Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif is Lecturer of English language teaching

John Adamson is a Professor at the University of Niigata Prefecture,

Andrew Atkins is a lecturer at Kinki University in Osaka, Japan. Andrew

Philip Shigeo Brown has taught in various contexts in Japan since

vocabulary learning strategies. He is further interested in content-based

Andrew Finch is Professor of English Education at the Teachers’ College

Sue Fraser teaches at Seisen Jogakuin College and Shinshu University,

Carol Goldfus is Senior Lecturer at Levinsky College of Education,

who are unable to succeed in academic settings. She specializes in

Mu He used to be a senior high school English teacher in mainland

Steven Herder is Assistant Professor in the Department of International

Tomohito Ishikawa is Associate Professor in the Department of English

effect of manipulating intentional reasoning demands on L2 writing’ in

Theron Muller is Associate Professor at the University of Toyama, Japan.

Tim Murphey teaches at Kanda University of International Studies,

Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School

latest book on vocabulary is Learning Vocabulary in Another Language

Sakae Onoda is Professor of English Education at Kanda University

Jason Peppard is currently working as an English lecturer at Yamagata

Michael Rost has been active in language teaching, research, instructional

Gregory Sholdt studied Educational Psychology at the University

center on helping students build knowledge and skills necessary for

Ya-Chin Tsai is Associate Professor at National Chiayi University,

Rob Waring is Professor at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama,

ALT Assistant Language Teachers

MEXT Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and

Despite decades of language teaching and research, in the majority of

Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia is our response to help address these

Why EFL in Asia?

Nation (2013) explains EFL in the following way:

1. The classroom activities may be the only significant source of input

2. Often, there is no clear learning need. English is learned because it

Similarly, we believe if EFL students are to experience and use English

Taking fluency beyond speaking

While fluency is commonly considered in general lay terms to describe

While we include language research examining spoken fluency from the

In this book we have intentionally left it to the contributors to

An overview of Fluency in EFL

Keeping in mind the rationale for this volume, we have intentionally

in our own classrooms is often the most compelling to us, so by offering

Riggenbach, H. (2000). Perspectives on Fluency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan

As editors, we decided to front the chapters in Part I from a perspective

expand classroom fluency research from one classroom to a number of

How should fluency fit into a language course?

Fluency development is one of the four strands of a well-balanced language

What are the most useful fluency activities?

Fluency is important in the receptive skills of listening and reading as well