Activity 6 Mind the difference between accuracy and fluency
Accuracy – a practice activity which is a good for improving accuracy will have these characteristics:
Attention to form:the practice activity should motivate learners to want to be accurate, and they should not be so focused on what they are saying that they have no left – over attention to allocate to how they are saying it.
Familiarity: learners need to be familiar with the language that they are trying to get right.
Thinking time: monitoring for accuracy is easier and therefore more successful if there is sufficient time available to think and reflect.
Feedback:learners need unambiguous as to how accurate they are – this traditionally takes the form of correction.
Fluency – where the meaning is the goal, practice activities should have these characteristics:
Attention to meaning:the practice activity should encourage learners to pay attention less to the form of what they are saying (which may slow them down) and more to the meaning.
Authenticity: the activity should attempt to simulate the psychological conditions of real-life language use. That is, the learner should be producing and interpreting language under real-time constraints, and with a measure of unpredictability.
Communicative purpose:to help meet these last two conditions, the activity should have a communicative purpose. That is, there should be a built-in need to interact.
Chunking: at least some of the language the learners are practising should be in the form of short memorisable chunks which can be atomized.
Repetition: for atomization to occur, the practice activity should have an element of built-in repetition, so that learners produce a high volume of the targeted forms.
