Fluency Training in the ESL Classroom: An Experimental Study of Fluency Development and Proceduralization

What is it about?

When second language learners speak about the same topic more than once, they are usually able to speak more fluently. In this study we showed that repeating a speech on a particular topic helps to improve oral fluency, even when speaking about new a topic..

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Why is it important?

Many studies have examined the effects of task repetition on oral fluency on the repeat performance. This study is unique in that it investigates the longer-term effects of task repetition on fluency development: it examines oral fluency one week after the final training session and on a task with a new topic. This suggests that task repetition effects involve more than priming, most likely proceduralization of linguistic knowledge. For teachers and learners it's important that this study shows that it's not only important to practice speaking often, but also to repeat speaking tasks.