‘Quick Speech and Write’as an Effective Pedagogical Strategy for Developing Fluency

Abstract

This case study examines the pedagogical effectiveness of incorporating speaking and writing fluency activities into an EFL class for first-year students at a Japanese university. The author chose to focus on the fluency skills of speaking and writing, as this aspect of learning English is often perceived to be as difficult to teach as it is to acquire. ‘Quick Speech and Write’ is an activity that only takes about 15-minutes of class time, with little need for preparation and administration. Despite its simple nature, the gains by students are manifold. Although increasing speaking and writing speed is an obvious aim of the activity, making significant gains in this regard is difficult without extensive efforts by students in doing several ‘Quick Speech and Write’ activities a semester. However, even with just five of these quick activities a semester, noticeable improvements in communicative skills were seen and active speaking and listening skills such as gestures and nodding were observed. More importantly, students have reported feeling less anxious and more proactive about speaking and writing by the end of the semester. This case study presents the pedagogical aims of the instructor and summarizes comments by students that list the perceived benefits of doing the activity as evidence of the effectiveness of this approach. Data collected from 196 students in eight classes on some ‘Quick Speech and Write’ activities are used in this study. The case study concludes with a summary of the gains observed and a discussion on the implications of incorporating writing fluency activities into university English classes. Using a combination of observational and enquiry type methods, data was gathered to investigate to what extent this strategy had fostered participants’ abilities to be fluent and promoted their motivation, or positivity toward continuous, self-directed English learning.