Big questions, Jeremy.  In fact, they are so big that I'm having a hard time finding my footing in those questions!  A lot of terms come into mind: learning styles, motivation, individual language ability, environmental influence, group dynamics, cognitive, teaching method, communicative teaching, etc.  The questions can probably generate at least 20 doctoral dissertations! 

To start with, I'm interested in some parameters.  I have been looking up recent studies and publications, and they, as you can imagine, tend to study a subset of learners, characteristics, or phenomena.  So, might you be referring to children or adult learners?  Might the learning environment be an "English as a foreign language" or "English as a second/third/fourth language" setting?

Carolyn

Dear Jeremy,

That's an excellent topic.I think that's because of the teachers' methodology and having more accuracy activities and less fluency activities.

Some teachers always check to make sure if students can understand and use the language in a controlled way before being expected to try to use it creatively in a fluency activity. That's why they don't give a safe environment for students to practice fluency. So some students don't understand that accuracy and fluency carry equal importance. They come to the class with negative expectations and are always worried about making mistakes, fear of criticism or losing face. But some students have learnt that they can experiment and be creative with language. They are less concerned with accuracy and more concerned with the effectiveness and flow of the communication.

Amir

Dear Nick,

That's a brilliant comment. I agree with you because we have to pay attention to students' characteristics, too. I mean some students are reflective who need to be given time before they answer and some are impulsive who are able to respond immediately.

Amir

I really believe it is about confidence and not being afraid to keep speaking not worrying if you get it wrong, that's all part of the learining too. If you have put up a barrier thinking you are not good at languages, or you're too old etc then you won't ever get to the point of fluency. It's all in the mind I believe!

Hi Jeremy,

It's a very challenging question....I think much of this fluency depends on the performance of the teacher. A teacher can help students become fluent in a number of ways. The initial action he should take is seek the source of their fluency barrier (it might be different from student to student or from class to class). For some, it might be the fear of the very idea of talking for more than one minute because they have never done so! In this case, the teacher can act as a psychologist and help them believe themselves and build their confidence. Practise can solve this problem. For some others, it is simply the lack of information about a specific or, sometimes, any topic. These students who suffer from shortage of information can be persuaded to read more and more. The teacher can even whisper, in advance, the topic of discussion (for the next session) to them so that they will become able to speak more comfortably. Another solution is they can be asked to write about a topic which is going to be discussed the following session so that they can feel more confident , but they should be convinced not to memorize the sentences since it worsens the problem by making them dependent. Also, the teahcer herself can play short model conversations and ask students to follow her sample. In short, by removing these psychological barriers, a teacher can initiate students into speaking more fluently.

Then, it is important that they learn how to speak coherently. The problem of many students is that they don't know how to start talking about a topic, how to support what they already said, and, finally, how to end their speech. To tackle this problem, a teacher can show them some model conversatons, or he himself can have a planned monologue in the class and ask the students to take notes. After playing the model, the teacher can focus on the model played and analyse its different parts from how it started, how it proceeded, and how it ended. The teacher can also point out the linking words which helped to a smoother flow of speech. Afterwards, he can give them some exercises and teach them how to use those structures and linking words. Besides, I believe that there is a very close connection between writing and fluency since a good and fluent conversation ca be very similar to a coherent writing. Therefore, it is a good idea if the teacher analyses some model writings (which are of course close to the spoken language) and analyse its different parts in the class.

Arash

I agree with Fernanda  completely. I always check out my students' native language abilities. Some of them are succinct or reserved.Some - narrow-minded or introverted. In this case teaching them to speak fluently becomes a serious problem. A teacher has to turn into a psychologist here rather than  a tutor.

So when it comes to fluency, we have to ask ourselves, 'What truly prevents this  student from speaking?' Isn't he/ she simply shy? Is it a complex developed after a trip to the USA(for instance) where his/her colleague was seen in a more advantageous light due to the language knowledge? Judging from my experience,  we often lack subjects to talk on or knowledge about events in the world. This problem has arisen with my adult students, not once.

Students are not motivated sometimes to talk about relationships (that has been discussed already thousands times by women and men tend not to disuss them at all), children are only interesting for those who have them, healthy lifestyle, traffic in the city, the environment? A choice of topics is limited. However,  when it comes to literature, science, business issues, ordinary people lack subject matter for talking, they are not at a loss for words, they are at a loss for ideas.