Often the new speaker has difficulty being fluent because he cannot put the learned rule into practice and constantly gets stuck doing so. The key in enabling the person to be fluent is to get him beyond that phase and into the mode of expressing himself orally as efficiently as possible. He'll want to use sentences that may not be perfect but at least he has been able to express his ideas. If I can describe the ability of the person to converse, the language teacher has the job of facilitating the process of being able to communicate as easily as possible while working on the form at the same time.
Conversational English can be represented by the following points, where if progress is made from top to bottom, the person at first learns to apply certain language rules and respects a given form such as following a sentence structure utilizing the standard, subject, verb and object order. Still the language learner is likely to know simple words or word combinations because he has been in a neighbourhood where English has been spoken:
- Simple words
- Phrases
- Use of simple sentences
- Complex sentences
Once the person has adopted that structure he can express himself using simple sentences and he is on his way to fluency but he needs to incorporate other language structures along the way. So the road to fluency is the one first established by using singular words but then if the person wants to generate ideas, he has to use phrases and then sentences:
The use of one-word responses can be paralleled to a child who learns the names of objects by associations. The language learner though has to go beyond that if he wants to answer a question efficiently, express an opinion or state a fact.
The use of more complex sentences comes into practice when the learner has to relate one idea to another or refer to something in relation to something else. It often occurs when reflecting on ideas, or expressing a need relative to an ability. It helps the person defend an argument, make a proposal, elaborate on a statement or make a comment etc.
