 Linda here from ITTT. Back this week with another live session and today's topic is fluency versus accuracy in English language teaching. I'm super excited to be here. Thanks so much for joining today and actually this topic I think is really cool and interesting today. What inspired this was basically last week's live session where we talked about the top ten mistakes you should avoid when teaching English as a foreign language and one of them was to be too obsessed and strict with grammar and to over-correct your students and one of the issues or one of the things we talked about it was fluency and accuracy and how too many teachers focus too much on accuracy and so we had a discussion and you guys also said me in your opinions in the comments which was really cool and so I thought let's continue this conversation because it was really interesting and so today we're only going to talk about fluency versus accuracy and there's going to be a lot of cool information about how to balance the two and there are some really great techniques that you can do for this balance and maybe which one you should prioritize and when to prioritize it and all that stuff so that is today's topic. I hope you're going to enjoy it. I hope you like it and I hope we can keep this discussion going that we had last time so please keep your comments going. It was great and yeah don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss any of our upcoming live sessions. If you're listening to this as a podcast episode thank you so much for the download we really appreciate it and if you are watching right now and you also want to learn more about this podcast basically we turn all of our live sessions into podcast episodes so you can listen to it when you're on the go when you're driving when you're out when you're you know out having a commute or whatever you're doing maybe when you work out whatever you do whenever you listen to your podcasts you can take us with you so we're on all places where you can find podcasts basically you just type in the Teflin TESOL podcast by ITTT and then you will find it there so that's one way to do it and then just of course the other way liking liking and subscribing and being here live with us I really appreciate that as well and we also share other interesting content on our socials so it's always a good idea to be subscribed we share job offers we share Teflin TESOL course information of course teaching tips things that you can print out and use in your classroom as well so all of these things so that's why it's always a good idea to like and subscribe right and it helps us out as well so there we go um please let me know guys where are you watching from right now where are you right now I'm in South Korea as almost every week um and it is 10 30 a.m here in South Korea Friday morning I'm so excited to jump into the weekend very soon so where are you at where are you watching from today let us know in the comments I'm always curious I want to know who I'm talking to here I obviously can't see who you are unless you leave a comment I can see how many people are watching but I don't know who's watching so unless you leave a comment I will not be able to um tell right and if I would really appreciate just knowing who I'm talking to today and just say hi in the comments that would be great also if there's any technical issues you can't see me can't hear me if anything's happening also please let me know in the comments so I can get that fixed um usually everything's pretty smooth but you never know technical issues can happen at any time right it's very unpredictable as we all know um so yeah that's that's what's going on and let's have a look in the comments here Amitava is here hi Amitava how are you doing good morning Linda how are you doing today I'm great thank you so much how are you doing Amitava I hope you're doing well hope everything's good and again I appreciate you always tuning in so early I appreciate that Emilio is here hi Linda greetings from Barcelona tuning in again oh Barcelona I really want to go I have not been to Barcelona yet and it looks so great I really really want to go so hopefully this year I don't know we'll see if I go I'll let you know Emilio you need to show me around awesome great um let's do where where is it here here we go yes we also have a 30% of discount code as every live session so you can scan this QR code that you see right here it's always in the upper right hand corner as well so you can scan that and it will lead you to an application page where you can fill out an application and it also says at the top congratulations you qualify for 30% off or something like this if you see that then you know that you have the right link but we also have a link that I can share with you in the comments if you can't scan the QR code so I'm going to share that with you right now let's see coming through I think it did so it ends with fb live minus linda in this code will get you 30% off any TEFL or TSOL course from ITTT so if you're not yet certified this is a great opportunity for you to do so or if you want to get like a specialized course on top of your regular TEFL certificate or if you want to get the TSOL diploma course for example any additional certification even if you already have an ITTT certificate you can use this for your next one also possible no problem so yeah just wanted to put that out there I always share this in my live sessions and also we only share 30 discount codes in our live sessions you can't find these anywhere else okay so this is a great opportunity to do that and to apply so if you're thinking about it I hope this will kind of make your decision easier right all right and then if somebody is watching for the first time and has no clue who I am and what we're doing here let me just give you a quick introduction and please keep your comments coming about where you're watching today I see there are many people watching right now but only two people told me where they are so please everybody else also share where you are it doesn't have to be obviously the exact place where you are if you just want to share the country that's fine so my name is Linda I'm a travel writer and content creator and also language teacher I've taught English for many many years I started out tutoring when I was still in middle school high school I was tutoring people in English and French at the time and now I am teaching English and also German and it's been a fun ride I've been teaching English for a very long time two little kids starting as young as two years old two adults and like older people seniors yeah it's really a wide range and yeah if you're interested in Asia maybe moving and teaching English in Asia I highly recommend checking out lindegosies.com that's my own website and I write a lot about especially Korea where I live but also other places in Asia and teaching English in Asia and all sorts of things like that so if that is a region that you're interested in check it out also on Instagram at lindegosies I'm very active over there sharing my adventures in Asia and if you want to DM me send me a message over there feel free to do so it's always nice to hear from you guys and I'm originally from Germany slash USA so my mom is German my dad is American and I'm based in South Korea and before Korea I also spent some time in China as well and why I'm here is because I am a Teflon TESOL marketing professional for ITTT ITTT stands for international Teflon and TESOL training and our website is tefloncourse.net many of you might be familiar you already have a course um you've taken a course or you're thinking about it that's why you're here so thank you so much for that and ITTT is a leading Teflon TESOL course provider worldwide we've been around since the 1990s so very very long time and one of the leading uh yeah providers of Teflon TESOL training that you can get in the industry that is about that and we have Mary Jane who says she's from Digos city interesting where is that Digos city I need to google that but cool okay Mary Jane thanks so much for joining from Digos city all right and then let's go back to today's topic like I said fluency versus accuracy if you watched last week's um live session about 10 mistakes you should avoid when teaching English as a foreign language this was one thing that we talked about fluency and accuracy and over correcting your students putting too much emphasis on correct grammar and all of that and we had a good conversation going about fluency and accuracy so I thought why not expand upon this topic today and talk a little bit about this more in depth um very interesting and very good to know as a teacher so that's what we're going to do today um good Emilio says accuracy for the study phase fluency for the activate phase that's how I would do it based on what I learned so far from the 550 hour course ITTT that's great I would I think that it is a pretty good um way of doing things for sure so if somebody's not familiar with study phase activate phase this is part of the esa methodology of teaching that we cover in our courses e for engage and maybe even fluency in the engage phase as well right you want to get your students talking in the engage phase so you're not paying too much attention on accuracy during that you just want to get them talking and thinking in English in the engage phase then you do the study phase you cover your grammar points and you put more emphasis on accuracy and then again in the activate phase maybe you want actually a balance of accuracy and fluency in there right um so it depends but yep that sounds about right so I think that's a very good idea cool so already right we're off to a good start here let's jump into today's topic then so first of all I really want to take some time and define the terms what is accuracy and what is fluency what are the differences between the two exactly so we're all on the same page we all know what we're talking about here okay so let's do that and I am going to make myself smaller here so you can read the slides better so accuracy when we as teachers talk about accuracy we usually refer to the knowledge and understanding of grammar rules vocabulary use and pronunciation right grammar grammar grammar but also vocabulary how to use the right vocabulary when to use the right vocabulary and also correct pronunciation so that's definitely the ability then to apply grammar rules and vocabulary in writing and then also the ability to apply grammar rules vocabulary and correct pronunciation in speaking so it's not only about grammar and grammar rules and the correct tense but it's actually much more than that so it also includes vocabulary use the right vocabulary at the right time and the proper pronunciation in writing but also in speaking as well for accuracy um and accuracy can also encompass the following it goes even deeper than that so understanding of the various registers that exist within a language so you have formal language colloquial language you have slang so an understanding of these different types of language there's not just one way of saying things there is an informal way a slang word but then there's also a formal word or a formal expression that says the same thing as the slang word so an understanding of these different registers within the language and then also at the same time the ability to demonstrate awareness of context and to use this appropriate level of formality and informality in communication okay so um it goes deeper than just grammar so we have for example when you talk to a teacher and a professor you use a different kind of language than when you talk with your classmates right so this is also accuracy when you can recognize and use the different levels of formality and informality in communication that's also part of accuracy so in other words an accurate speaker of English should be able to communicate in a way that is appropriate for the situation and context right so context when you're teacher when you're talking to a teacher that's a context you use more formal language for example and when you're later when you're when you're talking to your fellow classmates and students or your work colleagues for example you use a different kind of language so that's also accuracy not only the grammar rules right and then fluency on the other hand so fluency is a little bit harder to define right basically it involves filling time with talk and processing language at a reasonable speed okay so when we talk about fluency we usually mean the ability to speak or write easily it comes to you easily you don't have to think too much about it and then also to speak and write at a reasonable speed right it comes to you easily it flows you can speak without long pauses and also write without long pauses that is fluency and then also the ability to speak or write with errors that do not hinder communication okay that's part of fluency and that's the big difference between fluency and accuracy here because when you speak or write you can make mistakes that when you're fluent because you you know how the language works and flows so you can speak and you can write but you might make some mistakes but these errors and mistakes they do not hinder communication so for example that's what I that's why actually I prioritize fluency a lot so I think when I correct a lot of my students homework and writing right and usually what I pay close attention to is exactly this so I read the sentence or the whole text and if I understand everything I think that's already great that's already the first step there might be grammatical errors in there or like a word that's not quite right but if I understand every sentence what that student means then that is exactly that so then it doesn't hinder my understanding of what that person wants to say and I think that's very important versus accuracy if you have inaccuracy when you prioritize accuracy then that is very different right you pay close attention to every error all right Mary Jane says devour region 11 mamblinda okay that's where D goes city is I still don't know where that is where is devour region 11 I need to google that but thank you Mary Jane I appreciate that all right so let's combine those two definitions into a table so we can clearly see what the differences are here between accuracy and fluency all right so let's take a look accuracy like we just said refers to the correct use of language and this includes grammar but also vocabulary and pronunciation okay the correct use use the correct grammar the correct vocabulary correct pronunciation fluency refers to the ability to communicate effectively and smoothly okay so you might use wrong grammar you might use the wrong vocabulary and you might use wrong pronunciation but it's still understandable it doesn't hinder your communication right the next point accuracy involves using appropriate language for different contexts such as formal and informal situations all right like we just said versus fluency which involves excuse me involves the ability to speak without hesitation or long pauses right and I think we see this a lot we have students like this don't we we have some students who are very meticulous about grammar and about using accurate language and they usually need a lot a lot more time to speak or write because they want they don't want to make mistakes they want to use 100 correct grammar so it takes them a lot longer maybe to make a sentence versus students students who are better at fluency they just speak they don't really think too much about the grammar right they just speak without hesitation and long pauses so we all know these two students I think and then the last point here accuracy is more focused on the technical aspects of language and fluency is more focused on the ability to communicate naturally and effectively and so whichever one's more important to you it depends on a couple of different factors or important to your student depends on different factors and we're going to talk about these factors also in just a minute but until here I think it's it makes sense it's pretty clear we know now exactly everybody should know now what's accuracy what's fluency we define the terms we understand accuracy is not only just grammar but it also includes context correct context also includes correct pronunciation in these things and fluency includes a flow smooth talking but also effective communication so those two terms go much deeper than what we might initially think they mean okay let me take some water here all right then now of course the question becomes accuracy and fluency which comes first which should be prioritized which should come first which should come second which is more important so let's answer that question but maybe until here what do you guys think which one is more important to you in your teaching or also in your learning I want to ask that question to you guys first so what do you think which one for you personally which one is more important is for you is it more accuracy that you use correct grammar or that your students use correct grammar or do you think fluency is more important let me know let me know in the comments that would be really really interesting maybe I'm I'm even gonna make a banner here so what is more important to you accuracy or fluency let's see before we move on any further let me know in the comments what do you think what's more important for you personally and again there's no right or wrong answer right I'm not putting you in the spot here I just want to know all right Mary Jane says fluency Montserrat says fluency jacome nest man fluency okay we got three fluency three fluency fluency fluency fluency again this this depends on you personally in your teaching style or your learning style there is no right or wrong answer two yet damn says fluency okay so we got four fluency so far interesting let's let's give it a few more seconds to see if somebody else also puts a comment that'd be great and then we can move on so with what is more important to you accuracy or fluency based on what we've learned so far in this presentation nestman says you rather have them speaking than hesitating to speak okay so that's why you pick fluency you wanted to speak rather than hesitating and worrying too much about always is the right grammar etc cool Daniel hey Daniel I think fluency comes first is that's how we all learn since we're kids then comes accuracy that's a good point we might see that in our presentation soon good point okay so everybody says fluency so far interesting because I remember last time when we talked about this last time somebody there were a couple of people who were um who preferred accuracy so interesting maybe they're not watching today it's a shaking Emilio says depending if I want to work in the productive skill or receptive skill of a certain student yes good point so productive skills you have writing and speaking right receptive skill you have listening and reading okay so which one for productive skills what would you say is it more important is accuracy more important or fluency and productive skills and then receptive skills which one is more important in which one do you think Emilio that's also an interesting discussion that's a good point please elaborate on that Emilio I'm curious and again if anybody hasn't answered yet what is more important to you accuracy or fluency accuracy or fluency in your language teaching from a teacher's view or also from a student's perspective very interesting so again fluency fluency fluency fluency Daniel also fluency Emilio says it depends if you work on productive skills or receptive skills let's see you get any more answers then we can move on about what which comes first which should come first and which might naturally come first certainly also if you're listening to this as a podcast let me know in the podcast comments think about it really think about it what is more important to you personally as a teacher or as a student accuracy or fluency okay I'm gonna keep an eye on the comments if there's anything coming through okay about this from anybody else but let's dive in and let's have a look so which comes first so the order in which fluency and accuracy developed or are developed depends on various factors so it depends kind of what Emilio says it depends right it depends on the situation on different things it depends on things like instructional style your teaching style but also developmental developmental factors so when you think about and this is something we talked about last time as well so the traditional approach to language teaching the old school way of language teaching here they prioritize accuracy over fluency right like the old teaching style older teachers are very much like that so because they believe that accuracy provides a strong foundation for fluency and this is some something that somebody last time also said in our presentation here in our in our life session somebody said when you have a when you should learn grammar and all these things first so you have a strong foundation and then fluency comes second so this is kind of the traditional approach to language learning kind of the old school approach right so that is that but recent studies have actually shown that acquiring fluency before accuracy may be more effective for some language learners so they've done studies on this and here Daniel says once we reach accuracy then we are able to focus on mastery maybe once we reach fluency we are able to focus on mastery is that what you wanted to say or accuracy maybe you you meant the other the other way around anyway yeah so old school approach was more focused on accuracy over fluency and this we see this a lot in a lot of students I talked to also especially in Asian countries here in in in Korea where it's all about textbook learning they learn English just to pass a test they never really have any speaking practice so very old school style of learning very much still alive especially here in Korea as well so it's more important that you know the grammar that you understand reading comprehension and things like that very much alive here so maybe some people should take some notes during this here so recent studies have shown that acquiring fluency before accuracy may be more effective for some language learners so let's dive more into that these are the factors that determine which should come first so different instructional styles so this is different teaching styles whether you are for example a more communication-based teacher or you are a task-based teacher right and this can also depend on the type of lesson the type of class that you teach so for example if we teach English grammar specifically if you're an English grammar teacher you might focus more on accuracy right because that's just the given when you teach English grammar right you have an English grammar class so then you focus more on accuracy and then maybe the next class that the students have would be an English speaking class so then this class would focus more on fluency so it balances it out right also depending on what kind of exercises you do this might be more communication-based or task-based depends on the type of lesson or class or think about a debate class great example debate class right a debate class so I've taught debate a little bit before you have to certainly learn the correct expressions and vocabulary for the debates so this would be definitely more accuracy first maybe 20 accuracy you teach expressions vocabulary for the debate at the formal order of debating but then during the debate you obviously have to focus more on fluency right and that's super important to debate that your point can come across right so maybe debate class might be 20 percent accuracy 80 fluency or 30 70 something like that so that's one point one factor here then we also have developmental factors like age and language background so younger students what we talked about before younger students especially children when we as children we are young and we acquire our first language we often develop fluency before accuracy right best example when you learn when you learn your own native language right you you watch little kids who are starting to talk and learn their own language it's always fluency first before accuracy right so when you have young students this might also be the case but if you have older students and maybe they already have a language background they already learn several different languages they are able to compare different grammar aspects they might prefer or pick up accuracy first so it depends for example I live in Korea I learned Korean and recently I started learning Japanese so I think I'm probably more on the well it's it might be 50 50 actually with fluency and accuracy but because I already know Korean and their grammar is very similar grammar structures are very similar to Japanese I'm kind of using that to help me so this might be more accuracy approach here for example so this my language background age and then we also have to take into consideration the personality of the student so just it sometimes just depends on the individual student some language learners they might acquire fluency before accuracy while others might acquire accuracy first so there's always some students who just love grammar they pick up grammar they pick up the rules they know it very well and they use it very well but then they might have trouble speaking right it's just strengths and weaknesses it sometimes just comes down to the individual student some other students they they're really bad at grammar they can't make a grammatically correct sentence but they still love talking and they just use the wrong grammar but I still understand what they're saying so it depends on the student we all no students like this right it can happen it can happen all right so Amelia says fluency for productive skills and accuracy for receptive skills yeah okay good Daniel says yeah I mean we begin with fluency speaking and listening so we can move on to accuracy grammar and vocabulary as a result we get into mastery by implementing all the elements of language learning languages yeah I am oversimplifying as you might know yes of course I understand yeah so that's really good points so sometimes it just comes down to the individual student and how a student might learn better they're not all the same one of the mistakes we mentioned last time not every student is the same so here as well right so accuracy and fluency how can we promote parallel growth how can we grow them all together at the same time effectively what can we do here let's have a look so there are some instructional methods some teaching methods that may promote parallel growth in both accuracy and fluency for example there is this super popular method that tackles exactly this and this is called the TPRS method teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling and this is an instruction a teaching method an instructional method that uses storytelling as a teaching tool this is very very interesting so and there's actually been some research and studies on this so students who were taught with TPRS they compare favorably in test scores and also general language proficiency so it has benefits on both ends so they do well with test scores which is accuracy right but they also are great in general language proficiency which would be more fluency so this method is beneficial for both accuracy and fluency so as you can see accuracy and fluency can be developed within the same class activities with the right teaching strategies and I wonder has anybody here heard about TPRS before teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling if you have let me know in the comments and if you've used it let me know so have you heard about TPRS about the the TPRS method have you heard about the TPRS method yes or no and have you used it have you tried it let me know you're very interactive today I really want to get you to talk with me today cool Tuyet says yes I have heard this method from AJ Hoge videos oh I need to check it out AJ Hoge cool okay have you used it in your own classroom if you're a teacher or what do you think about it what do you think about it what was your impression very cool we're also going to dive into this method and I'm going to talk about it and how you can use it in your own classroom but Tuyet has heard about the TPRS method cool how about you other guys Daniel Emilio have you heard about it Nesmin, Montserrat Jocôme, Mary Jane have you heard about it Amitava if you're still here have you heard about it okay Mary Jane says no not yet okay great good we're learning something new I love that good I'm happy about it but also Tuyet maybe you can give us some insight if now that I'm going to explain the TPRS method and we're going to talk about it more maybe Tuyet you can give us some information and additional input maybe if you can if there's something that I'm missing okay also Nesmin not really not yet okay Daniel no I've never heard of that one before okay something a little bit new today great I'm happy about that okay good then let's dive into this method so again it is called TPRS which stands for teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling let's have a look so there are three steps to this methodology and good to know TPRS or teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling was created by Blaine Ray who is a Spanish teacher in the late 1980s so I think he's an American Spanish teacher right I think so that is where this methodology comes from he developed it and these are the three steps so first is called establish meaning the second step is ask the story and the third step is read and literacy so Tuyet says I have been using this method for my learning this method is very effective to my learning as it encourages me to retell what I have read or listened from materials and videos oh that's interesting how you're using it for yourself for self-studying that's really cool nice so this method is really helpful to enhance our creativity interesting so then now that we're going through each of the steps Tuyet let us know if this is also what you do if this is correct okay if this makes sense cool I would love to learn more about how you're using it for your own studies and learning that's really cool all right so we're going to go through all of these three steps of the TPRS method so TPRS step one is establish meaning so this means we first identify key unfamiliar target language words that the students are going to see in the story okay so storytelling there is a story first before we dive into the story we learn key vocabulary and maybe expressions and phrases that will appear in the story later this is similar to what you normally would do when you teach a regular class right normally you would introduce new vocabulary and then you read a text where this vocabulary appears so this is similar to that so these words they will be used many times during the lesson those are key words and then the teacher also tells the class what the words mean in English or their first language right so in English means English to English if you have a word you can explain in English what it means or you give them the the word in their language for the word so this depends on you know how you normally do that so that's the first step establishing meaning the important vocabulary words that they need to know for what is coming up in the lesson so step two is then ask the story okay so next you move on to creating a story that uses the target structures so what you can do you as the teacher you can give the students and this usually is what it's done you give the students the basic plot of the story so what happens in the story and then the class the students they decide the details so for example if you give a brief plot of the story you could say there's a character who wants something and then the character goes somewhere to buy it but they at the store or wherever they go they don't have it okay so this is very vague right and now your students you as a class you can come up with all the details so who's the character they can make up a character what do they want they can make up something where is that character going to try and get it buy it what place where is it and then they don't have it why don't they have it you could also add that so this is a really cool way of doing it and then for example for this prompt here for this story the target target structures might be want i want this and this and this or goes to go you could do that and then also doesn't have for example if you have these target structures right you can make a story around these three target structures how to use want i want something to go and doesn't have i don't have we don't have she doesn't have all these things so you can build this into your story and then step number three is you read the story okay so this part still is ask the story and create the story so what you could do is you can write the whole story out on your board or you know online whatever tool you use to write down the story or every student writes the story on the paper this is asking the story and creating the story making the story okay and then step three is read and then since the story asking so the ask the story step two portion of the lesson is very listening focused right everybody's listening on the story the next step is now to engage them in interpretive reading so this means giving students a printed or projected version of the class story and reading it together so printed means for example you could do this tprs over different lessons right you don't have to put this all into one class might be a little too much so in the first part of first lesson that you teach you could do step one and two then you have the story and then for the next lesson you as a teacher you prepared the printed out version for example or if you have more time and you do it in one class you can just project it with your computer or whatever with a projector and then you read the class story together and then often this is followed by some fun activities like running dictation so the students have to write the story again as fast as they can or any number of text-based review games and activities like what you normally would do in a regular class so these are the three steps of tprs so let's review this first step was establishing meaning so you teach your students the important vocabulary and phrases and expressions that they need to know then you come up together with a story based on a vague prompt a vague idea that you give them right to lead them in the right direction but they fill in all the details and students love doing this they love making up a character and making up all the places so it's super and you get them super involved right you ask the story you come up with the story you write down the story and then you read the story together and after that you can do more practice with that more text based exercises that you come up with you can put in more vocabulary activities after this etc etc but this is the tprs method which encourages both accuracy and fluency all right and here's a big comment from tuit who is using this methodology to learn so i've applied this method following a j hoax guideline when my english was at intermediate level i read short stories materials or i listened to many short stories when i finished reading materials or listening stories i tried to apply tprs to retell what i have read or listened it was like i told the same stories but using my own languages or new terms this method helps me improve paraphrasing skills this is a great approach of taking i love this to yet i love this you take the tprs method and make it suitable for self-studying so this is really great we should all do this too and this works in every language obviously right so you pick a short story either a written if you read a short story or a video and then you retell it in your own words that's also really cool i love that so this is what you can do on self you can also put this in the classroom of course you can give them a story or i think it works actually best with a video right maybe you show a short video like what tuit is saying and have them then retell it in their own words that's also really cool yeah and you can even before that you can also establish meaning you can give them the key vocabulary and key phrases that they should then use when they retell the story and then you can also read it nice good so this is the tprs method and maybe everyone who's already teaching out there i challenge you to use this in one of your next classes and see how it goes and then report back to us with your findings i would be very interested in that so very very cool all right so this is tprs which again promotes both accuracy and fluency there have been some studies on that which show how effective it is so try it out and daniel says linda this teaching technique reminded me of that called the reading approach created back in 1930 yeah there are some similarities this is sort of a more modern version you know usually with all these teaching ideas they kind of piggyback off of each other so definitely some similarities there good point daniel thank you okay so now we talked a lot about fluency accuracy what you can do to combine the two with the tprs method for example so the question still becomes can you be fluent but not accurate that's another question a lot of people are thinking can you be fluent but not accurate this is something that can happen that's a lot of teachers worries right that if you don't focus enough on accuracy you might become fluent but you still have messed up grammar and everything so let's look at that so the answer is yes it is certainly possible to speak a language fluently but not accurately or not accurately at the entire time right so this possibility exists for both l twos language learners and also native speakers alike okay and especially native speakers we I think a lot of non-native English speakers they always think native English speakers use perfect grammar all the time and they know their language best but they actually don't right and here's a great book that talks about exactly this issue and I really wanted to share that with you so for anybody who's interested and actually going to share the link so you can get this book for you as well it is called between you and I and so this book covers a lot of these mistakes that especially native English speakers make all the time and not even realizing it so for example the title already between you and I right confusion between so between these pronouns between you and me it's actually right but a lot of people just say between you and I and they don't even realize it it's become like this this fixed expression but the book also talks about different things like confusion between the verbs can and may so for example can I go to the bathroom instead of may I go to the bathroom also common mistakes like it's versus it's right I mean this is just classic or they're there then versus then and many others so if you want to read more about these things common mistakes even native English speakers make this is a great book to read between you and I and this is where you can get it on amazon this book if you're interested but this just shows you that yeah it is possible to be fluent but not accurate and not accurate 100% of the time and if you're a non-native English speaker you think about your own native language you know do you know the grammar perfectly are you using the perfect grammar of your language all the time probably not either right so um yeah so that's maybe a closing point here anybody interested has anybody read this book before let me know if you have but um yeah so don't just assume and I think this is just saying that there is no 100% accurate following this I need to be 100% accurate thing is not realistic it doesn't exist because even native English speakers are not 100% accurate I think that's what I'm saying trying to say with that so check out this book it's really great if especially for teachers and maybe you can if you're a native English speaker you kind of you know find yourself in this book as well so it is all about um accuracy and fluency and finding the right balance I would say this is our main takeaway here okay from everything that we've learned today this is really what you should look out for balancing the two balancing accuracy and fluency all right and Daniel says oh this is great thank you for introducing this book to us I'm going to give it a go as soon as possible thank you cool and then if you read it let us know next time or when you whenever you finish it um and give us some feedback that'd be great but yeah sure so balancing accuracy and fluency this should be the main takeaway of today's live session how you can do that so balance accuracy and fluency by using activities that foster both skills right um that's the key is also what we learn in esa methodology you should just balance um have activities that foster both skills both accuracy and fluency when practicing fluency teachers should aim for student self-expression and be more concerned about content than forms this is fluency you should focus on the students talking get them communicating and not really worry about the grammar too much and teachers should refrain from openly correcting students mistakes especially during fluency oriented classes right if it's a grammar class of course you should correct them and say no it is go went gun right not go went went or whatever it is so but during fluency oriented exercises do not openly correct students mistakes because correcting students mistakes openly can make them very anxious and reluctant to express themselves right there are certain students who take this stuff very seriously if you correct them openly and you call them out for making a mistake some of them might never raise their hand or never speak again in your class you or it takes them a long time to open up again there are students like that so this is a very bad way of doing it especially in communication speaking fluency oriented exercises so what you should do is correcting students to correct students is to model the proper form by correctly repeating their sentences so if they say for example teacher yesterday i go to movie theater right you say oh yesterday you went to the movie theater and then you have them repeated correctly they hear the correct version they can correct themselves and it's not like hey you made a mistake don't say go yesterday went yesterday okay so this way it is a very unobtrusive way of correcting students and it's it just goes over much better so try that next time not calling them out for it but giving them the correct answer and having to repeat it so i hope that these five key points here for balancing the two will help you in your future classes and maybe also the tprs method can help you and this book that i recommended to you can help you in learning more about accuracy and fluency and how to really get the best of both worlds into your classroom and amitava here has a big comment i also want to read out so amitava says between accuracy and fluency i would vouch for the former accuracy as i belong to the old school of teaching and thought and have been taught english and have been taught as such in an english medium school no i was not aware of the tprs method of teaching process also i have not come across the said book but we'll definitely have a look at that thanks a lot linda for sharing this information yeah listen everybody you do you if you prefer an accuracy focus teaching style and way to run your lessons go for it go for it what i'm saying definitely balance the two don't have anything overpowering the other they're both equally important um the key here is to balance it and not to focus you know 100 of your time on only one of each but really have them kind of work together one and one and the tprs method is one way of doing it it's not the only way of doing it it's one of the ways that i wanted to introduce to you because it's become popular in recent years so i thought i put it into today's lesson but everybody you do you and what i said earlier sometimes it also comes down to the individual student you know your students best so if you have students where the majority of the students prefer accuracy as well they're grammar obsessed they love soaking it all up go for it also depends are you teaching a english grammar class focus more on accuracy are you teaching a debate class an english speaking class you should probably focus more on fluency so it all depends on the circumstances we talked about all these factors that it depends on some time ago so there we go and daniel says based on what we've learned today we can say that both fluency and accuracy can be blended together by using the tprs method yes perfect summary daniel love it thank you so much um yeah that's what we can say for sure they're both equally important right so yep so this is the end of today's session and so we are going into q and a for a few minutes i think some of you guys may have some additional comments um and feedback that you want to share with us or some questions about accuracy and fluency are also just teflotisol in general now is your time to shine and leave your comments and i can answer your questions or we can discuss this further now is the time to do so and i just want to mention that again we have 30% off um i have a link for you guys so if you're not get teflotisol certified now is a great time to do that with this 30% off link so you can scan this qr code or again i'm going to share a link with you in the comment section so you can copy and paste this link and you can get 30% off any of ittt's teflotisol courses so just wanted to put that out there one more time uh the link looks like this this is it so go ahead and copy paste that if you're interested and then amitava has another comment here living examples of being fluent but inaccurate can be often found in chatting or discussion sessions over social media and facebook is yeah totally 100% there is very inaccurate grammar and things like that going on on social media punctuation oh my gosh all these things right but it doesn't hinder communication right even if you don't use punctuation even if you don't use the correct spelling most of the time people understand what those social media posts and people are talking about so that's fluency all right nestman is asking what level of english language are we doing for fluency versus accuracy you can really do this for any level right um any level like we said earlier especially children they usually pick up fluency first right so if you have really really young students like i'm thinking kindergarten two three four years old you're probably not going to teach them grammar rules there they can't even write yet probably right so then you would do more fluency things games and songs and getting them to talk and you don't really worry about um correct grammar that much but you should correct maybe pronunciation so again it's a mix of both so the fluency versus accuracy is not only um is not really limited to one age group this is for every age group but the the ratio of fluency versus accuracy might differ per age group Emilio says off topic question so should i get one certificate or the six different certification options for the 550-hour course i'll need to legalize them going to vietnam what would you recommend um okay so just from my personal opinion if you need to get to if you get need to get them legalized that is not for free right that costs money so it's cheaper to get just one certificate legalized right instead of six if you have six different certificates you have to get them all legalized that can get very expensive i imagine so um maybe i would just do one in your case i would have to you know we would have to figure out maybe how much that is to legalize each certificate and then depending on your budget maybe just one certificate might make more sense um so i mean i think it really comes down to your own preference you know in your resume you can write down 550-hour certificate course and then list all the individual courses like behind that so you have all of them on um on the resume but maybe just for you know practicality reasons i think maybe one certificate is easier to get legalized it's cheaper than if you have six just my opinion all right siam sharyaryar i'm saying that right is asking how to keep new words in lexicon any easy way i get stuck in middle while speaking i don't find words oh okay um you know i think a great way of doing you know building your vocabulary is to take an english proficiency test right like iELTS or a Cambridge certificate um or maybe you don't even have to take the test but you buy one of their like test books practice books um what is it test test preparation books right because usually for these kind of tests you you need to learn i don't know 500 vocabulary words so all of these words will be in there and depending on what your level is if your current level is like b or a2 b1 you get either your level book an a2 a b1 book or you get the next level higher book and then you focus on the vocabulary that is recommended in this book and you go through it you don't even have to take the test at the end just buy the test prep book and go over that vocabulary because usually this vocabulary is obviously very useful for general english and they you know adapted for this particular level so maybe that would be a good way of going about that i hope that makes sense amitava says yes i fully agree and support the view expressed by you linda that we should have a judicious admixture of accuracy and fluency in teaching english to young learners good yeah i think that makes the most sense right again um you will know your students best so you can tell is my student more focused on fluency accuracy what do they respond best to and that's how you adjust your lesson plans good stuff thank you guys all right gonna take maybe a few more questions if there are some coming through and then we can sign up for today oh daniel says soon enough ai tools will help new generations deal with language inaccuracy but i'm not sure about how we'll go with fluency though yeah ai is taking over the world isn't it i mean in the last few months all the new ai things that have come out is just insane it's insane good or bad i mean some are really helpful useful i mean a lot of stuff has been said about chat gpt and there's even been some countries i think italy that has banned the ai tool chat gpt i think it was italy crazy so um yeah what a time to be alive right now in terms of ai tools definitely crazy and i'm excited to see how this is implemented in our teaching field right with ai so very exciting um also a little bit scary not gonna lie it's a little bit scary so we'll keep an eye on that maybe that's that will be a good topic for a future live session ai tools in teaching english as a foreign language i should write that down that's actually a good topic i don't know if there's a lot out yet um but i feel like in the next few months we might see some incredible things so i'm gonna write that down or just some recent developments with ai in english language teaching that might be some cool stuff out there i'm gonna take a look for you guys you know it i'm gonna keep that i wrote it down so we'll see if this will be a future live session might be interesting if any of you have any news to share in terms of ai with english language teaching pass this on to me send it to me um and i'll check it out so you can reach me again best ways probably here instagram over here at linda goes east just send me anything that you see best to do with that um but yeah interesting all right uh let's do maybe one last question or comment and then we're gonna say goodbye um okay siam says well i'm doing my undergrad in literature right since english is not my native language i can't make my essay special with magical or powerful words how to make essay strong briefly say you know i would suggest like i said get one of those books to or maybe also as i'm sure there are some some books for essay writing and how to uh you know use magical words but also what i like to use um maybe this will help you let me find the url there is and you might already know this but there is this website called the saras the thesaurus is that it um so this and if you have a word it will find you a synonym for that word that sounds maybe fancier so you could check that out so for example you put in want want i want want and it will give you synonyms for want that sound like maybe better so you could do that this will might maybe polish your um essay a little bit maybe that will help okay all right amitava here has the last question i feel like the connection is not so good right now is it a little bit cut off anyway amitava is the last question linda did you have any chance to view and visit the various extensive wooden walkways on rice fields at suncheon bay wetland reserve in south korea that's a great question love it yeah i have been down there actually exactly this plays what you're talking about um i have been there it's really cool um i think i actually on my website i have a article about it and pictures let me see so you can check it out and let me know if this is what you're talking about but yeah oh i think in 2020 i was down there 2020 the connection is like really slow on my end i hope it's okay for you guys but here this amitava this is the suncheon bay thing that you're talking about i was there yeah it was it's really pretty there i want to go again there is like one time of the year where everything turns red all the read so it looks really cool so i want to go down there at that time again one time that's cool jemma says how would you cheer work with students to be good at accuracy despite nowadays tough technology and communication issues um yeah i mean just with accuracy i think just a lot of drills and exercises and work work work right pronunciation accurate pronunciation pronunciation drills maybe you could do even songs or things like um tongue twisters um and then accuracy with writing i mean you just have to write right right right with grammar give them as many grammar worksheets as possible i think that's the only way for accuracy to really um do you just have to practice practice practice i think but i think yeah the tprs method might be just a really cool way to get your students interactive interactive interested and this one encourages both um accuracy and fluency so maybe try that i think that'd be cool book thief says it's lovely to see you dear man thank you we're actually at the end already so this was the last question i have to sign off now um really nice to see you all and thank you so much for being here you can always uh watch the replay and keep commenting and we'll get back to you even after the life is finished also we always turn our live sessions into podcast episodes so this one will be on our podcast very soon if you're interested um you can find us at every place that you get your podcasts from so you can type in teffel and teesaw podcast by i-t-t-t and you will find us there um yeah all of our live sessions are always in our playlists we never delete them so you can always rewatch you can look through the playlist and see what if there's something that you like if you have any topic suggestions and ideas here let me know at linda goes east on instagram sent them into me um and then yeah i'll see you again next week i will be here and i hope i'll see you there as well and thank you so much for all of your comments today was really great and interactive so i really appreciated that so that lets me know that you're enjoying these topics and i'm gonna go down this direction for future topics to get our discussion keep our discussion going so i really appreciate that for everyone who was here today and really watched the whole session so thank you so much for all you coming back every week i really appreciated i know i say this every time but i really really mean it i really really appreciate you guys so much because that's why i'm doing this right if there was no one here no one listening no one watching no one commenting then why would i be here right so i'm here because of you guys honestly um so yeah i hope everybody has a great weekend and um i can't wait to hear what you guys are up to next week when we chat again and then yeah i'm gonna let you guys go and go on with your day or maybe go to bed wherever you are and yeah we're gonna go from there so thank you guys so much i'm going to see you next time i hope all right bye