Browsing by Author "Kopnicka, Simona"

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    Fluency and the Role of Training in Second Language German
    (2016) Kopnicka, Simona; O'Brien, Mary Grantham; Roy, Sylvie; Hoenle, Sandra
    Fluency, that is spoken language that flows without interruptions or pauses, is often neglected in favor of other language components such as reading, writing, listening and speaking grammatically correctly in a language classroom. Although fluency falls under speaking skills, it is often not taught in L2 classrooms. Studies suggest a variety of exercises focused on fluency improvement but only a few of them have actually been tested. This thesis examines the effect of classroom-based fluency training on the ability of intermediate-level learners of German to produce more fluent utterances on a Picture Story description task and a monologue task. The results reveal that training did not improve learners’ fluency and that the learners performed better at the monologue than the Picture Story. Speech stream factors such as speech rate, filled non-lexical pauses, filled lexical pauses and repetitions were correlated with fluency ratings assigned by native German speakers. The results have implications for fluency teaching in L2 classrooms.