Yes, it can. Your fluency training
can be really effective without feedback.
This is an important point. So please
listen with all your attention.
Here's something you must understand
first: You see, in fluency training, the role of instructor-learner
interaction is not important. And so, fluency
learners won't need personal counselling and
guidance from an instructor. No, they won't.
Fluency
work doesn't normally need correction by an
instructor
Now, remember this:
We're speaking about fluency, and not about
a subject like mathematics or computer programming
or machine repair.
When you learn a subject like mathematics
or computer programming or machine repair, you'll
need to interact with a teacher from time to time.
The reason is this: In subjects like these, even the
smallest thing you do has to be according to a rigid
framework - a framework that you're not free to modify
to suit your convenience. And such frameworks are
not only rigid, but also externally imposed
- that is, they come from sources outside your
own mind. In subjects like these, you have to follow
principles, rules, concepts, formulas and procedures
that others have set, and you are not free
to deviate from them or to adapt them to different
conditions and circumstances as those conditions and
circumstances occur. So in subjects like these, you'll
need a teacher's help and guidance from time to time.
In subjects like these, teachers may have to get feedback
on your work, so that they can tell you where you've
gone wrong and why, how well or badly you've been
doing, and how you could improve.
But when you learn a practical skill
like fluency, the position is quite different. You
see, when you learn a practical skill like fluency,
there are no rigid frameworks that you have to follow
compulsorily. Whatever frameworks you may happen to
follow are those that you yourself decide on according
to your convenience - as you speak on. And you're
free to adapt and modify them to suit your speech-composition
needs from moment to moment. Whatever external constraints
may happen to be there are not of a rigid nature,
but are quite flexible. And anybody who has learnt
fluency techniques can deal with those constraints
in a number of different ways according to their convenience.
This is so about all externally imposed constraints
in spontaneous speech - constraints imposed by the
content as well as form, semantic and syntactic constraints,
lexical and grammatical constraints, and constraints
imposed by verbal and situational contexts.
Speaker
is total master of language manipulation
You see, it's not
as though you can only compose a long stretch of spontaneous
speech by a single method. Each learner is free to
compose it in any of the several ways they find convenient.
Also, a natural speech-situation
is ever alive, fluctuating and open-ended. And there
are no restrictions or limits set in advance on the
way speakers can give shape to their speech units
and organize these speech units into a spoken text.
And speakers themselves are the only people who'll
be able to decide what restrictions or limits they
should set on things as they speak on, and how they
should keep adapting their speech units to the speech
situations from moment to moment.
So when you learn a practical skill
like fluency, you don't have to solve any problem
of a mathematical or machine-related type or of a
manual or technical type - especially, a problem that
can only have one answer or solution. So the question
of accuracy (in the sense of mathematical accuracy)
and the need for correction of mistakes (by a teacher)
do not arise at all.
The only question of accuracy that
can be thought of in fluency training is the question
of grammatical accuracy or word-related
accuracy of an elementary type. Here, you should note
two things: First, the Fluentzy books
are meant for people who already know English, and
not for beginners. Even then, they deal extensively
and thoroughly with various aspects of grammar and
vocabulary that would help them in spontaneous speech
production. (The Fluentzy books do these things
from the fluency development angle). Second,
anybody can easily sort out all grammatical and word-related
difficulties on their own with the help of a modern
dictionary.
So in fluency training, the question
of learners needing to get their work corrected by
an instructor doesn't arise - in the way that this
question arises when you're learning other subjects
or skills.
People who buy the Fluentzy
books are those who are very keen to become fluent.
They're people who are willing to really learn and
to make enough effort themselves. And they're adults,
and not children. And so, most of them don't need
encouraging comments or critical remarks on their
work by an instructor in order to motivate them, or
to reinforce their learning or to prevent them from
making mistakes.
Self-evaluation:
Best-suited to fluency training
You see, what is
important when you learn a skill involving mental
abilities like fluency development is how you
rate your own performance and progress - and not how
an instructor evaluates them.
Self-evaluation is what's really
important
When you falter,
and are not able to speak English fluently, you
know you're not speaking fluently at that
point of time. And if you've had fluency training,
you'll know why you've faltered, what you
can do about it on the spot (to prevent the speech
from breaking up), whether you falter often for the
same reason, and what aspect of the fluency training
has to be focused on.
When you speak fluently, you
know you're speaking fluently. And when you falter,
you know you're faltering. Of course, others may
not always notice that you've faltered - unless
you've faltered in a very obvious way. And even if
they do, they won't know why, and won't be
able to tell you why.
This is because the process that
results in spontaneous speech is a series of actions
that take place in your mind - such as the moment-to-moment
mental planning, monitoring, improvisations and editing
of your idea units and the moment-to-moment mental
organization of a series of idea units into a spoken
text. This process happens in a way that others can't
see or notice. So nobody, but you, will be able to
spot what went wrong with that mental process. Others
will only be able to speculate. But you know why.
Your mind would know why - if you've had fluency
training.
That's why, as far as educated adult
learners of fluency are concerned, any feedback
they may send to an instructor by turning in written
work, and any feedback they may get back after evaluation,
scoring and grading from the instructor won't
be of much value. What'll be of real value is what
the learners themselves find out. But this itself
will only be possible when they've trained themselves
in fluency techniques.
Self-evaluation is what's really
possible
Actually, what is truly possible
in fluency training is self-evaluation by the learners
themselves, and not by an instructor.
You see, while your training progresses,
at some point along the way, you'll notice that you've
started being able to compose your speech and speak
at the same time - in most of the real-life situations
you face. Yes, at some point along the way, you'll
notice that you're able to do this almost consistently
- with success most of the time. This point is the
fluency threshold. That is the point or level
at which you start being able to deal with hesitations
successfully and to prevent hesitations from causing
your speech to collapse. It is only when you've reached
the fluency threshold that you can call yourself fluent.
You see, only you will be able to tell whether
you've reached that threshold level, because you
are the only person who can say how you've been mentally
processing what to say and saying it in each
of the real-life situations you face every day.
Now, you should note that the fluency
threshold is not a definitely identifiable point or
level. Rather it's an indeterminate point - and nobody
will be able to say where exactly it is. Even you
yourself will not be able to point to a particular
speech situation or to a particular point in that
speech situation and say that that was the
occasion when you started speaking quite fluently
for the first time. So even for the speaker, the fluency
threshold is an indeterminate point or level. So you
can imagine how much more difficult it'd be for someone
else to decide if you've reached the fluency threshold
- or when. You know, consistency or near consistency
is the true test. That is, you can only say that you've
reached the fluency threshold level if you can speak
easily and effortlessly nearly every time you express
yourself.
Once you've reached the fluency threshold,
you're on the path to reaching higher and higher levels
of fluency. And there's no such level as the ultimate
level, because fluency is an ever-expanding skill.
And if you want to reach higher and higher levels
of fluency, fluency techniques are the things you
should keep on applying to speech situations.
So remember this: The sort of learner-evaluation
that is most suited to fluency development training
is self-evaluation, and not an evaluation by
another person like a teacher. And so, self-evaluation
is the type of evaluation the Fluentzy system
has adopted.
