Fluency vs. Proficiency

General discussion about learning languages
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eido
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Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby eido » Tue Jun 19, 2018 12:22 am

This is probably an easily answered question but the last time I remember reading about it there was some debate surrounding it.

What does fluency mean to you? Is there a technical, objective definition? What's the difference between it and proficiency?

For background, I have to do a speech to inform the audience. I chose to inform them about schools of thought about language learning, and how many think you can do it out of sheer willpower. I have to define some terms so I can speak about them, and these are a few of them.

If any of you have links to threads or studies about things relevant to the argument of my speech, that'd be cool too.

But mainly I'm curious about defining these words. Links to previous threads discussing them are great too.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby Serpent » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:08 am

Honestly I'd avoid discussing the issue of fluency vs proficiency :lol: Just describe some language level scales, such as CEFR or ILR; point out that for most tasks you don't need to be native-like (let alone speak with "no accent"), and that language knowledge isn't a glass which is either full or empty. As Barry Farber said, unlike neurosurgery, language is worth knowing even poorly.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby eido » Tue Jun 19, 2018 2:05 am

I think I lack direction with what I have. I have part of an argument, but this is the conclusion I came to with the whole fluency and proficiency question:
You can have one or the other, or both. In your native language, you likely have both. But if you've been only reading or writing in your target language, you won't have fluency because you haven't been practicing moving your mouth. If you focus on speaking first and learning grammar later, you will be great at talking up a local, but you'll probably have speech filled with mistakes. Both concepts exist on a continuum.

Do you say to avoid them because it's too technical, and diverges from the topic at large?
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby rdearman » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:31 am

Fluency is a waffle word. It can mean anything to anyone. Person A thinks they are fluent because they can order soup in a restaurant. Person B thinks they aren't fluent until they can disxuss recipes and write a cookbook.

This is why there is a CEFL scale.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby Ani » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:31 am

eido wrote:Do you say to avoid them because it's too technical, and diverges from the topic at large?


It is actually not technical, which is the problem. It ends up being subjective as people use the word differently, and turns out to be somewhat useless both for learners and assessors of language skills. Many languages could have been learned in the time people have spent arguing about fluency on the internets.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby garyb » Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:59 am

I thought fluency had a fairly accepted definition: being able to speak fluidly (even if not necessarily correctly). Just because it's often misused outside of circles like this doesn't mean it should be avoided. I think it can be useful to discuss it because it's one aspect of proficiency, and in my experience fluency and accuracy are at odds with each other: if I focus on accuracy, my speaking becomes less fluent, and vice versa.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby Uncle Roger » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:48 am

In my opinion and experience, L2 fluency is two things

1) the ability to make yourself understood by a native without him/her asking you to repeat or rephrase things because of your non-native grammar, pronounciation or vocabulary choices

2) likewise, the ability to understand a native in most everyday life situations without, in turn, having to ask him/her to repeat him/herself more than it would normally happen with another native

It's basically communication between two people (in a language that is L2 for one of the two) and in which neither speaking nor listening require more effort from either part than it would if it was communication between two speakers.

I'd say "proficiency" is a higher level, but as a word is seems to me like "a different tool for a different job" compared to "fluency"
Last edited by Uncle Roger on Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby aaleks » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:01 am

To me, fluency is a part of proficiency. But that doesn't work the other way around. You could be fluent without being proficient in a language, but you could not be proficient without being fluent.
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby Serpent » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:30 am

garyb wrote:I thought fluency had a fairly accepted definition: being able to speak fluidly (even if not necessarily correctly). Just because it's often misused outside of circles like this doesn't mean it should be avoided. I think it can be useful to discuss it because it's one aspect of proficiency, and in my experience fluency and accuracy are at odds with each other: if I focus on accuracy, my speaking becomes less fluent, and vice versa.
i'm afraid that if you bring it up it will dominate the discussion :?
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Re: Fluency vs. Proficiency

Postby Cainntear » Tue Jun 19, 2018 12:31 pm

The simple answer:

What most people commonly call "fluency", people working in linguistics and teaching typically refer to as "proficiency" -- quite simply "how good you are at language."

In technical circles, proficiency can be subdivided into "fluency" and "accuracy". Fluency means how "fluidly" or "flowingly" you produce or understand language, while accuracy is just how correct your language is, regardless of how quickly you process it.


The controversy here in the past has been people from one or other camp telling people from the opposite camp that they're wrong.

For your purposes, you have to decide whether there's any benefit to your audience in explaining the technical version, sticking with the vernacular, or just avoiding the term "fluency" altogether.
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