Intermediate Fluency
Define: Communicating in the second language is fluent, especially in social language situations. The individual is able to speak almost fluently in new situations or in academic areas, but there will be gaps in vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. There are very few errors, and the individual is able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem.
Strategies:
- Identify key academic vocabulary and phrases and model them. Ask students to produce the language in class activities.
- Use graphic organizers and thinking maps and check to make sure the student is filling them in with details. Challenge the student to add more.
- Help the student make connections with new vocabulary by instruction him or her in the etymology of words or word families such as, "important, importance, importantly."
- Create assessments that give students an opportunity to present in English after they have an opportunity to practice in pairs or small groups.
- Introduce more academic skills, such as brainstorming, prioritizing, categorization, summarizing and compare and contrast.
- Ask students to identify vocabulary by symbols that show whether the student "knows it really well, kind of knows it, or doesn't know it at all." Help students focus on strategies to get the meaning of new words.
- Have a "guessing time" during silent reading where they circle words thy don't know and write down their guess of the meaning. Check the results as a class.
- Introduce idioms and give examples of how to use them appropriately. For example, "Let's wind up our work." What's another way you could us that phrase "wind up?"
- Starting at this level, students need more correction/feedback, even on errors that do not directly affect meaning They should be developing a more advanced command of syntax, pragmatics, pronunciation, and other elements that do not necessarily affect meaning but do contribute to oral fluency.
- It may also be helpful to discuss language goals with the student so you can assist in providing modeling and correction in specified areas.
Information taken from: http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/language-acquisition-overview