Develop "Situational Fluency"
It will be helpful
Situational Fluency sounds like a complicated term, but it is actually easy to understand.
Situational Fluency: You are fluent in a single social situation.
Another term you can use is Topic Mastery. You become a “master” at one topic in another language.
Let me share an example.
When I had a beginner level in Mandarin, I could fluently order food in a restaurant. However, I wasn’t fluent in other social situations like meeting new people and making friends.
I encourage you to develop situational fluency. It will help you to feel more relaxed when communicating in another language.
Here is an easy way to develop situational fluency.
Only study/learn 1-3 topics at a time. Master those before moving on to something new. Many language learners I know don’t do this. They instead bounce around many topics. Please note that this is not necessarily bad. It just means you will not develop situational/topic mastery very quickly.
Let’s pretend you want to talk about upcoming plans confidently and fluently. You might choose to:
Create a script with common activities you do. Most people do the same things every week, so the list probably won’t be too long. Write the script in English and in the language you are learning
Practice the script at home. Read it out loud multiple times
Practice the script with friends or with a tutor until it feels natural
This is not the only way to develop situational fluency, of course.
Do you want more ideas? Contact me. I have prepared a Powerpoint presentation with more ways to become situationally fluent. I want to practice presenting it. I also would like feedback from more language learners so that I can improve the presentation. So far, the people I have shown the presentation to found it helpful. I think you will too.
I’m interested. I think this could be a great series of classes.