The Development of Fluency in Advanced Learners of French

In this article, it will be argued that the proceduralization of linguistic knowledge is the most important factor in the development of fluency in advanced second language learners Levelt's (1989) model of language production is used to provide the descriptive base for the sub-processes of language production This posits the existence of a conceplualizer, a formulator, and an articulator, each of which contains procedural knowledge Levelt's model does not, however, deal with how that knowledge is developed It is proposed that Anderson's (1983) model of adaptive control of thought may be used to account for developmental aspects This posus that the learning process involves the conversion of declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge via cognitive, associative, and autonomous stages of compilation and tuning Neither Levelt nor Anderson, however, have stated how the contribution of the sub-processes or how the developmental stages may be measured in language use It is argued that the temporal variables used by Grosjean andDeschamps (1972, 1973, 1975) provide a way of fluency and (b) the contribution of the sub-processed in the model Evidece from 12 advanced learners of French and English is used to show how this may be done Initial results from expertments indicate that on a specific task learners became more fluent (as measured by speaking rate) as a result of the period of residence abroad and that an increase in mean length of run was the most important of the temporal variables contributing to this development It is argued that the increase in eman length of run is mainly attributable to the procedurallization of different kinds of knowledge, including procedural knowledge of syntax and of lexical phrases (Nattiger and DeCarnco 1992) The way in which this may have taken place is illustrated by means of extracts from the texts produced by the subjects We conclude that the quantitative and qualitative evidence supports the contention that increases in fluency are attributable mainly to increases in the degree of proceduralization of knowledge