Development of automaticity

Development of Fluency

As a complex dimension, also fluency is expected to develop chaotically, unpredictably and dynamically. Due to the fact that differences between learners either remain at the same level (in the case of lexical complex-ity) or increase (in the case of syntactic complexity and accuracy), we cannot begin our deliberations on fluency with the assumption that be-tween-learner variation will develop the same pattern because no such homogenous pattern has been observed for other proficiency dimen-sions. Nor can we begin any discussion on fluency with the commonly imagined developmental pattern for complexity or accuracy because also that pattern does not exist. So we have to analyse fluency independently of other skills and then try to find the interconnections between them.

Three aspects of fluency will be investigated in this chapter, i.e. within- -word automaticity, rapidity in text production and smoothness, which together should give us a differentiated picture of fluency and its devel-opment in second language writers.

7.1. Development of automaticity

In view of the above-mentioned complexity of fluency it seems reasona-ble to investigate particular aspects of this dimension both separately and in connection with one another. As was proposed above, automaticity in text production has been analyzed in the present study using transition time. The data presented earlier in Figures 6.37a and 6.37b (see p. 151) clearly show that an increase in this aspect of fluency is a homogenous feature of the language development of all learners. This development is for the most part not dynamic, with mean growth rates between exper-iments equal to R ≤ −10% and the mean growth rate after three years of learning amounting to R = −22%. However, the changes are more variable

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at the individual level. As Figures 7.1a and 7.2b show, in some learners the decrease in the time needed to move between keys is especially dynamic in the first period of learning Swedish, when their growth rates were at least 70% higher than the average. Such substantial progress in automa-ticity was observed in both slow (S4, S5, S9, S11) and fast (S8) writers.

The dynamics of development is very strongly correlated with the level of automaticity at the beginning of the study. Spearman’s rho for the re-lationship between the transition time level in the first experiment and the general growth rate after three years of learning is ρ = –.93 (p=0.000), which unambiguously shows that those students who were initially the slowest writers made the greatest progress in fluency. In the case of the faster students, on the other hand, automaticity in second language writ-ing approached an attractor state early on, so that durwrit-ing the second and third year of learning no rapid changes were observed.

Figure 7.1a. Development of Transi-tion Time in learners with substantial

change at the beginning

Figure 7.1b. Development of Transi-tion Time in learners with no dynamic

change at the beginning

Learners differed most in automaticity at the beginning of the study.

Due to the fact that all of them began to learn Swedish at the same time and thus in the first experiment received the same amount of instruction, the discrepancy between them reflects the tempo of fluency development in the new language. Between-subject variation continuously falls during the investigated learning period (see Figure 7.2) and after three years of learning the discrepancy in fluency between learners is much lower than during the first months of language instruction.

This pattern is the opposite of that represented in the case of com-plexity and accuracy. In the case of syntactic comcom-plexity and accuracy differences between students became greater over the three-year peri-od, while for lexical complexity they remained at the same level. In the developmental process within-word automaticity in second language became more homogenous. After three years of learning all learners are essentially fluent users of the new language, but they are not necessar-ily equal to one another in terms of diverse and accurate usage of the language.

It can be assumed that an improvement in automaticity is a conse-quence of stabilization in vocabulary. In other words, an increase in fluency can be interconnected with lexical development. Thus, the as-sumption is that such a developmental sequence will be reflected in an interconnectedness of lexical diversity and fluency. Both features may progress in parallel, but it is also possible that fluency will develop after the lexical system has been internalized in some way. However, it is difficult to determine unequivocally the order of such development. In almost all the learners a very strong interplay was observed between transition time and lexical diversity. The correlation between both characteristics, calculated for the mean group values, was r ≥ −.82 (p = 0.045), which clearly indicates that an increase in vocabulary richness proceeds hand in hand with progress in within-word automatization.

Such interconnectedness between the development of vocabulary and automaticity is also apparent when text length is considered. In this case the correlation between both features was r = −.80. Both results

Figure 7.2. Inter-subject variation in the development of automaticity (TT)

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clearly confirm the thesis that vocabulary growth and the development of automaticity in second language learning are inseparable, interacting parts of an emerging system.