Talking point

Which is more important when speaking a foreign language: to be fluent or to have good conversation skills?

English teaching makes a distinction between fluency and accuracy. Fluency activities — such as role-playing or task-solving — are aimed at getting learners to communicate, without worrying too much about any mistakes (deviations from standard models, such as British or US English) they might make when doing so.

On the other hand, accuracy activities — such as practising a particular grammatical structure — help learners to speak more closely to a standard model.

Most teachers and trainers agree that, while a certain degree of accuracy is essential, fluency is more important. It is generally better to communicate a lot and make mistakes — as long as these don't impair understanding — than to communicate little, albeit perfectly.

But what about the question at the start: fluency or good conversational skills? Clearly, you can be both very fluent and very accurate and yet not have have good conversation skills.

This choice — fluency or good conversation skills in a foreign language — was asked of UK companies in the recent 2009 Education and Skills Survey by the employers' organization, CBI.

In the survey, 74 per cent of employers said they were looking for candidates with conversational skills rather than full fluency.

"Companies value an employee's ability to communicate conversationally with potential business partners, customers or clients in their own language," said a spokesperson for CBI. "This can help break the ice, deepen cultural understanding, and open business access to new markets."

This makes perfect sense. The ability to build and maintain relationships is the key to being an effective international communicator.

The survey contains many other interesting facts about UK firms and foreign languages:

1. The most sought-after foreign languages are French (52 per cent) and German (43 per cent), although an increasing number of firms are looking to recruit speakers of Mandarin/Cantonese (38 per cent), Spanish (28 per cent), Polish (22 per cent) and Russian (21 per cent).
2. Only five per cent of firms said they were "very satisfied" with the foreign language skills of graduates. Another 54 per cent were "satisfied", and 41 per cent were "not satisfied".
3. Just two per cent of firms said that foreign language capability was the most important factor when recruiting gradutates.
4. Only four per cent of employers said they had lost business due to inadequate foreign language skills, but the report says "the true figure could be as high as a quarter", as 21 per cent of firms said they didn't know.
   

On 6 May, the European Commission is hosting a discussion about foreign language skills for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It has also published a new brochure with ten helpful suggestions for SMEs (see here).