A big part of being an English teacher is gauging our students’ abilities in relation to what is expected at the level they’re in. It’s not an easy task by any means, but we do seem, after years of experience, to get a certain feel for it. But the real trick is actually being able to nail it down a bit more, to point to concrete features of their spoken output that are more reliable measurements of their proficiency. Let’s take a look at what fluency looks like for our advanced C1 learners.
Often times we might find ourselves saying things like “You know you’re fluent when you dream in English” or “You know you’re fluent when you think in English”, but what does that actually mean? I don’t know about you, but if I’m giving my advanced students feedback on their speaking I want to point to something a little more specific (and professional sounding) than their dreams.