Thank you for the podcast, Maria. I enjoyed listening to it. I believe that, like most things in life, balance is what is important here. Focusing 100% on accuracy is bad, as is focusing 100% on communication. ( I don't use 'fluency' for communication because fluency to me implies accuracy and oral ability/confidence) my experience taking language classes over 45 years (I'm very slow - lol) is that the teacher's method primarily is influenced by the teacher's beliefs of what is best for his/her students, regardless of the current fad in teaching. This may be unique to most language teachers, more so than other teachers. So a class today feels much the same to me as 45 years ago; I don't see too much of a difference, except that teachers have more tools at their disposal now and teaching has moved to more interactive classroom and group work versus the more lecture based rote memorization methods of years past. For me, the question of whether to emphasize accuracy or communication is best answered by the desired outcome for the student. Elementary school students learning a language would be bored to death with an accuracy based class. For an adult planning to work in a professional capacity abroad, accuracy is essential, for a doctor, engineer, or interpreter. All that said, I think most language learners focus too much on language accumulation and accuracy in their early stages. the best method for most of us is to keep your communication ability in pace with language accumulation, sacrificing some accuracy and always moving forward before perfecting either accuracy or 'fluency'. All the best, Mark.

Thanks for the podcast, Maria. I agree with you, and I think that the two things go hand in hand, fluency (I'd say "communication") and accuracy.

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