Fluency in English. How to improve your fluency?

I am currently teaching a student who is very good at writing, but who is concerned about his speaking. Searching for some material on the web to work on fluency and pronunciation, I came accross a very amusing Tongue Twister.

 

And even though I have never been fond of Tongue Twisters myself, I fell in love with it. I found it so funny that I decided to use it with my student, and I think the exercise really paid off.

Do you want to give it a try?

Batter

 Betty Botter bought some butter,
"But," she said, "this butter's bitter.
If I bake this bitter butter,
It will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter -
That would make my batter better."
So she bought a bit of butter,
Better than her bitter butter,
And she baked it in her batter,
And the batter was not bitter.
So 'twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter.

By the way, I found the Tongue Twister in http://busyteacher.org/14916-improve-esl-pronunciation-6-fun-exercises.html. I don't know if they own it, but it is better to play it safe on copyrights.

 

If you are a teacher and you are planning to use this Fluency activity with your students, make sure to pre-teacher the meaning of "batter" /ˈbæt.ər/  (in case they don't know the word) and the difference in pronunciation with "butter" /ˈbʌt.ər/.

 

To check on how to pronounce some words, I recommend the Cambridge Dictionary Online, which is free.

 

Gustavo Albarracín

Cologne, Germany 18/02/2016