Abstract

Teaching of English in a non-native English context has been an area of interest in determining effective performance of English language teachers (ELTs). With that, this paper described the perceptions of selected English language teachers on fluency-enhancement strategies in their classroom discussions by identifying the speech productive variables that contribute to an ELT’s productive fluency in terms of oral teaching performance. This study is anchored on Sandra Götz’ “Theory of Fluency in Nonnative Speech” and Simone Müller’s “Discourse Markers in Non-Native English Discourse which sought to understand the speaker’s productive fluency phenomena. To determine the perceptions of the participants, the qualitative descriptive method was used. Following the ethical procedures for obtaining data, virtual class observations and virtual interviews among selected English language teachers from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines were conducted. The investigation yielded the following results: (1) the English language teachers’ fluency-enhancement strategies were classified as fillers, repeats, corrections, and discourse markers; (2) these fluency-enhancement strategies were perceived as a habit, a cognitive element, a strategy, and a distractor; and (3) the participants have positive outlook on their usage of fluency-enhancement strategies. With the salient findings mentioned, the ELTs’ perception on fluency-enhancement strategies bear significance on their oral teaching performance.