Fluency and Descriptive Words

Fluency can increase by getting the person to think of alternate ways to describe a person or an event. Fluency and descriptiveness go hand in hand. An increased vocabulary base will help improve ones sense of being able to “color” situations differently. It helps if the person is motivated enough to want to apply the new words. Here are some tips

1. If the person only knows good or bad as an adjective to someone’s character, ask them how good or how bad that person would be. This helps to stimulate the student’s thought processes so that he will look for different words to describe some element of what is good or bad and it helps him to avoid repetition.
2. If the person knows only one word that relates goodness, ask him if he can think of a synonym or something that means the same. This will get the student to understand that there are different levels of being good depending on various attributes. He will learn the differences between those new words. As in the case of good, he should then discover how kindness, gentle and generous are all ways of being good and that they have their own specific meanings and applications.
3. Get the student to see the difference between the different words that are similar to good so that these words will stick. This is often done during class activities. So the teacher can demonstrate how one can be kind by getting one student to do something for another student. Similarly that student may hold a pet gently so that it is not hurt and that is also a form of being good. If a pet is unavailable, pretend there is one.
4. Get the student to think of opposites. This will introduce the negative form of the adjective and one can also integrate the use of prefixes here.