Abstract
Fluency as well as accuracy activities are essential for the acquisition of communicative competence, but actual foreign language teaching in Japan tends to be focused only on accuracy. Speaking is a typical fluency activity, which has hardly ever been taught in schools. This is partly because of the size of language classes, and partly because of the teachers' excessive emphasis on the grammar-translation method. The author accordingly had his college students practice faster writing as a fluency activity during part of classes. This is a kind of free writing, but is different in that it emphasizes speed and quantity. A time limit of 1 to 5 minutes is imposed on students, and forces them to write as fast and as much as possible. A short course of faster writing did not greatly affect the writing fluency of the students, but their speaking fluency was significantly improved.
