What changes

Across 97 studies and 19,933 learners, the more anxious the learner, the lower they tended to score. A chat with someone who answers kindly is the lowest-stakes room there is.

Learners who gave the same short talk three times kept their shorter pauses on the later tests. Those who gave three different talks did not.

So ummute builds a line from your own situation and has you say it again, rather than always giving you something new.

Practice can be spread out. Learners who practised four times, a week apart, used fewer ums and uhs afterwards than learners who had not practised.

A slip is said back the right way and the talk goes on. Across fifteen classroom studies with 827 learners, correction during conversation had lasting effects.

That is why the chat carries no score. As Cambridge University Press puts it, “Comments and prompts lead to more learning gains than providing scores.”

Listeners who heard a talk with the stress on the right words remembered more of it, and thought better of the speaker.

The end that falls sounds sure. One that rises sounds like a question. Your voice notes tell you which way yours went.

In a study of 28 students of French over one term, the ones in a classroom at home made no measurable gain in fluency. The ones who spoke and wrote it the most hours a week made the largest.

So the practice here is your own week: the meeting, the counter, the viva on Friday.