The student who gave this response (see student 8 in Activity 9) seemed to consider it an admission of madness, but it merits, on the contrary, serious consideration. Macaro (2000: 177) argues that:

Before this stage is reached, the thought-processes involved in rehearsing what is to be said in English, then translating and finally speaking, slow communication down considerably. (You are reminded that in Activity 3, section 6.2.2, student 4 was acutely aware of this difficulty - and this student was a finalist).

There has been very little research into the role of thought in second-language production, but Cohen (1998: 157-214) provides a good overview of the topic, and presents some informal findings of his own. He concludes that, while we should acknowledge that many students feel happier using L1 to process grammar learning, encouraging students to think 'free thoughts' and rehearse pre-conversation in the target language has definite benefits and leads to more successful oral communication.

This is more difficult when students are not immersed in a TL situation, but this is all the more reason to encourage practice in the skill. You can:

• encourage students to review what they are going to say before they say it, to spend a little time planning;
• suggest that when they are not in a speaking situation, they make conscious efforts to train their imagination to function in the TL;
• recommend students spend a few minutes every day (in different situations and circumstances) looking around and attempting to describe what they see - it is useful for identifying key vocabulary deficiencies, which can then provide the basis for some follow-up dictionary work (searching around for the right vocabulary is a clear impediment to fluid expression).