The decision to use Fillers, Circumlocution, Asking for clarification and Expressing
not understanding, was based on the problems identified in class and the pre-task, observed in
the video recording and the survey. During the training session or training task the students
were given some speaking activities and before every activity they were taught how to use
the strategies, one at a time. The first strategy taught was Fillers, the order was on purpose,
since we believed that we had to start with fillers; this strategy would smooth the process of
teaching the other strategies. Mendez and Marín (2007, p.79) suggest that fillers “help
students to fill those silent periods” where they take a long time to remember the word they
want to say at the moment.