There is a voice inside the head of every English learner that goes:
“Is it to me or for me?”
“Do I use the present perfect or the past simple?”
The good news is that this voice has a name: microplanning. Because I'm fascinated by all I'm learning about fluency from a cognitive science perspective (reply to this issue if you're interested in references!), I thought I'd turn one of the reels I posted on Instagram into a newsletter post. Let's see how it goes!
When we speak, words don’t just come out of our mouth magically. Our brain follows stages, and two of them are:
Macroplanning → deciding what you’re going to say (overall message, tone, register, etc.).
Microplanning → deciding how to say it (words, grammar, phrases, etc.).
To better understand the difference between microplanning and macroplanning, think of the following situation: you want to order food at a restaurant. When macroplanning, you decide who to speak to, what you’ll order, and your tone (polite, casual, formal). When microplanning, you choose how to phrase your order: “Can I have…” or “I’d like…”.
Here's the dilemma for us, English learners: when microplanning isn’t automatic, we get stuck mid-sentence, especially because we're overthinking every word and overanalyzing language. Another pitfall we fall into is to skip macroplanning and just focus on microplanning. Friend, in my experience, this makes things worse, especially because you’re trying to figure out how to say something without having a clear idea of what to say first.
While balancing microplanning and macroplanning isn't as simple as reading through this newsletter, I do have some practical tips that you can start implementing now, especially if you have to speak English in front of others.
