PRESENTING AND PRACTISING LANGUAGE

students need to learn various aspects of language: grammar,vocabulary, pronunciation and functions. In order to learn this language, teachers need
to present the new language to students and create situations where the language can
be practised. Revision and further practice are also essential in subsequent lessons.
The amount of revision carried out in later lessons will depend on the students’ leveland on their mastery of the language point.
Here we will look at how to present grammar, vocabulary and functions, how to revise
language and how to create situations to practise both new and known language.
Pronunciation will be the topic of a separate chapter.
From a language learner’s point of view, presentation of language is probably the most important aspect of studying English. Students expect lessons to contain some degree of language study, either long and intensive or short and sharp, depending on
whichever is appropriate – it’s most often what they note in their books and take away with them.
The stages are:
1. find out how much students already know about the language point;
2. presentation;
3. check students have understood the presentation;
4. practice (controlled and/or free).
In following lessons:
1. If it was the first time the students encountered the language item, you can do
another brief presentation and then do some more activities to practise the
language.
2. If students are familiar with the language item, you can go immediately to more
practice activities.
Stage 1: Pre-checking knowledge
Before presenting any language, it is useful to find out how much your students know
about the language point in question. You can get an idea of what they have studied
by looking through their course book and previous work. However, the fact that the
students have studied a particular language point does not mean they know it. In class,you can check to what extent they know the language by eliciting phrases that include the language point. This can be done relatively quickly; e.g. you can show pictures of people in action to your students and ask them what the characters are doing to check knowledge of present continuous and / or verbs of action (he’s running, she’s dancing,they’re playing tennis).
You can also check the extent of their knowledge by asking them to carry out a
speaking activity that requires use of the language point e.g. speaking about last year’s holidays to ascertain students’ knowledge of the simple past and other past tenses.
This will take longer but you will have more of an idea of what students know.
You can take an exercise from your course book or workbook for this pre-checking
stage. Course books contain many exercises that are intended to be used as practice
after the presentation stage. You can take one of these exercises and use it before
presentation to find out students’ level.
You can also design your own exercises. For example, if you want to find out whether
beginner or elementary level students are familiar with “wh” question words (who,
what, when, where, why) you could prepare a list of questions with “wh” words and the
corresponding answers. Mix up the questions and answers and ask students to reorganise them. Below is an example:
What did she do? At 3pm.
What time did she do it? Because she thinks Meryl Streep is a brilliant actress.
Who did she do it with? She went to see “The Devil Wears Prada”.
When did she do it? At the cinema.
Where did she do it? Her best friend.
Why did she do it? On Saturday.
Comment: each question is similar to avoid giving away too many clues and to keep
the focus on the “wh” word.
You can prepare similar exercises where students match items to practise other
language points: e.g. words and their definitions to check knowledge of vocabulary.
You can also use matching exercises to teach first and second conditionals. The first
conditional involves the use of simple present and will, e.g. if it rains tomorrow, I’ll stay at home. The second conditional involves the use of simple past and would, e.g. if I won a million dollars, I’d buy a big house.
A further example is: if you are about to teach your students how to form questions
through word order inversion; you can first of all check to what extent they can form
questions already.A quick and simple way to check students’ knowledge of word order is to write out some simple sentences and then to jumble up the words. I suggest you use approximately ten sentences varying in difficulty. Give students the jumbled sentences and ask them to put words in the right order.
Where did you buy your dress? Buy / dress / where / your / you / did /
What time do you usually go to bed? Usually / time / go / you / what / do / bed
/ to
What is your mother’s name? Mother’s / what / name / your / is
Organising activities such as the above can be used to pre-check any language point
that involves knowledge of word order.
Of course, students can do exercises such as those above in pairs. This can help
create an environment of cooperation, and works well when you want a general idea of
how well the class copes with the language item. However, if you want to know the
level of knowledge of individual students, pay very close attention while they’re
working.
The beauty of exercises such as those above is that they are easy to prepare and they
can be used to check extent of knowledge or be used as revision in a subsequent
lesson. And why not, occasionally, use the same activity to pre-check knowledge and
to revise? This will allow you and your students to compare initial performance with
performance post-presentation of language. It can be very motivating for students to
see how well they have progressed.
Stage 2: Presentation
There are a variety of ways to present language; they vary in the amount of student
and teacher involvement. I will outline and comment on some options below.
Explanation
You can give an explanation in English or in the students’ mother tongue. For example, you can explain that the simple past is used for an action at a specific time in the past and that the past perfect tense is used for an action that happened previous to that action.
When I got home last night my husband had already cooked dinner.
Got = simple past had cooked = past perfect (action happened before I got home)
(Change to husband to wife if you think it’s more appropriate for your students!)
Students used to a traditional way of teaching tend to like and expect this type of
presentation. The downside is that students might not understand the explanation; very often the language used in the explanation is more complex than the structure itself. It also requires an understanding of syntax and the words used to describe language(verb, object, etc). You can get around this by giving examples (as I did above) or by using the students’ mother tongue briefly. If you choose explanation as a method of presenting, I suggest you make a note on your lesson plan of what you intend to say in class as well as example sentences.
Demonstration
You can demonstrate the language you wish to teach. For example, if you get
students’ attention and drop your pen on the floor, you can say, “I’ve just dropped my pen”. You can also use demonstration to teach the present continuous for actions
happening at the moment; e.g. I’m writing on the board; Susan is listening to me. You
can use mime to demonstrate action verbs: climbing, running, walking, etc. You can
also use objects or the students themselves to teach comparatives and superlatives:
John is taller than Susan. Stephen is the tallest person in the class.
Demonstration works well for some language points but not all; it’s best for things
happening around the present moment and action verbs. One disadvantage is that
students may not understand the demonstration; it is advisable to follow up a
demonstration with an explanation.
Illustration
This method is excellent for teaching vocabulary, especially at lower levels. You can
show pictures of objects you want to teach; you can draw items on the board or cut
pictures out of magazines. You can even use the real item (known as realia); it is very memorable for students to see spoons, forks, plates, bracelets, watches, buttons, etc in class. The use of pictures is also memorable, especially for visual learners. It is also
easy and time efficient to go back to the language item: you just hold up the item and invite students to tell you what it is, no need for an explanation or complicated
elicitation.
You can also use this method to teach structures. For example, if you want to teach
the present perfect continuous, e.g. He’s been doing his homework since 7pm. You
can show, or draw, a picture of John at 7pm settling down to his homework. You can
then show a picture of him at 9pm, still doing his homework. You can use the situation to teach or elicit “he’s been doing his homework since 7pm”.
One drawback of illustration is that it is time-consuming for the teacher to gather
together items before the lesson and they can be heavy to carry in to class. Pictures
can help you get around this; I suggest your start building up a picture bank as soon as possible.
Discovery / deducing meanings
This approach guides students to learn for themselves rather than the teacher teaching
the language point directly. The discovery method involves students studying language
items in a text or in isolated sentences. If isolated sentences are used, it’s preferable to provide a context. Students deduce grammatical rules, use of tenses, use of the infinitive contrasted with use of verb with –ing. or meanings of words from what they read. (The possibilities are endless). Students then check with the teacher whether their deductions are correct.
For example, you can give your students the following sentences and ask them to tell
you the names of the tenses used (present perfect and simple past) and to tell you why they are used: (simple past to talk about a specific time in the past and present perfect to talk about experiences).
I’ve never been to Brazil: present perfect to talk about experiences.
She’s never eaten snails: present perfect to talk about experiences.
We went to Corsica on holiday last year: simple past to talk about a specific time
in the past.
I had beef for dinner last night: simple past to talk about a specific time in the
past.
To give a personal example, many years ago I studied elementary German. One day
our teacher asked us to read a text relating what the writer had done the previous day and to answer questions on this text. The text contained elements such as the
following:
Yesterday I got up late, ate breakfast quickly and had a shower. I left the house at
8.30.
We all knew the German for yesterday, get up, eat, have and leave; this meant that we
were able to understand the text even though we had never studied the German
equivalent of got, ate, had and left. Our teacher then proceeded to a study of
language; she put 2 columns on the board with the headings every day and yesterday.
In the every day column, she wrote: get up, eat breakfast, have a shower, leave the
house. She asked us to provide the verb forms for the yesterday column and then
asked us why the verb form was spelt differently: they’re in the past tense of course.
She elicited from us the name of the tense and the verb forms even though we were
new to this structure.
This is a highly effective method of teaching; it involves students 100% in the lesson;the source of knowledge becomes the class rather than the teacher; the teacher has the chance to see who knows the language item and to what extent. This helps plan subsequent lessons; it might be that your students know the structure and just require brief revision and practice. Alternatively, they might need a complete presentation,explanation and extensive practice. It is also very memorable. I studied German almost 20 years ago and can still remember this lesson and the feeling of joy at understanding and discovering this language for myself.
This approach works well for revising language that students should already know and
it can be used for new language if the meaning is obvious (as in the example above).
This approach engages students in the learning process and as such it is more
memorable, especially if they get it right! Using this method in class will encourage
students to do the same thing outside the classroom whenever they see the written
word; this will be an excellent learning tool for them.
Disadvantages are that students might be resistant to this method if they’re not used to it. If you use this method once and you explain the language point after the discovery phase, they will accept it more easily on subsequent occasions. Another drawback is that it requires a teacher to have thorough knowledge of the language point. Students sometimes come up with something they’ve heard somewhere else and have misunderstood and you will need to confirm or correct, what they say. I suggest you experiment with this method on a language point you know well and not the first time you teach a complicated structure!
Stage 3: Check students’ understanding
When you have completed your presentation of language, you will need to check
whether students have understood. It is not enough to ask students whether they
understand or whether everything is clear. The result will simply be their assurances
that they understand. It is far better to devise a method that checks they have
understood.
For example, after presenting question formation involving present simple you could
write on the board: “she likes animals” and invite students to make the question.
Students should be able to say “does she like animals?”. You can invite a student to
the board to write the question or invite the class to produce it orally. You could
accidentally add an “s” to like: “does she likes animals?” or make a similar error to see whether students notice and correct it. If so, make sure you remove the extra “s” so students don’t copy it into their books.
You can also use a technique called concept check questions (CCQs). You need to
ask questions that will lead students to the precise meaning of the language item. First of all check the precise meaning of the language item and then create questions
accordingly.
For example, comparative adjectives are used to describe two things that differ and to compare the elements that differ. In the sentence: Sally is taller than Jane, you could ask the students:
Are Sally and Jane are the same size? (No).
Is Jane is taller than Sally? (No).
Is Jane shorter than Sally? (Yes).
If students answer the questions correctly, you can assume that they’ve understood
the language point.
Stage 4: Practising language points
After presenting language, set a practice activity that allows students to use the
language they have just studied. This should be done as soon as possible after the
presentation of the language point in order to consolidate learning. Controlled practice and freer practice (for definitions see Chapter 1) are useful at lower levels. At higher levels, you might be able to skip controlled practice and move directly to free practice.
The following activity is an example of controlled practice of questions and short
answers: e.g. did she leave work late? Yes, she did or no, she didn’t. The example is
in the simple past but you can change the tense. The objective of the activity is to
answer questions without using the words yes or no.
Start by demonstrating the activity to the class. Students ask you questions about what you did yesterday; you reply without hesitating and without using the words “yes” or“no”. For the first round, you could write some questions on the board as prompts, so students don’t spend too long formulating their questions. Example:
Did you go to work yesterday?
Did you finish work at 6pm?
Did you have lunch with friends?
Students read out the questions and the person in the hot seat (this is the teacher
during the presentation phase) responds with I did or I didn’t.
You continue with this for one minute. To help with timing, you can take in a stopwatch, an egg timer or ask a student to time you. If anybody uses the words yes or no, they are eliminated. If somebody speaks for one minute without using those words, he/she gets 10 points. You could then ask a student to come to the front of the class to provide further demonstration of the activity.
When students are clear about what is expected of them, separate them into groups of
at least three. One person is in the hot seat and the others ask questions; one person is responsible for keeping an eye on the time.
You can find more games that provide controlled practice of language in the
Communication Games series.
Stage 5: Revision
You will need to go back in later lessons and review the new language briefly. Try to
vary presentations by using a different presentation method the second time. Use
presentation methods in a logical order. For example, use explanation before
discovery and not vice versa. Doing a brief second presentation will remind students
and give them a chance to clear up any outstanding questions and will help any
students who were absent in the previous lesson. You should also give further practice of the language item. Try to introduce variety into the exercises; if your course book contains a number of exercises, decide which are suitable for use in the first lesson and which you will save for revision on another day.
A final word on presenting and practising language
I suggest you go through your course book and see how language is presented and
practised. You can decide whether the book’s approach is the best method for your
students and for the language point. Also decide whether the practice exercises are
sufficient. You can follow the procedure in the book, adapt it, supplement it or omit
exercises as you think necessary.