One of the teacher’s jobs is to mediate such new material so that it appears in a form that is most accessible for initial learning. This kind of mediation may be called ‘presentation’.  

(1) Raw, unmediated new input is often incomprehensible to learners; it does not function as ‘intake’, and therefore does not result in learning. Hence the necessity for presenting it in such a way that it can be perceived and understood.

(2) Effective teacher presentations of mew material in formal courses can help to activate and harness learners’ attention, effort, intelligence and conscious (metacognitive) learning strategies in order to enhance learning.

(1) It may help Ss focus them on the teacher and the material to be learnt;

(2) The learners can perceive (see or hear) the target material;

(3) Through T’s explanation, illustration, Ss can understand the meaning of material being introduced;

(4) If the presentation is effective, Ss can easily remember the material they learned and have opportunity to consolidate learning.

(1) Reliability: you must teach what you hope the Ss to grasp, i.e. the structures, the words, etc. the target language in this unit;

(2) Feasibility: the ways and the techniques are what you can utilize according to the content of the lesson based on the needs and levels of the learners;

(3) Interest: If the ways and the content you present are interesting, you can draw Ss’ attention which usually the basis for the further effective learning;

(4) Efficient: the language of the class should be clear and the vocabulary you choose should be relevant to the level of Ss. And the transition between two steps should be natural and effective to keep the teaching pace rhythmical.

(5) Unity: unify the environment and the learning content. Provide the situation as a good scaffolding to support understanding of learning.

Presentation teaching has some common phases.

 Figure: Phases of a presentation lesson (Adapted from Arends, 2010: 169)

             -Attention is influenced by what we already know;

             - Attention is influenced by surprise and the dramatic;

             - Attention is influenced by curiosity. 

Refers to as intellectual scaffolds, advance organizers are hooks or anchors that help activate prior knowledge and help students prepare to consider the learning materials to follow. Concrete examples from the lesson work better.

             - Be clear about aims and main points

             - Go through the presentation step by step

             - Be specific and provide several examples

             - Check for student understanding

This is accomplished through questioning and discussion. Questions help Ss process the content they are learning. Varying combinations of lower-order and higher-order questions will be needed, depending upon the goal you are pursuing.

●  Real objects (blackboard drawing, objects, pictures, multimedia resource, etc.);

●  Body language or mime;

●  Real communication between the T and Ss;

●  Story;

●  Cases in daily life (concrete examples);

●  Games

●  Revision

●  Comparison between new knowledge and the old one.

Question is an utterance that is addressed to a listener/reader and asks for an expression of fact, opinion, belief, etc.

Questioning is one of the most frequently used teaching techniques. Among the factors which have been examined are:

- The frequency of low-level versus high-level questions;

- The degree to which students are encouraged to ask questions;

- The amount of wait-time teachers allow after a question;

- The choice of convergent or divergent questions;

- How often teachers answer their own questions. 

To ascertain what students know prior to teaching

To determine if students have learned what has been taught

To gain attention

To provide variation while teaching

To get the student back on task

To cause students to think

-Give students the impetus and opportunity to produce language comfortably without having to risk initiating language themselves.

-Serve to initiate a chain reaction of students’ interaction among themselves.  

-Give the instructor immediate feedback about student comprehension.

-Provide students with opportunities to find out what they think by hearing what they say. This self-discovery can be especially useful for a prewriting activity.

Table: Categories of questions and typical classroom question words adapted from Bloom, 1956; Kinsella, 1991, cited in Brown, 2013: 220)

-Too much class time spent on display questions.

-A question that insults students’ intelligence by being so obvious that Ss will think it’s too silly to bother answering.

-Vague questions that worded in abstract or ambiguous language.

-Questions stated in language that is too complex or too wordy for aural comprehension.

-Too many rhetorical questions that Ss think you want them to answer; they then get confused when you supply the answer.

-Random questions that don’t fall into a logical, well-planned sequence, sending Ss’ thought patterns into chaos.

            (1) Help the T to control the class;

            (2) Help to keep the attention of the whole class;

            (3) Give good Ss a chance to show their knowledge;

            (4) Give weak or shy Ss a chance to answer;

            (5) Give lazy Ss a chance not to answer.

Arends, R. I. & A. Kilcher. Teaching for student learning: Becoming an accomplished teacher [M]. New York & London: Routledge, 2010.

Doff, A. Teach English: A training course for teachers (Teacher’s workbook) [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988: 9-17.

Lewis, M. & J. Hill. Practical techniques for language teaching [M]. Beijing: FLTRP & Cengage Learning, 2009: 15-32.

肖惜，李恒平. 英语教师职业技能训练简明教程（第二版） [M]. 北京：高等教育出版社，2016.

Q1: What kind of language in presentation can clarify the new knowledge?

Q2: Why is the presentation important?

Q3: Why should we usually show the real objects directly instead of exposure itself?

Q4: Which questions can improve students’ high level thinking ability?