Practice can be roughly defined as the rehearsal of certain behaviours with the objective of consolidating learning and improving performance”.
The process of learning a skill by means of a course of instruction has been defined as a three-stage process: verbalization, automatization and autonomy.
VERBALIZATION | → | AUTOMATIZATION | → | AUTONOMY |
Teacher describes and demonstrates the skilled behavior to be learned; learners perceive and understand. |
| Teacher suggests exercises; learners practice skill in order to acquire facility. Automatie; teacher monitors. |
| Learners continue to use skill on their own, becoming more proficient and creative. |
(Source: Skill learning, Ur, 2000: 20)
Practice can be categorized into three types: mechanical, meaningful and communicative practice.
Mechanical practice or a mechanical drill is one where there is complete control over the student’s response, and where comprehension is not required in order to produce a correct response. The typical drill is Imitate & repeat. The significance of it is for reinforcement as a basis for the further practice.
Meaningful practice or a meaningful drill is one in which there is still control over the response, but understanding is required so that the student produces a correct response. The significance is for using the language to participate in some activities.
Communicative practice or a communicative drill is one in which the type of response is controlled but the student provides his or her own content or information. The significance is to lead students to use the target language.
● Validity: The activity should activate learners primarily in the skill or material it purports to practice;
●Effectiveness: we consolidate learning by practice successfully;
● Interest: the practice must lead to learner attention, high motivation and ultimately effective learning. It can be rooted in some “aspects of the activity: an interesting topic, the need to convey meaningful information, a game-like ‘fun’ task, attention-catching material, appeal to learners’ feelings or a challenge to their intellect” ;
● Engagement: “the more language the learners actually engage with during the activity, the more practice in it they will get” ;
● Teacher assistance: “The main function of the teacher, having proposed the activity and given clear instructions, is to help the learners do it successfully” . T should do his best to assist Ss, and increase their chances of success and the effectiveness of the practice activity as a whole.
At least seven approaches to communicative exercise design can be identified in the literature: giving and following instructions, information transfer, information gap, the jigsaw principle, problem solving, informal talk tasks, and role-play and drama techniques.
This is a simple but valuable communicative activity. The use of the language is task-oriented, and learners experience the language at work, e.g.
◇ Stand up!
◇ Open your books.
◇ Touch your nose.
◇ Put your hands on your head!
◇ A central characteristic of communicative language teaching is that it focused attention on the ability to understand and convey information content (Johnson 1982: 164)
◇ One must have a sufficient command of the L2 to read & interpret the letter.
◇ It helps direct the reader’s attention to important items of information, thus facilitation the reading process.
◇ e.g. The information in a letter of application to a club has to be transferred to an official form.
If A talks to B, A must assume that B does not already know in advance what A is going to say; otherwise there would be no point in talking.
(e.g. Go for it 8A Unit 4 Pp 21/82/83)
A further development of the information gap principle, instructions or separate bits of information are given to two, three, or more groups of Ss.
Co-operation, group work
Task
Group 1’s card |
Find these words (1) You do it when you are tired. (2) You cannot… milk or tea, but you can… apples, bread, cake and chocolates (3) You do it on horses and bicycles. (4) When two cars crash into each other, they have an… Make a word from the first letters of these words. Hint for the group word: a period of time
|
| Group 2’s card |
| Find these words (1) A big animal with grey skin and a trunk. (2) He delivers letters. (3) A kind of fruit, not an apple. (4) If you do not dislike something, you… it. (5) The time from noon till evening.
Make a word from the first letters of these words. Hint for the group word: a kind of fruit |
| Group 3’s card |
| Find these words (1) Jingle Bells, Clementine and Old MacDonald are (2) You need a fork, a … and a spoon for eating. (3) The first word in a letter. (4) Number between ten and twelve. Make a word from the first letters of these words. Hint for the group word: a piece of furniture |
| Group 4’s card |
| Find these words (1) Not young but… (2) A hot drink, sometimes made from bags. (3) They were in North America before the Europeans came. (4) You are called by it. Make a word from the first letters of these words. Hint for the group word: a preposition |
| Group 5’s card |
| Find these words (1) When you ask a question you usually get an… (2) In the sky at night, big and bright. (3) You write with it. (4) Last word in a letter to a good friend. Make a word from the first letters of these words. Hint for the group word: it gives you light |
| Key 1. yawn, eat, ride, accident → year 2. elephant, postman, pear, like, afternoon → apple 3. songs, knife, dear, eleven → desk 4. old, tea, Indian, name → into 5. answer, moon, pen, love → lamp 6. over 7. hand （邹为诚， 2008：118-20） → holiday |
Some activities are designed to present Ss with problems, riddles, or puzzles which arouse their curiosity, e.g.
Planning a picnic
Group-work: discuss:
-where to go
-when to go
-how to go
-what to take
-what to do
Those tasks emphasize on getting meaning across, on the what of communication rather than the how.
In many cases, these techniques approximate real-life language use to a remarkable degree.
Arends, R. I. & A. Kilcher. Teaching for student learning: Becoming an accomplished teacher [M]. New York & London: Routledge, 2010.
Brown, H. D. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.) [M]. Tsinghua University Press, 2013.
Ur, P. A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory [M]. 北京：外研社，剑桥：剑桥大学出版社，2000.
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.
邹为诚等. 外语教师职业技能发展.[M]. 北京：高等教育出版社，2008.
Q1: Should we ask students to practice mechanical drills? Why or why not?
Q2: What types of practice can be categorized into? When to design them?
Q3: How to carry out automaticity of learning?
Q4: In which circumstances can we adapt those approaches to communicative activities?
