In this article, I’m going to introduce the typical teaching cycle for teaching a new English tense, but all other aspects of a lesson can follow this basic pattern.
The Three Phases Of Language Teaching Practices
Most language teaching practices should go into the following three phases.
- Presentation
- Practice
- Assessment
If applied to teaching a new English tense, for example, we can split this three-phase cycle into the following steps:
* Lead-in:
This gets the students on the right track, revising the elements you will use in your introduction (the next step)
1. Introduction:
The first use of the new structure, the aim, here, is to present the meaning, form, and use of the new structure.
2. Practice:
Applying the structure with its basic variants in affirmative and negative contexts and asking students to do some learning tasks.
Practice itself can be divided into three kinds; controlled, guided, and free practice.
a. Controlled Practice:
Students reply to typical interrogatives, “yes/no” type short answers, “or” questions, and “key” wh-questions.
b. Guided Practice:
Students reply to typical interrogatives with complete affirmative and negative sentences.
c. Free Practice:
Students ask all the different kinds of questions they have heard. They should ask and answer questions in pairs or in a group as the teacher should get students to question each other. That maximizes student participation.
3. Assessment
After making sure that students become familiar with the form, meaning, and use of the new English tense, the assessment stage comes to assess to what extent the students have achieved the desired objectives related to the teaching of the tense.
The teacher can design and use different activities and tasks to implement the assessment in an effective way.
Final Word
This cycle ensures that all the different aspects are covered in a way that the students will find varied and interesting.
Most useful teaching practices can fit into this similar sequence meaning that the above example is typical for introducing a new tense but all other aspects in a lesson can follow this basic pattern.
What do you think? Let me know your thought by emailing me at: eltguide@gmail.com
Thanks For Reading
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