Second edition

Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you,
m Presenting new language involves the teacher in making various choices:

• 
  When to present the target language? Before (as in PPP) or after (as in TBL) learners try to use it?
  
• 
  What language items to present (which new grammatical structures, new vocabulary, new lexical phrases, new functional exponents)? How many of these to present together?
  
• 
  What context to choose to present the target language in? The context needs to be meaningful (show the meaning of the new language), and personalised (connected to the student's life or thoughts) and relevant (of importance) to the students.
  

~ Whether to focus on meaning or also on some aspects of form (grammar,
pronunciation, spelling)? This choice will depend a lot on who your learners are, e.g. their age, learning preferences. As we have seen before, a focus on form is not so effective for young learners, for example.


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• 
  What aids to use to help create the context, e.g. pictures, DVD, CD, a worksheet?
  
• 
  How to show the meaning or use ol the target language, e.g. explanation, translation, presenting through a situation?
  

@ Using warmers as introductory activities makes the students feel comfortable and ready for the lesson. If learners arrive at a lesson ready to learn and all at the same time, you may not always need to do warmers.
m Lead-ins introduce the content of the lesson. They give the learners a chance to remember their thoughts and experiences of the content before they start actually working on it. In this way, they are belter prepared for the work that follows.
© The ways you present new language or introduce lessons will depend on your learners - their level, interests, age, what language they already know, weaknesses and strengths in English and learning styles, and on the resources available to you in your school and the approach to presentation used in your coursebook.
See Unit for approachestolanguage teaching, Unit 1/for types of activities and tasks, Unit 21 for selecting language for presentation and planning a lesson. Units 25-26 for resources and materials useful for presentations, and Unit 27 forclassroom functions often used by the teacher to present new language.





Look at the terms in the box below and see which of the seven presentation activities they can be used to describe.


focus on form con textual.} sat: ion focus on meaning guided discovery
eliciting concept checking using aids modelling noticing text as input ¹


1 The students read a text, then the teacher asks them to find and underline all the examples it contains of the second conditional.

2. 
   The teacher shows the students a video of some children lighting and asks them to give her reasons why they might be lighting. She encourages them to say
   

Tt might/could be because../

2. 
   The teacher shows the students pictures of people doing lots of boring duties, e.g. washing up, washing clothes, shopping, cleaning the house. After she has told the students which of the activities she must do tonight, she says 'Am I talking about something 1 want to do or something I have to do?'
   
3. 
   The students listen to a recording of a dialogue between a shop assistant and a customer. The teacher asks the students to tell her what language they heard.
   
4. 
   The students read a short advertisement advertising a new car. The teacher has underlined all the superlatives in the text. She then asks the students to look at the underlined words and work out when the -est form is used.
   
5. 
   The teacher shows the students four drawings of what she did at the weekend and tells the students what she did. She then asks the students to draw four pictures showing what they did last weekend. Next she asks them to talk about their pictures, helping them to use the correct form of the past tense.
   
6. 
   The teacher shows students a series of pictures showing the development of a butterfly. As she shows them, she tells the students what is happening to the butterfly and asks them to repeat the sentences after her.
   

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unit 16 Presentation techniques and introductory activities

ШШШВ2В
Think about these comments from teachers. Which do you agree with and why?

1. 
   l think PPP is too controlled by the teacher - the students fed you are being bossy with them.
   
2. 
   Whatever presentation technique I use, I always focus on pronunciation of the target language,
   
3. 
   If you don't focus on form, students will never notice it.
   

DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES]

1. 
   Look at a unit in your coursebook that presents new language. What presentation techniques docs it use? Does it focus on meaning or form or both?
   
2. 
   If you have suitable classes, leach one class the PPP lesson at the beginning of this unit and the other the TBL lesson. Compare their reactions and write them up in your Teacher Portfolio,
   
3. 
   For more ideas on presenting new language, read Chapter 12 of Learning Teaching (Second edition) by Jim Scrivener, Macmillan 2005.
   
4. 
   Here arc some suggestions for warmers. Choose one suitable for one of your classes, then teach it and note the effect it had on the learners and the lesson. Write up your observations in your Teacher Portfolio.
   

It U p://dtnotebook.hlogspot.com/2007/01/my-favourite-dl-da ssroom-warmers.html http:/ /www.tefl logue.com/m-the-classroom/tefl-warmers-from -da ves-eshcafe- idea-cookbook.html

5. 
   Use the TKT Glossary to find the meaning of these terms: define, definition, illustrate meaning, teaching strategy, visualisation, arouse interest,
   

TKT practice task 16 (See page 245 for answers)
For questions 1 -6, look at the terms about presentation techniques and introductory activities and the three possible examples listed A, В and C.
Choose the example (A, В or C) which matches the term. ¹


1 concept questions
A The teacher asks the students to repeat the target questions after her.
В The teacher asks the students Am I talking about something definite or something possible?
C The teacher puts quiz questions on the board and asks the students to answer them in pairs.


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2. 
   a situational presentation
   

A The teacher tells the students about something that happened to her one day at school,
В The teacher asks the students to present their group’s ideas to the class,
C The teacher plays a recording then the students do a comprehension task on it.

2. 
   modelling
   

A Two students demonstrate to the rest of the class how their design works.
В The students copy the target language from their exercise books into their vocabulary records.
C The students listen to the target language on the recording then say it themselves.

2. 
   a lead-in
   

A The teacher starts the class by doing some revision before teaching some new language.