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.
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