Universite d’antananarivo ecole normale superieure

1.2.3.2- The practice stage

The practice stage is the second stage of grammar teaching when students are given various activities to practice the new structure. Ur (1991) defines it as “the rehearsal of certain behaviours with the objective of consolidating learning and improving performance”. This stage is sometimes called controlled practice or accuracy practice. Here, the aim is not communication yet, but familiarity with the new grammatical item by creating automatism to enable ready and fluent comprehension and self-expression (Ur, 1991). During this stage, teacher’s conducting is very important because students’ mistakes should be corrected. This stage is focused more on practice of form than of meaning. In a practice of conditional sentences, the teacher should insist on students’ accuracy when writing the sentences so that they can use those structures when they deal with communicative activities in the next teaching stage.

Practice can be done through either written or oral activities (but it is most of the time written) which give the students the opportunity to:

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  Rehearse the newly presented language
  

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  Consolidate and improve their performance
  

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  Build their confidence in using the new language
  

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  Fix the new language in their memory.