Explicit consciousness-raising (explaining, talking about

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MAKING REPETITION INTERESTING

• Penny Ur
• 2006

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Repetition as a component of language learning

• I would argue that there are three major
  channels of learning in the FL classroom
• Explicit consciousness-raising (explaining,
  talking about the language)
• Communication (using the language purposefully to
  convey or receive meanings)
• Practice (focusing on repetition of target items)

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Why repetition through practice?

• The skill model declarative knowledge
  transforms into procedural knowledge (the strong
  interface model (Dekeyser, Johnson)
• The frequency hypothesis (Ellis, 2002).
• Teachers professional intuitions
• Learners preferences

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Effective repetition through practice

• Quantity
• Pre-learning
• Success-orientation
• Teacher assistance
• Heterogeneity
• Interest

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Interim recap

• In this session we shall be looking at ONE of the
  components of an effective language
  teaching/learning program repetition through
  practice
• and at ONE crucial feature of this component
  interest.

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1. The stages of learning new language items
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a) From dependence to independence

• Its not that learners move from not knowing to
  knowing
• But rather from not knowing at all to
  noticing to knowing if you remind and support
  them and finally to knowing on their own
  (Vygotzky,1978).

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b) From passive recognition to active production

• Learners normally achieve passive mastery
  (recognizing something when they see it, but
  wouldnt have been able to produce it on their
  own) before they achieve active mastery.
• So, putting a) and b) together, were talking
  about at least four stages in the gradual
  acquisition of new language items

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The learner can both recognize and produce it on
his / her own
The learner can recognize it on his/her own, but
can produce only if helped
The learner can recognize it only if helped,
cant produce
The learner perceives and notices the new item,
with help
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For example

• Supposing youve presented the words dog and
  cat for the first time last lesson, using
  pictures, and now want to review them.
• Do you
• 1) re-present the words yourself at the beginning
  of the lesson?
• 2) elicit the words at the beginning of the
  lesson?
• Do you
• 1) Show the pictures and ask learners whats
  this??
• 2) Show the pictures, say Its a cat and get
  them to point to the appropriate picture?

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2. The need for repetition
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Research

• a) Adults / adolescents need between 6 and 16
  encounters with a new word before they remember
  it (Zahar et al., 2001). Younger learners
  probably need even more.
• b) Distributed practice is probably better than
  massed (Baddeley, 1990).

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What are the implications of a) and b) for
practice?

• Probably we need to do an immense amount of
  deliberate re-cycling of new language (letters,
  sounds, words, chunks, grammatical structures).
• This recycling, or repetition, needs to be
  scattered (distributed), not all in one go.
• So we should be leading constant cumulative
  review exercises.

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Interim summary repetition at the various levels
of learning

• 1. Noticing
• simple display
• pictures and explanation
• (significant) occurrence in a story
• (significant) occurrence within teacher-talk

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• 2. Recognition
• matching
• true/false
• classifying
• multiple choice
• drawing
• bingo

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• 3. Scaffolded Production
• recitations
• dialogues learnt by heart
• (prepared) dictation
• games based on set basic patterns
• answering (lower-level) questions

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• 4. Independent Production
• (unprepared) dictation
• response to a picture
• answering (higher-level) questions
• discussion
• free writing

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3. The problem of interest
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Interest-creating features

• Variety
• Purposeful meaning-making (communication)
• Success-orientation
• Visual focus (use of board, pictures )
• Game-like tasks
• Personalization
• Entertainment (songs, jokes, drama, humour)
• Open-endedness (lots of right responses)

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1. Variety

• Matching (recognition)
• 1. Format

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Matching2. Content
Whats your name? Its six oclock Where
is it? Fine, thank you
How are you? My names
Elliot Whats the time? Over
there!

? happy ? a clock
sad ? a cat ?
Can I sit
down! Whats the understand! I
dont help
you? Please matter?
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an ancient an aged an antique an
old a mature house soldier student
book dolphin woman
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• Different ways we can vary the content of
  matching exercises

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2. Purposeful meaning-making

• Information-gap exercises
• Picture dictations
• Guessing
• Filling in information on a grid
• Combining arrangement

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Combining arrangement
Student A
Student B
1) 2) 3) 4)
1) 2) 3) 4)
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3. Success-orientation

• easy to get right
• more than one way of getting it right
• use of L1 to clarify
• choice between success and more success
  (rather than success and failure)

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Find at least three things to put in each column
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4. Visual Focus

• picture-based activities
• adding graphic components
• joining-with-a-line
• filling-in
• circling
• changing

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Joe
Mitch
Jackie
Sid
Chuck
Dan
Jackie has a big hat. Mitch has a dog. Chuck
has a bottle of Coca Cola. Dan is running to a
house. Sid has long hair.
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5. Game-like tasks

• Guessing-games (mime, whats in my bag, I-spy,
  whats the picture etc.)
• Beat-the-clock games
• Dialogue-based games (detectives, wrangling,
  acting)

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6. Personalization

• Preferences
• Ideas
• Experiences
• Opinions
• Feelings
• Ambitions

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• Whats your favourite? Write in order.
• red, yellow, green, blue
• 1._______ 2.________ 3._______ 4._________
• singing, dancing, reading, watching TV
• 1._______ 2.________ 3._______ 4._________
• mangoes, oranges, apples, bananas
• 1._______ 2.________ 3._______ 4._________

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7. Entertainment

• songs
• video
• stories
• plays
• humour
• drama

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Whats that? Its a frog! What? Its a frog? Yes,
its a frog! Amazing!
Whats that? Its a book!
Come here at once! Who, me? Yes, you! Whats the
matter? Be quiet!
Come here! Go to the door! Sit down!
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8. Open-endedness

• Two or more possible right answers
• Brainstorming
• sun-ray (e.g. words with l in them
  associations)
• how many things can you think of that
• what can you do with a
• what does a (cat, baby, teacher ) do?

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To recap

• Repetition (review) of newly-learnt language is
  essential for learning.
• This repetition needs to be systematic and
  deliberate
• As repetition-based exercises proceed there
  should be a gradual withdrawal of scaffolding
  (teacher support)
• and progression from noticing to
  recognition to production.

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• In order for students to continue to attend,
  enjoy and progress, it is essential to make sure
  that repetition activities are designed to arouse
  and maintain interest.
• Some practical principles for making repetitive
  exercises interesting are

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• Variety
• Purposeful meaning-making
• Success-orientation
• Visual focus
• Game-like tasks
• Personalization
• Entertainment
• Open-ended cues