Organizing student practice of a new language

Organizing student practice of a new language

There are many ways to organize student practice of new language.

Among them are:

Open class

All students listen to the teacher or to the contributions of individual students. This is particularly appropriate when the teacher is introducing new topics before pair/group work and also when getting students to report back after closed pairs/group practice.

Open pairs

Two students are chosen by the teacher to ask and answer while the rest of the class listen. It is often a good idea to choose students from very different parts of the class so that the rest of the class can hear what is happening and feel included. This often provides a good model and clarifies instructions before a ‘closed pairs’ activity.

Closed pairs

All students work with a partner. This encourages maximum practice and is particularly appropriate for dialogue work. It is important that the teacher monitors the different pairs as they are working and doesn't spend too long with any individual pair.

Group work

This is best for activities which involve the collection or discussion of ideas. Students work in small groups and usually report back ‘open class’ to share their ideas with the class as a whole.

‘Mingle’ activities

These allow constant repetition of a particular question or collection of the opinions of many students. Students stand up and walk from one student to another, asking and answering as required - they ‘mingle’! These activities are effective with classes where furniture can be moved out of the way to allow for free movement around the room. Clearly, activities like this (especially with a large class) need to be set up carefully with clear instructions given.

Giving examples

It is always a good idea to give students an example of any exercise or practice activity that you want them to do. It is much easier to understand a practical example than a verbal one. If, for example, you want them to do an exercise where they have to choose the correct tense in a series of sentences then ask students to look at the first one and say which tense they think is correct. Confirm the correct answer and then let them continue.

Classroom management

If your class is large and mingling is not possible, put students in groups of four or five. They take it in turns to ask the question while the others listen and write the answers, or they ask:
• the student on their right.
• the student on their left.
• the student behind them.
• the student in front of them.
If you are setting up a pairwork activity and you have an odd number of students in your class, put three students together where possible. This will leave you free to monitor the other students. It may, however, sometimes be more appropriate for you to act as a student's partner, in order to balance the numbers and help that student with particular problems.