07/08/2016

TheStagesofSecondLanguageAcquisition

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Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners

Facilitator's Guide
by Jane D. Hill and Cynthia L. Bjrk
Table of Contents

Chapter 2. The Stages of Second Language Acquisition

[Facilitator:Show Slide 14.]
Sale Book (Aug 2008)

BUY THIS BOOK

Key Ideas for Chapter 2

Students acquiring a second language progress through ve predictable stages.
Eective ELL instruction
Reects students' stages of language acquisition.

Related Topics
Professional Development

Helps students move through the language acquisition levels.

Engages ELLs at all stages of language acquisition in higher-level thinking activities.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 15.]

The Five Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Anyone who has been around children who are learning to talk knows that the process happens in stages
rst understanding, then one-word utterances, then two-word phrases, and so on. Students learning a
second language move through ve predictable stages: Preproduction, Early Production, Speech Emergence,
Intermediate Fluency, and Advanced Fluency (Krashen & Terrell, 1983). How quickly students progress
through the stages depends on many factors, including level of formal education, family background, and
length of time spent in the country.

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It is important that you tie instruction for each student to his or her particular stage of language acquisition.
Knowing this information about each student allows you to work within his or her zone of proximal
developmentthat gap between what students can do on their own and what they can with the help of
more knowledgeable individuals (Vygotsky, 1978).
Another reason for all teachers to gain insights into their students' stages of second language acquisition is
to meet the requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which requires ELLs to progress in their
content knowledge and in their English language prociency. How are we going to accomplish this if we are
not all responsible for content and language?

Activity
Complete the "stages" activity in Appendix 4. If time allows, add two more teacher strategies to each stage.
When you are nished, answer these questions:
Why should we be aware of the stages of language acquisition?
What are the implications of the stages for mainstream instruction?

Tiered Questions
Research shows that high levels of student engagement are "a robust predictor of student achievement and
behavior in school" (Klem & Connell, 2004, p. 262). One way for mainstream teachers to engage their ELLs
more is by asking tiered questions. We recommend that teachers ask frequent questions throughout their
lessons, as doing so lets ELLs practice their new language and helps teachers assess how much of the
content the ELLs understand. Of course, questions should be tailored to each ELL's level of second language
acquisition.
Figure 2.1 summarizes the ve stages of language acquisition and shows some appropriate prompts and
sample questions to use for each stage of second language acquisition. By knowing the stages of language
acquisition and stage-appropriate questions, you can engage students at the correct level of discourse.
Asking the tiered questions that accompany the stages of acquisition is one way to help students move to
the next stage. To ensure that the student is being challenged and pushed to the next level, it is important to
once in a while ask questions from the next level as well. Although there may be an approximate time frame
for each stage of language acquisition, the length of time students spend at each level will be as varied as
the students themselves.
[Facilitator:Explain tiered questions while showing Slides 1617.]

As you can see from Figure 2.1, it is OK to ask Preproduction students "Where is ?" or "Who has ?"
questionsthat is, questions that require a pointing, drawing, or circling response. It is even OK to ask
Preproduction students a question every so often that requires a one-word response, because we always
want to transition them to the next stage.

Figure 2.1. Sample Teacher Prompts for Each Stage of Second Language Acquisition
Stage

Characteristics

Preproduction The student

Approximate
Time Frame

Teacher Prompts

06 months

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Show me

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TheStagesofSecondLanguageAcquisition

Show me

Has minimal
comprehension.

Circle the
Where is ?

Does not verbalize.

Who has ?

Nods "Yes" and "No."

Draws and points.

Early
Production

The student
Has limited
comprehension

6 months1
year

Yes/no questions
Either/or questions
Who ?

Produces one- or twoword responses.

What ?
How many ?

Uses key words and

familiar phrases.
Uses present-tense verbs.

Speech
Emergence

The student

13 years

Why ?

Has good
comprehension.

How ?

Can produce simple

sentences.

Questions requiring phrase

or short-sentence answers

Explain

Makes grammar and

pronunciation errors.
Frequently
misunderstands jokes.

Intermediate
Fluency

The student

35 years

Why do you think ?

Has excellent
comprehension.

Questions requiring more

than a sentence response

Makes few grammatical

errors.

Advanced
Fluency

The student has a nearnative level of speech.

What would happen if ?

57 years

Decide if
Retell

For Early Production students, questions that require a one-word response, such as yes/no and either/or
questions, are acceptable. You also want to begin asking students at this stage questions that require a
phrase or short sentence.
Speech Emergence students should be asked to answer questions that require a short-sentence response. It
is OK to sometimes ask these students questions requiring a multiple-sentence response, but it is not OK to
ask them questions requiring a pointing or one-word response.
How about Intermediate and Advanced Fluency students? It is OK to ask them questions that require a lot of
verbal output, but it is not OK to ask them questions requiring minimal verbal output.
You can use tiered questions to include all ELLs in whole-class activities or one on one to check
comprehension or content learning. To accomplish this, you will need to know each student's stage of
language acquisition.

Classroom Example

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Classroom Example
To improve her ability to ask tiered questions, a 1st grade teacher asks the school ESL teacher to
demonstrate the strategy in her class during a discussion of The Three Little Pigs. For each stage of second
language acquisition, the ESL teacher asks the following types of tiered questions:
Preproduction: Ask questions that students can answer by pointing at pictures in the book ("Show me the
wolf," "Where is the house?").
Early Production: Ask questions that students can answer with one or two words ("Did the brick house fall
down?" "Who blew down the straw house?").
Speech Emergence: Ask "why" and "how" questions that students can answer with short sentences
("Explain why the third pig built his house out of bricks." "What does the wolf want?").
Intermediate Fluency: Ask "What would happen if " and "Why do you think " questions ("What would
happen if the pigs outsmarted the wolf?" "Why could the wolf blow down the house made of sticks, but not
the house made of bricks?")
Advanced Fluency: Ask students to retell the story, including main plot elements but leaving out
unnecessary details.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 18.]

Activity
Turn to the sample lesson plans in Appendix 58 and select the one that's most appropriate for your grade
level. After reading the lesson, match the sample student responses at the end to their respective stages of
second language acquisition. You may be asked to share your responses with the larger group.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 19.]

Tiered Thinking Across Stages of Second Language Acquisition

What distinguishes low-level questions from high-level ones? You likely use or recall Bloom's taxonomy
(Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956), which provides a structure for categorizing the level of
abstraction of questions. Figure 2.2 illustrates the levels in the taxonomy, starting with questions for
recalling information (low level) and concluding with questions for predicting and discriminating among
ideas (high level).

Figure 2.2. Levels of Bloom's Taxonomy

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The Ramirez study of bilingual educational programs (Ramirez, 1992) found that in all the language
programs studied (including immersion and early- and late-exit transitional programs), teachers tended to
ask low-level questions. In fact, in more than half of their interactions, students did not produce any oral
language; when they did, they engaged in simple recall.
You may ask yourself, "How can I possibly ask a Preproduction or Early Production student a high-level
question if the most that student can do is point or give a one-word response?" Do not mistake an ELL's
limited output for an inability to think abstractly. It's easy to keep asking Preproduction students yes/no
questions or have them respond by pointing, but the students must do more than simply recall knowledge.
We can't have ELLs stuck at the lowest levels of thinking.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 20.]

Have you ever seen the levels of thinking from Bloom's taxonomy aligned with the stages of second
language acquisition? For some reason, many people think that students in the initial stages of acquisition
can only answer low-level questions and that those in the advanced stages are more likely to answer highlevel questions. However, this is not the case.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 21.]

As Figure 2.3 shows, the levels of thinking and the stages of second language acquisition should operate
more as axes than in side-by-side alignment.

Figure 2.3. Relationship Between Bloom's Taxonomy and the Stages of Second Language
Acquisition

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[Facilitator:Show Slides 2224.]

Appendix 1 shows an actual matrix using both the levels of thinking and the stages of second language
acquisition.
English language learners at all stages of acquisition should be asked questions at all levels of thinking. We
don't want them to get stuck at a knowledge level only. We want to challenge their thinking and speaking
abilities.
[Facilitator:Show Slide 25.]

Card Sort Activity

[Facilitator:Bring out one premade game board and set of cards for each table or small group (see Appendix 9).]
The statements on the cards for this activity in Appendix 9 are taken from a high school science class during
a plant unit. The students have already acquired and integrated plant knowledge and are now ready to
practice, review, and apply what they've learned.
How would you engage students across all stages of second language acquisition at all levels of thinking?
Place the activity cards on the most suitable space on the game board.

Copyright 2008 by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). All rights reserved. No part of this publication
including the drawings, graphs, illustrations, or chapters, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articlesmay be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission from ASCD.

Requesting Permission
For photocopy, electronic and online access, and republication requests, go to the Copyright
Clearance Center. Enter the book title within the "Get Permission" search eld.
To translate this book, contact permissions@ascd.org
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BelchamberTheAdvantagesofCommunicativeLanguageTeaching(TESL/TEFL)

TheInternetTESLJournal

TheAdvantagesofCommunicativeLanguageTeaching
RebeccaBelchamber
r.belchamber{at}latrobe{dot}edu{dot}au
LaTrobeUniversityLanguageCentre(Melbourne,Australia)

Introduction
Asateachertrainerworkingwithinternationalgroups,Iamfrequentlyaskedtoincludeanoverview
ofcommunicativelanguageteaching(CLT),anddiscusswaysofadaptingmaterialstomakelessons
morecommunicativeorinteractive.
MostgroupsareenthusiasticaboutthelessonopportunitieswhichCLToffers.However,somealso
indicatedtheyfeltconstrainedbythesystemunderwhichtheyoperated,especiallythoseteachingin
settingswhichareparticularlyexamfocused.Inaddition,theyqueriedtherelevanceofCLTtotheir
situation,wheremany of the students never used English outside the classroom.Incontrast,Ihad
shifted across a spectrum of learners, enthusiastically taking CLT along with me as universally
appropriate.
Takingmycolleagues'concernsonboard,IbegantoquestiontheappropriatenessofCLTforsome
of these diverse learner groups. This was supported by current reading on the topic the titles of
somearticles(seetheReferencelist)mademethinkIshouldgiveupthesupportforCLTthenand
there.However,themoreIreadonthetopic,themoreIdefendedthecontinuedsuitabilityofCLT.It
reallydoesbenefitthestudentsinavarietyofways.

ElementsofCLT
CommunicationAccordingtoAbility
Whether CLT should be considered an approach or a methodology is a more abstract debate and
hereIwanttodealwithitsmorepracticalaspects.Infact,itisthoseveryelements,andthename
itself,whichhavebeenusedtochallengethefuturerelevanceofCLT.Firstly,thelabelimpliesafocus
on communication and some might argue that this method can't be employed genuinely with low
levels as there is no authentic communication, due to a limited vocabulary and restricted range of
functions.Initially,manyofalearner'sutterancesareveryformulaic.Asanaside,considerjustwhat
percentageofourownEnglishexpressionsareunique,andhowoftenwerelyonasetphrasejust
becauseitisdeliveredunselfconsciouslyandwithnaturalintonationdoesnotmakeitoriginal.The
aim is that the length and complexity of exchanges, and confident delivery, will grow with the
student'slanguageability.
Withtheemphasisoncommunication,thereisalsotheimplicationthatspokenexchangesshouldbe
authenticandmeaningfuldetractorsclaimthattheartificialnatureofclassroombased(i.e.teacher
created) interactions makes CLT an oxymoron. Nevertheless, a proficient teacher will provide a
contextsothatclassinteractionsarerealisticandmeaningfulbutwiththesupportneededtoassist
studentstogeneratethetargetlanguage.Weneedtoconsiderthatproducinglanguageisaskilland
when we learn a skill we practise in improvised settings. For example, before a nurse gives a real
injection,theyhavepuncturedmanyapieceoffruittohonetheirtechnique.

AccuracyasWellasFluency
Itmightalsobearguedthattheextentofsomeofthestructuresorfunctionsmayneverbeusedin
real life. One example is adjective order I have given students an exercise where they have to
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produceaphrasewithastringofadjectives,suchas"astrong,orange,Norwegian,canvastent."
Thisisveryunnatural,asmosttimesweonlycombinetwoorthreeadjectives.Theotherexampleis
directionswehavestudentsfollowamapandnegotiateexhaustivedirectionswhichsuggestmaze
likecomplexity.Inreality,mostofusprobablyareonlyinvolvedinathreephasesetofdirections.In
fact, what we are doing with these exercises is exposing students to patterns which they can later
activate.
This focus on accuracy versus fluency is one of the issues not often considered in a discussion of
CLT.Theteacherdecidestopayattentiontooneorotherendofthisband,dependingonthetypeof
lesson, or the stage of a particular lesson, and accuracy is their choice if they want to deal with
students getting things right, take an opportunity for correction, or gauge the success of their
teaching, for example. Freer speaking involves more choice, therefore more ambiguity, and less
teacher intervention. While CLT implies the lessons are more studentcentred, this does not mean
theyareunstructured.Theteacherdoeshaveaveryimportantroleintheprocess,andthatissetting
upactivitiessothatcommunicationactuallyhappens.Thereisalotofpreparationaccuracypractice
is the bridge to a fluency activity. By implication, CLT involves equipping students with vocabulary,
structuresandfunctions,aswellasstrategies,toenablethemtointeractsuccessfully.
Thereferencetostrategiesintroducesthematterofgrammaticalversuscommunicativecompetence.
Ifweviewthetwoasmutuallyexclusive,thenwearelikelytochampiononeovertheother,interms
of approach, curriculum or whatever else determines and defines our classroom teaching. In fact,
CanaleandSwain'smodelofcommunicativecompetence,referredtobyGuangweiHu,includesfour
subcategories,namelygrammatical,sociolinguisticdiscourseandstrategic.Theyconsidersomeone
competentinEnglishshoulddemonstratebothrulesofgrammaranduse.

PromotingLearning
This returns us to the consideration of who we are teaching, and why.Are our students aiming to
learn or acquire English? Do they need to know lexical items and linguistic rules as a means of
passinganexam,ordotheywanttobeabletointeractinEnglish?Forthoseinclinedtomaintainthe
dichotomybetweenlearningandacquisition,andwhoarguethatourprimaryfocusislearners,CLT
still has relevance. It is timely to review an early definition of CLT. According to Richards and
Rodgers,inGuangweiHu,CLTisbasicallyaboutpromotinglearning.
Then again, Mark Lowe suggests that we follow Halliday's lead and drop the distinction between
learningandacquisition,andrefertolanguagemasteryinstead.Afterall,ifthestudentsmasterthe
language,theywillcertainlybeabletoperformbetterinexams,ifthatistheirgoal.Inaddition,those
who do see a purpose beyond classroomrelated English will be better equipped for using the
languagesocially.

Motivation
Oneoftheconstantdiscussionsinallmyteachertraininggroupswashowtomotivatestudents.This
suggeststhatthefocusonpassingtheexamwasnotalwaysenough.Motivationrelatestoengaging
students but also includes confidence building. If there is a climate of trust and support in the
classroom, then students are more likely to contribute. One way of developing this is to allow pair
checkingofanswersbeforeopenclasscheckingoccurs.Anotherwayistoincludeanopportunityfor
studentstodiscussatopicinsmallgroupsbeforethereisanyexpectationthattheyspeakinfrontof
the whole class. Evelyn Doman suggests that "The need for ongoing negotiation during interaction
increasesthelearners'overtparticipation..."Itisthisinvolvementweneedtoharnessandbuildon.
Sometimestheparticipationishardlywhatwewoulddefineas'negotiation',butmerelyacontribution.
For a few students, just uttering a word or a phrase can be an achievement. Indeed, some of the
teachersinthetrainingsessionssaidthiswasthegoaltheysetfortheirmorereticentpupils.AndI
havehadstudentswho,afterwritingtheirfirstnoteoremailinEnglish,expressedtheirprideatbeing
abletodoso.
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Ifteachersconsideranactivitytobeirrelevantornotengagingenough,therearemanyothertasks
which may be more appropriate, such as surveys, using a stimulus picture and prompt questions
(Who...Where...When...What...),oraseriesofpictureswhichneedtobesequencedbeforeastory
isdiscussed.Inthisrespect,CLTaddressesanotherareawhichconstantlychallengesteachers,the
mixedabilityclass.Whenthelessonprogressestoafreerspeakingactivity,studentscancontribute
accordingtotheirabilityandconfidence,althoughIacknowledgebothneedtobestretched.Sothere
isachallengeforthemorecapablestudents,whilethosewithanaverageabilitystillfeeltheireffortis
valid.Thiscompareswiththelesscreativeopportunitiesofferedbysometextbooks,wherestudents
readadialogue,perhapsdoingasubstitutionactivity,forexample.
A basic responsibility is considering and responding to the needs of our students, so if the course
book is inadequate we need to employ the following steps: select, adapt, reject and supplement.
Moreover,because each class we teach has its own characteristics andneeds,CLTwillvaryeach
timeweemployit.

Conclusion
Toooften,a'new'approachappearstocompletelydismissthepreviousone.Thisisnotalwaysthe
intention, but probably more a result of the enthusiasm of practitioners exploring and implementing
fresh activities or opportunities. Also, throughout the CLT debate, there seem to be dichotomies
which are employed to argue for its irrelevance. It is evident that CLT has gathered a range of
characteristics, perhaps more through misunderstanding or by association, but it is actually not as
incompatible with other valued practices as it is sometimes made to appear. In practical terms,
whether assisting mixedability classes, aiding motivation, leading from a focus on form to one of
fluency,orsupportinglearning,ithasalottooffertheEFLteacher.

References
Andrewes, Simon (2005) The CLT Police: Questioning the communicative approach. Modern
EnglishTeacherVol14.No2.
Doman, Evelyn (2005) Current Debates in SLA. Asian EFL Journal Vol 7. Issue 4. Article 8
RetrievedOctober20,2006fromhttp://www.asianefljournal.com/December_05_ed.php
Hu, Guangwei (2002) Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of
Communicative Language Teaching in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum Retrieved
October20,2006fromhttp://www.multilingualmatters.net/lcc/015/0093/lcc0150093.pdf
Lowe, Mark (2005) The Shibboleths of TEFL: Straightening out our thinking Modern English
TeacherVol14,No1.
TheInternetTESLJournal,Vol.XIII,No.2,February2007
http://iteslj.org/
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SecondLanguageAcquisitionAllAboutLinguisticsoriginal
Searchthissite

Home
Aboutthiswebsite
WhatisLinguistics?

BranchesofLinguistics >LanguageAcquisition >

SecondLanguageAcquisition

BranchesofLinguistics
ConversationAnalysis
HistoryofLinguistics

'Onelanguagesetsyouinacorridorforlife.
Twolanguagesopeneverydooralongtheway'

LanguageAcquisition

(FrankSmith)

DiscourseAnalysis

WhatisLanguage
Acquisition?

AsthissectionisaboutLanguageAcquisition,thereisanotherimportantpointforustoconsiderSecond

HowisLanguage
Acquisitionstudied?

LanguageAcquisition.Youmighthaveexperienceoflearninganotherlanguagewhichisnotyourmother

WhostudiesLanguage
Acquisition?

it?Well,lotsoflinguistsalsostartedtofeelcuriousaboutthingsrelatedtolearning

WhenisLanguage
Acquisitionstudied?

lookaroundSLAbyseeingitfrom2bigpartsbackgroundandkeypoints.

WhereisLanguage
Acquisitionstudied?
WhyisLanguage
Acquisitionstudied?

tongue.Canyourememberwhyyouneededtolearnthat?Whatdidyouthink,orfeelwhenyoulearned
anotherlanguage,andthatwasthepointwhenSecondLanguageAcquisition(SLA)appeared.Now,let's

BasicbackgroundknowledgeofSLA

BilingualLanguage
Acquisition

WhatisSecondLanguageAcquisition(SLA)?

SecondLanguage
Acquisition
LanguageAcquisitionin
Exceptional
Circumstances

Thoughitsoundsverysimple,youneedtolookatthistermcarefully.Also,itisreallyimportantto
differentiatebetweenSLA,FirstLanguageAcquisitionandForeignLanguageAcquisition.

SampleResearchPaper
BerkoandBrown(1960)

Firstlanguageacquisition(=Childlanguageacquisition)
Thefieldthatstudiescasesofmothertongueacquisition.

CheckYourKnowledge

TakingitFurther...

SecondlanguageAcquisitionThefieldthatstudies

Morphology

language(s)thatyoulearnedafteracquiringyourmother

Phonetics

tongue,includingthirdandfourthlanguages.

Phonology
Pragmatics
Psycholinguistics

Thesetwonotionsandtermsarecompletelycontrastwith

Semantics

eachother.

Sociolinguistics

Syntax
VarietiesofEnglish
StudyingLinguistics

ForeignLanguageAcquisitionThefieldthatstudies
languagesthatyouacquiredinsidecertaineducational
environmentsonpurpose.e.g.anEnglishstudentwho
learnsFrenchasamoduleintheclassroomora
JapanesestudentwholearnsEnglishintheUKfortaking
aTOEFLtest.
Thisdoesn'tmeanthattheyareintheoppositeposition,
butjustdifferentterms.Inbroadsense,foreignlanguage
acquisitioncanbeincludedinthesecond
languageacquisition.

WhenwasSLAfirststudied?

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/allaboutlinguistics/branches/languageacquisition/secondlanguageacquisition

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In1957,NoamChomsky'snewpublicationbroughttheoreticalrevolutiontothelinguisticfield.Theidea
ofa'languageacquisitiondevice'promotedthestudyofpsycholinguistics,andabunchofstudyresults
alsostimulatedthestudyofFirstLanguageAcquisition.Soon,scholarsalsostartedtogiveattentionto
studyingsecondlanguageacquisition.Thus,SLAhasnotbeenstudiedforlongcomparedtootherareas
oflinguistics.

WhyshouldwestudySLA?
1.Itisreallyimportanttoacquireasecondlanguageastheworldisbecomingmoreand
moreglobalized,andasaresult,demandforstudyingaboutSLAisalsoincreasing.
2.SLAisquiteanewfieldoflinguistics,soitneedstoberesearchedmoreandmore.
3.BystudyingSLA,itcouldbepossibletodevelopnew,moreproficientteachingmethodswhichcan
betaughttostudentswholearnasecondlanguage."Muchofwhatwenowknowabouttheway
peoplelearnlanguageshasbeendiscoveredonlyinthelasttwentyyears,andmanyteaching
methodsaremucholderthanthat." [1]

KeyPoints&CasestudiesaboutSLA
Keypoints
TherearesomekeyaspectsmainlyconsideredinSLAresearches,andeachincludessubcategories.

HowdowestudySLA?&Whatisacasestudy?
"Acasestudyisadetailedstudyofalearner'sacquisitionofaL2.Itistypicallylongitudinal,involving
thecollectionofsamplesofthelearner'sspeechorwritingoveraperiodoftime,sometimesyears." [2]
TwoCasestudiesofSecondLanguageAcquisition

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ThesetwocasestudiesbelowarefromthebookwrittenbyRodEllis: [2]

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/allaboutlinguistics/branches/languageacquisition/secondlanguageacquisition

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Traduzir

Sofar,wehavelookedthroughreallysimpleintroductoryversionsofSecondLanguageAcquisition.

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/allaboutlinguistics/branches/languageacquisition/secondlanguageacquisition

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Forfurtherreading,pleaseconsultthe'Takingitfurther'pageandreferencesbelow.

References
[1]Dulay,H.etal.,(1982).LanguageTwo.Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.
[2]Ellis,R.,(1997).SecondLanguageAcquisition.Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.

UniversityofSheffield2015

Denunciarabuso | Tecnologia GoogleSites

Traduzir

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/allaboutlinguistics/branches/languageacquisition/secondlanguageacquisition

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A Task-based approach
teachingenglish.org.uk/print/383

Submitted by admin on 26 April, 2004 - 13:00

In recent years a debate has developed over which approaches to structuring and planning and implementing
lessons are more effective. This article presents an overview of a task-based learning approach (TBL) and
highlights its advantages over the more traditional Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) approach.

Present Practice Produce

The problems with PPP
A Task-based approach
The advantages of TBL
Conclusion

Present Practice Produce (PPP)

During an initial teacher training course, most teachers become familiar with the PPP paradigm. A PPP lesson
would proceed in the following manner.
First, the teacher presents an item of language in a clear context to get across its meaning. This could be
done in a variety of ways: through a text, a situation build, a dialogue etc.
Students are then asked to complete a controlled practice stage, where they may have to repeat target
items through choral and individual drilling, fill gaps or match halves of sentences. All of this practice
demands that the student uses the language correctly and helps them to become more comfortable with
it.
Finally, they move on to the production stage, sometimes called the 'free practice' stage. Students are
given a communication task such as a role play and are expected to produce the target language and
use any other language that has already been learnt and is suitable for completing it.

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The problems with PPP

It all sounds quite logical but teachers who use this method will soon identify problems with it:
Students can give the impression that they are comfortable with the new language as they are producing it
accurately in the class. Often though a few lessons later, students will either not be able to produce the
language correctly or even won't produce it at all.
Students will often produce the language but overuse the target structure so that it sounds completely
unnatural.
Students may not produce the target language during the free practice stage because they find they are
able to use existing language resources to complete the task.

A Task-based approach
Task -based learning offers an alternative for language teachers. In a task-based lesson the teacher doesn't predetermine what language will be studied, the lesson is based around the completion of a central task and the
language studied is determined by what happens as the students complete it. The lesson follows certain stages.
Pre-task
The teacher introduces the topic and gives the students clear instructions on what they will have to do at the task
stage and might help the students to recall some language that may be useful for the task. The pre-task stage
can also often include playing a recording of people doing the task. This gives the students a clear model of what
will be expected of them. The students can take notes and spend time preparing for the task.
Task
The students complete a task in pairs or groups using the language resources that they have as the teacher
monitors and offers encouragement.
Planning
Students prepare a short oral or written report to tell the class what happened during their task. They then
practise what they are going to say in their groups. Meanwhile the teacher is available for the students to ask for
advice to clear up any language questions they may have.
Report
Students then report back to the class orally or read the written report. The teacher chooses the order of when
students will present their reports and may give the students some quick feedback on the content. At this stage
the teacher may also play a recording of others doing the same task for the students to compare.
Analysis
The teacher then highlights relevant parts from the text of the recording for the students to analyse. They may
ask students to notice interesting features within this text. The teacher can also highlight the language that the
students used during the report phase for analysis.
Practice
Finally, the teacher selects language areas to practise based upon the needs of the students and what emerged
from the task and report phases. The students then do practice activities to increase their confidence and make
a note of useful language.
The advantages of TBL
Task-based learning has some clear advantages
Unlike a PPP approach, the students are free of language control. In all three stages they must use all
their language resources rather than just practising one pre-selected item.

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A natural context is developed from the students' experiences with the language that is personalised and
relevant to them. With PPP it is necessary to create contexts in which to present the language and
sometimes they can be very unnatural.
The students will have a much more varied exposure to language with TBL. They will be exposed to a
whole range of lexical phrases, collocations and patterns as well as language forms.
The language explored arises from the students' needs. This need dictates what will be covered in the
lesson rather than a decision made by the teacher or the coursebook.
It is a strong communicative approach where students spend a lot of time communicating. PPP lessons
seem very teacher-centred by comparison. Just watch how much time the students spend communicating
during a task-based lesson.
It is enjoyable and motivating.

Conclusion
PPP offers a very simplified approach to language learning. It is based upon the idea that you can present
language in neat little blocks, adding from one lesson to the next. However, research shows us that we cannot
predict or guarantee what the students will learn and that ultimately a wide exposure to language is the best way
of ensuring that students will acquire it effectively. Restricting their experience to single pieces of target language
is unnatural.
For more information see 'A Framework for Task-Based Learning' by Jane Wills, Longman; 'Doing Task-Based
Teaching' by Dave and Jane Willis, OUP 2007.
Also see www.willis-elt.co.uk
Richard Frost, British Council, Turkey

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