Module 1Background to language teachingBook pp. 90–96

Unit 16 · Presentation techniques and introductory activities

Presentation techniques are the ways a teacher focuses learners’ attention on the meaning, use and sometimes form of new language when introducing it for the first time. Introductory activities are the activities a teacher uses to introduce a lesson or teaching topic — most often warmers, lead-ins and ice-breakers.

◆What are presentation techniques and introductory activities?

Presentation techniquesPresentation techniques are the ways used by the teacher to focus learners’ attention on the meaning, use and sometimes form of new language, when introducing it to them for the first time. click to keep open · see glossary are the ways used by the teacher to focus learners’ attention on the meaning, use and sometimes form of new language, when introducing it to them for the first time. Introductory activitiesIntroductory activities are activities used by a teacher to introduce a lesson or teaching topic. click to keep open · see glossary are activities used by a teacher to introduce a lesson or teaching topic.

◆Key concepts — two lessons: PPP and TBL

Look at the presentation stages (the areas that are shaded) in these descriptions of two lessons for elementary-level secondary school students. How are the stages different? What different presentation techniques (ways of presenting) do they use?

Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP) lesson	Task-based Learning (TBL) lesson
Aim: for students to learn the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, and when to use a and some with them. Procedure: Ask students what food and drinks they like at a birthday party. Stick on the board magazine pictures of different party foods (the pictures should be a mixture of countable and uncountable nouns, e.g. ice cream, sandwiches, cola, fruit, bananas, chicken legs, cake, a box of sweets). Ask students the names of the food items and write the names on the board under each picture. Say to the students ‘I’m having a birthday party this weekend. I’d like a box of sweets and a cake for my party. And I’d like some ice cream, some cola and some fruit, some sandwiches, some bananas and some chicken legs.’ Say e.g. ‘I’d like a box of sweets’, ‘I’d like a cake’, ‘I’d like some ice cream’, etc. and ask the students to repeat each sentence chorally. Point out to the students that you can count some nouns but you can’t count others. The ones you can count are called countable nouns and the ones you can’t count are called uncountable nouns. You use a with singular countable nouns and some with uncountable nouns or plural countable nouns. Ask the students some concept questions, e.g. ‘Which of the food items on the board are countable/uncountable/singular/plural?’ Students do a written gap-fill exercise, filling the gaps with a or some. Students work in pairs with a worksheet of pictures of food and drink items. One student tells the other what they’d like for their party, e.g. ‘I’d like some/a …’, while the other student takes notes. Then they swap roles.	Aim: for students to choose food and drink for a birthday party. Procedure: Hold a discussion with the students about when their birthdays are, what presents they would like, what good birthday parties they have been to, and what they like to eat and drink at birthday parties. Put students into small groups and give them a worksheet with pictures, names and prices of food on it. Tell the students to do this task: choose the food and drink they would like for a birthday party for ten friends, keeping within a price limit, e.g. £10. The students do the task while the teacher goes round the class listening and answering any questions. Each group tells the other groups what decisions they have made. The students ask the teacher questions about any language they needed for the task, and/or the teacher tells the students about any language she noticed they didn’t know as they were doing the task, e.g. the pronunciation of some words, when to use a and some. Students write a note to their parents saying what food and drink they would like at their birthday party.

Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP) lesson

Task-based Learning (TBL) lesson

Aim: for students to learn the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, and when to use a and some with them.
Procedure:

Ask students what food and drinks they like at a birthday party.
Stick on the board magazine pictures of different party foods (the pictures should be a mixture of countable and uncountable nouns, e.g. ice cream, sandwiches, cola, fruit, bananas, chicken legs, cake, a box of sweets).
Ask students the names of the food items and write the names on the board under each picture.
Say to the students ‘I’m having a birthday party this weekend. I’d like a box of sweets and a cake for my party. And I’d like some ice cream, some cola and some fruit, some sandwiches, some bananas and some chicken legs.’
Say e.g. ‘I’d like a box of sweets’, ‘I’d like a cake’, ‘I’d like some ice cream’, etc. and ask the students to repeat each sentence chorally.
Point out to the students that you can count some nouns but you can’t count others. The ones you can count are called countable nouns and the ones you can’t count are called uncountable nouns. You use a with singular countable nouns and some with uncountable nouns or plural countable nouns.
Ask the students some concept questions, e.g. ‘Which of the food items on the board are countable/uncountable/singular/plural?’
Students do a written gap-fill exercise, filling the gaps with a or some.
Students work in pairs with a worksheet of pictures of food and drink items. One student tells the other what they’d like for their party, e.g. ‘I’d like some/a …’, while the other student takes notes. Then they swap roles.

Aim: for students to choose food and drink for a birthday party.
Procedure:

Hold a discussion with the students about when their birthdays are, what presents they would like, what good birthday parties they have been to, and what they like to eat and drink at birthday parties.
Put students into small groups and give them a worksheet with pictures, names and prices of food on it.
Tell the students to do this task: choose the food and drink they would like for a birthday party for ten friends, keeping within a price limit, e.g. £10.
The students do the task while the teacher goes round the class listening and answering any questions.
Each group tells the other groups what decisions they have made.
The students ask the teacher questions about any language they needed for the task, and/or the teacher tells the students about any language she noticed they didn’t know as they were doing the task, e.g. the pronunciation of some words, when to use a and some.
Students write a note to their parents saying what food and drink they would like at their birthday party.

These lesson plans show two common and different ways of presenting new language items. There are several differences in how they present them.

Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP) lesson

Language has a clear aim and focus in the lesson.
The teacher first puts the target language1. The language which is the focus of the lesson or a part of the lesson. It could be grammar, lexis, functions or pronunciation, e.g. the present perfect, or vocabulary for parts of the body, or giving advice. 2. The language being studied (often called the L… click to keep open · see glossary (the language selected for learning) into a situation which shows what it means (a situational presentationA way of presenting new language through a simple story or situation. The teacher may use pictures or other aids to help him/her create the situation, For example, a teacher is teaching If I were you I’d… for giving advice. The teacher shows learners a picture… click to keep open · see glossary). (Step 1)
The teacher then makes sure that the students remember previously studied language needed to practise the new language by elicitingThis is a teaching technique. When a teacher thinks that some learners know a piece of language or other information, he/she asks targeted questions or gives clues to get or prompt them to give the target language or information rather than simply providing it… click to keep open · see glossary it, i.e. asking students to say the language rather than giving it to them. (Steps 2–3)
The teacher next models the target language and the students just listen. (Step 4)
The students then repeat the target language in a choral drillSee drill. click to keep open · see glossary, a very controlled or restricted practice activity, i.e. one in which they can use only the new language and without making mistakes. (Step 5)
The teacher tells students about the grammatical use of the new language. (Step 6)
The teacher asks the students concept questionsA concept question is a question asked by the teacher to make sure that a learner has understood the meaning of new language, e.g. teaching the new grammatical structure ‘used to’, using the example He used to live in Paris concept question – Does he live in P… click to keep open · see glossary, i.e. questions that check their understanding of the use or meaning of the new language. (Step 7)
The students then do a controlled practiceSee practice. click to keep open · see glossary activity focusing on form (Step 8), then further practice activities focusing on meaning. (Step 9)

You can see that at the presentation stage of a PPP lesson (Steps 4–7) the teacher firstly sets up a context for presenting the new language that shows its meaning, then models (provides a model for students to copy) the target language for students to repeat before highlighting the form and use of the language through drills and concept questions / concept checkingA concept question is a question asked by the teacher to make sure that a learner has understood the meaning of new language, e.g. teaching the new grammatical structure ‘used to’, using the example He used to live in Paris concept question – Does he live in P… click to keep open · see glossary, which give students the opportunity to notice and focus on these. The lesson then moves on to a practice stage.

Task-based Learning (TBL) lesson

The aim of the lesson is for students to complete a task.
The teacher starts by contextualising the topic (putting it in a situation which shows its meaning). (Step 1)
The teacher gives the students tasks to do. (Steps 3, 4, 5)
The teacher and students discuss any new or problematic language they needed for the task. (Step 6)
Lastly, the students do a task to consolidate the language. (Step 7)

You can see that in a TBL lesson the presentation of new language (Step 6) in fact follows the stage in which students use the new language. This allows the students to focus first on the meaning of the new language rather than its form.

A PPP approach to presenting new language focuses directly on both the meaning or use and form of target language and gives students an opportunity to practise language in a safe learning environment where it is difficult to make mistakes. It can therefore be quite a confidence-building approach for students. But it makes students learn language items they may not be interested in or ready to learn, and gives them few opportunities to really use the language for communication. The TBL approach, on the other hand, allows students to find new language when they want to, and to use language experimentally and creatively for real communication. In this way it puts second language learners in a situation which is quite similar to the one in which children learn their first language. Some learners may find this approach to language learning exciting and challenging. Others may wish for more guidance and structure to help them.

◆Other presentation techniques

PPP and TBL are not the only ways of presenting new language. It is also possible, for example, to present new language to learners after they have met it in a reading or listening text which is first used for comprehension. The teacher could ask students to underline examples of the target language in the text and then work out the meaning or use of that language. This is an example of using guided discoveryAn approach to teaching in which a teacher provides examples of the target language and then guides the learners to work out the language rules for themselves. For example, learners read an article which has examples of reported speech. Learners find the examp… click to keep open · see glossary to present target language. Another possibility is to do an oral activity such as a discussion on a topic or a task such as designing a new playground for the school, then introduce new language while the discussion or task is happening.

Another way of focusing on new language is through Test-teach-testA lesson structure in which learners first try a task, the teacher then teaches what they need, and they try again. click to keep open · see glossary. In this, the teacher first gives learners a task that requires them to use target language. If this activity shows that the students don’t know how to use the target language, the teacher will then present the new language, then give the students another task to practise the new language. If the first task shows that the students already know the target language sufficiently well, the teacher will move on to something else.

You can see that all the presentation techniques contextualiseTo put new language into a situation that shows what it means, e.g. when teaching the past simple tense showing learners a series of pictures of a family holiday that went wrong. See set the scene, set the context. click to keep open · see glossary target language, i.e. they put the language in a context which shows its meaning. The context can be provided by building a situation, using a listening or reading text, doing a task, using realiaReal objects such as clothes, menus, timetables and leaflets that can be brought into the classroom for a range of purposes. For example, teachers might bring in different clothes to teach learners the words for those clothes (shirt, skirt, trousers etc.). click to keep open · see glossary, mimeTo tell a story or to communicate actions or emotions using only body movements; not using words. Teachers might use mime to show learners what a word means. click to keep open · see glossary (using the body and no words to convey meaning), explanations, visuals or a combination of these. When learners learn target language they need to know what it means. Contextualising aims to help learners to notice and understand meaning. While all the techniques focus on the meaning of the target language, they may not all focus so much on its form. For example, PPP and guided discovery focus on form and meaning, whereas task-based presentations focus more on meaning. Teachers’ different beliefs about how language learning takes place, the role of form and meaning in language learning, their preferred approach(es) to language teaching and the age and needs of their students will decide how much they prefer to focus on form.

◆Introductory activities: warmers, lead-ins and ice-breakers

Introductory activities are different from presentation techniques. They are the activities a teacher uses to introduce a lesson or teaching topic, or sometimes to introduce new students to one another. If you look back at the PPP and TBL lessons on pages 90–1 you will see that they, too, include introductory activities. Step 1 in the PPP lesson provides a lead-in to the topic, and steps 2 and 3 a lead-in for language needed for the lesson’s main aim. In the TBL lesson, steps 1 and 2 are lead-ins.

The introductory stage of a lesson helps students to settle into the lesson and focus on its content. There are two kinds of introductory activities: warmersAn activity that often involves movement, which a teacher uses at the beginning of a lesson to give the class more energy. Warmers can also be used to introduce the topic of the lesson. For example, the topic of the lesson is Watching TV. The teacher asks lear… click to keep open · see glossary and lead-insThe activity or activities used to prepare learners to work on a text, topic or task. A lead-in often includes an introduction to the topic of the text or task and possibly study of some new key language required for the text or task. click to keep open · see glossary. Warmers are often used to raise students’ energy levels or to make them feel comfortable before the main learning of the lesson starts. They are not always connected to the topic of the lesson; for example, they could be a quiz, game or pairwork activity.

Lead-ins introduce the content of the lesson. Their aim is to focus and motivate students and make a link between the topic of the lesson and the students’ own lives (personalisationWhen a teacher helps learners to connect new words, topics, texts or grammar to their own life; e.g. the teacher shows learners a picture of people swimming in the sea and asks the learners if they can swim; if they like swimming; if they have ever swum in the… click to keep open · see glossary). For example, if students are going to read a text about the internet, rather than giving them the text immediately, we could do one or more lead-in activities such as discussing with students how often they use the internet, what they use it for, what their favourite websites are, etc. Or if in another lesson they are going to listen to a conversation about favourite television programmes, the lead-in activities might be making a list of their favourite television programmes and discussing them with a partner. These activities will probably involve pre-teachingBefore introducing a text to learners, the teacher can teach key vocabulary from the text which he/she thinks the learners do not already know and which they need in order to understand the main points of a text. For example, if learners are going to listen to… click to keep open · see glossary (teaching language before students meet it in a text) key vocabulary for the texts and comprehension tasks that follow.

In some classes students don’t know one another at the beginning of term, or new students often join the class. In this situation teachers sometimes do another kind of introductory activity called an ice-breakerAn introductory speaking activity that a teacher uses at the start of a new course so that learners can get to know each other, e.g. a speaking activity which asks learners to find out about other learners’ hobbies. click to keep open · see glossary. The aim of ice-breakers is for students to get to know one another so that they all feel comfortable with each other in the class. Examples of ice-breakers are doing a mingling surveyLearners find out information from others by asking questions or using questionnaires click to keep open · see glossary (learners find out information from others by asking questions or using questionnaires) about the class’s interests and hobbies. Another is asking students to work in groups to find out what they have in common, e.g. favourite TV programmes, favourite website, favourite colour.

◆Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you:

Presenting new language involves the teacher in making various choices:
- When to present the target language? Before (as in PPP) or after (as in TBL) learners try to use it?
- What language items to present (which new grammatical structures, new vocabulary, new lexical phrases, new functional exponents)? How many of these to present together?
- What context to choose to present the target language in? The context needs to be meaningful1. Something which shows the meaning of language. Teachers present language using situations which show learners the meaning of the language they are learning. These are meaningful contexts. See context. 2. An activity can be meaningful if it is useful for lea… click to keep open · see glossary (show the meaning of the new language), and personalisedWhen a teacher helps learners to connect new words, topics, texts or grammar to their own life; e.g. the teacher shows learners a picture of people swimming in the sea and asks the learners if they can swim; if they like swimming; if they have ever swum in the… click to keep open · see glossary (connected to the student’s life or thoughts) and relevant (of importance) to the students.
- Whether to focus on meaning or also on some aspects of form (grammar, pronunciation, spelling)? This choice will depend a lot on who your learners are, e.g. their age, learning preferences. As we have seen before, a focus on form is not so effective for young learners, for example.
- What aids to use to help create the context, e.g. pictures, DVD, CD, a worksheet?
- How to show the meaning or use of the target language; e.g. explanation, translation, presenting through a situation?
Using warmers as introductory activities makes the students feel comfortable and ready for the lesson. If learners arrive at a lesson ready to learn and all at the same time, you may not always need to do warmers.
Lead-ins introduce the content of the lesson. They give the learners a chance to remember their thoughts and experiences of the content before they start actually working on it. In this way, they are better prepared for the work that follows.
The ways you present new language or introduce lessons will depend on your learners — their level, interests, age, what language they already know, weaknesses and strengths in English and learning styles, and on the resources available to you in your school and the approach to presentation used in your coursebook.

↗See also

Unit 15 for approaches to language teaching
Unit 17 for types of activities and tasks
Unit 21 for selecting language for presentation and planning a lesson
Units 25–26 for resources and materials useful for presentations
Unit 27 for classroom functions often used by the teacher to present new language

✎Follow-up activity

➤Follow-up activities · Unit 16

Look at the terms in the box below and see which of the seven presentation activities they can be used to describe.

focus on form — contextualisation — focus on meaning — guided discovery — eliciting — concept checking — using aids — modelling — noticing — text as input

The students read a text, then the teacher asks them to find and underline all the examples it contains of the second conditional.
The teacher shows the students a video of some children fighting and asks them to give her reasons why they might be fighting. She encourages them to say ‘It might/could be because …’
The teacher shows the students pictures of people doing lots of boring duties, e.g. washing up, washing clothes, shopping, cleaning the house. After she has told the students which of the activities she must do tonight, she says ‘Am I talking about something I want to do or something I have to do?’
The students listen to a recording of a dialogue between a shop assistant and a customer. The teacher asks the students to tell her what language they heard.
The students read a short advertisement advertising a new car. The teacher has underlined all the superlatives in the text. She then asks the students to look at the underlined words and work out when the -est form is used.
The teacher shows the students four drawings of what she did at the weekend and tells the students what she did. She then asks the students to draw four pictures showing what they did last weekend. Next she asks them to talk about their pictures, helping them to use the correct form of the past tense.
The teacher shows students a series of pictures showing the development of a butterfly. As she shows them, she tells the students what is happening to the butterfly and asks them to repeat the sentences after her.

Check your answers — answer key (book pp. 237–244)

1 contextualisation, noticing, focus on form, text as input

2 contextualisation, focus on meaning, using aids, eliciting, text as input

3 contextualisation, concept checking, focus on meaning, using aids

4 contextualisation, focus on form, focus on meaning, text as input, eliciting

5 contextualisation, guided discovery, focus on meaning, focus on form, text as input

6 contextualisation, using aids, noticing, focus on meaning

7 contextualisation, noticing, focus on meaning, focus on form, modelling

💡Reflect

💡Reflect on these ideas

I think PPP is too controlled by the teacher — the students feel you are being bossy with them.
Whatever presentation technique I use, I always focus on pronunciation of the target language.
If you don’t focus on form, students will never notice it.

🔍Discovery activities

🔍Try these out and record in your Teacher Portfolio

Look at a unit in your coursebook that presents new language. What presentation techniques does it use? Does it focus on meaning or form or both?
If you have suitable classes, teach one class the PPP lesson at the beginning of this unit and the other the TBL lesson. Compare their reactions and write them up in your Teacher Portfolio.
For more ideas on presenting new language, read Chapter 12 of Learning Teaching (Second edition) by Jim Scrivener, Macmillan 2005.
Here are some suggestions for warmers. Choose one suitable for one of your classes, then teach it and note the effect it had on the learners and the lesson. Write up your observations in your Teacher Portfolio: http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-favourite-efl-classroom-warmers.html and http://www.teflogue.com/in-the-classroom/tefl-warmers-from-daves-esl-cafe-idea-cookbook.html
Use the TKT Glossary to find the meaning of these terms: define, definition, illustrate meaning, teaching strategy, visualisation, arouse interest.

✎TKT practice tasks

These multiple-choice tasks are exactly as in the book, but interactive: pick your answers, check your score, and retry anytime. The scoring uses the official answer key from the back of the book.

📖Glossary terms in this unit

Key terms highlighted in this unit — study them on the flashcards page.

presentation techniques introductory activities target language situational presentation eliciting choral drill controlled practice concept questions concept checking modelling contextualisation guided discovery test-teach-test warmers lead-ins personalisation pre-teaching ice-breaker mingling survey mime realia

Editorial note — OCR and reconstruction notes for this unit

Book pages 90–96 (pdf 95–101). The shaded presentation stages in the two lesson plans cannot be reproduced (OCR keeps no shading); the steps they covered are stated in the running text (PPP Steps 4–7; TBL Step 6). OCR of the PPP procedure steps 4–5 (page-095) is badly broken (‘Saye like a box-of sweets’, ‘I'd like a. caked’) and was restored by judgement from the parallel structure; step 3 of TBL shows ‘e.g. Sto’ which is read as ‘e.g. £10’. The two warmer URLs in Discovery activity 4 are OCR-garbled (‘éltnotebook blogspot.com1/2007/0 l’, ‘ddea-cookbookhiml’) and were normalised to plausible addresses — worth checking against the printed page. Page 100 OCR loses the small-caps heading ‘DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES’ and the shading of the practice-task box.