Discovery techniques

In our model for introducing new language, we saw how the teacher creates a context (or uses one from some materials) and elicits language, which is then given as models for the students to repeat. The whole procedure is basically teacher-led since it is the teacher’s job to explain the language and conduct a cue-response drill before moving quickly to immediate creativity and pair-work (where the students start to take over control a bit).

Discovery techniques, on the other hand, aim to give students a chance to take charge earlier. The idea is simple: give students a listening or reading text – or some examples of English sentences – and ask them to discover how the language works. We might give students a text, which is a story, for example, and we could then ask them to look at it again to see how many ways they could find in it for referring to the past. They could listen to a tape and write down any sentences, which had ‘if’ in them. Then they could see if there was any pattern to those sentences.

What is being suggested is that there is range of techniques where the teacher gets the students to do most of the work. There are good pedagogical and methodological reasons for this since the students will be more involved and since that kind of activity invites them to use their reasoning processes.

The use of discovery activities does not mean that our model should be changed. In general, we can still say that we should give students a lead-in to the topic, text or context. However, the elicitation stage will be different. Instead of saying ‘Can anyone tell me… Olga… yesterday… Odessa go…’ to get the sentence ‘Olga went to Odessa yesterday’ we get students to look at the material and, working individually or in pairs, they find examples of the grammar we are interested in. When the teacher asks them what they have found and discusses the language with them, we have reached an explanation stage. But because the teacher is talking with the students (rather than to them), the process appears to be more egalitarian, less dictatorial.

Of course, discovery techniques are not suitable for all students on all occasions. Frequently this problem-solving approach takes more time than the more controlled presentation. And although students may be very involved, there is not the kind of dynamic tension that makes whole-class presentation such fun (when they go well). It is also true that designing material for discovery materials – or finding a text that will suit this approach – is far easier at intermediate and advanced levels than it is when teaching beginners.

Despite some apparent drawbacks, the use of discovery activities is a welcome alternative to other types of presentation. If it instills (внушать) an interest in language and grammar in our students over and above their learning of English, so much the better.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-13