ABSTRACT
In Chapter 6 (take a look back to Box 6.7) we identified two processes important in the mastering of a foreign language – declarativization and proceduralization. This chapter is about how we, as teachers, might help learners with these processes. With declarativization we are concerned with showing learners how some aspect of language ‘works’. There are various ways this can be done. One is by actually ‘presenting’ the aspect to learners, by showing them examples, or giving them some kind of explanation. Another involves developing language awareness – trying to find ways of drawing learners’ attention to language items. We shall use the term ‘conveying language’ to refer to all these different ways of showing how a language works. This may seem a curious term, and it is not one generally used in the literature. But it does capture the diversity of the activities that can achieve this aim in the classroom. The term we shall use in relation to procedural knowledge is less curious – it is ‘practising language’. This also captures a range of procedures – many of which made a brief appearance in Chapter 9 – from very controlled drilling to activities like discussions, where learners are free to express themselves however they wish. In this chapter we shall look at techniques which are chiefly associated with teaching spoken English. In Chapter 13 we shall look at the teaching of other skills.
