Use of repetition drills in teaching

vocabulary
OBJECTIVES

 Define Drills
 The Theory of Drills
 Negative Aspects of Drills
 Importance and benefits of Drills in Language Learning
 Use of Drills in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
 Steps of Drilling and Their Rationale
 Summary
WHAT IS DRILLING
“At its simplest, drilling means listening to a
model, provided by the teacher, or a tape or
another student, and repeating what is
heard. This is a repetition drill, a technique
that is still used by many teachers when
introducing new language items to their
students. The teacher says (models) the word
or phrase and the students repeat it.”
(Tice, J. (2004)
THE THEORY
 Based upon the ‘behaviourist’ model of language
learning
 Included with an ‘Audio Linguistic’ approach to
language.
 According to Audio-Lingual method, teaching habits
are formed by a process of stimulation ➔ response ➔
reinforcement.
 Continuous practice will make perfect.
 Emphasis on accuracy rather than fluency
What do you think are the negative
aspects of drills?
 Too
much emphasis put on accuracy, hindering the
development of real communication skills.
 “Monotonous chanting of decontextualised language
is not useful to anyone.”
(Tice (2004)
 Ascommunicative language teachers we are told
that drilling is bad. We’re told it is pointless,
uncommunicative and deprived of any meaning. It
also makes our classes teacher–centred.
 Accordingto Harris and O'Duibhir (2011), “ one
challenge of a communicative approach to
language teaching is to provide students with
chances to communicate meaningfully with their
classmates. In order to cope with this challenge
teachers need to create activities or tasks that extend
beyond language drills.“
 Drills are only applicable and valid when teaching
lower levels.
 Drills go against some styles of teaching, especially the
role of the teacher as a facilitator.
 Being able to repeat in a parrot like fashion does not
mean the student will remember or be able to use the
language in real conversation.
 Drilling doesn’t involve real communication.
 Drilling means that the teacher imposes new
language on students and is unnatural.
 Drilling won’t necessarily lead to internalisation and
acquisition of new language
Is drilling important in language
learning?
“For many years, some writers encouraged teachers not
to offer students any speaking tasks that did not involve
an element of ‘genuine communication’…of all
activities in the classroom, the oral drill is the one which
can be most productively demanding on accuracy.”
(Scrivener, 2011:256)

“One of the goals of pronunciation teaching is to

develop the students’ listening brains…which help the
students achieve the goal of improved comprehension
and intelligibility.”
(Jeremy Harmer, 2015:277)
 Drillingcan help students with pronunciation. It
allows them to feel new sounds.
 Part of language learning is a physical skill.
“Drilling is like sending students’ speech organs
to the gym.”
(Marek Kiczkowiak, 2016)
What drills can be useful for?
 boost learners confidence with language by practicing it at reasonably
natural speed.
 to increase spontaneity, i.e. to facilitate making the quantum leap from
having to think about it very hard, to simply saying it correctly without
thinking (Wilson, M.)
 Provide for a focus on accuracy. Increased accuracy (along with
increased fluency and complexity) is one of the ways in which a
learner's language improves.
 Help students notice the correct form or pronunciation of a word or
phrase. Noticing or consciousness raising of language is an important
stage in developing language competence.
 Provide an opportunity for learners to get immediate feedback on their
accuracy in terms of teacher or peer correction. Many learners want to
be corrected.
 Help memorisation and automisation of common language patterns and
language chunks. This may be particularly true for aural learners.
 Provide learners with intensive practice in hearing and saying particular
words or phrases. They can help learners get their tongues around
difficult sounds or help them imitate intonation that may be rather
different from that of their first language.
 This may help learners to get rid of the fossilised or deeply ingrained
errors.
 Drills do respond to the learning style of those who learn well through
memorization and repetition.
How can we use drills in communicative
language teaching?
 For drills to be meaningful, learners need to understand
what they are being asked to say. Monotonous chanting of
decontextualised language is not useful to anyone.
Therefore, meaning of the vocabulary items being drilled
must be clarified before drilling.
 Use pictures and concept check questions to explain the
meaning and contextualize the new language.
 Keep drills short. They shouldn't be used too much. If
boredom sets in it is unlikely to be useful at all.
 By no means should drills become the main focus of all your
lessons. It’s only part of the diet, like broccoli. And even
though we might not like the taste, we still eat it every now
and then, because we know it’s good for us.
 Since the advent of CLT, drilling has been heavily put
down, and course book writers responded by ignoring it in
their materials. It’s like switching from only eating meat to
being a vegan.
(Marek Kiczkowiak, 2016)
Steps of drilling and their rationale
USE FLASH CARDS WITH IMAGES

Present new vocabulary with images

“Flashcard drills are effective low-cost and low-tech
supplemental methods for helping children acquire
and practice reading skills.”
(Joseph, Eveleigh, Konrad, Neef, & Volpe,2012)
“Flash cards provide a visual, rather than oral, cue
for students to respond.”
(Tan Nicholson, 1997).
 USE CCQS

 Useconcept check questions to elicit the

language you want to drill ... so that students
have to think a little bit about the language they
are going to repeat.
 Tice
(2004) has mentioned that “for drills to be
meaningful, learners need to understand what
they are being asked to say. Monotonous
chanting of decontextualized language is not
useful to anyone”
MODEL

Provide your own oral model at a natural

speed, so that the first oral model that
students hear is a natural one.
HIGHLIGHT SYLLABLE STRESS

Highlight any key pronunciation features of the

new language –so that students focus on
pronunciation features such as stress and weak
forms.
syllable / Syllable
CHORAL DRILL

Students repeat the language together as a group, so

that all students have the opportunity to say the new
language without being heard by the rest of the class.
INDIVIDUAL DRILLS

Nominate individual students and get

them to repeat the word or utterance so
that you can check the pronunciation of
the new language by individual students.
ON THE SPOT ERROR CORRECTION

Students’ performance in their oral communication

deserves careful attention as all errors, if not taken care
of at some point, are very likely to become fossilized
and thus very difficult to eradicate (Littlewood, 1984).
EXPLAIN THE MEANINGS
 Askstudents to read the meanings and example
sentences.
 Askthem to make their own sentences, this will enable
students to use new vocabulary in the right context
and make language learning meaningful.
A meaningful drill cannot be performed correctly
without an understanding of the meaning of what is
said.
SUMMARY
 Drills are an important feature of teaching vocabulary.
 Drills help to eradicate fossilised errors.
 They help to develop accuracy and fluency.
 Drills should be contextualised.
 Syllable stress must be highlighted.
 Meanings of the new vocabulary should be explained, so that
drill becomes purposeful and motivating.
 Students should be allowed to use their creative skills by using the
vocabulary learnt by making their own sentences.
 Special attention must be paid to error correction.
References

Harmer, J. 2015) The Practice of English Language Teaching. Fifth ed. Harlow, Essex:
Pearson Education Limited.
Harris, John and Pádraig Ó Duibhir (2011). Effective Language Teaching: a Synthesis of
Research. NCCA report #13. Dublin: NCCA.
Joseph, L. M., Eveleigh, E., Konrad, M., Neef, N., & Volpe, R. (2012). Comparison of
the efficiency of two flashcard drill methods on children’s reading performance.
Journal of Applied School Psychology,28, 317–337
Kiczkowiak, M. (2016). Controlled oral practice in ELT – what happened to drilling? Link:
https://teflreflections.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/controlled-oral-practice-in-elt-what-
happened-to-drilling (accessed on 02/11/2017)
Littlewood, W. (1984). Foreign and second language learning: Language acquisition
research and its implications for the classroom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Nicholson, T. 1998. The flashcard strikes back. The Reading Teacher 52:188-192.
Scrivener. J., (2011). Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English.3rd edition.
MacMillan,416 p.
Tice, J. (2004). Drilling 1. British Council & BBC. Retrieved from
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/drilling-1 (accessed on 30/10/2017)