Unit 16 PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES AND INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

Part 3   BACKGROUND TO LANGUAGE TEACHING

Unit 16 PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES AND INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

   

Presentation techniques are techniques used by the teacher to focus pupils’ attention on meaning while introductory activities are activities used to introduce a lesson. Presentation, Practice, Production and Task-based learning are some techniques you can use to present your class. One the one hand we can apply PPP that is divided into 3 stages, use situational presentations (present grammar by giving a situation) during the presentation stage, use choral drills or restricted practice activities (e.g. gap-filling exercises) during the practice stage, and use role-plays during the production stage. On the other, we can use TBL whose aim is asking students to complete a task. You should start the class by contextualizing the topic, then ask students to do some tasks, after that students need to ask any question about the language they need to develop the previous task, finally students do the whole task to consolidate the language (students can write a paragraph about any topic e.g. food or music, wild animals, etc.).  You can use lead-ins or warmers to during the introductory stage, the first one that help you to introduce the content of the lesson whose aim is to motivate students to make a link between the topic of the lesson and the students’ own personalization (students` own experiences) whereas the second one helps you to raise learners’ energy or to make them feel comfortable before the main topic of the lesson starts. Moreover, you can use ice-breakers or mingling surveys as introductory activities. Remember that the way you present new language or introduce new lessons will depend on your pupils’ age, level, interests and learning styles. You can use any strategy to introduce a new topic; however you cannot focus just on pronunciation of the target language because to produce a language students also have to be able to write, listen and read. Of course pronunciation is important because it helps students to develop their speaking and listening skills, but you cannot focus only on pronunciation in all the techniques you apply because then when you ask your pupils to produce the language in a written way they are going to have spelling mistakes. You need to focus on form of the language and how it is used in real communicative situations.

These pictures show some possible introductory activitites you can apply to introduce a new language or topic.

Lead-in (Braintorming)
 
Warm-up (The broken telephone or who am I?)





Ice breakers (Catch the ball or balloom hugging)

References for additional information

-Presentation techniques and introductory activities. (2014). Teacher`s blog. Retrieved from http://teacheraleupbc.blogspot.com/2009/05/presentation-techniques-and.html

-Araya Arancibia, E. (2013). What are presentation techniques and introductory activities. Presentation, Prezi.

-Jobs.languagelink.ru,. (2014). Presentation Techniques, Approaches and Introductory Activities. Retrieved 6 December 2014, from http://jobs.languagelink.ru/tefl_clinic/teaching_knowledge/glossary/presentation_techniques_approaches_and_introductory_activities.php