There are many kinds of controlled practice activities as well as those in grammar

and course books. Here are a few examples.

• Drills
• Gap-fill
• Sentence completion
• Quizzes
• Games
• Tests
• Information search
• Dictation
This is an example of a very simple game that we could use in our lesson:
A good way to practice ‘for’ and ‘since’ is with the pointing game. On one piece of
paper, write ‘FOR’ in capital letters. On another piece of paper, write ‘SINCE’. Pin
the two pieces up on opposite of the classroom. Tell the students that they have to
point to the correct words when you say a time, date, or year. For example, if you
read out ‘5 years’, they should point to ‘FOR’. When you have used all the
examples, stick the pieces of paper with ‘FOR’ and ‘SINCE’ on the board. Read
the time expressions out again. This time they shouldn’t point, but shout out ‘for’
or ‘since’. As they shout out the words, write the time expressions under the
correct word ‘FOR’ or “SINCE’. Now get the students to use the time expression
in other examples. Divide the students into pairs and tell them to make sentences
using the time expressions and ‘for’ and ‘since’. Tell them to make the sentences
true for them. Give an example of your own to get them started.
The activity helps to reinforce the target language by repetition, but it’s done in an
entertaining way for the students and it leads on to students creating sentences
about their own lives. This is another very important feature of teaching and
learning. If teachers can personalize the target language, it can greatly help the
learning process. The purpose of controlled practice is to allow the student to
internalize the new language successfully so that they understand it, they know
how and when to use it and they’ve had a chance to produce it. Ultimately,
teachers want students to be able to use the target language in appropriate ways in
a less controlled and more natural environment. Controlled practice helps to fix the
language in the students’ mind so that this becomes more possible. By its nature,
controlled practice can be very repetitive. Too much repetition can have a negative
effect on the students. They can become bored and lose interest. In order to create
and maintain a good atmosphere for learning, it is important to have variety in the
practice stage and to be sure that activities do not go on for too long.
Free Practice Activities
Controlled practice activities develop students’ accuracy. Free or less controlled
activities work in their fluency. To improve fluency, whether oral or written,
students need to have the chance to activate their language through activities and
tasks that encourage them to use a wide range of English as naturally as possible.
Here are a few ideas.
• Role-plays
• Discussions – on subjects of interest to the class.
• Writing activities, such as keeping a diary or writing letters or postcards.
• Projects and tasks – class newspaper for example.
Here is an example of a role-play that we could use in our lesson:
A good way to get students to use the language you have taught them is to perform
a role play, for example, a job interview. In this kind of activity, teacher is
responsible for clearly setting up the situation. You should divide the class into
two. One half of the class will be the candidates for the new job, the other half will
be the bosses of the company. You should give the students time to prepare for the
interview. The candidates should think about their character, their employment
history. Meanwhile, the bosses prepare demanding questions with which to
interview the candidates. Once students are ready, you should put them together in
pairs, one boss and one candidate and then allow the interview to proceed. It’s best
to set a short time limit on the activity and you may encourage the students to use
the target language, in this case, ‘for’ and ‘since’. However, this isn’t strictly
necessary as you really want to see what language the students can use in that
situation. The activity needs to be very carefully explained and set up because for
most of the time the students will be working without the teacher’s direct guidance.
It is the students who will be writing and asking questions, creating their own real
or imagined life histories for the interview.
Some teachers may feel that in activities such as this, they do not have control over
the students and what they are saying. Perhaps they’ll make a lot of mistakes which
won’t be corrected. This is certainly true, but it is not something to worry about. In
fact, it’s the main reason for doing this kind of exercise. It students are only given
controlled activities, then all we can know is how well they can use language in a
controlled way. Most authentic language use is far from controlled. During
activities such as role plays, the teacher’s job is to monitor the class and activity. It
possible, the teacher should move around the room and listen to the students.
Unless asked for help. It’s better for the teacher not to interrupt students during
the activity. If there are particular errors that are being made, then the teacher can
make a note of them and give feedback at the end of the activity.
After a less-controlled activity, it is usually a good idea to provide some
feedback. This could take the form of simple praise and encouragement. It may
include getting some of the more confident students to ‘perform’ their role plays in
front of the class. Or it could involve looking at some of the serious language
errors made by students.
Accuracy vs. Fluency Activities
The distinction between controlled and free practice activity is similar to that given
by Richard (2005), who groups activities into two kinds: Accuracy vs. Fluency
activities. Differences between activities that focus on fluency and those that focus
on accuracy can be summarized as follows:
Activities focusing on fluency Activities focusing on accuracy
Reflect natural use of language Reflect classroom use of language
Focus on achieving communication Focus on the formation of correct
Require meaningful use of language examples of language
Require the use of communication Practice language out of context
strategies Practice small samples of language
Produce language that may not be Do not require meaningful
predictable communication
Seek to link language use to context Control choice of language

1.2. MECHANICAL, MEANINGFUL, AND COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE

Another useful distinction that some advocates of CLT proposed was the
distinction between three different kinds of practice – mechanical, meaningful, and
communicative. Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which
students can successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language
they are using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and
substitution drills designed to practice use of particular grammatical or other items.
Meaningful practice refers to an activity where language control is still provided
but where students are required to make meaningful choices when carrying out
practice. For example, in order to practice the use of prepositions to describe
locations of places, students might be given a street map with various buildings
identified in different locations. They are also given a list of prepositions such as
across from, on the corner of, near, on, next to. They then have to answer questions
such as “Where is the book shop? Where is the café?” etc. The practice is now
meaningful because they have to respond according to the location of places on the
map.
Communicative practice refers to activities where practice in using language
within a real communicative context is the focus, where real information is
exchanged, and where the language used is not totally predictable. For example,
students might have to draw a map of their neighborhood and answer questions
about the location of different places, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest
café, etc.
2. BALANCING ACTIVITIES IN A LANGUAGE LESSON
.The principle of the four strands states that a well-balanced language course
should consist of four equal strands – meaning focused input, meaning focused
output, language focused learning, and fluency development. Each strand should
receive a roughly equal amount of time in a course.
1. The meaning-focused input:
It involves learning through listening and reading – using language receptively. It
is called ‘meaning-focused’ because in all the work done in this strand, the
learners’ main focus and interest should be on understanding, and gaining
knowledge or enjoyment or both from what they listen to and read. Typical
activities in this strand include extensive reading, shared reading, listening to
stories, watching TV or films, or being a listener in a conversation.
This strand only exists if certain conditions are present.
(1) Most of what the learners are listening to or reading is already familiar to them.
(2) The learners are interested in the input and want to understand it.
(3) Only a small proportion of the language features are unknown to the learners.
In terms of vocabulary, 95-98% of the running words should be within the
learners’ previous knowledge, and so only 5 or preferably only 1 or 2 words per
hundred should be unknown to them.
(4) The learners can gain some knowledge of the unknown language items
through content clues and background knowledge.
(5) There are large quantities of input.
2. The meaning-focused output:
It involves learning through speaking and writing – using language productively.
Typical activities in this strand include talking in conversations, giving a speech or
lecture, writing a letter, writing a note to someone, keeping a diary, telling a story
and telling someone how to do something.
The same kinds of conditions apply to meaning-focused output as apply to
meaning-focused input.
1. The learners write and talk about things that are largely familiar to them.
2. The learners’ main goal is to convey their message to someone else.
3. Only a small proportion of the language they need to use is not familiar to them.
4. The learners can use communication strategies, dictionaries or previous input to
make up for gaps in their productive knowledge.
5. There are plenty of opportunities to speak and write.
3. Language-focused learning
It involves the deliberate learning of language features such as pronunciation,
spelling, vocabulary, grammar and discourse. Typical activities in this strand are
pronunciation practice, using substitution tables and drills, learning vocabulary
from word cards, intensive reading, translation, memorizing dialogues and getting
feedback about writing. The deliberate learning of strategies such as guessing from
context or dictionary use is also included in this strand. Most of these language-
focused learning activities can have a positive effect on learning and language use,
but it is important that they are only a small part of the course and do not become
the whole course. In total, the language-focused learning strand should not make
up more than one-quarter of the time spent on the whole course. Just as there are
conditions for meaning-focused input and output, there are conditions for
language-focused learning.
(1) The learners give deliberate attention to language features.
(2) The learners should process the language features in deep and thoughtful
ways.
(3) There should be opportunities to give spaced, repeated attention to the same
features.
(4) The features that are focused on should be simple and not dependent on
developmental knowledge that the learners do not have.
(5) Features that are studied in the language-focused learning strand should also
occur often in the other three strands of the course.
4. Fluency development:
It involves all the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In this
strand, the learners are helped to make the best use of what they already know.
Like meaning-focused input and output, the fluency development strand is also
meaning-focused. That is, the learners’ aim is to receive and convey massages.
Typical activities include speed reading, skimming and scanning, …
The fluency strand only exists if certain conditions are present.
(1) All of what the learners are listening to, reading, speaking or writing is largely
familiar to them. That is, there are no unfamiliar language, or largely familiar
content or discourse features.
(2) The learners’ focus is on receiving or conveying meaning.
(3) There is some pressure or encouragement to perform at a faster than usual
speed.
(4) There is a large amount of input or output.
If the activity involves unknown vocabulary, it is not a fluency activity. If the focus
is on language features, it is not a fluency activity. If there is no push to go faster, it
is not a fluency activity. The fluency strand should make up about one-quarter of
the course time. It is time out from learning new items and is a time for getting
good at using what is already known.