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Receptive Practice Activities
Receptive Practice Activities
Receptive Practice Activities
After you’ve presented a new structure or function, and maybe done some repetition drilling on your
model sentences, what then? Teachers often move straight on to productive practice activities, but
maybe it’s too soon. The students have only seen a very small number of examples of the new language
and may not yet be feeling fully confident of their ability to use it. Weaker students, in particular, may
benefit from more exposure to the language before going on to other forms of practice.
At this stage of the lesson I therefore like to introduce one or more receptive practice activities.
Receptive practice activities are activities which give the students the chance to encounter more
examples of the new language, and to demonstrate their comprehension of it – but without having to
use it productively. Here’s one example, for the present perfect used to describe events starting in the
past and continuing up to the present :
What I have here called receptive practice is perhaps the key concept behind the method Total
Physical Response. Developed by James Asher, TPR is based on the idea that students, just like children
learning their first language, need time to hear, understand and assimilate the new language before
they are ready to produce it. TPR is fairly well known as being a method where students have to
respond to commands. Teachers therefore often use it to teach the imperative (Stand up! Go to the
door!), maybe incorporating a lexical area like colours (Touch something yellow) and frequently see it
as a method suited mainly to children's classes, or at most adult beginners. However, the method
actually incorporates a lot more techniques than this, and can be used to teach just about any
structure, however advanced, and a wide range of lexis. One example of its use in teaching the present
continuous is described in this article by Judie Haynes.
It can also be used, especially with adults, as a receptive practice activity in which the target structure
is incorporated into an if clause and then the command is tagged on. Students listen and respond by
carrying out the command if it’s relevant for them. Still staying with the present perfect as an
example, here are the type of sentences I might use:
If you’ve lived in (name of students’ town) for more than six years, stand up.
If you’ve worked for (name of students’ company) for more than ten years, go to the door.
If you’ve had more than three cups of coffee since ten o’clock this morning, touch your nose.
If you’ve studied English for more than three years, sit on the desk.
Present continuous : If you’re wearing green socks, put your hand on your head.
Past simple : If you went to the supermarket yesterday, put your book on the floor.
And even the third conditional : If you would have studied a different language if you’d had the
choice, turn round. The possibilities are endless.
Of course, in using this activity you are not “teaching TPR” , in the same way that if you eat a bowl of
rice with your dinner you are not automatically eating a Japanese meal. But I believe that we can take
ideas from other methodologies and adapt them to our own teaching style without losing their
effectiveness. (1)
There are many other activity types that you can use at the receptive practice
stage, and if you think about it you may find that you are already using some of them , for example
Picture Bingo. This can be adapted to a variety of structures and functions – the example in the photo
(2) was designed to give students exposure to the simple past. The students have a Bingo board
showing pictures of people performing different actions, and some counters to cover them. The
teacher has a bag containing all the pictures and chooses them at random, saying for instance Sallie
cleaned the windows yesterday. John climbed a tree yesterday. As in ordinary Bingo, the first person
to cover all their pictures wins.
This type of activity is often used as revision or consolidation, or as a “reward” at the end of the
lesson. But it also complies with all the requirements of a receptive practice activity – students hear
the target language repeatedly, and have to show that they understand it by acting upon it – and can
be used at least as usefully, if not more, at this stage of the lesson.
Notes
1. You can hear Sue discussing TPR at more length, as well as two other alternative methodologies (CLL
and Suggestopaedia) in a podcast on eslteachertalk
2. The Bingo cards in the photo were developed using a game template and flashcards from ESLhq