Discuss the presentation and practice of Structures

After selection and gradation of structures these are taught.

Teaching aims at making the student understand the use of a structure.

The structure is taught with the help of meaningful situations, Meaningful situations can be created with the help of pictures, flash cards, actions, gestures, drawings on the board and verbal contexts.

The teacher should make use of actual concrete objects as far as possible. When objects can not be brought into the class-room, their pictures can be shown on charts or flannel boards. Flash cards can also be used for presenting structures. Actions and gestures performed by the teacher can also help in presenting structures. Various structures can be explained on the board. The teacher can also tell the use of the structure in the student’s mother tongue to facilitate their understanding of the use of structure. The presentation should be quick. It should not take more time of the period. The remaining time should be devoted to.

Practice of the structure by students.

The practice of Structures: Teaching the structure aims at making its use clear to the students. The practice aims at establishing, the structure in the minds of the students. The more the practice, the greater the command over the structure by the students. Every student should be given the maximum opportunity to practice the structure. Drills should be choral, group and individual. The students should be kept active and alert during practice. Then some selected students should be involved, one playing the role of the teacher, showing flashcards or pictures, another drawing or illustrating on the blackboard and the rest of the class repeating the sentences. Mistakes of the students should be corrected immediately. If a student says sentences incorrectly, he should be corrected at once. To save time and create a natural setting, the teacher can have a system of hand signals to indicate to his students who are to speak.

“85% of practice time should be spent on oral drills. The remaining 15% be devoted to reading and writing.”