Drilling Workshop

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Drilling Robotic
Jim Scrivener on drilling:

Drills cannot become robotic or boring. We need to keep the atmosphere humorous and keep the challenge high so that students feel a sense of achievement when they do drilling.

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Discuss with your partner

Do you do much drilling in class? What do you drill? When do you drill? How do you feel about drilling? How do you think your students feel about drilling? Do you think drilling is useful for students? What about higher level students?

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Why do drilling?
Gives Ss a chance to get their mouths around words and grammar

Change of pace and can be fun

Great for auditory learners

Improves fluency. Helps Ss use language without needing to think too much

Allows T to monitor and correct Helps Ss with memorisation and automisation

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Drilling Vocabulary

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Drilling Vocab. 101

Discuss with your partner:
Who runs the drill? Who calls on whom? What different types of prompts can you use to drill vocab.?

Do you have any strategies specific to drilling pron.?

How can you make vocab. drills exciting and meaningful?

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Drilling Logistics
These are three basic set-ups for running drills:

students

students

students

in groups, using question / answer drills or other prompts, such as picture cards, mimes etc.

Teacher

can elicit whole class or specific groups (men, women, As, Bs, students wearing glasses / jeans, tables)

student

who demonstrates ability to model nominated by teacher

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Different Prompts for Vocab.

Some ideas
VERBAL -teacher -taped recording -student who teacher
hears is correct

VISUAL -picture cards -realia -miming

-student

as picked by other students (A: Do you like cheese? B: Yes, I like cheese. Do you like apples? C: No, I hate apples. Do you like coffee? A: Yes, I like coffee.)

WRITTEN -on the WB -on an OHP -cards -handout

* It is generally a good idea to write phonetically / mark stress etc. along with the correct spelling.

With your group, discuss which prompts you tend to use more often or tend to avoid using and why.
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Drilling Pronunciation
Isolate and backchain problematic sounds, such as:
still: illlll > tilllll > stilllll > still > still here, or graph: fffff > afff > rafff > grafffff > graph > read the graph

Feel silly? Embrace it!

Mumble drilling

Write pron. features on WB, e.g. syllable stress, weak sounds, /z/ in dogs, etc., for example: /COMF or ta ble/
Use hand gestures (fists, claps, fingers for syllables) and body language for stress (rise and fall) 5 second wait: students wait 5 seconds after hearing the model, then repeat the word, giving them time to focus on shaping their mouth Explore intonation while practising the pron. by using something like this chart: YOUR TURN: With your group and using your handout, try these techniques on each other. Afterwards, discuss your thoughts on these and other techniques you use.

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Meaningful, Not Monotonous

Making it meaningful
Check meaning before drilling Incorporate meaning through intonation (days of the week: Monday sounds Incorporate countable / uncountable check into drilling
T: milk, Ss at a table, all together: milk T: apple, Ss at a table each takes a turn: apple, apple, apple
sleepier than Friday; food: say the food according to how much you like it Donuts!)

Drill within a context (on the phone, at a market, at the airport) Have Ss personalise the language (Ss questions and answer using the vocab.)

Making it more interactive

Mingle swap (Ss have picture cards and swap by saying the word) Chain drilling / race
Ss pass pictures down a line or in a circle, saying the word as they pass it Alternately, Ss mime a word, the next S in line says it, mimes another...

Kinaesthetic songs such as, Frere Jacques (Ss point to and sing: jeans and tshirt / jeans and t-shirt / socks and shoes / socks and shoes / necklace, rings and earrings / necklace, rings and earrings / watch and tie / watch and tie)

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