Drilling is something common to do in teaching English. Drilling gives advantages both for teachers and students. For teachers, drilling can help in terms of classroom management, enabling them to vary the pace of the lesson or to get all learners involved, and also help them recognise if new language is causing problems in terms of form or pronunciation. For students, drilling can be fun since they can practice the pronunciation, intonation, grammar, expressions, etc. However, drilling can be boring for higher levels since they think they are in higher level, so they don’t need any drilling.
Students can be right for being bored of drilling since the technique of drilling doesn’t vary enough. As a result, the teachers don’t feel comfortable drilling them, especially higher level students. Therefore, some new techniques are needed to drill them as the higher the level is, the more complex the expressions are. Take an example in Conversation levels. For beginners, students do need drilling, yet later when they are in higher level of conversation class, the expressions vary and they are supposed to use them in their conversation.
I use the technique which I’d like to share is a simple drilling that can be used for higher levels. Yet, there are some conditions that you need to consider to apply the technique. They are, the expressions must be about giving opinions, about pros and cons, arguments, optimism and pessimism, etc. For LIA teachers, Conversation 5 is the best level to apply the technique. However, other levels are possible depending on how you apply it.
Preparations:
- Choose topics that require debate
- Provide 3 different color paper or 2 different color ribbons
Application:
- Introduce the students of expressions they must learn on the lesson. Allow them some time to memorize some of the expressions (teachers can be a model for pronunciation or just use the audio)
- Distribute the paper/ ribbons to the students. Each student gets 3 paper/ ribbons.
- Tell them that each color represents one title of expressions, for example: red for pessimism, yellow for optimism, green for interrupting.
- Students should give their opinion on something. If they are optimistic on something, they should throw yellow paper/ ribbon, if they are pessimistic on something, they should throw the red paper/ ribbon, and if they want to interrupt, they throw the green one.
- Teacher can start stating an opinion.
- To make the drilling more fun, in one session there would be only 3 students can give their opinion and if there are two students throwing the same color of paper, they can’t use the same expression.
Here is the example:
Teacher (stating opinion): in my personal view, Indonesia should join the next World Cup. Do you think we can make it?
Student 1 (throw red paper): I’m still rather doubtful about it.
Student 2: (throw yellow paper): I feel quite sure that Indonesian football team will be great in the future.
Student 3: (throw green paper): Excuse me, can I just say something? For me, it is possible that Indonesia will join the next World Cup as long as the team has a good couch and manager.
The drilling continues until all students throw the paper/ ribbons. Another variation is the students can take turn in stating an opinion.
Well, good luck with the technique.
Written by: Ms. Lala
Note: the idea is from Ms. Indah Sugestiningrum
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