Deep drilling
Although I can see quite obviously see the reasons for it, I’m not a fan of drilling. As such, I know I don’t do enough drilling in class so one of the challenges I set myself in my bid to get back on the blog was to find an interesting way to drill vocab with young learners. It was actually inspired by some videos I saw ages ago about an American teaching method called Whole Brain or Power Teaching. If you haven’t heard of it before, I recommend checking out some videos on youTube.
So, one of the points of Power Teaching is the method in which the teacher gains the students’ focus at the end of an activity (or at any other point in the lesson). He says, “Class” and the students respond, “Yes.” BUT, they must respond using the same tone, speed and volume of voice as the teacher. I adapted this to get the students repeating this unit’s vocabulary, whilst showing them the flashcards and it was a great success – they were more focussed and participated much more than they would have if I had simply asked them to repeat.
Here are some ideas for “voices” to use:
Whisper / Shout – or repeat the same word and slowly get louder
Fast / Slow
With a deep / squeaky voice
Say the word three times quickly
Say the word as if it’s zooming past you in a car
Say the word as if it just fell off a cliff
Cup your hands over your mouth and “echo” the word
That sounds like a fun way to do something that is inherently boring!
I have also heard that if you have students use the drilling in a personal way, they remember the words and structures better, too. For example, with the word rain. I like rain or I don’t like bears, depending on which one.
Maybe it would take too much time to have them each say it, but if it would be fun/effective, when repeating the whole sentence, if they could choose which one is correct for them and say it (and possibly try to speak over the opposition).
I think my students would really enjoy your last idea – they’re quite competitive and so trying to get their sentence heard against the others would be fun for them!
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I’m a big fan of the ECHO technique and the quietly and loudly thing. It always works well with my very young learners. I did the really slow really fast option the other day with a small group of 6-7 year olds and they loved it.
Thanks for stopping by Leahn 🙂 It’s true, this technique has renewed my “passion” for drilling!