18.1.2.2. Presenting a new structure with one verb only

Much of the grammar for less able learners can be taught in the form of lexical items rather than generalised rules. As just we do not overload any learner with too many lexical items in one lesson, we may not wish to overload the weak learner with too many verbs in our initial presentation lesson on a tense of a verb. Otherwise he may feel the structure itself is difficult and so lose any motivation or encouragement to learn it. If we examine carefully the material below we’ll see that the stress does not seem to be on lexical items.

Extract 1 (E. Austen et al., p.12)

Extract 2 (E. Austen et al., p.18)

Hi, David. Hello, Joe. I’m going to the park. I’m going home. See you later. OK. Bye. I’m going to the station. Where? To the station. I’m going to the park, and then home. Where? To the park, and then home. (Sue is going to the station. James is going to the park. Sally is going home, Meg is going to the station. Andrew is going to the station. Jenny is going to the park.)

In the dark Hugh, where’s the fuse-box? I don’t know. I’m looking for it. Hugh, where’s the mains switch? I don’t know. Bill’s looking for it. Hugh, I’m looking for the front door. Where is it? Near the stairs. Hugh, where are the stairs? I don’t know. I’m looking for them. Bill, where’s the ladder? I don’t know. I’m looking for it. Hugh, where are the fuses? I don’t know. Sue’s looking for them. Bill, where’s Hugh? I don’t know. I’m looking for him.

Extract 1 has a lexical set based on the theme of places – ‘park, home, station, square’ etc. Extract 2 has a set of ‘things electrical’ – ‘fuse-box, mains, switch, fuses’ etc. The verbs used, only one in each case, are also semantically linked – ‘going’ to places and ‘looking for’ with the things needed when a fuse has blown and we are ‘in the dark’.

Thus the stress is on vocabulary rather than grammar. What little vocabulary is taught should be inductive in the approach, very limited in quantity and fully integrated with the reading material. In the material quoted this would certainly seem to be the case, and in listening to and reading these dialogue exchanges the learner could assimilate the examples of the present continuous tense as lexical items.

However, without such material and possibly without the ingenuity to create such functional situations, the teacher may feel that this approach is difficult to set up and handle. Nevertheless, it is possible to find examples within a common everyday situation that limit the material to exploitation of one verb only, so that the structure (in this case the present continuous tense) is presented and practised as a series of lexical items. ‘Wear’ is one such verb. The teacher may present ‘He’s/ She’s wearing’ by reference to a series of magazine cut-outs from a fashion magazine, and then set up a controlled practice drill by reference to the students in his class. All the reverse procedure may be applied, especially if the students are all wearing the same school uniform, which would not give rise to enough variety for a practice drill. In either case there would be intensive practice of the form and meaning of the structure using one verb only and limited lexical sets of colour adjectives and items of clothing.

R. Gefen considers that the method must involve a variety of activities in any one lesson, the extensive use of visual aids, and emphasis on audio-lingual activities in general and on mimicry memorisation drills in particular as long as they are meaningful, relevant and not too drawn out. This approach to the problem of teaching weak classes would seem to contradict the idea of simplification of material so far proposed. Certainly, the content of the whole lesson should not be limited to practising the use of ‘wear’. But we could limit the content to a handful of verbs and present and practise one at a time. In this way the normal procedure of presentation, controlled practice, free practice (production) would be abandoned in favour of a series of mini-lessons within the overall lesson. For example:

1. Presentation of ‘He’s/ She’s wearing’ (classroom situation)

2. Practice of ‘He’s/ She’s wearing’ (magazine cut-outs)

3. Presentation of ‘He’s/ She’s holding’ (classroom situation)

4. Practice of ‘He’s/ She’s holding’ (visuals of people holding various things)

Of course this procedure is not the only possibility. The exploitation of the classroom situation and the visuals could be reversed. The lesson could concentrate on the third person singular only or other persons could be brought in. Flexibility is there and only the teacher can judge what is the right content and procedure for his class. For some very weak learners, for example, a drill that is only oral may prove difficult and they may need some form of written support. This could be in the form of a substitution table on the blackboard to accompany the drill.