This document discusses strategies for drilling vocabulary and pronunciation in the English classroom in an engaging way. It suggests that drilling should not be robotic or boring for students and should give them a sense of achievement. Different types of drilling formats are outlined, including individual drilling, pair work, and group work. A variety of verbal, written, and visual prompts for drilling vocabulary are provided. Techniques for drilling pronunciation in an enjoyable manner are also presented, such as isolating sounds, using gestures, and incorporating intonation. The document stresses making drilling meaningful and interactive for students through checking comprehension, personalizing language, and using games.

1. 1 Drilling Workshop

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. Why do drilling? Gives Ss a chance to get their mouths around words and grammar Change of pace and can be fun Improves fluency. Helps Ss use language without needing to think too much Great for auditory learners Allows T to monitor and correct Helps Ss withmemorisation and automisation

5. 5 Drilling Vocabulary

6. 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?

7. Drilling Logistics These are three basic set-ups for running drills: 1 2 3 students students students in groups, using question / answer drills or other prompts, such as picture cards, mimes etc. student who demonstrates ability to model – nominated by teacher Teacher – can elicit whole class or specific groups (men, women, As, Bs, students wearing glasses / jeans, tables…)

9. taped recording

10. student who teacher hears is correct

12. on an OHP

13. cards

15. realia

16. mimingWith your group, discuss which prompts you tend to use more often or tend to avoid using and why.

17. Drilling Pronunciation Feel silly? Embrace it! Isolate and backchain problematic sounds, such as: ‘still’: illlll > tilllll > stilllll > still > still here, or ‘graph’: fffff > afff > rafff > grafffff > graph > read the graph Mumble drilling Write pron. features on WB, e.g. syllable stress, weak sounds, /z/ in dogs, etc., for example: /COMF ortable/ 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.

18. Meaningful, Not Monotonous Making it meaningful Check meaning before drilling Incorporate meaning through intonation (days of the week: Monday sounds sleepier than Friday; food: say the food according to how much you like it – Donuts!) 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 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 t-shirt / jeans and t-shirt / socks and shoes / socks and shoes / necklace, rings and earrings / necklace, rings and earrings / watch and tie / watch and tie’)