Job Discussion Forums

catalpa · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2

Could anyone tell me what these are? The AEON people suggest that I prepare some for my interview; problem is, I haven't been able to find a good definition of what they comprise, either online, or in the textbook I'm using (Penny Ur... maybe because she's British?).

Thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to offer.

catalpa

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

sounds like a politically correct term for a written "drill" to me. Never heard of them before.

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

Never heard of it before either. Call and ask them what they mean. It can't be a stupid question because the term is rather obscure.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

http://www.rwth-aachen.de/lfed/Ww/eieshort.html
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/ESL/verbpat1to3.htm

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

Catalpa,

What they mean is drilling, like shmooj said, a politically correct term.

Pattern practice means using a single grammatical structure.

For example, in a polite request:

Could you tell me the way to the theatre?
Yes, go down this street, and turn left at the traffic light. It's on your right.

Now, using this structure, the teacher writes some variables on the board, or has a handout to prompt the students.

For example:

the bank
the post office
the drug store

turn right/corner/on you left
turn left/at the traffic light/on your right

You can do pair drills, one student asking the question, another answering from the variables. You can leap frog the students - A asks B, B asks C, C asks D. Or you can throw two colored balls to the students, one marked question, the other marked answer, in order to keep them on their toes.

That's what pattern practice can be.

azarashi sushi · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 562 Location: Shinjuku

Hi Catalpa...

Get yourself a copy of the textbook "Side by Side". It's pattern practice paradise...　(or maybe hell, depending on how you look at it!)

catalpa · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2

Thanks, everyone! Your responses were very helpful. And I appreciated knowing that I wasn't the only one baffled by the term.

catalpa

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

shmooj,

Yep, that's the idea. Keep them awake. It's a rather boring yet very effective way of getting intonation and individual sounds down.

Honestly, I seldom do pattern practice. I think it's okay once in a long while, if you're practicing a particularly convoluted sentence pattern - ie - Excuse me, can you tell me where I can get the train to-? That's a brute, that sentence, and takes a lot of repetition to get it right and rolling off the tongue.

My junior high kids like to do it for sound reduction in sentences like

Whaddayagonnado tonight?
I'm gonnagotoda movies? An you?
Well, I'm thinkin o' goin to Shibuya.

We drill the heck out of these and the kids are sooooo excited at the end because their pronunciation sounds so natural and I tell them so. I often set them up in pairs, they practice twice, switching roles, and then we leapfrog or I do the ball toss around the classroom as a whole-class activity. Two of my 2nd year junior high classes demanded that we do this again in third year!