Languagelab.com Blog

Repetition is one of the most common activities in any language course for beginners. Repetition is also used in SL.
Repetition help learners to retain new vocabulary, and to learn its pronunciation and intonation. There are different kinds
of repetition which should be combined to avoid boredom and enhance vocabulary learning.

Repeat after me is probably the kind of repetition most commonly used in the language classroom. Students can be asked to
repeat in groups – choral repetition or drilling – or individually. However, no teaching technique is suitable for all
classes and all teaching contexts. Choral repetition is no exception. Due to sound problems, choral repetition is not
recommended in SL. The sound of all the students speaking at the same time makes it impossible to distinguish who is
pronouncing correctly or not; thus, providing feedback is not feasible. Individual repetition is suggested, but always
making sure to vary the questions asked to each participant. For example, if you are presenting new vocabulary using images,
the following questions could be used:

• What is this?
• Is this a _____?
• Is this a ____ or a _____
• What is (next) to the ______

Prompting students to ask other participants is also another way to vary repetitions. Short dialogues performed
in pairs where each student takes turns to represent the two speakers in the dialogue.

We will describe other kinds of repetition next week.

Our next post will be about the use of repetition. Stay tuned!

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This week at LanguageLab we practised using English language related to going on holiday.

The first part of the lesson was spent doing vocabulary work. We matched the names of holiday destinations and items of clothing with pictures.
This kind of vocabulary work is very useful. It’s the kind of activity you might find yourself doing in English lessons all over the world.

How good is your vocabulary for clothing in English? click here to do a fun practice exercise online.

The second part of the lesson was a little different. The students had to work independently to create a holiday
itinerary. They needed to choose a destination, find a flight,
decide on some activities they would do on holiday and then choose some clothes to take with them that would suit both the destination and the activities.

Although the students had to work independently they were not alone! This is because two of our resident native English speakers,
Griffin and Lane stepped in to help out.
Griffin was working at Millie’s
Cafe so he was on hand to give students advice about travel destinations. He also showed them some websites they could use to
find flights. Once students had chosen their destinations they went to LanguageLab’s clothing
store, Periwinkles and discussed the kind of outfits they would need with Lane

For the final part of the class we met back at Millie’s café and talked about the holidays we had planned, the flights we had selected and the three
outfits we had chosen. Everyone said that it was a little difficult to work alone at first but that it was really useful to get advice from the City People.

Have a look at the photos I took of my outfits. Where do you think I chose to go? Why did I choose those outfits? Write your responses in the comments please.

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Giving instructions
Giving instructions using the target language in a beginners course is another challenge in SL. In our Spanish for beginners we follow three procedures to make sure the participants in our course can follow class instructions: translation to English, images and modeling.

In the first place, we have an introductory lesson to present the most common instructions students will be listening to in each class. In this introductory class, we use English to explain these expressions (listen, pay attention, repeat please, come here, follow me, how do you say …. in Spanish? among others). All the phrases taught are posted to the course wiki, in a written form and we also add a recording. In this way, students can access this resource as many times as they want.

In this introductory lesson as well as in our regular classes, we use boards with images that illustrate instructions. Images help students understand and retain the message. In some cases, especially at the beginning of the course, we offer the written instruction in English and Spanish.

Modeling is perhaps the most efficient way to give instructions using the target language. In order to do this, we have a helper (team-teaching). The teacher gives the instructions to the helper once or twice, for the students to see what they have to do. This is especially good for complex activities. In case that the instructions are not clear, the helper translates them. We believe that we should not waste time in the instructions because what is important is the activity. As the course proceeds, students get used to the language used for instructions and there is no need for translations.

In the following pictures you will see some of the instruction boards we have created for our Spanish lessons.

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Important! Read this blog quickly, before you look up difficult words.

To improve your reading skills, it is sometimes a better idea to find the main point of a paragraph, chapter or even the book.
To do this, you could ask say or ask yourself:

• This mainly deals with …
• The main idea may be expressed as …
• The title that best expresses the ideas of this paragraph is …
• The writer wants to tell us that …
• The best name for this story is …

Last month, I gave you part of the opening paragraph of Eva Luna (by Isabel Allende). Here is the first paragraph, again,
but in full. As you read it, try and complete the sentences.

My name is Eva, which means “life,” according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a
shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of those things made me melancholy,
because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory. My father, an Indian with yellow eyes, came from the place where
the hundred rivers meet; he smelled of lush growing things and he never looked directly at the sky, because he had grown up beneath
a canopy of trees, and light seemed indecent to him. Consuelo, my mother, spent her childhood in an enchanted region where for centuries
adventurers have searched for the city of pure gold the conquistadors saw when they peered into the abyss of their own ambitions.
She was marked forever by that landscape, and in some way she managed to pass that sign on to me. (Allende, published by Knopf, 1988)

This paragraph is a little complicated and, in my opinion, there is more than one idea. Here are my answers. What do you think?

• This mainly deals with an explanation of why Eva is such an unusual person.
• The main idea may be expressed as how it is possible to have a rich and a poor life.
• The title that best expresses the ideas of this paragraph is (perhaps) ‘Drama, Comedy, History’
• The writer wants to tell us that Eva is a good story-teller.
• (One of) the good names for this paragraph is ‘Where I was born’ or ‘My parents.‘

This tells us that there are no wrong answers. Think, read and then think again.

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