​ Practice activities help learners become confident speakers | Grade Teacher Training

​ Practice activities help learners become confident speakers of English. It's also important to provide our students with logically sequenced practice. That's why we need to the following stages in our lessons: controlled practice and freer practice. What are the differences?

CONTROLLED PRACTICE

These are activities in which we ask students to use the language we have just presented in a restricted way. The main aim of this stage is to focus on accuracy, i.e. help learners automatise the form of target language. This can be done orally or in a written form. We can correct errors on the spot.

Controlled practice activities may include:

Gap-fill activities
Multiple choice activities
Categorising words into groups
Drilling
Matching exercises
Sentence transformation
Find someone who, etc.


FREER PRACTICE

These are activities in which students use the target language and their existing language knowledge more flexibly. This stage of the lesson focuses on fluency. Teachers are supposed to give delayed feedback here.

Freer practice activities may include:

Role plays
Debates
Group discussions
Information gaps
Email, essay, letter writing
Storytelling
Drama, etc.

Want to learn more about planning effective lessons? TKT Module 2 Online Preparation Course starts on 25 May.