American football coach, Vince Lombardi, once said,
“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes
perfect.” While this is an exaggeration, it helps us see that
students will not improve if they unknowingly practice the
same mistakes over and over.
Choral and individual repetition are the simplest types of
controlled practice. Students repeat words, minimal pairs, or
sentences after a model provided by the teacher or a
recording, with feedback on how well they’re doing. While
learners need lots of practice of this type in order to be able
to produce sounds automatically, it’s best not to continue
simple repetition for too long at a time. Follow up with more
contextualized and meaningful practice to avoid boredom—
for the students and the teacher.
Sentences: Find or write sentences using words with the
sounds you’re practicing, or have students write sentences.
They may enjoy practicing sentences they’ve created
themselves more than those from a book. It can also be fun to
include the students’ names or something about the class now
and then. Don’t choose sentences that are too di#cult,
especially in the beginning, or students will get frustrated
and discouraged. Have students practice repeating the
sentences, as a group and then with a partner.
Tongue twisters can also be used for repetition practice, but
they should be used with caution. See “Some Thoughts on
Tongue Twisters” later in this chapter.Proverbs and famous quotations: These are also good
for repetition practice, especially with more advanced
learners. For example:- Time flies. (practice with /ay/ or /l/)
- Birds of a feather flock together. (/f/ or /ð/)
- All’s fair in love and war. (/l/ and /r/)
Be sure the students understand the meaning—both literal
and !gurative—of what they’re saying. If you have students
discuss the proverbs or quotations with a partner or group
and try to work out their meaning, they’ll be able to do
valuable communicative practice along with their
pronunciation practice.
Dialogs and skits: These provide controlled practice with
the possibility of more context and more meaningful and
useful language. Choose dialogs that !t situations the
students might encounter or words and expressions that they
need to know. Make sure the dialogs make sense and sound
as realistic and natural as possible. In other words, don’t try
to include as many words with a particular sound as possible
if it will make the dialog sound forced and phony. Have76