DRILLS (oral practice)

Definition:
Drilling means listening to a model, provided by the teacher, or a tape or another student and repeating what is heard. It is a technique that is still used by many teachers when introducing new language items to their students.

Introduction:
In olden days the process of teaching including language teaching took place through oral medium, not only the process of language teaching but also the process of testing took place orally. It was the drills (oral practice) people use to learn different languages. Drills help the learners to practice the rule of language by which they would develop both grammatical and communicative competences. Each and every drill has its own specific purpose, but the final goal of all the drills is to lead the students to develop proficiency in free conversation. Because of these drills the learners begin to get the insight that that language is made up of various elements which are interchangeable. The learners also get the idea that the messages can be given in different ways but the basic pattern or main idea of the message does not change.

Parts of drill:
Input Output

Input: What the student/learner hears is input, also known as stimulus. Output: What the student/learner does is output, also known as response.

Techniques:
There are basic two techniques in drills but it must not taken as general because some other techniques are also present.

1-Chorus Work:
In this technique a number of students speak together. This technique involves repeating something after the teacher. If these drills are an effective way of giving oral practice, it will be logical to use choral techniques for doing this on an extensive level. The main draw-back of this technique is that the teacher cannot identify if there is any sort of error in the repetition, nor the teacher can identify the individual causing the problem. Example We should see the example as when we were younger, back in school in nursery or prep, teacher used to teach us some poems or other lessons which we all class mates repeat after her together.

2-The Ripple Technique:

To eliminate vagueness and to identify mistakes done by students during chorus work, ripple technique is used. In this technique the teacher asks one student to speak, then after sometime the teacher includes in another student, then after some other time the teacher includes in other students gradually, thus increasing the size of chorus. Example Just like cumulative frequency the teacher adds another student or number of students in chorus thus gradually increasing the size of chorus.

Other Techniques:
Other techniques in drills are as follows:

1-Individual drill:
The teacher asks an individual to repeat the sentence. For example, teacher after saying a sentence asks any individual from the class to repeat that sentence.
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2-Mumble drill:
Students mumble the sentence to themselves to get confidant in saying it before chorus or individual drill.

3-Mingle drill:
The students stand up & wander round asking & answering questions.

4-Back chaining:
Back chaining is used for the students to break long sentences into small parts and make it easy for students to learn and say easily. Teacher breaks a long sentence and says it in front of students and they repeat after the teacher. Example Teacher: a million pounds? Students: a million pounds? Teacher: if you won a million pounds? Students: if you won a million pounds? Teacher: What would you do if you won a million pounds? Students: What would you do if you won a million pounds?

Types of drills:
Following are some of the types of drills.

1-Transformation Drill
A drill which demands a transformation of one sentence type into other types, such as affirmative to negative, interrogative or imperative or by changing their mood, voice, aspect, tense, etc., is called transformation drill. Procedure

The learner listens to a sentence which can be transformed into other types of sentence involving a grammatical change. The grammatical structure may or may not vary, but the transformation operates on the same grammatical point.

Example Teacher: He is Studying. Student: Is he studying? Teacher: I have a bath. Student: He has a bath.

2-Translation Drill
This drill is otherwise called as interpretation drill in the bilingual method of language teaching. The translation/interpretation drill will help the learners to retain the meaning and establish a firm association between that meaning and the sounds in the target language. By this the learner can overcome the difficulty of properly associating the meaning and the sounds together.

Procedure The teacher gives an oral stimulus in mother tongue to the learners for which they should respond in the target language. This drill should not force the learner to concentrate on working out the content of the statements he intends to say and therefore the stimulus in mother tongue is used to supply the idea or the concept to be expressed in the target language. This activity would be of help to a homogeneous group only. But if another language is used as a medium same language can be used for providing the stimulus. However, it is up to the teacher to decide whether to use this drill or not since some scholars believe that mother tongue is a hindrance to the learners. Example Teacher: Student: Birds are flying.

Teacher: Student: He is working.

3-Replacement Drill
This drill is closer to a substitution drill in which the substitute belongs to the same part of speech as that of the one replace. Here the learner replace one unit with another, which though does not belong to the same part of speech, has a definite relationship with the one it replaces. To some extent this drill helps the learners to know the technique of contracting long sentences, and to know the changes in the replacements.

Procedure A basic sentence is given and the learner is asked to replace some part of the sentence. Example Teacher: That is my pen. Student: That pen is mine. Teacher: This is my house. Student: This house is mine.

4-Question and Answer Drill

This drill is otherwise called the Response Drill. This drill gives an opportunity to the learners to react automatically to situations, making use of the sentence patterns they have already learnt in the target language.
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Procedure The drill is so formulated that it uses the structures already learnt by the learners. So it gives them a more natural direction, leading them to normal conversation since the real life situations are also involved.

The main draw-back of this type of drill is that it cannot be used for chorus drill since the answers may differ from one learner to the other.

Example Teacher: Question: Where do you live? Student: Answer: I live down the lane. Teacher: Question: What did u eat in the morning? Student: Answer: I ate a sandwich.

5-Mechanical Drill
When there is control of response and only one correct way of responding, the drill is defined as mechanical drill. Since there is complete control over the response there is no need for the learners to understand what is being drilled. It would be wrong to assume that the students gain nothing from a form of practice that rules out all possibility of errors. It is possible that in this way they gain some confidence and fluency at the level of pronunciation but it is extremely doubtful whether mechanical procedures have any real learning value: It is a common experience for students to dozen of sentences for themselves. These procedures seem to leave the learner where they started off: at the level of repetition. Procedure: Teacher says a sentence and students are supposed to repeat that sentence after him. Example Teacher: I am working. Student: I am working.

Teacher: 2 x 2 are 4. Student: 2x 2 are 4.

Uses of drills:
Practice:
Learners must be allowed to use the new items. There is no substitute for this.

Oral practice:
Learners should be given practice without reference to the text. For example their attention should not be focused on questions in their textbook.

Guided oral practice:

This is needed to build up confidence in the learners in using the new items by ensuring that they have something to say and can say it without too much hesitation.

Meaningful oral practice:

The learners should at all times understand and pay attention to what they are required to say, and their utterances should not only be correct but appropriate to the situation.

Extensive oral practice:

The teachers task is that the learners get sufficient practice.

Conclusion:
Language is a means of communication. Language habits are acquired through practice not through prescription. If one wants to communicate in an effective manner, drills are to be used in language teaching. Each drill has its own specific purpose, but the final goal of all the drills is to lead the student to develop proficiency in free conversation. Without sufficient drill practice, they cannot achieve such proficiency. Therefore a great proportion of time should be devoted to drills, until learners are able to do them accurately with their books closed.