Drills are back in fashion! Now with taste and style

Ana Lucia de Mello Carriel looks at the benefits of drilling.

About the talk

Not long ago, drills went from heaven (in the audio-lingual methods) to hell (according to the communicative approach). However, language learning theories, and reality itself, have come to their rescue and drills are not so tacky any longer. We’ll see examples and experiment with ways to make more mechanical practices relevant, communicative and even personal. Drills can be fashionable again.

Comments

Submitted by joyyiiee on Fri, 07/11/2025 - 07:14

This video tackles ideas that would be beneficial for the betterment of how you can provide learning to your students.

Submitted by Saidou_Kane on Thu, 12/14/2023 - 07:52

I really liked the webinar as I was always skeptical about putting drills into trash. Students learning English as a foreign language, especially beginners, need drills to automatize certain structures and build confidence about expressing most common functions or structures, such as, greeting, introducing to one another, thanking, leave taking, asking for some basic questions, say, yes/no questions, etc. I'm really glad to see that drills can be "turned into "meaningful drills" or, why not, into "communicative drills".

Submitted by Cath McLellan on Thu, 12/14/2023 - 11:39

In reply to by Saidou_Kane

Hi Saidou_Kane

Thanks for your feedback and we're glad you found the webinar useful!

Cath

TeachingEnglish team

Submitted by Cheikh FAYE on Sun, 11/03/2024 - 14:46

In reply to by Saidou_Kane

Hi Saidou_Kane!
Can't agree more with you. When drills are fashioned into such communicative activities, they become very interesting and up to date.

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