Source:

Woodward, T. (2001). Planning lessons and courses:

Designing sequences of work for the language
classroom . CUP.

4 How do people learn and so how can

we teach?

4.1 lntroduction
In the first part of this chapter I'll look at four main ways that people can
learn and be taught. These are:
° Finding out for yourself
e Things made plain
e Periphery learning
e Use and refinement

I'll explain what I mean by each of these four, detailing how they might
be used outside language lessons. For each of the four ways of learning
and being taught I'll then give language class examples, first of func­
tional expressions and then for other content arcas. In the second part of
the chapter, I'll look at sorne common instructional sequences found in
coursebooks and 011 teacher trainíng courses. These are:
0 Test, teach, test
0 Pre-, in-, post- stages for receptive skílls
0 PPP (Presentation, practice, production)
e TBL (Task-based learning)

Ways of learning and teaching

4.2 Finding out for yourself

What it is and how it works

In this way of learning there is a natural setting for the exposure to the
new and the learner does the noticing, pretty much 011 their own. ['11 give
an example from country life.
The quickest way to learn about the effect of an electric fence used to
keep cattle in or out of an arca is to blunder into one by mistake when
it's switched 011 and to get a jolt from it. This teaches you that you are

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