Handout 6A

Types of practice in CLT

a. Study the following examples of mechanical, meaningful and communicative

practice, then match each type of practice with its features:

1. Mechanical practice:

Practise saying the sentences, adding "if you don't mind".

Example: Let's go to the Village Fair.

Let's go to the Village Fair if you don't mind.

1.We'll ride together in a bumper car.

2.Let's cross the street to the bookshop.

3. I'll keep the door closed.

2. Meaningful practice:

Describe the two rooms in the pictures. What is there …

1. on Mary's desk? on John's desk?

2. next to Mary's bed? next to John's bed?

3. under Mary's table? under Jon's table?

3. Communicative practice:

In pairs, one student is given picture A, one picture B. Without looking at each other's
picture they have to find the differences by asking and answering the questions about the
pictures.
 Handout 6B
Features of CLT Activities

A. refers to an activity where language control is still

provided but where students are required to make
meaningful choices when carrying out practice. For
example, in order to practise the use of prepositions to
describe locations of places, students might be given a
street map with various buildings identified in different
1. Mechanical practice locations. They are also given a list of prepositions such as
across, from, on the corner of, near, on, etc.. They then
have to answer questions such as "Where is the book shop?
Where is the cafe?" etc. The practice is now meaningful
because they have to respond according to the location of
places on the map.
B. refers to activities where the focus is practice in using
language within a real communicative context, where real
information is exchanged, and where the language used is
2. Meaningful practice not totally predictable. For example, students might have
to draw a map of their neighbourhood and answer
questions about the location of different places in their
neighbourhood, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest
cafe, etc.
C. refers to a controlled practice activity which students
can successfully carry out without necessarily
3. Communicative understanding the language they are using. Examples of
practice this kind of activity would be repetition drills and
substitution drills designed to practise particular
grammatical or other items.
 Richards, J.C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: CUP

b. Now work in pairs. Read the following activities taken from the new Tieng Anh
textbooks and identify which type of communicative practice each activity is.