PAPER 2

FOCUS ON

Look for areas such as:

 Practice
(types of practice such as written, spoken/oral, controlled, freer,
personalised)
 Topic
(is the topic maintained, extended or changed?)
 Level of challenge
(is the level of challenge increased?)
 Language and skills work
(does the exercise bring variety, move from receptive to
productive?)
 Diagnostic
(if the task is an introductory one, does it help teacher and SS see
how much they know already?)
 Student learning styles
(does it appeal to kinaesthetic learners, analytical learners, does it
therefore appeal to a variety of different learning styles?)

TASK 2a (intended purpose)

Lead-in:
 to pre-check/test/teach vocabulary/collocations for further activities / to
give an opportunity for noticing the language
 to activate schemata/engage learners in the topic/to introduce the topic
 to provide the opportunity for personalisation
 to practise the vocabulary
 to prepare students for […]

Grammar/Vocabulary:
 to focus on/introduce the meaning/form/use of […]
 to encourage learners to work out the meaning/form/use of […]
 to provide scaffolding/language for […] / to focus on language which might
be useful for […]
 to reinforce the topic
 to provide (oral/written) practice of […]
 to allow for learner creativity
 to give further (oral/written) (semi-controlled/freer) practice of TL / to
progress on in the level of challenge / to give scaffolding
  to reinforce/consolidate/check the meaning/form/use of […] / to check
understanding of […]
 to contextualise the TL / to provide examples of the TL

Reading:
 to lead into the text/activate schemata of the topic in the text/get the
learners to predict the content of the text
 to practise scanning/reading for specific information/detail
 (to reinforce/consolidate/check…)
 To provide a model for […]

Listening:
 to present the TL in context
 to expose learners to natural language in a (semi-)authentic text
 to focus on/introduce/notice the form or pronunciation of the TL
 to give intensive listening practice to focus on the TL / listen for detail of
TL / listen for specific language
 to provide a model for […]

Speaking / Writing:
 to provide SS with a template/model of how to [e.g., present information
in a graph/a written record]
 to help SS understand/practise how to [e.g., interpret graphs]
 to give SS a clear role of [e.g., their presentation] / to stimulate an
authentic/real-life situation to [e.g., deliver the presentation]
 to help SS generate ideas for [e.g., their presentation]
 to help SS organise/prepare the content of [e.g., their presentation]

TASK 2b (combinations)

 encourages SS to generate ideas which they can use in [the other

exercise(s)]
 encourages SS to generate lexis which they can use in [the other
exercise(s)]
 maintains / extends the theme/topic/context established in [the other
exercise(s)]
 extends the language introduced in [the other exercise(s)] by […]
 provides further (oral/written) (controlled/freer) practice of
grammar/vocabulary introduced in [the other exercise(s)] / stages the
production of the TL in [the other exercise(s)]
 provides an opportunity for productive practice of TL compared to all the
receptive practice in [the other exercise(s)]
  checks learners understand the text / allows learners to practise
skimming/reading for gist/general understanding before they read it
again/in depth in [the other exercise(s)]
 provides the context/content/ideas/etc. for … [the other exercise(s)]
 provides a variety of skills / a balance between receptive and productive
skills work in [the other exercise(s)]
 allows more learner creativity/personalization / provides more freedom for
[e.g., writing about smth] which they didn’t have in [the other exercise(s)]
 gives the learners practice in listening to the TL from [the other
exercise(s)]
 provides a change of interaction patterns/pace – some group work after
individual work in [the other exercise(s)]
 encourages SS to focus on meaning/form/pronunciation/register of TL
introduced in [the other exercise(s)]
 a GD/TTT/PPP approach of [the other exercise(s)] is maintained
throughout [these exercises]

TASK 2c (assumptions and reasons)

Grammar:
1. Guided discovery of/inductive approach to grammar rules is
effective/useful/valuable
2. Explicit grammar rules using metalanguage are useful
3. Explicit rules about the form and meaning of new language are useful / to
focus on form
4. Controlled/restricted practice exercises are useful/important
It’s important to provide opportunities for controlled (written) practice

Lexis / Language:
5. Lexis should be also taught in chunks/combinations/collocations
Learners should learn lexical chunks/phrases/idiomatic language,
especially in spoken functional language
6. Language is best learnt by repetition
Learners need drilling of TL
7. It is useful to teach language functions
8. Teaching language through integrated skills is effective
9. Learners need to hear/see language in context/full sentences
Language should be contextualized / It’s helpful to use a familiar topic
Listening texts are a good way of presenting functional language
Inauthentic texts are useful for presenting language
10. It is useful to focus on form / highlight problems of form through
focused exercises / focus on accuracy
11. Contrasting language forms is a good way to focus on meaning
 12. Form and meaning cannot be separated so it is useful to present
both together
13. It’s useful to compare/contrast different language items
14. Learners need to focus on both meaning, form, and pronunciation
15. Pronunciation work is useful
Learners need to have pronunciation models / focus on pronunciation or
features of connected speech
16. It is not necessary to focus explicitly on the form of [some
particular] TL at an advanced level
17. It is valuable to categorise language according to meaning/function
18. It is important that learners leave a lesson with their own written
record of TL
19. Learners need to be able to work out/infer the meaning of unknown
lexis

Learners / Teaching:
20. The importance of learner-training
21. The value of personalisation
22. The value of collaborative learning
Comparing answers and collaborative learning is useful for lower level
learners
23. The importance of progression in the level of challenge / progression
from known to unknown / PPP / scaffolding
24. SS need to focus on accuracy before fluency / move from controlled
to freer practice
25. It’s useful to move from receptive to productive work/recognition to
production
It is useful to expose the learners to the language receptively before they
produce it
Input before production
26. Cognitively engaging tasks are useful when focussing on the TL
Need for cognitive engagement/challenge when focussing on the TL
The importance of cognitively challenging tasks checks the SS’
understanding of the content with an unusual task
27. Visual stimuli/pictures are useful
28. Learners need to check/build on previously learnt things/previous
knowledge
Test-Teach-Test / it’s useful for teacher to find out what SS already know
29. Higher level SS should acquire different ways of expressing
previously learnt things
Advanced learners need to extend their lexical repertoire
Learners need to have a range of functional exponents at their disposal
Students need different exponents for the same function
30. Interaction patterns need to be changed throughout the lesson
 31. Learners should be exposed to natural features of spoken discourse
(e.g., false starts / (semi-)authentic texts)
It is important to focus on discourse (e.g., adjacency pairs/responses)
32. It is important to focus on style / organisation
SS need a focus on features above sentence level
33. It is important to encourage learner autonomy (e.g., through the use
of dictionaries)
34. It is useful for SS to see a model/SS need support/clear guidelines
before they do a task
35. SS need to prepare / rehearse before speaking
36. Simulation/role play/real life tasks are useful
37. It is useful to use a TBL approach
38. The value of authentic exposure / learners need to be exposed to
the language when it is being used fairly naturally
39. It is helpful to organise materials around a theme and build the
skills and language into this theme

Reading / Listening:
40. Learners need a task to focus them on the overall meaning of a text
(written/spoken)
Learners should be given a task while reading / listening
41. Learners need to understand the meaning/gist of a text before
focussing on language
It is useful to have a task which doesn’t focus on TL even if the prime
reason for the text is linguistic
42. Scanning/reading for detail / listening for detail is useful
SS need to read texts in depth / process texts in detail / use bottom up
processing
43. Using interesting/controversial (semi-)authentic texts aids learning
44. Learners need a task to help extract language examples from/notice
the language in a text
45. It is helpful to allows SS to listen and read at the same time