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EFL Teaching Methods

TEFL Methodology:  Methods for Teaching English in an EFL Classroom

Basic Concepts:

TEFL Methodology taught in training programs is generally either "PPP" or "ESA" 

"PPP" - means Presentation, Practice, and Production

"Presentation" is where the target language (the language to be taught to the students) is "presented" to the students generally through eliciting and cueing of the students (to see if they know it - generally someone knows some or all of it) and then providing the language if no one does. 

The target language is usually put on the marker board either in structure (grammar-type) charts or in dialogs.  Presentation features more "teacher talk" than the other stages of the lesson - generally as much as 65-90% of the time.  This portion of the total lesson can take as much as 20-40% of the lesson time.

Next comes "Practice" where the students practice the target language in one to three activities that progress from very structured (students are given activities that provide little possibility for error) to less-structured (as they master the material). 

These activities should include as much "student talk" as possible and not focus on written activities - though written activities can provide a structure for the verbal practices. Practice should have the "student talk time" range from 60-80 percent of the time - with teacher talk time being the balance of that time.  This portion of the total lesson can take from 30-50% of the lesson time. 

"Production" is the stage of the lesson where the students take the target language and use it in conversations that they structure (ideally) and use it to talk about themselves or their daily lives or situations.  Practice should involve student talk at as much as 90% of the time - and this component of the lesson can/should take as much as 20-30% of the lesson time. 

As you can see the general structure of a PPP lesson is flexible - but an important feature is the movement from controlled and structured speech to less-controlled and more freely used and created speech.  Another important feature of PPP (and other methods too) is the rapid reduction of teacher talk time and the increase in student talk time. 

One of the most common errors untrained teachers make is that they talk too much.  EFL students get very little chance to actually use the language they learn and the EFL classroom must be structured to create that opportunity.

"ESA" - means Engage, Study, and Activate

  Roughly equivalent to PPP, ESA is slightly different in that it is designed to - and allows - movement back and forth between the stages.  However, each stage is similar to the PPP stages in the same order.  Proponents of this method stress its flexibility compared to PPP - and the method as defined by Jeremy Harmer (its major advocate) uses more elicitation and and stresses the "Engagement" of students in the early stages of the lesson. 

 ESA is superior method to PPP when both are looked at from a rigid point of view.  But, EFL is not rigid and you should not adhere to any one viewpoint or method.  PPP is often an easier method for teacher-trainees to get a handle on.

Expanded Concepts:

Read the following - they will download as Word documents:

PPP Basics

PPP Awareness Session

PPP Alternative - "ESA"

Communicative Teaching

An excellent set of pages for reading about and understanding the major methodologies in TEFL are here:

English Teaching Methodologies

When you have finished the readings you will be ready for the unit on Lesson Planning.