Skill-Building Activities
WHAT: Sometimes referred to as the "study focus" or "guided/controlled practice" element of lesson planning, skill-building activities are the building blocks that reinforce language elements and skills for students before they use them on their own. Skill-building activities are generally guided by the teacher, with support and scaffolding to help students learn. Skill-building activities tend to focus on language elements such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, although they can and should be used for all elements of a task.
WHY: Skill-building activities are used to introduce elements of the language needed to perform the real-world task. They can raise awareness of the form and function of language elements for learners. Generally they are done to help improve accuracy, although skill-building can be done to increase fluency as well.
HOW: The most common, traditional form of skill-building activities are drills, exercises, worksheets, and similar activities. Skill-building activities can be done in any number of ways, using all 4 skills, no matter what skill will eventually be assessed. It is good for the teacher to model and demonstrate the skill-building activity or provide some support or scaffolding.
Skill-Building Activities and Strategies:
WHY: Skill-building activities are used to introduce elements of the language needed to perform the real-world task. They can raise awareness of the form and function of language elements for learners. Generally they are done to help improve accuracy, although skill-building can be done to increase fluency as well.
HOW: The most common, traditional form of skill-building activities are drills, exercises, worksheets, and similar activities. Skill-building activities can be done in any number of ways, using all 4 skills, no matter what skill will eventually be assessed. It is good for the teacher to model and demonstrate the skill-building activity or provide some support or scaffolding.
Skill-Building Activities and Strategies:
- Focus on one element at a time, keep the skill-building activities short
- Don't overwhelm your students with too many new items at once in the same activity
- Use all 4 skills for skill-building activities; if the assessment task will be speaking, listening to examples of others will help give them ideas for what they can say
- Keep skill-building activities interactive
Samples
Samples are provided in Word format as they should be adapted and modified for your own students and level.
To download the documents below, you can either click on the button under each image (downloads to your computer directly) or download from Scribd by clicking on the download arrow icon (requires a login/password - free).
To download the documents below, you can either click on the button under each image (downloads to your computer directly) or download from Scribd by clicking on the download arrow icon (requires a login/password - free).