What is Engage, Study, Motivate?

Foreign Language Acquisition

Move a child into a foreign language environment surrounded by adults and other
children using the same foreign language and that child will quickly 'pick up' the
foreign language. Comprehension will come first but production will soon follow,
starting with one word responses and utterances. The child's comprehension will
develop and her production will become more complex until, after just a few years, she
will use the foreign language in much the same way as native-speaker children of her
age group.
If children (and, to a lesser degree, adults) can acquire a foreign language without the
need for formal instruction, why do we need to give lessons?
The child described in the first paragraph will have massive exposure to the foreign
language - ten hours each day or more! The child also has a very strong 'survival
motivation' to acquire the new language. Only through that language can she eat, drink,
make friends and play games.
In our normal schools, we cannot reproduce those conditions (although some experiments
have attempted to do this!).
If we can't reproduce the conditions of 'natural acquisition', we are forced to adopt a
system of 'graded exposure' to the foreign language, and a similar graded presentation
and explanation of the systems of the new language. In fact, we have to develop a
language learning syllabus.
The language learning syllabus is made from a series of language learning events
(lessons) which, traditionally, are equal in duration, take place at fixed times and
locations and follow a regular weekly pattern.
How do we structure our teaching?
(a) Presentation, Practice, Production
Most teachers plan three phases in their lessons according to the PPP model of
Presentation, Practice and Production.
During Presentation, new language is presented perhaps as a grammatical pattern or
more frequently within some familiar situation. During this presentation phase, the
teacher is often very active and dominates the class doing more than 90% of the talking.

During Practice, the new language item is identified, repeated and manipulated by the
students. Unless the teacher is using pairwork or a language laboratory, the teacher also
dominates this phase of the lesson occupying more than 50% of the talking in class.
During Production, the students attempt to use the new language in different contexts
provided by the teacher.
(b) Engage, study, activate
Since the PPP model has functioned more or less effectively for generations, you might
ask why we should be looking at different models. PPP works well provided that your
syllabus is based only on giving students 'thin slices' of language one slice at a time. The
PPP model does not work nearly so well when teaching more complex language patterns
beyond the sentence level or communicative language skills.
Another basic problem with PPP is that it is usually based on segments of the one-hour
lesson. In this way, lessons are designed with a single focus.
In How to Teach English [Longman 1998] Jeremy Harmer proposed a different three
stage model, the ESA model: Engage, Study, Activate.
The three stages of engage, study, activate
(a) Engage
During the Engage phase, the teacher tries to arouse the students' interest and engage
their emotions. This might be through a game, the use of a picture, audio recording or
video sequence, a dramatic story, an amusing anecdote, etc. The aim is to arouse the
students' interest, curiosity and attention. The PPP model seems to suggest that students
come to lessons ready motivated to listen and engage with the teacher's presentation.
(b) Study
The Study phase activities are those which focus on language (or information) and how it
is constructed. The focus of study could vary from the pronunciation of one particular
sound to the techniques an author uses to create excitement in a longer reading text; from
an examination of a verb tense to the study of a transcript of an informal conversation to
study spoken style.
There are many different styles of study, from group examination of a text to discover
topic-related vocabulary to the teacher giving an explanation of a grammatical pattern.
Harmer says, 'Successful language learning in a classroom depends on a judicious blend
of subconscious language acquisition (through listening and reading, for example) and
the kind of Study activities we have looked at here.

(c) Activate
This element describes the exercises and activities which are designed to get students to
use the language as communicatively as they can. During Activate, students do not focus
on language construction or practise particular language patterns, but use their full
language knowledge in the selected situation or task.
Lesson Structure
(a) The ESA lesson
A complete lesson may be planned on the ESA model where the 50-60 minutes are
divided into three different segments. It is very unlikely that these segments will be equal
in duration. Activate will probably be the longest phase but Study will probably be
longer than Engage.
In this format ESA would appear to be little different from PPP.
(b) The ESA, ESA, ESA lesson
Teachers of children and younger teenagers know that their students cannot concentrate
for long periods. They can still use the ESA model but the model may be used repeatedly,
producing a larger number of shorter phases.
This repeated ESA model also works well with older teenagers and adults and gives
lessons a richness and variety which students appreciate.
It would be wrong to give the impression that Engage, Study and Activate are each
single activities. They are phases of the teaching/learning process which may contain one
or more activities.
Learn more about ESA and other models
Jeremy Harmer's book explains, in simple and clear language, the ESA model and other
models for lesson planning. The book is full of information and ideas for making your
teaching more stimulating, enjoyable and successful.
What is Task-Based Learning?
Using tasks
Teachers have been using tasks for hundreds of years. Frequently, in the past, the task
was a piece of translation often from a literary source. More recently, tasks have included
projects for producing posters, brochures, pamphlets, oral presentations, radio plays,
videos, websites and dramatic performances.

The characteristic of all these tasks is that rather than concentrating on one particular
structure, function or vocabulary group, these tasks exploit a wider range of language. In
many cases, students may also be using a range of different communicative language
skills.
What makes 'task-based learning' different?
The traditional way that teachers have used tasks is as a follow-up to a series of
structure/function or vocabulary based lessons. Tasks have been 'extension' activities as
part of a graded and structured course.
In task-based learning, the tasks are central to the learning activity. Originally developed
by N Prabhu in Bangladore, southern India, it is based on the belief that students may
learn more effectively when their minds are focused on the task, rather than on the
language they are using.
In the model of task-based learning described by Jane Willis, the traditional PPP
(presentation, practice, production) lesson is reversed. The students start with the task.
When they have completed it, the teacher draws attention to the language used, making
corrections and adjustments to the students' performance. In A Framework for TaskBased Learning, Jane Willis presents a three stage process:
Pre-task - Introduction to the topic and task.
Task cycle - Task planning and report
Language focus - Analysis and practice.

Does it work?
Task-based learning can be very effective at Intermediate levels and beyond, but many
teachers question its usefulness at lower levels. The methodology requires a change in the
traditional teacher's role. The teacher does not introduce and 'present' language or
interfere ('help') during the task cycle. The teacher is an observer during the task phase
and becomes a language informant only during the 'language focus' stage.
What is Communicative Methodology?
'Communicative' is a word which has dominated discussions of teaching methodology for
many years. Although in a monolingual English language classroom, 'real
communication' in English is impossible, in 'communicative methodology' we try to be
'more communicative'. That is to say, even though it may be impossible to achieve 'real
communication', we should attempt to get closer to 'real communication' in our
classrooms.
What does it mean?
Communicative methodology includes a number of different (and perhaps
interconnecting) principles.

1. The primary aim of foreign language learning is communication with users of the
foreign language.
2. Students study the foreign language as a system of communication.
3. Students learn and practise the foreign language through 'communicative
activities'.
Communication as primary aim
In the past the 'primary aim' of language learning seemed to be mastery of the
grammatical system. The only practical task was translation and that was usually
translation of 'great literature' rather than letters to the bank manager. The methodology
for teaching modern, 'living' languages was identical to the methodology for dead,
classical languages like Latin and Ancient Greek.
Today, we see our primary aim as teaching the practical use of English for
communication with native speakers and others.
Learning English as a system of communication
Language contains many 'systems', one of which is the system of grammar. Mastery of
grammar is still important but only as a means to successful communication.
How long have you been here?
How long are you here for?
We are less concerned with the grammatical difference between these two questions than
with their difference in meaning. We are less concerned with grammatical errors of form
than with errors of meaning because these will lead to a breakdown in communication.
What are communicative activities?
In its purest form, a communicative activity is an activity in which there is:
a desire to communicate
a communicative purpose
a focus on language content not language forms
a variety of language used
no teacher intervention
no control or simplification of the material
Let's examine each characteristic in turn.
1. A desire to communicate.
In a communicative activity there must be a reason to communicate. When someone asks
a question, the person must wish to get some information or some other form of result.
There must be either an 'information gap' or an 'opinion gap' or some other reason to
communicate.
2. A communicative purpose.
When we ask students to describe their bedroom furniture to their partners, we are

creating an artificial 'communicative purpose' and making the activity more artificial by
asking them to do it in English.
We also create artificial 'information gaps' by giving different information to pairs of
students so that they can have a reason to exchange information.
3. A focus on language content not language forms.
In real life, we do not ask about our friend's family in order to practise 'have got' forms.
We ask the question because we are interested in the information. That is to say, we are
interested in the language content and not in the language forms.
4. A variety of language is used.
In normal communication, we do not repeatedly use the same language forms. In fact, we
usually try to avoid repetition. In many classroom activities we often try to create
situations in which students will repeatedly use a limited number of language patterns.
This is also artificial.
5. No teacher intervention.
When you are buying a ticket for The Lion King at the theatre, your teacher is not usually
beside you to 'help' or 'correct' your English. Teacher intervention in classroom
communicative activities adds to the artificiality.
6. No control or simplification of the material.
In the classroom, we often use graded or simplified materials as prompts for
communicative activities. These will not be available in the real world.
How can we make classroom 'communicative activities' less artificial?
As we have seen, there is no real possibility of real communication in English in a
monolingual classroom. Learners must 'pretend' that they need to communicate in
English. However, we can reduce the artificiality by looking at the features mentioned
above. We can easily reduce teacher intervention, we can use more authentic materials,
we can encourage a wider variety of language use, we can create more natural
communicative purposes.
Games and puzzles make good contexts for communicative activities. The books of
'Communication Games' at different levels by Jill Hadfield (Longman) are good
examples of successful 'communication' activities for the language classroom.

What is TPR?
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a series of powerful techniques
developed by Dr James Asher linking language to physical
movements. The ideas behind TPR are connected with our natural
'body language' and the idea of kinaesthetic memory.
The theory suggests that we learn language items most successfully if we associate them
with physical movements. This is demonstrated very well in Do and Understand by
Gunter Gerngross and Herbert Puchta (Longman 1996). The book uses a collection of 50
stories (dont be put off by the sub title 'for young learners', they work very well with all
age groups!).For example, the text of the first story is presented as follows:

1. The teacher tells the story below, miming the story as it is told. The teacher uses very
obvious stylised mimes which the students will recognise. The teacher repeats the story
again, miming in the same way.
2. The teacher tells the students to mime the story as you tell the story a third time. You
may wish to repeat this phase.
3. Now the teacher mimes each phase of the story and elicits the language from the class.
You will be amazed at the students proficiency in reproducing the language.
Text of 'Off to School'
Turn off the alarm clock.
Get out of bed.
Put on your jeans and your T-shirt.
Have a glass of milk.
Get your school bag.
Run to the bus stop.
Look at your feet.
You've got your slippers on.
Shout, "Oh no!"

Mime used by teacher

Wake up and switch off the alarm.
Get out of bed.
Put on jeans and T-shirt.
Pour and drink glass of milk.
Pick up and put on your schoolbag.
Run and then look up at the bus stop.
Look down at your feet.
Express surprise.
Shout "Oh no!"

In Do and Understand the story is also presented in picture format and as a text showing
initial letters and picture prompts. This can be used for the students to write the story.
This example tells a very simple story. In the book you will also find more complex
stories using more complex vocabulary.You will discover that the language of these
stories goes very deep into the students memory and is available for use in everyday
communication. The 14 page introduction to Do and Understand explains the
background to this technique and suggests many further exploitation activities. Once you
have learnt this technique you will find that you can use it frequently and effectively in
your teaching.