A Method of Using Substitution and Transformation Drills for Group Work

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of teaching a structure is giving the pupil automatic mechanical control over it. This is of course only one aspect: the pupil must know not only how to use it, but when to use it. The latter he learns in a variety of ways. He can learn short dialogues which highlight by their dramatic content the contextual meaning of the structure and thus help to fix it in his mind; he consolidates and further defines his understanding of it as he meets it in a variety of contexts in his reading and listening; he uses it in speech and writing. But he must also be taught to recognise and feel it as a pattern, and to use it, unhampered by certainty of its form, automatically.