1. Technique Definition
PPP is one of the most popular techniques in ESL
classroom. PPP stands for presentation, practice, and production. In ESL
classroom, PPP technique is a very effective teaching technique.
Each stage of the Presentation, Practice and
Production lesson must be planned well to be effective. However, PPP is a
highly flexible approach to teaching and there are many different activities a
teacher can employ for each stage. Moreover, teacher can integrate skills and
components easily by using this technique.
Here are the tree principles of PPP technique in
ESL classroom:
1.
Presentation
Presentation involves the
building of a situation requiring natural and logical use of the new
language. When the "situation" is recognized and understood by
the students, they will then start instinctively building a conceptual
understanding of the meaning behind the new language, and why it will be
relevant and useful to them. When the situation surrounding the new
language and the conceptual meaning of it has been achieved, the new language
should be introduced by means of a linguistic "model". It is
this model that the students will go on to practice and hopefully achieve
naturally without help during a productive activity.
2.
Practice
It
is important that practice activities are appropriate to the language being
learned and the level and competence of the students. Essentially
Practice is the testing procedure for accuracy, and the frequency procedure for
familiarity with the language. It is also a remedial stage. A good
way to summarize effective Practice is to see it as repetition leading to
competence and accuracy in terms of Phonology and Syntax.
3.
Production
Generally Production
involves creating a situation requiring the language that was introduced in the
Presentation Stage. That situation should result in the students
"producing" more personalized language. Production is highly
dependent on the Practice Stage, because if students do not have confidence in
the language then they will naturally be hesitant to independently
"use" it.
Suitable activities for PPP technique:
1.
Presentation: miming, drawing, using flashcards, watching videos, slide shows,
showing pictures, listening audio, touching the items, bringing materials into
classrooms, and observing indoor or outdoor.
2.
Practice: Memory games, Word hunt, Crossword puzzles, Shopping lists, writing
drilling exercises, Questions and answers, playing games, dialogue practice,
ticking items, summarizing, answering true or false questions, filling in gaps,
filling in charts, finding the mistakes, and matching words and pictures.
3.Production:
Dialogues, Drama, Role- play, Making summary, Gap filling exercises, Using
synonyms and antonyms, Taking surveys, Discussion, Debates, Storytelling,
Questions and answer games, Writing descriptions, Writing letters, Writing diary, Writing essay, Writing short
stories, and Writing short biography of a family members or famous people
2. Skill or Component
Skills or components that can be taught through
this technique are writing, listening, and vocabulary.
3. The Procedure
If we want to teach writing, for example
teaching descriptive text about place, teacher can do these steps:
·
Asking
the students about places they like to visit and then asking them to describe
it a little more.
·
Activating
the students’ prior knowledge by asking what they have already known about
descriptive text.
·
Showing
them a picture of a famous place. (Presentation)
·
Asking
the students to write some descriptions based on the picture and teacher can
help them in this stage. (Practice)
·
Discussing
their work whether they have question or not.
·
Presenting
new picture
·
They
make a new paragraph by themselves without teacher’s help. (Production)
If we want to teach listening, for example teaching
expressions of love trough dialogue, teacher can do these steps:
·
Activating
their prior knowledge about how to show or express love to someone or something
·
Inviting
them to listen a dialogue about expressing love from native speaker. (Presentation)
·
Providing
blank dialogue to the students.
·
Students
listen to the dialogue from the tape while filling the blank part on the
dialogue. (Practice)
·
Teacher
gives another blank dialogue to the students.
·
While
the students listen to the dialogue, they write the blank part on their paper
or they can write the whole part of the dialogue. (Production)
If we want to teach vocabulary, for example teaching verb,
teacher can do these steps:
- Presenting
the new verb and explains the form of the language in a meaningful
context. (Presentation)
- The
students practice this new vocabulary through controlled activities such
as worksheets, games or question and answer activities.(Practice)
- The
students use or produce what they have learned in a communicative activity
such as a role-play, communication game, making sentences or question and
answer session. (Production)
4. The Strength and The Weaknesses
The Strengths of this technique:
- Offers teachers and learners a logical sequence;
- Particularly useful to newly-qualified Ts
(framework/template);
- Many learners are comfortable with and expect
teacher-led presentation-driven lessons;
- PPP makes teaching measurable (teaching performance can
be rated on how many learners get it.)
- Easily integrated into course books.
The Weaknesses of this technique:
- It is repetitive (therefore tedious);
- Students generally fail to use TL beyond the
classroom;
- Teacher-centered;
- Too much time spent on presentation;
- PPP misleads teachers about what makes a good lesson.
5.
Conclusion
PPP is a technique that is
used mostly in ESL
classroom. PPP stands for presentation, practice, and production, and it is usually used for teaching
speaking and listening. However, if we make some modifications in its
activities, we can use it to teach every skills and language components in
integrated way.
