TECHNIQUE

When the effective educator has already chosen the strategies, the next step is the selection of the techniques. According to Herrera, S. (2011) techniques are: “Specific actions or action sequences that have been designed to achieve a defined, strategic objective” (p.192) Thus, techniques are located under the umbrella of chosen strategies, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 Techniques based on the TPR.

Created by Mauricio Matabay

Manipulatives and Realia

They represent all physical objects used in the learning process such as school supplies, classroom objects, felt boards, beakers, scales, food, etc. The use of these materials grabs students’ attention and enables them to develop skills and explore new concepts in contextualized and meaningful ways. 

Figure 8 The use of realia in the classroom

Created by Mauricio Matabay

Heterogeneous Grouping

It is a type of distribution of students who are placed in different groups in order to create a relatively uniform distribution of students with different abilities, different educational, and emotional needs.

The idea is to maximize every single student’s ability and promote interaction. Roles for each student can be assigned at the moment to work in groups.

Figure 9 Heterogeneous Grouping

Created by Mauricio Matabay

Repetition

It is also better known as Rote learning. According to Wikipedia (2015):

Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.

With a good lesson plan and adequate materials, repetition is an effective technique to learn a foreign language in a short time. For instance, when students need to learn the list of irregular verbs and their conjugation, repetition is an alternative for retaining them in the memory for a long time. The same can occur with vocabulary, sentences, and complex structures for students. Making acronyms can help students to learn complex structures.

Figure 10 Repetition

Created by Mauricio Matabay

Kinetics

Griss, S., (2013) referring to kinesthetic teaching states: “It is the use of creative movement in the classroom to teach across the curriculum” Thus, kinetics is a technique to learn a language by using physical movement where students are released from a passive learning role to engage them physically and creatively with the topics that they are learning. It can be applied during classroom activities and discussions, recess, before and after school activities, etc. It involves using songs, chants, realia, visuals, etc.

Figure 11 Kinetics

Created by Mauricio Matabay