The Usefulness of Choral Response and Repetition in the EFL Classroom

Okay, this sounds instantly boring, but it is an important issue in the EFL classroom, or any language classroom for that matter.

A untrained newbie teacher questioned in an email:

Isn’t “listen and repeat” over and over again demeaning? It is like we are treating our students like robots, not like real people.

NO! It is not!

To some extent I can understand the reluctance to do mechanical drill in the classroom. BUT anyone one of you (and me too) who have seriously studied a foreign language before KNOWS how important it is. You will especially understand if you have lived abroad and tried to learn the local language. And the more the language is different from yours the more choral response (the classroom listens to you or a recording and repeats what they hear) and repetition help.

Here’s what happens, and to illustrate I am telling you what happens to ME when I study a language, this is not just theory. This is real language learning. Often the first time someone says something it sounds like pure gibberish to me. The second time, I get a little bit of it. The third time I start to get most of it, the fourth time I might have the whole thing – might understand it and the fifth time, I might get a bit of the stress and rhythm of it.

That is SIX repetitions. Yet, I often need every single one of them to help me learn to repeat back a sentence correctly. And even then, should I stop repeating it because I finally got it right? Or should I repeat if a few more times to check it against the teacher’s model to be SURE I have it right and to build a patten of success?

Rethink this idea of repetition and choral response NOT being useful.  I know some people have a resistance to old styles of teaching where students repeat the mindless babble of an instructor, but language learning is a different animal.

TED’s Tips™ #1: Help your students be successful by using “listen and repeat” drills.  It is a critical part of language learning.  Choral response lets us make our mistakes in group where no one will hear it!  And there are lots of other mistakes going on too.

The BEST EFL Teaching Jobs in China: Government Colleges, Universities and Secondary Schools offer the most reliable and worry-free jobs in China. Click on the Link if you would like to Teach English in China