Different approaches to the problem of classification of exercises

One of the major problems in the methodological theory of TEFL is the establishment of principles, or criteria, of classification of exercises, which may serve the basis for constructing different systems of exercises. The problem of typology of exercises is closely connected with such methodological questions as:

· filling up exercises with language material, which must constitute their basis. The latter is connected with language material selection and the degree of difficulty of the language input under training;

· determination of the character of exercises depending on language input and particulars of habits and skills developed;

· choice of the most effective technique corresponding to the methodological objective of the activity;

· taking into account the stage of teaching, organisational form and situation of the activity performance;

· distribution of exercises according to the stage of speech habits and skills formation;

· optimum correlation of exercises in speaking, reading, writing and listening comprehension, as well as a number of other questions.

Numerous opinions of methodologists on these questions result in various approaches to the problem of classification of exercises. Such a situation causes isolation of different basic criteria when compiling the typology of exercises. At the same time, it leads to terminological variability in defining types and kinds of exercises. In general terms, various points of view may be brought up to the following.

1. I.V. Rakhmanovand V.S. Tsetlinconsider due regard for the peculiarities of language communication the main criterion of the typology of exercises. Thus, we have language and speech exercises. Language exercisesare aimed at mastering the habit of using separate language items. Speech exercisesutilise all previously assimilated knowledge, habits and skills. Language exercises provide speech habits and language knowledge for speech exercises. Consequently, language exercises should precede speech exercises, for the learner’s attention is concentrated on the language form while doing language drills. At the same time, performing speech activities attracts the learner’s attention to the content of utterances. Language exercises in this approach are also called preparatory because they prepare the learner for speech activity. The correlation between language and speech exercises at the initial stage of teaching is 45 to 55. The level of a developed speech skill allows for shifting this correlation up to 30 to 70.

2. According to E.I. Passov, language and speech exercises may be opposed along the line of habits and skills. He distinguishes between two types of speech exercises: 1) the exercises of the lower type are called simulative communicative; 2) the exercises of the higher type are called (purely) communicative. Simulative communicative exercisesserve forming and developing speech habits. Communicative exercisesserve the improvement of speech skills.

3. T.N. Nikulinadistinguishes between two types of exercises according to the criterion of the learner’s voluntary attention being attracted to the language form. In her opinion, the learner’s attention concentrates on the language phenomenon while performing a language exercise. In speech exercises, the learner’s attention is not concentrated on the language form.

4. B.A. Lapidussuggests distinguishing between non-speech and speech exercises. According to Lapidus, no strict boundaries between language and speech exercises can be found in the following aspect. Speech exercises must be aimed at some definite language material because they, too, serve deep language material assimilation. At the same time, attraction of the part of voluntary attention to the language form is characteristic of both language and speech exercises. Hence, Prof. Lapidus suggests that one should define the types of exercises in accordance with the real speech qualities possessed.

5. Another point of view is based on considering operations of speech actions in mastering a foreign language. Here we mean operations in understanding (recognition of speech items, their correlation with the context and situation) and reproduction of speech material and its combinability in accord with a related speech situation. Such operations are connected with speaking and are characterised by productive combinability. This approach comes back to the works by Harold Palmer. H. Palmer tried to unite various exercises of mechanical character (drills) and different creative exercises into a harmonious system under the title of Oral Approach. He distinguished between two large groups of exercises: 1) purely receptive types of work and 2) receptive and productive forms of work. The latter included a) reproduction; b) simulated conversation and c) natural conversation. However, it should be noted that Palmer’s typology of exercises and particularly its psychological basis has become out of date now. Moreover, Palmer did not practically take into account TEFL specific character.

6. I.D. Salistradistinguishes between two types of exercises: training and speech exercises. His approach is very close to that of Palmer’s. Thus, Salistra’s training exercises are aimed at recognition and reproduction of speech complexes. Speech exercises are aimed at understanding oral and written speech and expressing thoughts in oral and written form. Considering Salistra’s typology, Lapidusnotices that as soon as training (language) exercises must be as close to the act of communication as possible, they may be called combination exercises. This is so because in these exercises the process of language material acquisition takes place simultaneously with the development of skill to express correctly one’s own ideas in a target language.

7. M.S. Ilyinputs forward the opposition ‘not-yet speech – speech’. According to this criterion, the types of exercises are analytical and synthetical; non-communicative and communicative exercises.

8. The main criterion of E.P. Shubinis the sequence of mastering operations, which lead to speech activity. Thus, he distinguishes between simulative communicative and true communicative types.

9. P.B. Gurvichconsiders exercises from the point of view of memory participation in performing activities and logical operations involved in the process of exercise performance. His two groups of exercises are based on: 1) memory (the so-called thoughts-recollections); and 2) self-dependent thinking operations (thoughts-products).

10. At the advanced stage of teaching the degree of preparation for speech communication may be taken into account. According to N.S. Obnosov, this approach allows for the differentiation of exercises at the advanced level as training communicative and natural communicative types. Obnosov’s training communicative exercises serve rendering the content prepared beforehand with or without reference language input given. They may also serve for the use of the language material provided that the speaker himself determines the content of speech. Natural communicative exercises are the speaker’s utterances unprepared in time and unlimited in the use of language input. In this connection, N.I. Geznotices that due regard of the specific character of communicative activity and consolidation of habits and skills allows for differentiating three stages of language input acquisition: 1) preparation of a coherent utterance; 2) production of the prepared coherent utterance; 3) production of a self-dependent unprepared utterances.

11. V.A. Bukhbinderdistinguishes between information, operation and motivation exercises. Information exercises provide for comprehension and assimilation of language input. It is the consolidation of necessary information about the language material under study. The language material exists in any exercise and that is why Bukhbinder thinks the term ‘language’ is inappropriate. He maintains that the main peculiarity of information exercises lies in their orientation at realisation and consolidation of language items knowledge, assimilation of which is impossible to start at the stage of operation exercises. Operation exercises develop automatism consolidating operations with language material converting them into habits. Motivation exercises develop speech skills, improve them, provide for motivated use of skills in communication.

12. Sometimes exercises may be distinguished according to the degree of control over students’ operations performed in the exercises. Thus, G.A. Kitaygorodskayadistinguishes between close manipulation, partial manipulation and minimum manipulation exercises. Her intensive method is based on the audio-lingual approach, though the latter is not referred to. So, one of the authors of the audio-lingual method A.C. Newtonsuggests that it may be helpful to think of classroom activities as falling into at least four major categories: a) completely manipulative; b) predominantly manipulative; c) predominantly communicative; d) completely communicative. Examples of a completely manipulative activity, in Newton’s system, would be drills in which learners merely repeat sentences after the teacher or simple substitution drills. The latter exercise could be made into a predominantly manipulative drill, i.e. it would include a small element of communication. It can be done if the teacher indicated the word to be substituted by showing a picture that suggests the word rather than actually saying the word. Another way is having the students supply the word from their own knowledge or experience. E.g. instead of doing a routine substitution drill, in which the student substitutes in the sentence a cue word given by the teacher, the student may respond with the name of his father’s real profession (My father is an engineer/doctor/merchant/teacher, etc.). In a more advanced class, it might bring in an element of communication to have the students retell, after a lapse of time, a story the teacher has given them. Various kinds of other oral and written activities may become predominantly communicative as they move away from simple repetition and memorisation toward a freer expression of the students’ own knowledge and ideas. Finally, an example of pure communication would be a free conversation among the members of the class.

13. Sometimes classroom activities are thought of as monological and dialogical. M.K. Borodulinaand M.N. Mininasuggest differentiating exercises according to the form of speech realisation (monological/ dialogical).

6.3. Criteria of classification of exercises: Types and kinds

Thus, we may say that the majority of methodologists proceed from the following assumption. Though a person’s speech activity is the actuation of the whole complex of knowledge, habits and skills, he cannot master this complex at once. He has to acquire one habit after another gradually. That is why it is assumed that the stage of exercises aimed at the use of language material in speech should be preceded by the stage aimed at practising the isolated items of the language material. On these grounds, all exercises are subdivided into three large types: language exercises (training, preparatory, analytical, elementary, primary, non-communicative, aspect drills, etc.); simulative communicative exercises (conditional, operation, training communicative) and communicative exercises (synthetical, speech, truly communicative, situational, creative, motivation and the like). This criterion reflects the communicative character of speech acts in exercises.

In language exercises, a student is performing operations with language input isolated from a communicative situation and concentrating his attention on the language form.

In simulative communicative exercises, a student is performing speech actions in the given situation settings. The main distinctive features of this type of exercises are the availability of a communicative task (to give somebody advice, to express one’s interest, gratitude, admiration, to agree, to refuse, etc.) and a communicative situation. If one of the two features is not available, the exercise cannot be called simulative communicative. It belongs rather to a formalised language type.

Language and simulative communicative exercises are often united in one group under the title of ‘preparatory’. They really form the lower layer in the hierarchy of exercises if compared with communicative exercises. It is worth remembering the difference of principle between language and simulative communicative exercises. Language exercises are inadequate to the aims of forming speech habits and skills. Language exercises should be reduced to a minimum, because simulative communicative exercises appear to be more effective in the majority of cases.

Communicative exercises are considered as a specially organised form of verbal interchange. In these exercises students are performing the interchange as communicative activity in the target language. It can be done either with the help of various verbal and non-verbal references (communicative exercises of the lower, first layer) or without them (communicative exercises of the higher, second layer). Variability of situational settings, new communication tasks and their vocative nature often make these exercises role play activities by their character.

At the same time, the character of exercise performance is largely dependent on the receptive-reproductive character of communication, as Palmerhas rightly noticed. That is why the second important principle of classifying exercises is their subdivision into receptive, reproductive and productive exercises. This criterion reflects the receptive-productive character of the activity performed in exercises.

In receptive exercises, a student is receiving verbal information either orally or visually, showing in this or that way later on that he can identify, distinguish sounds, graphemes, structures, etc. and is able to understand oral or written utterances.

In reproductive exercises, a student is reproducing the received language input either completely or with certain changes (a sound, a word, a sentence, a text). All reproductive exercises are actually receptive-reproductive by their character. This is so, because initially the student receives the necessary verbal input from the teacher or from a speaker on tape, or from a printed page and only then he reproduces it either partially or completely.

In productive exercises, a student himself is producing utterances of different levels (from one sentence up to a text) either orally or in writing.

Speaking about the typology of exercises, it should be noted that besides two main criteria of 1) communicative character of speech acts and 2) receptive-productive character of the activity performed in exercises there exist some additional criteria. We can distinguish: 3) character of performance of exercises (oral or written); 4) participation of the mother tongue (monolingual or bilingual); 5) function of exercises in the process of teaching (training or testing); 6) place of performance (classroom, home or laboratory).

Within these types of exercises, there exist many kinds of exercises, which are classified according to the following criteria: 1) correspondence to a certain kind of speech activity; 2) the level of development of a speech habit or skill under training; 3) the level of operation performed.

1. Thus, in accordance with the first criterion, exercises fall into exercises in reading, speaking, listening and writing as a speech activity.

2. Taking into account the second criterion, the exercises may aim at forming one of the three sides (phonetic, lexical, grammatical) of a speech habit or at a speech habit development. In case of skill improvement, exercises deal with a certain kind of speech activity, e.g. improving close reading skill or the skill of getting a general picture in listening, etc.

3. The third criterion means subdivision of exercises into different kinds according to operations or actions or activities performed. E.g., if exercises deal with an isolated language item they may be exercises in imitation, substitution, transformation or reproduction. Actions and activities deal with a larger amount of language input, from a supra-phrasal unit to a text. They may fall into the following kinds of operations and activities: transformation, combination, paraphrasing, and reproduction in their numerous varieties determined by varying situation and communicative task. E.g., it can be an exercise in retelling or rendering the content of the previously read or heard text to somebody unfamiliar with it. It can also be description or expressing one’s attitude or impressions, persuasion, discussion, etc. Thus, the classification of exercises in teaching a foreign language may be represented as follows.

T Y P ► E S ▼	Preparatory	Communicative
Language	Simulative communicative
K i n d s o f e x e r c i s e s
RECEPTIVE	Reception, recognition or distinction of a sound, a terminal tone, a grammar form, a lexical item, a grapheme, an orthogram, etc.	Listening to or reading reports, questions, instructions, etc. at the level of a phrase (a sentence) or a group of sentences	Listening to or reading a text with an aim of receiving information
REPRODUCTIVE	Learning by heart (lexical items, sentences, texts); repeating (sounds, lexical items, sentences); substituting or filling in lexical items; changing a gram-mar form, translation; contraction and extension of sentences, combining simple sentences into a complex/compound sen-tence; making up senten-ces; retelling a text known to listeners	Imitation of a speech pat-tern; substitution into a speech pattern; transfor-mation of a speech pat-tern; extension of a speech pattern; comple-tion of a speech pattern; answering questions of different types; retelling a text known to listeners but as its character	Retelling a text unknown to listeners
PRODUCTIVE		Combining speech pat-terns (of the same or dif-ferent structures) into a supraphrasal unit; com- bining speech patterns into dialogical units: - question/answer; - question/ counter question; - information/question; - inducement/ agree-ment or refusal; - inducement/question, etc.	Reporting some fact or facts; description (of weather, a flat, appearance, etc.); narration (about some events/facts); proving (some statements, facts, etc.); conversation (between a teacher and students; bet-ween two pupils; in group); writing a note, letter, plan, thesis, annotation, composition, etc.; discussion