Procedural knowledge is, in a nutshell, knowing how to do something. It contrasts with declarative knowledge, which is knowledge about something. For example, I may read about the importance of perfect arm strokes and coordination while swimming and yet drown like a stone when inside the pool. This may sound obvious, I know, but as far as language learning goes, there’s …
Why has it become such a sin in EFL/ESL to ask students to “listen and repeat”? Whatever happened to repetition? I have never quite understood why repetition (and perhaps controlled practice at large) went away in the first place. True, it can be boring, but so can a pseudo information gap activity based on …
Nothing, of course, but there’s a little something you can do which I believe makes all the difference. Read on if you’re interested. I think the picture will make sense then.
It’s kind of sad to look back on my early career and realize that I spent more than my fair share of years mispronouncing all sorts of common words without ever being corrected. I’m not talking about oddities such as quay (ki) or gauge (ei). It’s really the everyday subtleties (baSic or baZic?) that I wish …
