Rotation Drills in Teaching Conversation

Abstract

A LMOST SIXTY YEARS ago Philip Schuyler Allen questioned the value of mechanical answers to mechanical questions memorized verbatim from conversational manuals or phrasebooks used in foreign language classes. In his pamphlet Hints on the Teaching of German Conversation (Boston: Ginn, 1912) he protested that whenever you wish to remark, 'I don't care for any more bread, thank you!' there on the tablet of your mind, big as life and plain as fire, is written the phrase from the 'phrase-book,' 'Please pass me the bread' (p. 4). Phrase-books which teach what the average person may want to say are less common as textbooks than they once were, and the rigidity of the one specific comment anticipated in a given circumstance has also been greatly relaxed by the variety of substitution drills which encourage flexibility in response and sentence pattern. Yet how to encourage flexibility, ingenuity, imagination, and creativeness in foreign language conversation classes has always been a problem. Both the inordinately shy student who fails to contribute to free conversation and the overly loquacious one whose persiflage is often grammatically inaccurate can detract from the effectiveness of free conversation as a classroom device. In lower level language classes, in which the building of vocabulary is still a task to be encountered, drill is needed to help the student fix patterns and learn expressions. Free conversation does not afford this practice. A conversational device intended to provide drill of vocabulary items and also to encourage variation in response is the rotation drill, a sequence of questions with a variety of answers to each question indicated. This device is much like that also found in the German-English Manual of Charles Haas (Pasadena: Vroman's, 1963). The method of employment of the drill may be altered, but one technique found to be successful is described below. Any lesson or sequence of lessons in an elementary, intermediate, or conversation textbook will supply material for questions or stimulation statements which may each elicit a variety of logical responses within the vocabulary range of the students. Four answers to each question have been found to constitute an effective drill. If the questions and responses are short, common, and simple, an exercise sheet with only the foreign language may be adequate. A possible example of a single language drill, given here in English for illustrative purposes, is: