3.4.2.1.5. Focus on structure

At times you may feel troubled by some particular aspect of the language which you cannot get the hang of. We gave the example above of sentences which focus on a past process in progress, such as “When this picture was taken, the man was ploughing.” Imagine that this is a pattern that you find difficult. Then you should construct a comprehension activity to highlight this sentence pattern. Often this can be done using pictures in the manner I suggested above. Next you can use the same set of pictures, but change roles with your LRP, so that you become the speaker, and she responds by indicating which pictures you are describing. Finally, you can take out a new set of pictures and describe them for her, using the same sentence pattern with picture after picture. If you have fifty new pictures, you will use the pattern fifty times in extemporaneous communication.

With a little planning you can design an activity using TPR, pictures, the series method, or another activity so as to highlight any structure you wish to emphasize. Suppose you want to improve your ability to use a sentence pattern which has a meaning similar to English sentences with “ used to”, as in, “I used to shop at the Bay.” As an exercise right now, think up a conversational context which would allow you to use this pattern over and over and imagine the form such a conversation might take.

It may seem that when you use activities to emphasize specific structures you are not really focusing on the structures themselves. Rather you are using the structure in communication. That is desirable, actually, because your goal is to be able to use the structure in communication, not to just produce it on demand!