TUTORIALS

Time for reflection

• What are the reasons behind the

implementation of a tutorial
session in the English syllabus?
 1. Rationale for a tutorial session
• No opportunities for learners to develop their
communicative competence (not only grammatical,
but also strategic, sociolinguistic and discourse).
• Little consideration devoted to learners’ motivation,
engagement and achievement in English.
• Predominance of knowledge over the target
competencies.
• Learning is based on linguistic objectives rather
than on communicatives ones.
A tutorial session is an opportunity
• To help students do some preparatory work
prior to or after the session.
• To rehearse some certain behaviours with
the objective of consolidating learning and
improving performance.
• To foster learners’ responsiblity and
independence.
• To enable them to display greater motivation,
more initiative, and less anxiety regarding
their learning.
• To help them produce more language.
 a tutorial session should not be
• An occasion for teachers to provide new information
about a particular language item or proceed with
the continuation of the previous lesson.
• The initiative is in the hands of the teacher. Learners
are teacher-directed.
• The session entirely devoted to grammar exercises.
• The session witnesses a ‘ lockstep’ learning where
everyone in the class, in principle, is expected to do
the same thing at the same time in the same way.
 Time for Reflection

Self-observation checklist about

how well you conduct an activity
in a tutorial session
(handout)
 Self-observation checklist:
Thoughtfully consider each statement . Rate yourself in the following way:
3- excellent 2- Good 1- Needs improvement 0- Not applicable

• ……….I minimize my role in conducting the activity

• ……….I organize the activities so that they are suitable for real interaction.
• ……….The activities maximize student involvement
• ……….The activities promote spontaneity on the part of the learner
• …..……the activities are organized to insure a high success rate, leaving
enough room for error to make the activity challenging.
• …….…I am not overly concerned with error correction. I concentrate on
what my students are saying (content)
• ….……I divide my students into small groups in an organised way. I
recognize that these groups should differ in size and composition,
varying with the objective of the group activity.
• ………..I monitor my learners' performance on the task, providing feedback
on how well the task has been completed.
 2. Types of practice
• The process of learning a skill in a tutorial
session should be done in three stages:

Verbalisation
Automatization Autonomy
1. Verbalization:The teacher explains the language
points already tackled as well as using them in
context. Preferably, the verbalization should be
elicited from the learners rather than done by the
teacher. Teacher gets the learners to demonstrate the
target behaviour , while monitoring their behaviour.
2. Automatization: Learners start practising : performing
the skillful behaviour again and again , usually in
exercises suggested by the teacher.
3. Autonomy:They take the set of behaviours they have
mastered and begin to improve on their own, through
further practice activity.
2. Interaction patterns:
a. Group work:Students work in groups on tasks that entail interaction.
b. Individual work: the teacher gives a task and students work on them
independently
c. Choral responses: the teacher gives a model which is repeated by all
the class in chorus.
d. Collaboration: the students work together, usually in pairs, to try to
achieve the best results they can.
e. Full-class interaction: the students debate a topic or do a language task
as a class; the teacher the teacher may intervene occasionally to
stimulate participation or to monitor.
f. Teacher talk: This may involve silent student response , such as writing
from dictation.
g. Self-access: Students choose their own learning tasks , and work
autonomously.
 Tutorials organization
• Presentation: it is advisable to give the instructions
before giving out materials or dividing the class
into groups. If your students have done similar
activities, you should only give guidelines.
• Process: Your job during the activity is to go from
group to group, monitor, and either contribute or
keep out of the way.
• Feedback: A feedback session usually takes place in
the context of full-class interaction after the end of
the group work.Feedback on the task may take
many forms.
Trying to find answers to questions like the
following is a good way to sharpen up your
tutorial session preparation:

a. Have all the students c. What are the

understood the factors and the
previous language techniques that may
point? What can I do make the practice
to achieve the goal of activity more
the activity? effective?

b. How can I present d. How can I adapt and

the material redesign the material
differently? How can to enable slow
the students benefit achievers grasp and
from each other? understand the
activity?
 Typology of activities
• Meaningful and manipulative language
activities
• Project work
• Role play and simulations
• Survey/ questionnaire
• Interview
• Listing /categorizing
• Games
• Selecting material
• Songs
• Story telling
• Information transfer
• Transformation
• Presentation of a group work/ poster
THANK YOU