Drill and kill in its purest essence is a throwback to behaviorist theories of learning psychology, from a time when meaning played a secondary role to form. Because drills have traditionally focused on form, not only are they boring but they most often drown out the attention to meaning that gives us the ability to understand when someone speaks to us. Sure accuracy is important, but using drills to create memory associations in our minds based mostly on form will not do much to help us communicate. Writing might well improve, but writing is only one of four skills, and one of those four is listening, the skill that research shows accounts of about 45% of what we do with language. How much sense does it make for us to focus a whole lot of emotional and cognitive energy on an activity that affects language in such a peripheral way?
On the other hand, is it possible to create drills that attend to meaning? Absolutely! It is not only possible, but success in that venture can make the language learning process more meaningful. With meaning comes relevance. With relevance comes motivation. When learners are challenged to communicate their own meaning in the right way, then not only can we get them to attend to form, but we can also make the language learning experience much more enjoyable. Sure, form is important, but we have to connect it to meaning, the essence of communication itself. Some of the best work in this area has been done by Bill Van Patten (1993, 1996). Check it out!
Do you agree? Disagree? Post your comments below!!
Syverson, M. A & Slatin, J. (1997) Evaluating Learning in Virtual Environments.
VanPatten, B. (1996). Input Processing and Grammar Instruction: Theory and Research. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
VanPatten, B., & Cadierno, T. (1993). Explicit instruction and input processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 225-44.