ELT365 · Day 184 — Controlled practice vs free practice

Idea — Controlled practice limits what learners can say — substitution tables, gap-fills spoken aloud, sentence prompts — to build accuracy. Free practice removes those constraints. Both are necessary. Neither alone is sufficient.

Example — Controlled: ‘I went to… last week.’ learners substitute a destination from a list. Free: ‘Tell your partner about a trip you took.’

Try — Design one controlled speaking activity and one free speaking activity for the same grammar point. Sequence controlled before free. Check: does the controlled stage genuinely prepare learners for the free one?

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