6.3. Criteria of classification of exercises: Types and kinds

Thus, we may say that the majority of methodologists proceed from the following assumption. Though a person’s speech activity is the actuation of the whole complex of knowledge, habits and skills, he cannot master this complex at once. He has to acquire one habit after another gradually. That is why it is assumed that the stage of exercises aimed at the use of language material in speech should be preceded by the stage aimed at practising the isolated items of the language material. On these grounds, all exercises are subdivided into three large types: language exercises (training, preparatory, analytical, elementary, primary, non-communicative, aspect drills, etc.); simulative communicative exercises (conditional, operation, training communicative) and communicative exercises (synthetical, speech, truly communicative, situational, creative, motivation and the like). This criterion reflects the communicative character of speech acts in exercises.

In language exercises, a student is performing operations with language input isolated from a communicative situation and concentrating his attention on the language form.

In simulative communicative exercises, a student is performing speech actions in the given situation settings. The main distinctive features of this type of exercises are the availability of a communicative task (to give somebody advice, to express one’s interest, gratitude, admiration, to agree, to refuse, etc.) and a communicative situation. If one of the two features is not available, the exercise cannot be called simulative communicative. It belongs rather to a formalised language type.

Language and simulative communicative exercises are often united in one group under the title of ‘preparatory’. They really form the lower layer in the hierarchy of exercises if compared with communicative exercises. It is worth remembering the difference of principle between language and simulative communicative exercises. Language exercises are inadequate to the aims of forming speech habits and skills. Language exercises should be reduced to a minimum, because simulative communicative exercises appear to be more effective in the majority of cases.

Communicative exercises are considered as a specially organised form of verbal interchange. In these exercises students are performing the interchange as communicative activity in the target language. It can be done either with the help of various verbal and non-verbal references (communicative exercises of the lower, first layer) or without them (communicative exercises of the higher, second layer). Variability of situational settings, new communication tasks and their vocative nature often make these exercises role play activities by their character.

At the same time, the character of exercise performance is largely dependent on the receptive-reproductive character of communication, as Palmer has rightly noticed. That is why the second important principle of classifying exercises is their subdivision into receptive, reproductive and productive exercises. This criterion reflects the receptive-productive character of the activity performed in exercises.

In receptive exercises, a student is receiving verbal information either orally or visually, showing in this or that way later on that he can identify, distinguish sounds, graphemes, structures, etc. and is able to understand oral or written utterances.

In reproductive exercises, a student is reproducing the received language input either completely or with certain changes (a sound, a word, a sentence, a text). All reproductive exercises are actually receptive-reproductive by their character. This is so, because initially the student receives the necessary verbal input from the teacher or from a speaker on tape, or from a printed page and only then he reproduces it either partially or completely.

In productive exercises, a student himself is producing utterances of different levels (from one sentence up to a text) either orally or in writing.

Speaking about the typology of exercises, it should be noted that besides two main criteria of 1) communicative character of speech acts and 2) receptive-productive character of the activity performed in exercises there exist some additional criteria. We can distinguish: 3) character of performance of exercises (oral or written); 4) participation of the mother tongue (monolingual or bilingual); 5) function of exercises in the process of teaching (training or testing); 6) place of performance (classroom, home or laboratory).

Within these types of exercises, there exist many kinds of exercises, which are classified according to the following criteria: 1) correspondence to a certain kind of speech activity; 2) the level of development of a speech habit or skill under training; 3) the level of operation performed.

1. Thus, in accordance with the first criterion, exercises fall into exercises in reading, speaking, listening and writing as a speech activity.

2. Taking into account the second criterion, the exercises may aim at forming one of the three sides (phonetic, lexical, grammatical) of a speech habit or at a speech habit development. In case of skill improvement, exercises deal with a certain kind of speech activity, e.g. improving close reading skill or the skill of getting a general picture in listening, etc.

3. The third criterion means subdivision of exercises into different kinds according to operations or actions or activities performed. E.g., if exercises deal with an isolated language item they may be exercises in imitation, substitution, transformation or reproduction. Actions and activities deal with a larger amount of language input, from a supra-phrasal unit to a text. They may fall into the following kinds of operations and activities: transformation, combination, paraphrasing, and reproduction in their numerous varieties determined by varying situation and communicative task. E.g., it can be an exercise in retelling or rendering the content of the previously read or heard text to somebody unfamiliar with it. It can also be description or expressing one’s attitude or impressions, persuasion, discussion, etc. Thus, the classification of exercises in teaching a foreign language may be represented as follows.

T Y P ► E S ▼	Preparatory		Communicative
	Language	Simulative communicative
	K i n d s o f e x e r c i s e s
RECEPTIVE	Reception, recognition or distinction of a sound, a terminal tone, a grammar form, a lexical item, a grapheme, an orthogram, etc.	Listening to or reading reports, questions, instructions, etc. at the level of a phrase (a sentence) or a group of sentences	Listening to or reading a text with an aim of receiving information
REPRODUCTIVE	Learning by heart (lexical items, sentences, texts); repeating (sounds, lexical items, sentences); substituting or filling in lexical items; changing a gram-mar form, translation; contraction and extension of sentences, combining simple sentences into a complex/compound sen-tence; making up senten-ces; retelling a text known to listeners	Imitation of a speech pat-tern; substitution into a speech pattern; transfor-mation of a speech pat-tern; extension of a speech pattern; comple-tion of a speech pattern; answering questions of different types; retelling a text known to listeners but as its character	Retelling a text unknown to listeners
PRODUCTIVE		Combining speech pat-terns (of the same or dif-ferent structures) into a supraphrasal unit; com- bining speech patterns into dialogical units: question/answer; question/ counter question; information/question; inducement/ agree-ment or refusal; inducement/question, etc.	Reporting some fact or facts; description (of weather, a flat, appearance, etc.); narration (about some events/facts); proving (some statements, facts, etc.); conversation (between a teacher and students; bet-ween two pupils; in group); writing a note, letter, plan, thesis, annotation, composition, etc.; discussion