Teaching spoken discourse markers explicitly: A comparison of III and PPP

Abstract

This article reports on mixed methods classroom research carried out at a British university. The study investigates the effectiveness of two different explicit teaching frameworks, Illustration, Interaction, Induction (III) and Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) used to teach the same spoken discourse markers (DMs) to two different groups of Chinese learners and compared to a control group. Univariate analysis of the pre and post tests indicated statistically significant differences between the PPP group and III/control groups in terms of
a higher mean usage of the target DMs in the immediate post test. Qualitative results demonstrated that the PPP group generally found this method to be more useful, which tallied with their better performances in the tests.
Both groups also articulated a desire for a different kind of practice to be used in class, based on rehearsal for real world tasks. This suggests a need to reconceptualise practice within III, PPP or other teaching frameworks.