I.Presentation Strategies

We define presentation strategy as a way to present new knowledge and new content in class. The strategies vary according to the teaching materials and teaching contexts. There are a number of strategies that we can use in class:

1.Use previous knowledge to introduce new knowledge: we can use what our students have learned before as a lead-in to introduce what is new to them. This is called “advance organizers” by Ausubel.

2.Use realia or pictures: we may use real objects, pictures or sketches to present new language items which are real, vivid and easy for our students to remember (Liu, 1999).

3.Use performance: we can act as performers to interest our students and at the same time to lead into new knowledge.

4.Use daily communication: we can make the best use of real and relevant situations and occasions to use the language that we are going to present to communicate with our students, achieving the effect of presentation, use, and consolidation.

5.Do it step by step: in one class we may have several language items to present, so we can present them one by one based on our students' interests and the relationship among the language items. We can follow the sequence from simple to complex language items.

6.Use translation: we can use translation to present new language items.

7.Use circular presentation and practice: we can present new items in a circular way so that our students can become familiar with them and develop their language skills.

8.Use the new language items in advance: we can use some language items before students study them explicitly.

9.Ask our students to solve problems: we can design some activities which are a bit difficult and require our students to think and provide solutions.

10.Use questions: we can incorporate the language items we are going to present in some questions and ask our students to preview them before class and then discuss them in class, thus developing their thinking and language proficiency.

11.Use explanation (Johnson, 2001: 237): we can convey information about language by explanation. Here, a language rule is explained to the learners in explicit terms. This strategy is associated with highly deductive teaching approaches. But a potential problem with explanation is that it can be too intellectual. Our students may not understand the technical terms (e.g. adverb, noun) .

12.Use inductive learning: inductive learning is an approach to language teaching “in which learners are not taught grammatical or other types of rules directly but are left to discover or induce rules from their experience of using the language (Richards et al., 2000: 123). For example, when we teach passive voice, we may prepare related materials and present them to our students and let them discover the rules underlying them, and then we can answer questions and offer some explanations. The Direct Method, Communicative Approach and Counseling Learning make use of the principle of inductive learning.

13.Use deductive learning: deductive learning is an approach to language teaching “in which learners are taught rules and specific information about a language. They then apply these rules when they use the language” (Richards et al., 2000: 123). It is often used in teaching grammar. The Grammar-Translation Method makes use of the principle of deductive learning. This approach is very suitable for analytical learners.

14.Use inquiry learning: “Language lessons are also a journey of inquiry for the students. Through their effort and experiences, they can learn proactively to acquire knowledge and use what they learn to solve problems. Therefore, teachers should create the context or situations which are suited to the students' cognitive level to motivate them, arouse their curiosity and provoke their thinking” (Lu & Kang, 2008b: 21). The strategy of inquiry learning conforms to the learning principles mentioned in the National Curriculum Standards. We should not treat our students as passive learners. They should monitor their own learning.

15.Use exemplification and imitation: these are mainly used to develop students' learning skills. This strategy can be divided into four stages, including action orientation, action analysis, self practice and skill transfer. We can take teaching pronunciation as an example. We may exemplify, that is, we may pronounce the word and explain how to say it, and then ask our students to imitate and practice it (Lu & Kang, ibid., 22) .

II.Principles of Presentation

Whatever presentation strategies we use in our teaching, we should stick to the following principles:

●Take the students' cognitive levels into consideration: when we teach, we should use methods and language which are suitable for our students' cognitive level.

●Use a variety of ways to present: we should choose different ways of presenting according to the content, in order to keep our students interested in our teaching. We should also design different activities to practice different skills.

●Clarity: whatever we explain, we have to keep the principle of clarity in mind.

●Appropriateness of language: we should not only pay attention to the accuracy of language, but the appropriateness as well. We should take students' emotional status into consideration. Mocking and teasing students will increase their anxiety about language learning.

●Presentation should be done step by step.