n the language classroom, teachers should strive to balance form, meaning, and use.

Students should
understand not only the mechanics of the language, but also the hows, whys, and wheres a particular
structure, word, or phrase gets used.
For example, in a lesson on the past perfect tense, students need to learn the sentence structure. The
teacher first drills past participles on a variety of verbs (eat / eaten, swim / swum, buy / bought). He then
plugs the past participles into the grammar structure, with students then further practicing the material
via example sentences and more drills.
However, the class also needs to learn that the past perfect places actions or events in order for the
listener or reader. The grammar serves as a marker of when events happened. This is especially
needed when the speaker forgets some information and has to backtrack in the story. This is also
important when information needs further clarification.
Let's look at the following in more detail, which will also clarify the concepts of form, meaning, and use.
Form: This refers to the mechanics of the language, either in terms of grammar or vocabulary. With
regards to grammar, students must understand the sentence structure of a specific grammar rule. In the
above example on the past perfect tense, this would be:
subject | had | past participle | object/complement
So whenever students want to use the past perfect tense, they have to follow this specific structure.
With regards to vocabulary, students must understand the pronunciation of a word. If in a written text,
then students must know how to spell a word. Prefixes, suffixes, and roots are also important, especially
at the intermediate and advanced levels. Students should be able to breakdown the components of a
word to guess at the meaning. Take the following prefixes:
biannual
"bi"
means
twice,
so
the
new
meaning
distrust
"dis"
means
not,
so
the
new
meaning
submarine - "sub" means under, so the new meaning is "under water"

is
is

"twice
"not

a
to

year"
trust"

With an understanding of prefixes and suffices, students don't always have to scurry for a dictionary
every time they encounter an unknown word. However, students should also learn to readily recognize
that the word may be a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. This is becomes possible by devoting a portion
of the lesson to form.
Meaning: This is the mental image/comprehension that is generated by the grammar or vocabulary.
Students connect the grammar structure with the meaning. For example, the past tense signals events
in the past, the past perfect signals earlier actions/events in a narrative. Once the teacher has presented
the structure, he should talk about the meaning too.
When vocabulary is the focus of the lesson, students connect the form of the word with its meaning.
This occurs both at the micro- and macro-levels. At the micro-level, the word stands alone. Students
understand the image triggered by a specific word. However, at the macro-level, a word may have a
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different meaning because of the sentence in which it appears. There is often nuance or some other
concept generated. In addition, when someone uses a word, there may be other associated word
choices selected or triggered.
Use: Last comes how the grammar or vocabulary gets used. For example, the past perfect tense isn't
used in every sentence but rather in conjunction with the past tense. One sentence appears in the past
perfect to order events, and then subsequent sentences appear in the simple past. Take the following
short narrative:
Tom had studied English for ten years. As a result, he got a great job in England last year.
However, use also takes into consideration phrases or certain structures that might appear more
conversational, others more formal, and yet even more than a few used only in very specific industries
or situations.
Vocabulary follows the same concept, as some words are more often used in writing. Others are more
often used in speaking. And many words have specific uses and appear in written communication like
academic essays or business correspondence. Students must understand these points for effective
vocabulary use, especially at the higher-levels when they acquire words with less concrete meanings. In
addition, students must also realize what words or types of words are commonly associated with the
vocabulary.
Of course, if the teacher tried to cover form, meaning, and use in every lesson, ensuring that students
know all the ins and outs of a grammar structure or word, then not much would get done. What's more,
the class would likely be quite boring. Consider the following ideas for effectively covering form,
meaning, and use in the classroom:
1: Keep the explanations brief. A simple comment that the past tense refers to events in the past
serves as an adequate explanation. The same holds true of a few comments on the past perfect, or any
other structure. A visual diagram and several examples also further highlight the target language.
2: Limit the explanation to the task/lesson at hand. There may be several exceptions to the rule.
There may be times when the language isn't used for some situation or with some medium. Yet this is all
extraneous information. The teacher wants to provide just enough explanation for the students to
practice the language correctly and purposefully.
3: Consider devoting several lessons to a specific grammar or language point. This allows the
teacher to address and practice the rules and exceptions, yet not overwhelm the class with too much
information. The teacher can also practice different skills/mediums, yet return to the same language
point.
4: Address grammar and vocabulary again and again. The teacher should provide several
opportunities to acquire the target language during a course of study. Just because students have
studied the target material once doesn't mean they can use it well. By revisiting the target structures,
then students who grasped the form have a second chance to grasp the meaning and use of the target
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structure. Students who grasped the meaning have a second chance for the form and use.

Concept check questions, also known as CCQs, are used extensively in English language teaching.
They are used when teaching new lexical items, phrases, and grammatical structures.
On all the TEFL courses I have worked on, the trainers have made sure that the trainee teachers include
CCQs in their lesson. Some trainers even go so far as penalise trainees for NOT writing them down in
their lesson plans!

What are CCQs?

When a teacher introduces a new piece of language (lexis or grammar), they may present it first in
context and then define or explain how and why it is used. Now, explaining or defining something to a
person who shares the same mother tongue as you can often be tricky. Imagine doing it to a speaker of
a different language.
So what CCQs do is they enable the teacher, and perhaps the student, to confirm that understanding
has taken place.

I hear you say, whats wrong with asking students if they have understood?
Well, think about what we do when somebody explains something complicated to us. We often nod
thoughtfully, add comments such as I see or Thats interesting to make the speaker feel good about
themselves. We dont want to tell them that they are making no sense whatsoever. Also, we might not
want to appear to be a bit slow on the uptake and often fake understanding to save face. Go on, admit it!
Youve done that havent you? You might even be faking understanding right now as youre reading this
blog post.

To ensure, as much as possible, that our students have understood our definition or explanation, we can
ask them CCQs.
Lets imagine that youve defined the word banana to your student naturally, you would only do this
were you not able to magically produce a banana out of thin air or draw a recognisable banana on the
whiteboard. You may have talked about fruits, shapes, peel, favourite food of chimpanzees etc.

But, how do you know the student has understood?

You could try asking them directly if they had understood but they may lie to save face or say they had
understood but youve only got their word for that. They may have completely misunderstood the
meaning of banana and confused it with an apple.
You could interpret their body language and facial expressions. Might work but I remember teaching
three young guys from Sri Lanka who spent the whole lesson shaking their heads. I was devastated and
assumed they would go straight to my boss and complain about their dreadful teacher. A fellow teacher
sympathised with my plight and cheered me up no end when he informed me that Sri Lankans shake
their heads to register agreement and understanding.
Anyway, I digress. Back to CCQs.

A CCQ is a question we ask the student to ensure they had understood our definition or explanation.
If I have just taught the word banana, I can ask the student the following questions:
Is a banana red? (If he says yes, he hasnt understood)
Are bananas hard or soft? (If he says soft, I can assume he hasnt confused a banana with a stick)

Are bananas eaten by monkeys or tigers? (Do tigers eat bananas? I hope not)
If the student answers the questions correctly, we can assume that they are not completely confused by
my banana definition.

Concept Checking Questions (or CCQs)

These questions which teachers will ask to find out how much their learners have understood. They are
designed to demonstrate evidence of or lack of understanding and they are usually very simple and
carefully staged. For example, to return to my original teaching examples you might ask the following:

thumb - The teacher asks the class to show their thumbs. Then s/he points to any other finger
(or toe!) and asks if that is a thumb
pet The teacher asks: Is a cat a pet? A dog? A cow? Where do we keep them? Can they live in
the jungle? Do they hunt for their food? Who feeds them? Are they usually working animals?
Which animals in this picture are pets?
starving The teacher may ask: Do I need to eat or drink? Do I need any medicine/pills? Have
eaten some bad food? Am I hungry or sick? Am I just hungry or very very hungry? How long ago did
I eat?

In all of the above cases, the teacher has to make a decision whether or not to re-explain or to start from
scratch, or to take remedial action of another type. These are decisions that depend very much on the
aims of the lesson or activity and the purpose of the checking of understanding itself.
Checking understanding and checking the state of learning enables the teacher not only to assess
whether the students have understood and/or can use the language she wanted to present, but also
helps smooth out points of confusion either in terms of the learning material or the activities or tasks she
engages her learners in. She also develops as a teacher by noticing what works or does not work in the
classroom.
Should CCQs be just questions?
Although they are called questions, they dont have to be. They can be true and false statements, they
can be incomplete sentences, they can be questions with a binary choice to help learners or they can be
non-verbal ways of checking in fact, teachers can use any and all the methods they use for the
presentation vocabulary or grammar in order to check its understanding, and this includes

pictures (Which one shows the word?),

time lines (Which time line fits this sentence?),

physical activity like miming or demonstrating,

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opposites,

synonyms,

definitions,

examples,

explanations,

and even asking for a translation in the mother tongue or

asking the learners to say which translation is the most appropriate.

Should CCQs be used just for concepts in grammar and vocabulary?

Lack of understanding may involve all the parameters of what knowing a word, phrase, or pattern
entails, and this includes form, meaning, function, tenor, pronunciation, collocation, syntax, spelling,
word field etc.
And how do we create good CCQs?
Usually, the best approach is to follow these three simple steps:
1.
2.
3.

Think of the underlying propositions

List these propositions
Turn the propositions into a series of simple questions

By underlying propositions, I mean the concepts or notions within words, phrases, sentence patterns
An example of a lexical item
thumb
- one of the fingers
- part of the hand
- not part of a foot
An example of a pattern
You should have told me!
- you didnt tell me
- I am angry
- it was your job to tell me
- now its too late

- I missed something because of this

- I am protesting
- I am being critical
- My intonation shows I am upset
- we are friends
- we are peers
- I can talk to you like this
Good concept questions are not easy to write they require a depth of analytical as well as intuitive
understanding of what we are trying to check and not just what the grammar book says. Some of you
may even have spotted the links to componential analysis which good CCQ design entails.
And finally, good concept questions, especially for patterns of language, should never include the
pattern we are trying to check!!!
Can you think why?
In a further post, I would like to include some more ways of checking learning and understanding.