The resultant impression is that the students are incompetent speakers who fail to contribute as much as is desirable to class discussion or spontaneous conversation. Teaching time-creating devices is a way to help these less fluent students. If they know how to signal that they are planning their speech and have not finished their turn, this will enable them to speak more, and more effectively. Focused learning Having outlined the rationale for the teaching of time-creating devices, I shall now explain the term focused learning. Focused learning is a theory of how language can be learnt effectively in the classroom context.
Students learn best if objectives are clearly stated.
If students know the objectives of a particular exercise or activity, they will perceive that the teaching programme has purpose and direction. This will overcome their resistance to learning. Students benefit if complex tasks are broken down into their component elements. For this reason, consciousness-raising is an important technique in focused learning, which asserts that conscious, learned knowledge can be transformed into unconscious knowledge at some stage of the learning process. Automatization requires practice.