Guided Discovery Workshop– Teachers’ Handout

Guided discovery, also known as an inductive approach, is a technique where a

teacher provides examples of a language item and helps the learners to find the
rules themselves.

Example

The learners are shown a problem page containing various examples of the second
conditional 'If I were you,…..'. They identify the structure and then the rules for
making it.

In the classroom

Guided discovery is regarded by many teachers as an important tool. It encourages

independence, makes learning more memorable, and if analysis is done in groups is
a meaningful communicative task. It is important, however, to understand that some
learners are resistant to this approach.

Principles of Guided Discovery

 Input and examples of the language item

 Process time

 Rule making by the students

 Meaningful output (communicative, not grammar exercises)

 Students need lots of examples of the target language.

 Students need lots of time to process the input.
 Students need the opportunity to make hypotheses about the meaning
 Students need the opportunity to make hypotheses about the form.
 Students need the opportunity to explore their hypotheses.
 Students need the opportunity to produce the language in meaningful ways.

 Allows for collaborative/co-operative learning

 Allows for problem solving

 Requires student reasoning

Ideas for Guided Discovery Activities (write your ideas from the workshop here)
Input

Use readings, listenings, questions, songs, youtube clips etc to introduce the
language item. Don’t talk about the language item yet. Just allow students to
interact with it within a meaningful context.

Process Time:

Give opportunities for students to notice the language item. Get students to circle,
highlight, match, group it, etc.

Rule making

Allow opportunities for students to analyse the language, figuring out the form
(grammar rule) and the function (meaning) through language examples. Do the form
and function separately.

Output

Do collaborative writing activities, where students have to negotiate with each other
how and when to use the language.

Publish – make sure any writing is read by other students in the class. Pass the
finished writing around or put it on the noticeboard. Give students time to read their
peers’ writing.

Meaningful speaking activities, where students have to communicate ideas,

opinions, messages,