Awareness-raising activities aim to make learners more aware of language and so improve their understanding, but do not involve learners in using the language themselves.

Students in Kenya looking at images on a whiteboard

As such, awareness-raising activities are often the first stage of learning new language.

Example
A pre-intermediate level group have just finished a reading comprehension using an authentic text and the teacher goes back and highlights the phrasal verbs in the text, explaining what they are and their meaning, but not asking the learners to use them in any way.

In the classroom
Awareness-raising is a useful technique in mixed-ability classes, as learners will be able to respond to the new information in different ways and process it according to their level of competence.

Further links:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/error-correction-2

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/theories-reading-2

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intonation

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