connected texts, and he still may not comprehend it completely. The study of grammar is the study of relationships, such as the contrast between This tank leaked and This tank has leaked. Any relationship has at least two terms, and the student will not internalize a relationship by practicing only of its terms. This is why Cummings devices (pp. 312-327), dialogs, and other kinds of basically textual material are by themselves inadequate. This is why we need systematic practice material, both drills and exercises.[1] The essential nature of a drill, therefore, is threefold:
(1) The point on which it focusses, and the item which it repeats, is not a word or a construction, but a relationship between constructs. This relationship may be such that it can only be summarized by a transformational rule, or it may lend itself to summary in the shape of a simple substitution table, but it is still a relationship between constructs.
- ↑ A 'drill,' as the term is used here, is an activity which allows for only one correct response to a given stimulus: If the student is told to substitute the word pencil for {u|pen}} in the sentence I forgot my pen, then the only possible correct reply is I forgot my pencil. An 'exercise' allows the student some latitude. If the student is instructed to 'substitute some other noun for pen' in the above sentence, or if he is asked to make his own reply to the question 'What did you forget?' then he is doing an 'exercise.' (The need for texts and drills and exercises is one example of the principle of pluralism (Assumption V).)
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