6.Teaching Grammar


  • AIMS: (1) to communicate efficiently (2) to empower the student by freeing him from a dependency on context and the limitations of a purely lexical categorization of reality

  • KNOWLEDGE OF GRAMMAR
  1. Definition: (David Crystal) (1) = a systemic description of language (2) = the way words and their component parts combine to form sentences (3) = a device for generating a finite specification of the sentences of a language.
  2. History of Grammar
    1. Prescriptive: Traditional Grammar
    2. Descriptive: Structural and Generative Grammar
    3. Rules of Grammar vs. Rules of Usage

  • KNOWLEDGE OF TEACHING GRAMMAR
AIM: to ensure that Ss are communicatively efficient with the grammar they have at their level.
  1. Grammar as means not end.
    1. From meaning to form (rather than vice-versa) reflected in notional-functional syllabuses and classroom practice.
    2. Errors accepted as natural
  2. Grammatical component of efficient communication consists of:
    1. Formal Fluency: (A) Knowledge of how forms combine to make up the structures of the language
(B) Skill to combine these forms unhesitatingly.
    1. Functional Fluency: (A) Knowledge of relationships between forms and meanings
(B) Skill to choose and use an appropriate form unhesitatingly.
  1. Methods available to us:
3.1 Analysis
    1. Controlled practice
    2. Exposure

  1. Two routes to the acquisition of the grammar of a second language: (A) Formal analysis + (B) Exposure > Practice + Fluency (formal + functional)

  1. Two ways leading to the understanding of Grammar:
    1. Induction: from particular to general truth
    2. Deduction: from general truth to particular situations
    3. Induction-deduction; Deduction-induction.


  • CLASSROOM OBSERVATION: GRAMMAR

1. If the teacher presents a new grammatical item: How was the meaning got across to the students? How much explicit attention to form was there? Was the approach inductive or deductive?
2. Was there a progression from controlled to free practice? What types of activities were used? How much variety was there?
3. How much interaction was there between students? How early in the lesson did it first occur?
4. What evidence was there by the end of the lesson that the students had learned something?
  1. Any other interesting features?

  • Reflection as Exercise:
1. Think of ways to make grammar practice activities less of a chore and more of an enjoyable challenge.
2. Lessons based on the PPP Approach fit within the category of ‘logical line’ lessons. So, what is your opinion on the ratio of Presentation and Self-directed discovery approaches in the language class?
3. Most lessons involving work on grammar are built from three basic components: (1) Clarification and focus, (2) Restricted use activities and (3) Authentic use. Think of example activities and tools and techniques enabling the ARC perspective on the grammar class.
4. Language acquisition research (Krashen, Ellis) and recent methodological studies (Lewis) acknowledge the place of thinking about and talking about language in the language process. Does this cohere with what type of approach?
5. What approach do you appreciate the tradition of grammar teaching in Romanian ELT used to align with?
6. Uncover the principles underlying the ‘layered’ acquisition of new language or the ‘spiral’ approach.
7. Find examples, from the textbook in use, of concept questions used to help students ‘observe’ or ‘notice’ a new grammar point or check whether the concept is internalized (consciousness-raising questions).
8. Language Focus boxes in the series Pathway to English offer support with language-experimenting activities. Discuss the usefulness of such prompts in the economy of a language class.
9. Devise a grammar scenario for introducing future perfect (level: intermediate; grade: 8; No: 25).
10. Discuss the efficiency of such language-experimenting activities such as multiple choice, gap filling, error correction, rephrasing.