Teaching Grammar

From a lerner's perspective, the ability both to recognise and to produce well-formed sentences is an essential part of learning a second language. (Scott Thornbury, 2004)

Importance of teaching grammar and vocabulary

Grammar as a knowledge process is undoubtedly an important part in all language systems. It provides part of the basis that helps a learner to be confident in the use of vocabulary and other linguistic skills such as the oral production and writing. In addition, Michael Swan (2002) states that learning grammar is much simpler that learning a language.

Video

The 3 x's in grammar teaching - Michael Swan.

According to Vivian Cook (2001), areas of language such as Vocabulary and pronunciation revolve around grammar.

The following mind map depicts important aspects of grammar based on the ideas of Cook (2001).

"No one can produce a single sentence of English without grammar". (Cook, 2001)

Some other characteristics of Teaching Grammar to be considered according to Scott Thornbury (2004).

Thornbury (2004) states that teachers and learners should pay attention to the rules of the L2 language in order to not fall in mistakes or errors when trying to reach the communicative stage in the target language.

Many L2 learners may make mistakes or errors because of their overgeneralization rules of their own language.

CODE-SWITCHING

In linguistics, code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation.

What do you expect from teaching grammar?

How do you teach grammar?

Nature of Grammar and Vocabulary.

Bibliography

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. China: OUP.

The components of communicative language.

Introduction

Communication involves social and cultural knowledge which help learners to communicate effectively in English as a second language; Tricia Hedge (2000) refers to the key components of communicative language; the linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, and fluency.

Understanding the characteristics of each component will help us to generate activities that approach our students to real-life contexts in which communicative competence, term introduced by Hymes (1972, cited in Hedge), has an overall function by involving other kinds of competences such as the mention above.

Linguistic competence is concerned with knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning. Spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure, and linguistic semantics are part of the knowledge required by learners.

Pragmatic competence reaches goals and intentions depending on how the learner uses the language in natural contexts or contexts of use as Hedge refers to.

Discourse competence is concerned with the abilities needed to create coherent written texts or conversation and understand them.

Strategic competence means how to cope in an authentic communicative situations. It consists of using communication starategies (Canale and Swain 1980, cited in Hedge)

Fluency is the ability to link units of speech together with facility and without strain or innapropriate slowness.

Bibliography

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. China: OUP

Exploring beliefs about learning grammar: LEARNING EVIDENCE

Introduction

Learning grammar tends to have a certain grade of difficulty; however, most of this difficulty lies on how interested students are for learning and how well prepared the teachers are to teach it.

In the following essay, the topic will be touched from a general way, giving more weight to the idea that grammar as well as any other topic can be learned easily if we support our activities on elements such as motivation, teaching and learning strategies, and conscious mental effort.

Learning evidence

Conscious of the problems for teaching English and decided to improve the teaching of it, I use all kind of mental elements in order to achieve success in learning so that I make an effort to convince my students to learn by using what I share such as the use of mental constructs.

For learning and teaching grammar I try to learn grammar in English and in other languages such as French and German in order to visualize possible obstacles or look for the attractive part of grammar while learning English as a second language. The creation of activities for learning grammar is highly supported by a constant use of it through videos showing virtual activities which is, in my opinion, an attractive way to learn.

It is important for me to create or use activities that can motivate my students to learn. At the same time I keep recalling the use of grammar. I put special attention to the acquisition of teaching material such as videos, DVDs, a computer, a projector and a screen. The classes supported by these elements allow us to be totally concentrated in what we are learning, especially because the students and I know that we not only need to participate but we also want to participate.

In my personal training the use of mental strategies that can boost not only grammar but general knowledge are relevant for me because I can measure my mental capacity through activities such as memorization and assessment of my own knowledge. I have realized that mental processes are very important in my life specially after reading that there are some people who can memorize more than 20,000 words in 72 hours. With references of this type my students and I feel ourselves motivated to want to learn any kind of element and we see that it is not difficult at all.

As you can see motivation combined with attractive materials seem to be the appropriate key to success in the learning issues. It is important to mention that everything I want to teach I first try to learn it via this combination so that I can improve it and leave it ready to share what in my opinion works efficiently.

I spend several hours working in learning. As a matter of fact, I enjoy reading, learning and proving theories of knowledge so that we think that every single element we learn is in some way attractive because of the particular characteristics we discover within the same element in discussion such as the use of grammar.

As you can notice, learning needs to be complemented with strategies, techniques and goals among many other things. When we think of the idea about being more competitive in grammar, for instance, we also need to know that there may be some obstacles which are not going to stop us of going ahead.

Since I have mentioned that I can deal with any kind of task without great concern, I want to say the way we normally learn English grammar in English classes so I can give the evidence required for this activity.

I choose the learning or teaching approach that may sound more convenient for the topic or grammar issue. The videos or CD-ROMs have been examined previously and the activities organized. I set out my electronic equipment such as extension cords, computer, projector and screen. I spare no expense or effort because I consider that we must have a vocation for teaching. The chairs are placed so that students have no problems for watching or participating.

We very often use those virtual activities in which the participant drags the grammar item into a box or gap. This way a sounding beep tells us if the grammar connection is right or wrong. I explain and give feedback and motivation if necessary.

Another interesting activity is the one in which the students watch real English clips that I download at home while I am looking for videos that support my class. In these video clips the students watch native speakers using the grammar points in some way. So, it is clear that grammar is not used in isolation but in combination of other linguistic skills which makes our class even more interesting too.

Now as a part of learning evidence applied on me, I can say that I am used to memorize grammar rules or a grammatical use in a way that I really enjoy – which is any form - because in my opinion this is how I can prove my mental mastery. This way of learning could be the reason why people consider me a little weird, especially because I never give room to the idea that something is difficult.

Conclusion

Sometimes the mental constructs which are the base of my learning programs have been well accepted; however, everything has a theoretical support; this is, some elements such as strategies applied in my programs may be criticized, but at the moment they are being a kind of innovation.

The results always vary because of different situations; however, in my opinion, the students learn because they hardly ever fail an exam which among other things is a satisfaction for the teacher.

Finally, I am studying different aspects or issues because it will surely help me to complement my practice. The purpose of all this is to create an English school in which we can teach and learn more easily.

Seven bad reasons for teaching grammar - and two good ones

Grammar is said to be one of the most important tools to be mastered in order to learn a language. Many teachers of English are fond of introducing new grammar items in every class, since they feel self-confident when assuming their role as sources of wisdom or when testing it in isolation in partial exams; others, instead, have grammar as the center of their teaching so the students can get a sense of gradual achievement and progress.

However, all of us are aware that there is a noticeable mismatch between the mastery of rules and the ability to communicate in a natural context, either in a written or an oral way. For instance, memorizing the list of irregular verbs in the past tense does not imply the ability to tell an anecdote or narrate a past experience; even more, it does not imply to understand a speaker or a writer when they are reporting that past experience. Obviously, we also need other tools of the linguistic, pragmatic, discourse, fluency and communicative competences to do it effectively.

As a result, we should examine our reasons for teaching grammar, how important it is, and check what the real needs are for working with it, in order to make the necessary adjustments in our lesson planning and class performance.

Read the text “Seven bad reasons for teaching grammar - and Two good ones” written by Michael Swan. (2002), taken from: Richards and Renandya Ed.(2002). Methodology in Language Teaching. An anthology of current practice, USA: Cambridge University Press. 148 – 152 pp.

After reading the text, take some notes of your introspective analysis and draft a few proposals. Keep your draft with you and be ready to incorporate your notes to the learning evidence requested later on.

SEVEN BAD REASONS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR - AND TWO GOOD REASONS FOR TEACHING SOME

(In Methodology in Language Teaching, ed. Richards and Renandya, CUP 2002, pp.148–152)

too much grammar

Grammar is important; but most of the time, in most parts of the world, people probably teach too much of it. I think we can identify at least seven reasons for this.

1 Because it’s there

Asked why he tried to climb Everest, George Mallory famously replied ‘Because it is there’. Some teachers take this attitude to the mountain of grammar in their books: it’s there, so it has to be climbed. But the grammar points in the course book may not all be equally important for a particular class. The book may have been written for students with different purposes from our students, studying in a different environment, perhaps with different mother tongues and different problems. It may have been designed for learners with more time to spend on grammar than we have. The book may simply have been written by a grammar fanatic. It is important to choose grammar points relevant to our students’ needs, rather than blindly going through the syllabus from left to right.

In a well-known experiment (Hughes and Lascaratou 1982), mistakes made by Greek secondary-school children were shown to Greek teachers of English, British teachers of English, and British non-teachers. Members of each group graded the mistakes on a scale from 1 (least serious) to 5. Interestingly, the mistakes which the Greek teachers regarded as most serious were often those that troubled the native speakers least, and vice-versa. Some examples, with the average gradings given by the Greek teachers (‘GT’) and the British non-teachers (‘BN’):

*We agreed to went to the cinema by car. (GT4.6; BN2.2)

*We didn’t knew what had happened. (GT4.4; BN1.8)

*Dizzys from the wine we decided to go home. (GT4.2; BN2.1)

*The people are too many so and the cars are too many. (GT3.0; BN4.3)

*The bus was hit in front of. (GT2.6; BN4.3)

*There are many accidents because we haven’t brought (meaning ‘broad’) roads. (GT2.4; BN4.1)

The native speakers generally gave higher marks to mistakes which impeded their understanding: discussing the reasons for their assessments, many mentioned ‘intelligibility’. The non-native teachers seemed more disturbed by infringements of common grammar rules; in discussion they referred frequently to ‘basic mistakes’. They seemed most upset by the fact that learners continued to break rules which had been taught at an earlier stage of the course and which they ‘should’ therefore have mastered. They were, effectively, teaching grammar ‘because it was there’.

2 It’s tidy

Vocabulary is vast and untidy. We may attempt to systematise it by teaching semantic fields, superordinates and hyponyms, notional/functional categories and the rest, but ultimately vocabulary remains a big muddle. Pronunciation is more easily analysed (if you leave out intonation and stress), and it can be presented as a tidy system of phonemes, allophones, syllable structure and so on. However, in Tom McArthur's immortal words, pronunciation is that part of a student which is the same at the end of a language course as at the beginning. That leaves grammar. Grammar looks tidy and is relatively teachable. Although English grammar does not have the kind of inflectional apparatus which makes German or Latin look so magnificently systematic, there are still many things in English that can be arranged in rows or displayed in boxes. Grammar can be presented as a limited series of tidy things which students can learn, apply in exercises, and tick off one by one. Learning grammar is a lot simpler than learning a language.

3 It’s testable

Many students like tests. It is hard to gauge your own progress in a foreign language, and a good test can tell you how you are doing, whether you have learnt what you wanted to, and what level you have reached. Educational authorities love tests. They show (or appear to show) whether children are learning and teachers are teaching properly; they rank learners; and (if you incorporate a pass-mark) they can be used to designate successes and create failures. Unfortunately it is time-consuming and difficult to design and administer tests which really measure overall progress and attainment. On the other hand, grammar tests are relatively simple. So grammar is often used as a testing short-cut; and, because of the washback effect of testing, this adds to the pressure to teach it. So we can easily end up just teaching what can be tested (mostly grammar), and testing what we have taught (mostly grammar).

4 Grammar as a security blanket

Grammar can be reassuring and comforting. In the convoluted landscape of a foreign language, grammar rules shine out like beacons, giving students the feeling that they can understand and control what is going on. Although this feeling is partly illusory (structural competence only accounts for a proportion of what is involved in mastery of a language), anything that adds to learners’ confidence is valuable. However, the ‘security-blanket’ aspect can lead students and their teachers to concentrate on grammar to the detriment of other less codifiable but equally important aspects of the language.

5 It formed my character

As a student, I worked hard to learn the rules governing capitalisation in German. The authorities have now changed them, without consulting me, in the interests of ‘simplification’, and my investment has gone down the drain. I am not pleased: if you have struggled to learn something, you feel it must be important. Many foreign-language teachers spent a good deal of time when younger learning about tense and aspect, the use of articles, relative clauses and the like; they naturally feel that these things matter a good deal and must be incorporated in their own teaching. In this way, the tendency of an earlier generation to overvalue grammar can be perpetuated.

6 You have to teach the whole system

People often regard grammar as a single interconnected system, all of which has to be learnt if it is to work properly. This is an illusion. Grammar is not something like a car engine, where a fault in one component such as the ignition or fuel supply can cause a complete breakdown. It is more realistic to regard grammar as an accumulation of different elements, some more systematic than others, some linked together tightly or loosely, some completely independent and detachable. We teach – or should teach – selected subsystems, asking for each: 1) How much of this do the students know already from their mother tongue? (A German speaker, unlike a Japanese learner, knows the main facts about English article use before his/her first lesson.) 2) How much of the rest is important? 3) How much of that have we got time for? To try to teach ‘the whole system’ is to ignore all three of these questions.

7 Power

Some teachers – fortunately, a minority – enjoy the power. As a teacher you can get a kick from knowing more than your students, from being the authority, from always being right. In language teaching, grammar is the area where this mechanism operates most successfully. A teacher may have a worse accent than some of her students; there may be some irritating child in the class with a vast vocabulary of pop-music idiom or IT terminology of which the teacher knows nothing; but there is always grammar to fall back on, with its complicated rules and arcane terminology. Even if you have a native-speaking child in your class, he or she won’t be able to talk coherently and confidently about progressive infinitives or the use of articles with uncountable nouns. If you can, you win.

Societies like grammar. Grammar involves rules, and rules determine ‘correct’ behaviour. Education is never neutral, and the teaching methods in any society inevitably reflect attitudes to social control and power relationships. In countries where free speech is valued (up to a point), language classes are likely to let students talk, move about, and join in the decision-making (up to a point). In more authoritarian societies, students are more likely to sit in rows, listen, learn rules, do grammar exercises, make mistakes and get corrected (thus demonstrating who is in control). Examination design follows suit, showing whether the authorities want future voters who are good at expressing themselves or ones who are good at obeying rules. (Guess which.) Examination syllabuses the world over also generally include a component which requires great mental agility, is of doubtful value to most people, and is regarded as a touchstone of intellectual capacity. In Western societies maths has taken over this responsibility from Latin, but the grammar of foreign languages plays a useful supporting role.

the results: teaching grammar instead of English

Where grammar is given too much priority the result is predictable and well known. ‘Course books’ become little more than grammar courses. Students don’t learn English: they learn grammar, at the expense of other things that matter as much or more. They know the main rules, can pass tests, and may have the illusion that they know the language well. However, when it comes to using the language in practice they discover that they lack vital elements, typically vocabulary and fluency: they can recite irregular verbs but can’t sustain a conversation. (As J K Jerome put it a century ago, few people care to listen to their own irregular verbs recited by young foreigners.) Such an approach is also psychologically counterproductive, in that it tends to make students nervous of making mistakes, undermining their confidence and destroying their motivation.

the other extreme

There are bad reasons for not teaching grammar, too. When, as sometimes happens, there is a reaction against grammar-heavy syllabuses, people often tend to fly to the other extreme and teach little or no grammar. This happened during the 1970s and after, when the communicative approach (in itself an excellent development) was widely taken as a justification for teaching ‘functions and notions’ or ‘skills’ instead of grammar. One of the results of this unfortunate trend was the appearance of a generation of British teachers and teacher trainers many of whom were seriously ignorant of the structure of the language they were professionally concerned with teaching. Doing too little grammar (whether out of misguided principle or sheer ignorance) is of course as damaging as doing too much.

good reasons for teaching some grammar

There are two good reasons for teaching carefully selected points of grammar.

1) comprehensibility Knowing how to build and use certain structures makes it possible to communicate common types of meaning successfully. Without these structures, it is difficult to make comprehensible sentences. We must, therefore, try to identify these structures and teach them well. Precisely what they are is partly open to debate – it is difficult to measure the functional load of a given linguistic item independently of context – but the list will obviously include such things as basic verb forms, interrogative and negative structures, the use of the main tenses, and the grammar of modal auxiliaries.

(But we also need to remember that even minor mistakes, which do not affect comprehensibility on their own, can do so if they cluster – so we may need to address some of our students’ most frequent errors as well as their most serious errors.)

2) acceptability In some social contexts, serious deviance from native-speaker norms can hinder integration and excite prejudice – a person who speaks ‘badly’ may not be taken seriously, or may be considered uneducated or stupid. Students may, therefore, want or need a higher level of grammatical correctness than is required for mere comprehensibility. Potential employers and examiners may also require a high – often unreasonably high – level of grammatical correctness, and if our students’ English needs to be acceptable to these authorities, their prejudices must be taken into account.

What points of grammar we choose to teach will therefore depend on our circumstances and our learners’ aims. Whatever the situation, though, we must make sure that we are teaching only the points of grammar that we need to in the light of these factors, and – of course – that we are teaching them well. If we can manage to focus clearly on these principles, we have a better chance of teaching English instead of just teaching grammar.

Reference

Hughes, A. and C. Lascaratou. (1982) ‘Competing Criteria for Error Gravity’ English Language Teaching Journal, 36/3, 175–182.

Scott Thornbury (2002) highlights some important principles to be taken into consideraton in order to incorporate grammar in the teaching and learning processes in a balanced way.

Read carefully the following excerpt taken from: Thornbury, Scott. (2002). How to Teach Grammar. Malaysia: Longman. 25 - 28 pp. This extract is very important and useful, not only for their interesting academic content, but also for analyzing the appropriacy and efficiency of grammar activities, which will be requested later on in the course.

QUESTIONS

(My answers)
1. What are the beliefs in regard to teaching grammar that we can find out in these teachers?

Grammar beliefs depend on the way each teacher or student considers them. By what I can see there are levels of attention to grammar when it has to be taught. The teachers here seem to believe that grammar is a window through communication, I think so.

2. What kind of teaching and learning approaches underline those assumptions?

By learning and by acquisition through approaches such as audio-lingual and direct methods.

3. What sort of learners of grammar do we have? What may be the reason of their feelings about grammar?

Learners for communication and learners for academic purposes.

4. How could we help them to overcome their difficulties?

By creating teaching programs where grammar could be a supporting tool in the specific kind of teaching and according to the learner or learners’ characteristics.

To the reader; Give your own answers and reflect on them!

THE DEDUCTIVE APPROACH

The deductive approach represents a more traditional style of teaching in that the grammatical structures or rules are dictated to the students first. Thus, the students learn the rule and apply it only after they have been introduced to the rule. For example, if the structure to be presented is present perfect, the teacher would begin the lesson by saying, "Today we are going to learn how to use the present perfect structure". Then, the rules of the present perfect structure would be outlined and the students would complete exercises, in a number of ways, to practice using the structure. In this approach, the teacher is the center of the class and is responsible for all of the presentation and explanation of the new material.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Deductive lessons

Advantages
• it requires less effort on the part of both the teachers and the students
• the students are less likely to be exposed to critical remarks on the part of either the teacher or other students and therefore some students may feel more secure with this approach
• it may provide the students with just what they need, especially if they are preparing for formal exams
• It gets straight to the point.
• It respects the intelligence and maturity of students who expect to receive rules.
• It allows teachers to control language points.
Disadvantages
• Students may misunderstand the terminology used in grammar rules
• It is a boring approach and therefore less likely to attract students" attention and so be less effective.
• It encourages teacher-centered classes.
• It makes students believe that learning a language means simply knowing the rules

In my opinion deductive lesson is certainly easier to apply and leaves little room for mistakes providing that the rule is concisely and clearly stated and it makes students feel secure. Moreover, deductive method does not require much preparation on the part of the teacher. Nonetheless, it also has some quite significant disadvantages that cannot be disregarded. The most important one is lack of students’ involvement and struggle for understanding, which may result in the lesson being teacher-centered and not demanding in terms of creativity and imagination.

REFERENCES:
Diaz, B. (2009) “Incorporating Grammar Teaching into the Communicative Classroom” [Online], available at: http://www.icpna.edu.pe/documentos/Incorporating%20Grammar%20Teaching%20Into%20the%20Communicative%20Classroom%20-%20Brigitte%20Diaz%20Flores.pdf [Accessed on April 21, 2012]

International Teacher Training Organization, (2012) “Inductive approach and Deductive approach in TESOL” [Online], available at: http://www.teflcertificatecourses.com/tefl-articles/tesol-inductive-deductive-approaches.php [Accessed on April 19, 2012]

Thornbury, S. (1999) “How to teach grammar: Chapter 3 How to teach grammar from rules” Longman. Malaysia

TEACHER: Think about the techniques for teaching grammar and try to answer the following question according to your experience.

Now, let me introduce some visuals and information about thw technique called DRILLING.

Look at the visuals and think reflect on the inforamtion provided in them.

Most of our English books have a chart like the one in grey about expressions which are considered essentials in the Teaching-learning process.

In this visual the sample is called USEFUL LANGUAGE.

QUESTION: How much attention have you paid to this section?

Importance of teaching grammar and vocabulary

Introduction

Learning a first or a second language involves a large and constant process in which many linguistic and knowledge factors are relevant for providing language mastery. Some of these factors are acquired and others are learned through different processes such as the academic ones. If we pay attention to the educational importance that grammar has, we will find that knowing grammar contributes to express our ideas more clearly and concisely once we have acquired lexical items.

The following essay gives answers to some questions which I consider important to be touched since they involve, in my opinion, interesting points of discussion through our own and general language experience.

Importance of teaching grammar and vocabulary

Grammar as a knowledge process is undoubtedly an important part in all language systems. It provides part of the basis that helps a learner to be confident in the use of vocabulary and other linguistic skills such as the oral production and writing. In addition, Michael Swan (2002) thinks that learning grammar is much simpler that learning a language. This idea let us think that grammar can facilitate the access to the general activity that learning a language represents.

So, in language classes, grammar should be considered a desirable part as long as our teachers make our students feel attracted by not only the way to teach it but also by the materials which may contain the grammar points as well as by the motivation that can support the teaching of it.

As there are different purposes to teach and learn English grammar, I may say that we, teachers, normally consider it as a paramount factor in order to let our students write or speak with more confidence. Thornbury (1999) states that grammar makes a speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear. So, if people’s conversation is full of grammatical errors, their ideas will not get across so easily. This is why the grammar role should be worked in interactive and non-interactive activities.

Swan (2002) mentioned that grammar should be considered as a single interconnected system. This is; grammar is formed and aided by different components so that language communication can be successful. In English classes, grammar-based activities must be adjusted and mastered in every lesson as a constant for improving English language in our students, independently of the type of course book we use or if the teaching elicits the inductive or deductive forms for learning it.

On the other hand, grammar helps to develop certain linguistic competences. Among them, we may consider the productive competences which involve accuracy and which, in my opinion, are the two main competences that the learning of grammar gives us as second language learners.

So, we may say that the writing and speaking competences can be considered to develop the capacity of learners so they use them in order to show their grammar mastery, especially when they look for school-purpose examinations in which learners will find a broad set of exercises.

Of course that the number of competences in which grammar intervenes has to do with linguistic, pragmatic, and discourse competences in which well-formed sentences are usually needed. This way, a L2 learner will also develop the capacity of recognizing grammar structures that involved part of syntactical and morphological aspects, and which help learners to be more competent to recognize them and use them.

There may be considerable assumptions about the teaching and learning of grammar that could help our class programs so that learners may feel more confident of the use of grammar which help them to achieve success while using it communicatively.

The selection of the grammar items, that would be taught, as well as the practice time that they may require to their mastery would be important assumptions to be considered since it is better to learn grammar by using it through routinized activities than by memorizing it.

Depending on the students’ ages, we may consider a sort of aspects that could affect the teaching and learning of the grammatical items. Firstly, on the teacher’s side, it is important to know the items which will be taught as well as the approach, for example the PPP, which could help learners to reach the goals of those grammatical items more easily.

On the other hand, it would be very important to pay attention to the human factor, the material items, the times for teaching the grammatical item, the relationship with the students’ needs, etc. If I had to say a principle to prepare a grammatical item, I would mention the use of grammar in context as the main one. Thornbury mentions that one of the greatest difficulties to recover the use of meaning that grammar provides is the absence of context.

Finally, we can say that the success of teaching grammar depends on how well we master the grammatical items, how much motivation the teachers provides, and how effective our materials and methods are in order to guarantee students’ learning.

Conclusion

Teaching grammar during our language lesson is a paramount activity that must be well considered because of the effect that its elements have in language communication. The questions supporting the essay let us know some of the practical characteristics that cover grammar as a holistic factor.

We could understand that grammar is needed in every single class because without it, the communicative stage may fail mostly because the meaning fails to be clear. We also recognize that grammar covers syntactical and morphological aspects to make the user more competent.

Opinion

It is important to mention that language teachers should make an effort, sometimes a big effort, in order to find the times that can be used for preparing good lessons which comprise grammar items as well as other linguistic elements.

In my teaching experience, grammar seems to be easy for teacher’s comprehension, but there are times that trying to explain it becomes a little difficult, and traditional explanation is not enough if our students do not have examples of its uses. This way, the teacher is sometimes taken aback by sudden students’ answers.

Bibliography

Michael Swan. (2002), “Seven bad reasons for teaching grammar - and Two good ones” taken from: Richards and Renandya Ed.(2002). Methodology in Language Teaching. An anthology of current practice, USA: Cambridge University Press. 148 – 152 pp.

Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. Malaysia: Longman

Teaching grammar from examples

Introduction

During the process of teaching or learning a language, scholars as Thornbury (1999) mention that there are two approaches on which we have to support the learning or acquisition of grammar items. Both approaches - the deductive and the inductive, promote the grammar role although in different ways. The latter is the one in which we will rest the present essay that supposes, above all, to consider the role of grammar in our English classes as well as the common steps found in some examined lesson plans and the techniques used for correction of mistakes.

Teaching grammar from examples

English language teachers should consider that grammatical items should or have to be taught in a context that contemplates firstly, to be one of the English teacher’s main activities, and secondly, to consider the uses of time in the classroom. Of course that there are other aspects such as materials and activities that are also considered as elemental for teaching grammar; however, and because their importance, they may be included in simple statements and questions such as the shorter the better (economy), will it work? (efficacy), and the easier an activity is to set up, the better it is (ease).

Based on the premises above, Thornbury (1999) considers the E-factor (economy, ease, and efficacy) as a relevant factor when designing the lesson plans and teaching grammar. He says that these three intrinsic elements need to be considered by every language teacher because they will support a good deal of the success of the grammar classes.

In the same way, there is another important and interesting factor that implies the appropriacy in teaching grammar; it is the A-factor. This factor implies attention in elements such as the age of the learner, their level, the size of the group, the constitution of the group (if it is monolingual or multilingual), what their needs are (e.g. to pass an examination), the learners interests, etc., the familiarity with all of them will give us a major chance to reach a successful language class.

The TPR approach and the lesson plan.

The inductive approach has proved to be a popular method used to introduce grammar in the language activities of the teaching and learning process. It also uses teaching methods such as the direct and the TPR (Total Physical response) for supporting the inductive activities where grammar will be implicit and so the students can discover it.

Based on the analysis of samples of lesson plans given by Thornbury (1999), we detect that he uses the TPR approach during some of the activities shown there. To a better comprehension of the relationship with the inductive approach, we will mention that Winitz (1981) (mentioned in Larsen-Freeman 2000) talks about the hypothesis that language learning should start first with understanding and later proceed to production.

The instructions provided in the first part of the sample lesson give clearly notion of the use of the TPR approach when the teacher acts out some positive and negative commands and say them to some students. These commands include stand up, walk, stop, turn around, etc. Additionally, we will say that these commands have the characteristic of being of easy comprehension.

Other elements that provide successful comprehension are the names of objects in the classroom like those used in the class activity such as door, window, chair, etc. In order to use these words, Thornbury (1999) adds commands that elicit the students to do the activity suggested. The activities used here are very useful and exciting among beginners.

As a way to avoid one of the disadvantages that the author states in the inductive approach, the teacher should write the imperatives and words that he used during that part of the class. This situation is beneficial in order to clear what the students heard first. Personally, I think that the teacher should take the vocabulary already prepared in cards so that this step can be approached easier.

As we saw in the sample lesson of the lesson four for intermediate students, the teacher contrasts the past simple with the present perfect tense. Identifying the tense and considering the differences in meaning is one of the first actions that the students achieve. Here is an example for a better comprehension of what we are talking about.

Example 1 (using minimal pairs):

I’ve seen all of Jim Jaramusch’s films.
I saw his latest film last month.

It’s important to mention that the teacher should foster the idea that the present perfect is used for experiences with no specific time, and that the past simple is used to mention a specific experience, often a specified time as Thornbury states. Some of the most accurate and attractive drawings used during the explanation of these tenses are the timelines drew on the board for clarifying the meaning between the two tenses.

As a matter to check students’ understanding, the teacher provides a photocopy of an exercise in which they will have to decide what tense, between the past simple and the present perfect, they have to use according to the exercise instructions. As shown in this example, the truth is that these intermediate students should not face any problem of understanding the differences between the two tenses.

The sample lesson for lesson five refers to the infinitives and –ing verbs given to upper intermediate students. Both categories seem to cause some problems to students especially when they face technical or difficult explanation. Here the teacher provides each group of students a paper with a set of concordance lines in which the use of verbs such as remember, forget, and stop are used with infinitive verbs and gerund ones.

Here is part of the sentences depicted in lesson five:

Group A: Remember

On the other hand, I remember seeing them dancing together at a ball shortly before the month’s Top to Tail if you own a poodle. Remember to listen out for Katie and friends on Radio 2.

Again from my own experience, I can say that students will take some time trying to understand the uses of the verb up to this point; however, the teacher should have the elements to clarify this situation. The teacher, then, draws timelines in which he will place the verbs in each situation. The timelines as seen in the reading are very useful and provide better explanation.

Finally, we have to mention, as in the beginning of this document, that the E-factor as well as the A-factor are important in the beginning of elaborating the lesson plan and are also analyzed or evaluated according to the results of the lesson plan application.

Conclusion

After reading the material by Thornbury, I can say that the idea of teaching grammar is based in interesting elements, activities, and examples in the inductive approach.

According to my experience, the use of motivation keeps being an important role in language teaching. So, motivation in combination with elements seen in these activities can help to achieve successful in grammar learning which is relevant because complements our language knowledge.

Bibliography

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. China: Oxford University Press.

Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. Longman Pearson Education.

In my opinion, sometimes, if not always, students learning GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY should use an AUTO-EVALUATION FORM in order to recognize how much they have learned during the class.

Here an example of the AUTO-EVALUATION FORMS my students use. This way, my students are compromised with their learning, and I prepare classes according to these results.

Because GRAMMAR is essential!

Helping my colleagues, teachers ans students to find some MATERIALS about GRAMMAR ISSUES.

Click on each one of the 15 CHAPTERS.

This is a sample of the GRAMMAR MATERIALS I am talking about on the website above.

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TALKING ABOUT GRAMMAR TEACHING

I strongly recommed you to watch the following VIDEOS. Iam sure you'll find them really interesting.

TEACHING GRAMMAR

TODAY'S CLASSROOM

TEACHING GRAMMAR

NOTICING

Noticing is the action of helping students understand or realize the form of the grammar points.

Reflect on the following questions:

What’s the best way to teach grammar?

When you were a learner what type of activities help you to ‘notice’?

How can teachers help their learners develop noticing skills?

In the visuals of CONCEPTS below you’ll see some of the answers provided by some English teachers about the way to teach grammar.

Please observe the column of the concepts, and then try to work out the column of the meanings of those concepts.

Do you have any preference for one of these concepts?

EXERCISES AND TASKS FOR NOTICING

Click on the image of ESL. Here, you will find many activities about GRAMMAR and other LANGUAGE ISSUES.

The Grammaring Guide to English Grammar is a resource book on the grammar of Standard British English. It is intended for intermediate to advanced students of English as a second or foreign language who have already studied the basic grammar of English as well as for their teachers. It covers the most important areas of English grammar and concentrates on structures which may cause difficulty at an intermediate level or above.

Use this site for reinforcing your GRAMMAR of FCE.

Use the 'Quick find' tag to look for a specific grammar point.

How much practice have you got in Gerunds?