ENGLISH INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY on TEACHING GRAMMAR

 TEACHING GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION

·         Types of approaches to language teaching:

1.      Focus on analyzing the language: learn the elements of language

2.      Focus on using the language: encourage to use the language

·         Grammar is about much more than form and its teaching is ill served if students are simply given rules.

A Three-Dimendional Grammar Framework

·         Grammatical structures have:

1.      Form/structure: how a particular grammar structure is constructed and how it is sequenced.

2.      Meaning/semantics: what a grammar structure means.

3.      Use/pragmatics: deals with all aspects of meaning not dealt by semantic theory.

·         A grammar teacher might begin by asking questions posed in each dimension:

1.      Form: how is it formed?

2.      Meaning: what does it mean?

3.      Use: when/why is it used?

·         It would be reasonable for the ESL/EFL teacher to present all of the information about grammar (all dimensions) to students at once.

·         All three dimensions will have to be mastered by the learner. It is worth noting that although it is grammar we are dealing with, it is not always the form of the structures which creates the most significant learning challenge.

·         What we hope to do is to have students be able to use grammatical structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately.

The Teaching Process

·         Traditional grammar teaching has employed a structural syllabus and lessons composed of 3 phases: presentation, practice, and production (PPP).

·         These days, most teachers use a more communicatively oriented approach, starting with a communicative activity.

·         A teacher must decide how to address grammar. Some suggested options to make students notice some feature of grammatical structure are:

1.      Recasting/reformulating

2.      Enhancing the input

3.      Using consciousness raising tasks

4.      Using the garden path

5.      Input processing

·         Practice activities will be addressed in terms of which dimension of language they realate to.

Providing Feedback

·         Providing learners with feedback is an essential function of language teaching. Even such indirect feedback as asking a learner for clarification of something s/he said may be helpful.

·         How to provide feedback:

1.      Recasting

2.      Getting students to self-correct

3.      Giving students an explicit rule

4.      Dealing with errors collectively in class

 

 

RELATED PEDAGOGICAL ISSUES

Sequencing

·         It would be a teacher’s responsibility to see that students learn certain grammatical items by the end of a given course or period of time, but not following a prescribed sequence.

Inductive Versus Deductive Presentation

·         Inductive activity: students infer the rule or generalization from a set of examples.

·         Deductive activity: students are given the rule and they apply it to examples.

Pattern and Reasons, Not Rules

·         Teachers of grammar should pay more attention to conventionalized lexicogrammatical units and not simply focus on teaching grammatical rules.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

By exploring the three dimensions of grammar and how to teach them, teachers will continue to develop their professional knowledge base, which will benefit their students