How to teach grammar?

钟彩顺江西师范大学外国语学院

Tel: 13699529035

Email: hokmdj@163.com

QQ: 641911103

I. Let’s elaborate on the question!

1. What is grammar? 2.

What is the function of grammar in language learning? Should grammar be taught?

3. How can grammar be acquired/learned? 4. How to teach grammar?

1. What is grammar?

Grammar is the structure of a language or rules which determines how words fit together in meaningful constructions.

A property of brain a specific description, study or analysis of rules

for language use Grammar of language vs. language of grammar

2. What is the function of grammar in language learning? Read the following two reflective

comments and discuss your opinions

Reflection

( 四 ) 教学模式与方法根据小学生学习的特点，小学英语教学要创建活动课为主的教学模式，教学重点是培养学生用语言进行交流的能力。小学英语教学不讲解语法概念。要充分利用教学资源，采用听、做、说、唱、玩、演的方式，鼓励学生积极参与、大胆表达，侧重提高明小学生对语言的感受和初步用英语进行听、说、唱、演的能力。小学五、六年级的英语教学，在进一步加强学生听说能力的同时，发展初步的读写能力，为进一步学习打好基础。

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　《小学英语课程标准》

A language is learned through practice. It is merely perfected through grammar.

3. How can grammar be acquired or learned? Implicit or explicit Inductive or deductive

4. How to teach grammar?

SyllabusSelection: what to be included? (usefulness)Grading: what order are the selected items to

be dealt with (frequency, complexity, learnability, teachability)

Approach: how to incorporate it into teaching and learning activities?

Successful grammar instruction involves matching instruction to expected outcomes and then assessing whether the instruction was effective. (Williams 2005)

II. The pendulum swing

The historical trajectory of theories on language teaching and learning

The grammar-based approaches The communicative approaches The integrative approaches

Grammar-based approaches

Language teaching was equated with grammar teaching and grammar was used as content as well as organizing principles for developing curriculum and language teaching materials (Celce-Murcia, 2001a).

Grammar Translation Method Based on categories of Greek and Latin grammar, the target

language was segmented into various parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, articles, participles, conjunctions, and prepositions), which were taught deductively through an explicit explanation of rules, with memorization and translations of texts from the L2 to the L1. With a focus on written language, other purposes of this method included exploring the literature of the target language, preparing learners to develop an understanding of the first language, and training learners’ academic capacities.

Audio-Lingual Method The focus of this method was still on learning grammatical structures, and not on the

development of real-life communication skills. Theoretically, this method was greatly influenced by behaviorist psychology that viewed learning as a process of habit formation and conditioning; thus, it considered memorization of structural patterns essential for L2 learning. It was believed that such memorization formed and reinforced language habits. The Audio-Lingual Method was also influenced by the American school of descriptive and structural linguistics that shifted the focus from studying grammar in terms of parts of speech to a description of its structural and phonological components.

As such, lessons in Audio-Lingual teaching consisted mainly of grammatical structures sequenced in a linear manner, usually beginning with an easy structure and ending with more complex forms, with little attention to meaning or context. However, rules were taught inductively through examples and repetition of sentence-level patterns. The emphasis was mainly on developing abilities in oral skills rather than written skills. Instructional units typically began with a conversational dialogue, followed by some pattern drills.

the Reading Approach the Oral and Situational Method the Silent Way Total Physical Response

Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) Models a structured three-stage sequence:

a presentation stage In the presentation stage, the new grammar rule or structure is introduced,

usually through a text, a dialogue, or a story that includes the structure. The students listen to the text or read it out loud. The main purpose of this stage is to help students become familiar with the new grammatical structure and keep it in their short-term memory (Ur, 1988).

a practice stage In this stage, students are given various kinds of written and spoken

exercises to repeat, manipulate, or reproduce the new forms. The practice stage usually begins with controlled practices that focus learners’ attention on specific structures and then moves to less controlled practices with more open-ended activities. The aim of the practice stage is to help students gain control of the knowledge introduced in the presentation stage, to take it in, and to move it from their short-term memory to their long-term memory (Ur, 1988).

and a production stage In the production stage, learners are encouraged to use the rules they have

learned in the presentation and practice stages more freely and in more communicative activities. The aim of this last stage is to fully master the new form by enabling learners to internalize the rules and use them automatically and spontaneously.

PPP

PresentationPresent continuous

Can any body tell me what Jim is doing? What is Mary doing?

PracticeRepetition in chorus or individually

ProductionDescribe an ongoing activity

criticism

While there is substantial evidence that grammar instruction results in learning as measured by discrete-point language tests (e.g., the grammar test in the TOEFL), there is much less evidence to show that it leads to the kind of learning that enables learners to perform the targeted form in free oral production (e.g., in a communicative task).

Where syntax is concerned, research has demonstrated that learners rarely, if ever, move from zero to targetlike mastery of new items in one step. Both naturalistic and classroom learners pass through fixed developmental sequences in word order, negation, questions, relative clauses, and so on—sequences which have to include often quite lengthy stages of nontargetlike use of forms as well as use of nontargetlike forms.

Besides practice, language acquisition processes appear to be governed by many psychological constraints (Pienemann, 1998).

Communicative approaches

the aim of language learning as acquiring communicative ability, that is, the ability to use and interpret meaning in real-life communication (Widdowson, 1978), not simply learning formal grammatical rules and structures

Integrative approach

This approach tries to strike a balance between form and meaning in language teaching.

Empirical and theoretical foundationsFirst, the hypothesis that language can be learned without some degre

e of consciousness has been found to be theoretically problematic (e.g., Schmidt, 1993, 1995, 2001; Sharwood Smith, 1993).

Second, there is ample empirical evidence that teaching approaches that focus primarily on meaning with no focus on grammar are inadequate (Harley & Swain, 1984; Lapkin, Hart, & Swain, 1991; Swain, 1985).

Third, recent SLA research has demonstrated that instructed language learning has major effects on both the rate and the ultimate level of L2 acquisition. In particular, research has shown that form-focused instruction is especially effective when it is incorporated into a meaningful communicative context.

Focus on form (Long 1991)

Long distinguished a focus on form from a focus on forms (FonFs) and a focus on meaning. FonFs is the traditional approach. It represents an analytic syllabus, and is based on the assumption that language consists of a series of grammatical forms that can be acquired sequentially and additively. Focus on meaning is synthetic and is based on the assumption that learners are able to analyze language inductively and arrive at its underlying grammar. Thus, it emphasizes pure meaning-based activities with no attention to form. FonF, conversely, is as a kind of instruction that draws the learner’s attention to linguistic forms in the context of meaningful communication.

Doughty and Williams (1998), for example, suggested that FonF can occur both reactively, by responding to errors, and proactively by addressing possible target language problems before they occur, and that both are reasonable and effective depending on the classroom context.

R. Ellis (2001b) took a broad perspective on FonF, dividing FonF into planned and incidental. He argued that in both types attention to form occurs while learners’ primary focus is on meaning. However, planned FonF differs from incidental FonF in that the former involves drawing learners’ attention to pre-selected forms while the latter involves no pre-selection of forms.

Larsen-Freeman (2001) proposed a communicative model of grammar teaching that included three dimensions: form/structure, meaning/semantics, and use/pragmatics. The form/structure dimension refers to the development of knowledge about the formal structure of a language including its syntactic, morphological, and phonological structures. The meaning dimension refers to knowledge about meaning of a language form, and the pragmatic dimension refers to knowledge about when, where and how to use that form.

However, there are still many questions about how to teach grammar effectively, and in particular, how to integrate most effectively a focus on grammatical forms and a focus on meaningful communication in L2 classrooms. Richards (2002) has referred to this question as “the central dilemma,” in language teaching.

Here the key questions from the perspective of teachers are: (1) how can grammar be brought back to L2 classrooms without

returning to the traditional models of grammar teaching that have often been found to be ineffective?

(2) how can a focus on grammar be combined with a focus on communication?

(3) what are the different ways of integrating grammar instruction and communicative interaction?

and (4) more importantly, how can the opportunity for focus on grammar be maximized without sacrificing opportunities for a focus on meaning and communication?

III. Principles and methods for grammar teaching Principles

Efficiency (including economy, ease and efficacy)

Appropriacy

Teaching Methods

Processing instruction textual enhancement discourse-based grammar teaching Interactional feedback grammar-focused tasks collaborative output tasks.

Processing instruction

Input processing is defined as strategies that learners use to link grammatical forms to their meanings or functions.

Input can be defined as the language “that learners hear or see to which they attend for its propositional content (message)” Universal Grammar (triggering, parameter setting) Information processing (from controlled to automatic) Skill-acquisition theories (from declarative to

procedural)

(1) How does the learner process the input to which he or she is exposed?;

(2) What is it that makes some input more difficult to process than other input?;

and (3) What are the processes that impede or delay the acquisition of input?

four main principles: 1 Learners process input for meaning before they process it for

form. 2 For learners to process form that is not meaningful, they must

be able to process informational or communicative content at no or little cost to attention.

3 Learners possess a default strategy that assigns the role of agent (or subject) to the first noun (phrase) they encounter in a sentence/utterance. This is called the first noun strategy.

4 Learners first process elements in sentence/utterance initial position.

The key components of processing instruction as a pedagogical intervention are as follows: 1 Learners are provided with information about the

target linguistic form or structure. 2 They are informed of the input processing strategies

that may negatively affect their processing of the target structure.

3 They carry out input-based activities that help them understand and process the form during comprehension.

An example: Teaching plural -s “He has two cars.”

giving students some explicit information about how plural forms are structured in English

informing the learners of why they tend to ignore the plural-s when they normally read or listen to input that contains that form

implementing some input-based activities that are specifically designed to help learners to process the plural-s correctly for meaning

GuidelinesKeep Meaning in FocusPresent One Item at a TimeUse Oral and Written InputMove from Individual Sentences to Connected

DiscourseHave Learners Do Something with the InputKeep Learners’ Processing Strategies in Mind

Teaching past tense

Activity 1 Instruction: Listen to the following sentences and decide whether they descri

be an action that was done before or is usually done.

Teaching participial adjectives

Instruction: Read the following sentences and decide whether you agree with the statement.

textual enhancement

The aim of this approach is to raise learners’ attention to linguistic forms by rendering input perceptually more salient. Textual enhancement aims to achieve this by highlighting certain aspects of input by means of various typographic devices, such as bolding, underlining, and italicizing in written input, or acoustic devices such as added stress or repetition in oral input. The assumption is that such visual or phonological modifications of input make grammatical forms more noticeable and subsequently learnable.

noticing three attentional processes: alertness, orientation, and d

etection

Types of Input Enhancement explicitness : the degree of directness in how attention is drawn

to form Elaboration: the duration or intensity with which enhancement

procedures take place

positive and negative enhancementPositive strategies make a correct form salientNegative input enhancement highlights “given

forms as incorrect, thus signaling to the learner that they have violated the target norms”

Different Forms of Textual Enhancement Textual Enhancement in Written Text: underlining, bol

dfacing, italicizing, capitalizing, color coding or a combination of these

1 Select a particular grammar point that you think your students need to attend to.

2 Highlight that feature in the text using one of the textual enhancement techniques or their combination.

3 Make sure that you do not highlight many different forms as it may distract learners’ attention from meaning.

4 Use strategies to keep learners’ attention on meaning. 5 Do not provide any additional metalinguistic explanation.

Textual Enhancement in Oral Textsadded stress, intonation, repetitions of the

targeted form, even through gestures, body movement, facial expressions.

Input Flood Learners are provided with numerous examples of a certain targ

et form in the input (either oral or written)

discourse-based grammar teaching

grammar is regarded as a complex process of making context-based choices, not only of syntax or vocabulary, but also considering social and psychological factors determined by the grammatical links between discourse and meaning (Halliday, 1978).

Teaching the four language skills through discourse: 1 Reading extended texts rather than sentences and answering com

prehension questions. 2 Listening to extended speech and often requiring the learner to “s

hadow” the speaker’s voice, complete a cloze test afterwards, reconstruct the text (see Swain & Lapkin, 1998) and answer comprehension questions.

3 Writing at the essay level, producing an introduction, a body and a conclusion (see for example, Fotos & Hinkel, 2007).

4 Speaking activities such as presenting speeches, either prepared or impromptu, or making discourse-length responses to questions.

Activity 1. Teachers Exploring Authentic and Non-authentic Language Use (simplified)

Activity 2. Teachers Using Discourse-level Input and Output

Teaching discourse grammar Contents

1 Salient features of context (setting, scene, the predicted state of knowledge and expectations of the reader/hearer).

2 The means whereby a speaker or writer projects himself or herself as a certain kind of person, “a different kind in different circumstances” (Gee, 1999, p. 13).

3 Function (communicative goals); the “socially situated activity that the utterance helps to constitute” (Gee, 1999, p. 13).

4 Appropriate instrumentalities (features of register and genre). 5 Development of effective communication strategies appropriate to the mode of communica

tion (Trappes-Lomax, 2004, p. 155). activities

1 Activating appropriate knowledge structures (schemata), both formal (genre) and content (knowledge of the topic) through pre-listening/reading activities.

2 Foregrounding contextually relevant shared knowledge to help in predicting topic development and guessing speaker/writer intentions.

3 Devising tasks which promote appropriate use of top-down processing (from macro-context to clause, phrase, and lexical item) and bottom-up practicing.

4 Processing (from lexical item, phrase and clause to macro-context). 5 Focusing on meta-discoursal signaling devices.

Activity 3. Having Students Write Discourse for Authentic Purposes E.g. journal, email

Activity 4. Using Discourse-based Activity Templates 1 A warm-up session consisting of instructions which the learners must act out,

similar to Total Physical Response. 2 Schemata activation, in which the teacher asks the learners what the most

useful thing would be to give a widowed mother in Africa, then asks the learners to discuss this in groups.

3 The first reading of the text, where the learners read the text silently using their dictionaries.

4 Learner response to text by establishing the discourse function of the text and discussing the idea.

5 Questions from the teacher requiring learner scanning of the text. 6 Reconstructing the text by completing a text-based cloze activity. 7 A language focus section in which the learners are made aware of target

structures in the text, such as articles and verb forms, through cloze activities and substitution exercises.

8 Learner pair work to write their own text. This and similar activities can be modified according to the level of the learners.

Activity 6. Discourse-based Comprehension Activitiesquestions based on extended discourse

Activity 7. Using Corpora to Encourage Learners to Focus on Grammar

Activity 8. Teachers Conducting Discourse Analysis of their Own Output

3.4 Interactional feedback

reformulations and elicitation input providing and output prompting

strategies

Recasts Recasts refer to utterances that reformulate the whole or

part of the learner’s erroneous utterance into a correct form while maintaining the overall focus on meaning (Nicholas, Lightbown, & Spada, 2001)

Example (1) STUDENT: And they found out the one woman run away. TEACHER: OK, the woman was running away. [Recast] STUDENT: Running away. (Nassaji, 2009, p. 429)

Clarification Requests Example (6)

STUDENT: I want practice today, today.TEACHER: I’m sorry? [Clarification request](Panova & Lyster, 2002, p. 583)

Repetition Example (7)

STUDENT: Oh my God, it is too expensive, I pay only 10 dollars.

TEACHER: I pay? [Repetition with rising intonation]

STUDENT 2: Okay let’s go. (Y. Sheen, 2004, p. 279)

Metalinguistic Feedback Example (8)

STUDENT: I see him in the office yesterday. TEACHER: You need a past tense. [Metalinguistic clu

e] Example (9)

STUDENT: He catch the fish. TEACHER: Caught is the past tense. [Metalinguistic f

eedback with correction]

Direct Elicitation Example (10)

STUDENT: And when the young girl arrive, ah, beside the old woman.

TEACHER: When the young girl … ? Example (11)

STUDENT: She easily catched the girl. TEACHER: She catched the girl? I’m sorry, say that a

gain

Direct Correction Example (12)

STUDENT: He has catch a cold.TEACHER: Not catch, caught. [Direct

correction]STUDENT: Oh, ok.

Nonverbal Feedback Example (13)

STUDENT: My mom cooks always good food.TEACHER: [Crosses over arms in front of the

body to indicate word order]

Example (14): limited negotiation STUDENT: It’s cheaper than Canadian’s one. [Errone

ous utterance] TEACHER: It’s cheaper than Canadian’s one? STUDENT: Canadians. TEACHER: The Canadian. The s is in the wrong plac

e. A pack of cigarettes is cheaper than Canadian ones.

(Nassaji, 2007c, p. 124)

Example (15): extended negotiation STUDENT: Teachers in class like our friend … [Erroneous utterance] TEACHER: So who can make a correction? Who’s got an idea to correct this? Mitny what w

ould you do to correct this? Any idea? STUDENT: I don’t know. I don’t know. TEACHER: Just try. Just try. Just try your best. STUDENT: Okay, okay. Their. TEACHER: OK so there is “their”? STUDENT: Their teachers? TEACHER: How about I’ll help here. How about “our teachers”? STUDENT: Our teachers? TEACHER: Can you start with that? STUDENT: Our teachers? TEACHER: Yeah. STUDENT: Hm. Hm. They are? TEACHER: OK. So we have “teachers,” so we don’t need “their.” We just need “teachers ar

e.”

Which Errors Should be Corrected?

Error vs. mistake Errors occur because of a lack of

knowledge but mistakes are simply performance errors.

Suggestions for interactional feedback 1 Teachers should make sure that the feedback is salient enough

to be noticed. 2 Teachers should select specific types of errors and target them in

each lesson (R. Ellis, 2009). 3 Recasts are potentially ambiguous, as learners may perceive

them as feedback on content rather than on form. Recasts may become more effective if disambiguated with additional, more explicit, verbal and phonological prompts (i.e., added stress, repetition, etc.).

4 When providing feedback, it might be advisable to begin with an elicitation. If the strategy fails to lead to self-correction, recasts can then be provided.

5 Elicitations lead to self-correction only if learners already have some knowledge of the targeted form.

6 Learners learn best when they are developmentally ready..

7 Teachers should use more feedback moves that provide opportunities for uptake and modified output.

8 Teachers should be aware of the differences in classroom contexts and adjust the feedback strategies they use to suit the situations in which they teach.

9 Teachers should be aware of individual learner differences and use their feedback strategies accordingly.

grammar-focused tasks

structure-based focused tasks aiming at making grammar forms obvious to

the learner through consciousness-raising activities

(1) structure-based production tasks; (2) comprehension (interpretation) tasks;(3) consciousness-raising tasks

Implicit vs. explicit two factors that are important to consider

when selecting target structures for structured grammar-focused tasks: problematicity learnability

Activity 1. Different Forms of the Past Tense

In this task, pairs or groups of learners are asked to work together to reconstruct a past event that they have participated in and then present to the rest of the class.

collaborative output tasks

dictogloss Dictogloss is a kind of output task that encourages students to w

ork together and produce language forms collaboratively by reconstructing a text presented to them orally.

Reconstruction Cloze Tasks Text-editing Tasks Collaborative jigsaw

Jigsaw tasks are a kind of two-way information gap task in which students hold different portions of the information related to a task. Students should then share and exchange the different pieces of information to complete the task.

text reconstruction tasks

drawing activity targeting locative prepositions. Without showing their partners, the learners

draw a picture of different shapes inside a picture frame. When they are done, they give their partners instruction on how to draw the same picture. Then they compare their pictures.

Learning comparative forms of English adjectives and adverbs.Groups of three or four EFL learners were

requested to present the features of cities they knew well to the other members of their group. The learners were then requested to combine their information by writing a number of English sentences comparing two cities.

Grammar activities and games

Find someone activities Bingo activities Jigsaw reading activities Asking and answering questions activities Information gap activities Find the differences activities Questionnaires and surveys Giving and receiving instructions activities Board and cards activities

二级对语法的要求： 1. 知道名词有单复数形式。 2. 知道主要人称代词的区别； 3. 知道动词在不同的情况下会有形式上的变化； 4. 了解表示时间、地点和位置的介词。 5. 了解英语简单句的基本形式和表意功能。

基数词和序数词； 名词所有格； 形容词比较级； 定冠词 the 与不定冠词 a, an 的用法； 基本句式如特殊疑问句，陈述句，一般疑

问句，祈使句 特殊句式如 There be 句型， be going to 等

教学案例教学案例AA1 、出示句子，让学生进行比较，找出句型结

构。 I’m going to do some shopping. I’m going to have a picnic. I’m going to play football. be going to 一般将来时

2 、板书句型，让学生模仿例句说话。

（显性语法教学）

此方法忽视了语言的真实运用。

教学案例教学案例BB Step1 ：歌谣热身

（隐性语法教学）

Step2 ：在情境中感知感知Step3 ：在情境中操练操练Step4 ：在情境中运用运用Step5 ：课文学习Step6 ：在拓展中运用归纳归纳

Step1 歌谣热身

I am going to buy a book.

I am going to take a look.

I am going to bake a cake.

I am going to walk near a lake.

We are going to take a trip.

We are going to take a sip.

I am going outside to play.

I am going to have a good day!

Step2 在情境中感知

教师通过调闹钟、翻日历等方法呈现学习 be going to do 结构的语言情境，引导学生感知感知。

T ： I am giving a class now. (9:52) I am going to have lunch at 12:00.

T ： I often play football on Saturdays. I am going to play ping-pong tomorrow. (Tomorrow is Saturday.)

Step3 在情境中操练

做“旅游转盘”游戏：教师向学生呈现标有各地名胜的大转盘，引导学生操练操练目标语。 T: What are you going to do?S1: I am going to visit the Great Wall.Ss: What are you going to do?S2: I am going to visit Yunnan.…

Step4 在情境中运用

调查同学周末计划S1: What are you going to do on the weekend?S2: I am going to…

Name He/She is going to…

在调查汇报中导入：T: xxx is going to …on the weekend. What is John going to do on the weekend? Now listen and tell us.

通过课文学习进一步理解和巩固通过课文学习进一步理解和巩固 be be going togoing to 表示将来的用法及其形式。表示将来的用法及其形式。

Step5 课文学习

Step6 在情境中运用归纳

1 、教师创设“北京之旅”的情境，让学生在“旅游项目图”上选择自己喜欢的项目，并用结构 be going to do 填空，然后互相了解彼此打算在北京做什么。

Step6 在情境中运用归纳

2 、学生运用所学语言了解同学的打算，然后写下自己和同学打算做的项目 , 在情境中运用语言和归纳语言规则。

An example: teaching could

How to test grammar

Discrete-item testsGap fillingYesterday we__ to the cinema and __ a film wit

h Richard Gere in it.Multiple choiceYesterday we __ (go/ went/ have gone) to the ci

nema and __ (see/ saw/ have seen) a film with Richard Gere in it.

Testing grammar in oral performance test Role plays Simulation Discussion Casual chat

Test description of place and present perfect

Resources for grammar teaching

A comprehensive grammar of modern English

英语惯用法大词典 牛津同义词词典 牛津搭配词典

Conclusion

Thank you very much!