t Final Ejemplo 1

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How to avoid grammatical mistakes in written production in fourth grade Colegio Britanico

students?

Introduction

We want to improve our professional practice in teaching grammar. To get better

and meaningful knowledge in our students, in order to get good grades in their future

certification (KET) in which students are required to perform a high level on writing. Due

to this, is the area that represents the most difficult task for them to carry out. That is why

we need to work forward and let them know that grammar need to be taught and it is not a

collection of meaningless and arbitrary rules. Language teachers would not be content if

their students could recite all the grammar rules but not be able to apply them, that it is our

case. The goal is for the students to be able to use grammar in an unselfconscious fashion to

achieve the communicative ends, as with any skill, achieving the goal, take practice. This

study will take place in Colegio Britanico Wisdom a bilingual school that certifies English

level throw Cambridge Esol certification in five different levels Ket, Pet, First, CAE. This

time we will work specifically with a fourth grade class. The English level of the group is

fluent enough except for the three new students.

Justification

We have been observing that grammar results are not real. Consequently when

our students are speaking or writing we find mistakes they do not have in their grammar

tests. These results make us think: Is grammar learned just to obtain good grades for the

moment? Why do they make mistakes they supposedly should not make? We mean, when

one of our four grade students is talking in past he makes some mistakes. But when he


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answers the grammar written test, in the same topic, he answers it perfectly. The same issue

appears in Cambridge Esol Examination (Ket) in other students, who had taken the same

exam. It is important to mention that Ket examination is a general proficiency examination

in the Council of European Common Framework. Ket is widely recognized as a

qualification representing a general basic ability in English. Successful performance in

KET indicates that candidates can satisfy their basic communicative needs in a range of

everyday situations in contact with native and non-native speakers of English.

Literature review

The teaching of grammar has long been done in second and foreign language classrooms

although, as Ur (1996) remarked, the place of grammar in foreign language teaching is

controversial. Each method or approach to language teaching gives the teaching of

grammar a varying level of importance in their syllabi or classroom activities.

This literature review will begin by discussing the importance of teaching grammar. As

a possible solution integrative grammar teaching combines a form based with a meaning

based focus; using the method of integrative grammar consisting in three major stages:

exploration, explanation, expression (EEE). Exploration is the first stage; this stage is

characterized by inductive learning. Students are given sentences illustrating a certain

grammar rule and are asked as a group to find the pattern and, with the help of the teacher

to formulate the rule. Students should be given opportunities to figure out everything by

themselves. The knowledge they obtain becomes theirs and it is often much easier to

remember the rule. Explanation is the second stage of learning. As students find sequences

or patterns in the examples they used in the exploration stage. The teacher or the students


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can summarize what was previously discovered, now focusing on the form. Expression is

the third and last stage of the process. After discovering certain grammatical patterns in the

exploration stage and getting to know the rules in the explanation stage students start

practicing the production of meaningful utterances with each other in communication and

interactive tasks. The rationale of this stage is to provide students experience in applying

their acquired knowledge in practice by making meaningful utterances.

Since communication cannot take place in the absence of structure or grammar. Canale

and Swain (1980) included grammatical competence into their model of communicative

competence. It has become popular these days to refer to the goals and needs of students.

Therefore students need grammar for communication, it should be taught communicatively,

that is meaning based, not only as an isolated subject or to get a note for the school learning

process

Learning an L2 grammar face a dilemma, we teachers know that students need to learn a

set of rules as those ones that are tested on at school and on the other hand there is a good

need for communication. That is why we should look at the ways of combining form and

meaning in teaching grammar. Musumeci (1997) mention the idea of connecting form and

meaning in grammar teaching as a developing trend in reference to the proficiency oriented

curriculum. She points out that students should be able to learn explicit grammar rules as

well as have the chance to practice them in communication in authentic or simulation tasks.

Integrative grammar teaching which presupposes students interaction while learning,

can be viewed as a cognitive process of learning a L2 that reflects the socio cultural theory

proposed by the Russian psychologist Vigotsky (1978. He argues that there is a strong


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relationship between learning and cognitive development in which cognition develops as a

result of social interaction, what a learner can do by himself, then his potential, he also

introduces the notion of a mediator, a person who helps students to accomplish what they

cannot do by themselves. According to Appel and Lautolf (1994) and Lautolf and Pavlenco

(1995) the role of the mediator in teaching an L2 is placed on an L2 teacher, whose task is

to direct students in the right direction and help them reach the ZPD.

We need to take into account the attitude students show when it comes to talk about

grammar. Grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. Of the many

claims about grammar that deserve to be called myths, we challenge some of them such as:

Grammar is acquired naturally, it needs not to be taught, grammar is a collection of

meaningless forms, and grammar consists of arbitrary rules.

To answer the question in our concern: Why the fourth grade Colegio Britnico

students cannot apply grammar rules and get better results in their writing production? We

are going to do this through developing the writing competence in an integrative way to

avoid having the students just reciting or writing the grammar rules.

Research Questions

So, we decide to do this research to answer some questions that appear in our daily

work: How can our students get better results in written production? Why cannot our

students apply grammar rules to their writing production? We have developed the

hypothesis that the learned subjects are not significant. And it is why pupils cannot transfer

the knowledge they have to other skills specially writing. What we mean, is that students

should be able to learn anything from their own needs. Under the basis of their own


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experience and like something enjoyable and as a long-life learning that can impact in their

writing production.

Methodology

This study applies survey research in which the data was obtained by administering a

questionnaire to the staff to state a comparison about how to deal with the issue of

teaching grammar to improve writing results. Quantitative research will be applied

through descriptive data that will be obtained by observing and measuring the results

through the application of the independent variables; the control group versus the

treatment group; and taking also into account the way we will design the dependent

variables (exams).

Subjects

Our study will take place in a four grade class. This class is form by thirteen kids, in

which eight are girls and five boys. The ages are: one is eight years old, nine are nine years

old and one is ten years old. For this group eight of these kids have been in the school since

pre-school, one since first grade elementary school, one comes from the American School

and three new students that are starting in a bilingual system. This group has shown great

disposition to learn besides their high English level this competence and attitude make them

the suitable subjects for this study

Instruments

For this study we develop two instruments. One questionnaire with three questions, this

instrument was for the English teacher in the school. The instrument was designed to check


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how the rest of the English staff in the school deals with the same issue. The answers of the

questionnaire showed that all the staff thinks that grammar is a big deal when we are

talking about the development of the other skills including writing that is the skill in which

we are interested in. The other instrument was an observing guideline. This instrument was

designed with the intention to have a guideline to observe the fourth grade class during the

research project and measure the different events occurred in class. But by the time we

work in the project we took motivation out of the research. So this instrument turned

useless or not well designed. That is why we consider modifying it before the application of

the study.

Procedure

The procedures involved in conducting this study are as follows. First the

questionnaire was designed to check what was the Colegio Britanico Wisdom teachers

perspective; about the relationship between grammar and written production. Then a

reunion was scheduled to ask for help to the English staff. After the acceptance of the

teachers, the questionnaire was delivered to six teachers form different levels: one from

elementary school, two from junior high, one from high school and one academic

coordinator answered it. With the questionnaires completely answered, we proceed to

analyze the answers, to probe that our question was not exclusive but also a common

problem in the English learners of the school. Another instrument was created and

piloted with the teachers was an observation guideline that supposedly would help the

researchers in the class observation but after a closed review this instrument was

discarded for not being an instrument that could help in the purpose of the research.

Finally the information was analyzed.


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What we want to do now is proceed with the experiment which will be conducted as

followed: First we will divide the class in two groups one of six and another one of

seven students. One group will be the control group (CG) and the other the treatment

group (TG). The CG will receive grammar teaching as it has been done normally in the

school and the TG will receive integrative grammar teaching. To probe all the

information gathered in the experiment we will apply written grammar texts in three

stages: First the written diagnostic exam to both groups, two weeks later the exam to

check the progress for both groups and finally the comparative exam between them.

These exams will give us the opportunity to measure the results and our hypothesis.

Concluding remarks

The way we would like this project to turn out is somehow such way that back up our

current teaching activity besides increasing our students level not only for the academic

purpose we have already established in this paper but also for a better way of life for all of

us. The possible limitations we may have, is the sample size and the difference in the

English level of the students because of the structure of the group with the new members in

the class with any bilingual instruction, as well as the available time to apply the project.

Despite these limitations the group represents an authentic sample of a bilingual English

language school in Puebla and the results may help many teachers and students from

Colegio Britanico on ESL learning.


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References

Hoang-Thu T. (2009) Teachers perception about grammar teaching, Alliant International

University, December 5th 2009

Sysoyev, P.V. (1999).Integrative L2 grammar teaching: exploration, explanation and

expression. The internet TESL Journal, Vol. V, No.6, June 1999. From

http://iteslj.org/http://iteslj.org/ARTICLES/SYSOYEV-Integrative.html

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t Final Ejemplo 1