Teaching Grammar in Context

Reflection on the ELTC ( Edinburg)

Olga Medvedeva , December 2015

What is grammar?

• Do I like / dislike teaching it? Why?

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

What is grammar?

“ …a positive way of making meaning, not just an exercise in tracking errors and labeling parts of speech.” ( Constance Weaver)

Grammar matters for not only HOW it transfers power but for its intrinsic beauty and revelatory qualities (M. Ehrenworth and V. Vinton, The Power of

Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language (Heinemann, 2005).

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

STEPS in TEACHING LANGUAGE ITEMS

• Handouts / class activities

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

What to teach

• FORM

• MEANING

• USE

Handouts / two diagrams

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

ELTC: outline and highlights (1)

• Approaches to teaching grammar

• Form, Meaning & Use

• Time, tense, aspect

• Conditionally speaking

• Reporting

• Multi-part Verbs

• Pragmatics of Grammar

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

ELTC: outline and highlights (2)

• Features of Spoken grammar

• Grammar, Genre & Register

• The Noun Phrase

• Grammar and Discourse

• Common grounds and Articles

• Being impersonal

• Grammar in Social context

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Teaching Grammar…in Context?

• Why do we need “context”?

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

context

• L-ge as a formal system / sentence

• L-ge as communication / utterance

• Sentence meaning = meaning without context

(independent of any speaker or writer)

• Utterance meaning = meaning in context

(what speaker/writer intends to achieve)

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Speech act ( J. Austin, J. Searle)= function

• We ACT / DO through language: the actions are promises, threats, suggestions, offers, requests, commands

• Locutionary force: the literal propositional meaning

• Illocutionary force: the meaning intended by the speaker in the context, the pragmatic force of the utterance

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

FORM & FUNCTION

• Handouts / activities

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Features of context

• Relation between participants

• Role each participant plays in the interaction

• Personality

• Mood/attitude

• Topic

• Settings ( time&place)

• Medium ( speech or writing)

• Genre ( phone conversation, letter etc)

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Practical tasks ( handouts)

• Functional worksheets

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Language learning involves:

• acquiring knowledge of form, meaning and use

and

• the skill to employ this knowledge fluently in effective communication

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva

Activity types focused on:

• FORM : drills, games, “find someone who…”

• MEANING: visuals, discrimination exercises, concept checking

• USE: texts which illustrate discourse considerations which motivate choice of form;

comparison of texts of different or levels of formality;

role plays providing opportunities for variations in context variables;

2015.12.04 Olga Medvedeva