briefing_grammar_001_.pdf

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ONLINE DELTA

MODULE TWO

BRIEFING:

TEACHING GRAMMAR

How (or if) grammar is taught goes to the heart of the second

language learning business, which, in a classroom setting, is a

very demanding and frequently frustrating endeavour. It is our

responsibility to facilitate this process and in doing so combine

what we believe is the best approach - in a world of ideal

students, resources etc. - with what our students can cope with,

given their own expectations of learning in general and the

language classroom in particular. The essential dichotomy is

between a focus on form and an approach which is meaning-

based, and we believe it is the integration of these polarities

which constitutes the best way forward. For us the major

question is how this integration is to be achieved.

There is little research support for the wall-building approach

to the teaching of grammar, in which discrete items are

accumulated ("done") one at a time according to some

hierarchy of difficulty or learnability, where the teaching mode

is primarily one of transmission and the knowledge gained is

largely declarative and rarely procedural. We view the

acquisition of a second language as a process of linguistic

metamorphosis in which structures interrelate and change each

other, an organic growth which is unstable and cyclical. To

foster this growth, we further believe that learners need

exposure to a variety of text types in which they can see the

interdependence of grammar, lexis and discourse. `Grammar`,

for our purposes, does not include grammaticised lexis

although teachers need to be aware of the overlap between the

two as described by Lewis, 1993.


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The following questions arise:

1.Should grammar be taught?

Assuming that the answer is yes, then:

2.Are there models or frameworks available for the teaching ofgrammar which we can use?

1) Should grammar be taught?

The short answer is yes. Even if one took an extreme, "natural"

acquisition position, believing that sufficient exposure of the

right kind and some interaction (i.e. an attempt to recreate

mother-tongue learning conditions) will lead to the learning of

grammar, there are other factors to consider, primarily the

expectations of our students and the time they have to devote to

learning English. A teacher's classroom practice should be

based on a view of language and of teaching, as well as a view

of learning. But is this (or any other) position tenable anyway,

and to what extent does it make sense to talk about a single,

unchanging point of view?

Where do teachers, teacher trainers or course book writers look

for guidance when deciding how to teach grammar? The

obvious answer would seem to be from research into second

language acquisition. (Of course, advice from colleagues,

attendance at coferences etc. are also significant sources of

guidance - as is personal experience: but we must remember

that 20 years experience can be the same as 2 varied years

repeated 10 times). Do the researchers have anything definitive

to say which can help? The first problem here is that theories of

second language acquisition (SLA) have multiplied so much

that one leading academic in the field, Michael Long, has

talked about the "culling" of theories. At the 1998 IATEFL

conference, Rod Ellis was rather pessimistic about the help

teachers could get from researchers:

"SLA research does not and cannot tell us how to teach, but

can help us make more informed decisions."

He cited various experiments which have led to conclusions

which contradict each other, and to others which contradict

what many teachers believe they have learnt from their own

experience. One experiment with tasks concluded that a two-
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way information gap produced more negotiation of meaning

than one-way tasks, a conclusion that would surprise very few

teachers - but another concluded that this was not the case.

Another suggested that correction in the form of recasts (a more

recent term for what was formerly known as caretaker languageor motherese) led to improved accuracy but was contradicted

by other research.

Allwright (1988) discusses the dilemma faced by the teacher

trainer:

".the really conscientious teacher trainer will have no

confidence left at all.perhaps he should find a way of avoiding

prescription altogether since he will be unable to find research

support for anything he says about teaching methods, about

what a teacher should or should not do in the classroom."

(p.47)

One is reminded of the bumble bee which, according to various

laws of physics, does not have wings with a large enough

surface area to carry it through the air, given the weight of the

average bee. The bee is unaware of this and flies anyway.

Language teaching is notoriously difficult to pin down and

analyse in experiments which can be duplicated or even

controlled to a satisfactory degree: there are just too many

variables, most of them human. Nevertheless, we go about our

business, as do our students, and, for whatever reason, learning

goes on. Teachers have to be pragmatists and quickly acquire a

repertoire of what appears to work in the classroom. They may

be able to articulate some theoretical basis for what they do, but

equally their eclecticism may only be subconsciously

principled. But can some tendencies, at least, be discerned from

SLA research and used by the teacher, to supplement the

instincts honed by experience?

"In a behaviour as complex as second language learning, we

cannot play only the doubting game, we must temper our

cautious doubts with a willingness to accept certain assertions

until we can categorically rule them out." (p. 245)

What assertions concerning the teaching of grammar appear to

have some credibility at the moment? In 'How Languages are


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Learned' (Spada & Lightbown, OUP, 1993) the authors

conclude that:

"There is increasing evidence that learners continue to have

difficulty with basic structures of the language in programswhich offer no form-focused instruction"(p.150).

In the early 1980s Krashen"s Monitor Theory, as it came to be

known, won many converts who found the idea of

comprehensible input instinctively appealing, and for a short

time grammar teaching either took a back seat or was forgotten

altogether. This was derived in large part from studies in first

and second language acquisition which revealed remarkable

similarities between the two and also showed an unvarying

sequence in the acquisition of certain morphemes. This led to

the view that the learner's internal syllabus will always prevail

and that attempts to grade syllabuses for teaching purposes

according to a hierarchy of grammar were doomed to failure. It

should be noted that teaching material and ideas for the

implementation of a methodology based on this view were in

conspicuously short supply. It was clear, nevertheless, that

there is no support for the isolation, presentation and practice of

individual features of grammar, as stated in the introduction.

Subsequent studies have not changed this position, but have led

to the rehabilitation of grammar teaching within a different

framework. One approach, proposed by Michael Long and

others in the early 1980s, developed by Legutke and Thomas

(Process and Experience in the Language Classroom, Longman

1991) and recently popularised by Jane Willis, is task-based

learning. Another response to the conundrum of how to fit a

focus on form into an approach which places primacy on

meaning is grammatical consciousness raising (Rutherford,

Second Language Grammar:Learning and Teaching, 1987).

Long's research suggests that instruction can change the rate of

grammar acquisition (but not the route) and can result in a

higher level of achievement. It is also argued that it can lead to

greater accuracy. Above all, however, it is the requirements and

expectations of the learners (and, perhaps less obviously, of

teachers and course book writers) which make grammar

teaching in some guise essential. Adults have the cognitive

apparatus which enables them to short-cut the hypothesis-

making of the child, and while comprehensible input may help


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learners to discover rules, it cannot always help them to

understand what is notgrammatically correct.

Another major factor which complicates matters for the teacher

is the need to be learner-centred. Having researched the latestthinking on the teaching of grammar, we find that many of our

students prefer a more traditional approach, more akin to

grammar translation than Communicative Language Teaching

(CLT), and the teacher finds herself balancing what she

believes to be the best approach with the need to satisfy the

need (expressed at the beginning of the course when surveys of

learning styles etc. are undertaken) felt by many students for

overt grammar practice a la Murphy. On longer courses learner

training can be of some help, but when time is short studentsgenerally want to get on with studying the language as soon

and as much as possible, regardless of what we may tell them

about the value of improving how they learn.

In fact, when concluding that grammar must be included as a

significant element in the syllabus, one must also conclude that

there is very little that can be absolutely ruled out in terms of

how we proceed in the classroom. This is because almost

everything has some merit with some classes. Rote learning, for

example, either via drilling or simply through asking students

to go home and learn a list of vocabulary, to be tested at the end

of the week, can be invaluable for certain learners: and it is also

true to say that memorisation, however done, is a crucial part of

foreign language learning.

2) Are there models or frameworks available for the

teaching of grammar which we can use?

There are several and they have been the subject of (sometimes

acrimonious) debate in recent years. PPP, (present, practise,

produce), the father of them all in modern TEFL, refuses to

take heed of the obituaries that have been written for it. ARC

(authentic and restricted use of language, clarification of

language - Scrivener) and ESA (engage, study, activate -

Harmer) have been proposed: all three have some merit, though

it should be said that the constant favour that PPP has enjoyed

has more to do with security for the teacher, student and course


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book writer than theories about second language acquisition.

The other two models deserve greater consideration because

they do not prescribe but merely seek to describe. What all

three have in common is an understanding that at some point

language forms need to be focused on, that students requireopportunities for practice and that "real world" use (or as near

as we can come to it in the language classroom) should take

place. For ARC and ESA there is no necessary sequence to the

elements: PPP carried with it an understood sequence and

assumed a very discrete item approach, although in truth there

is no reason why it should not be more flexible, as evidenced

by the test-teach-test adaptation.

The inductive - deductive continuum has proved helpful whenattempting to place grammar teaching in the context of good

practice. It is an assumption of this paper that attempts to

understand (previously unknown) grammar by the student via a

context which he can understand to a large extent -albeit with

help from the teacher- is superior to an overtly deductive

approach in which the teacher gives a rule from which

examples may be generated. The need to adapt according to the

nature of the students is an important rider to this position, as

indicated above. Another significant variable is level. It maywell be that some advanced students can cope with the

deductive teaching of grammar and find it more efficient to

learn in this way (students studying for exams at FCE and

above can also benefit from packaged, cut and dried shortcuts

which they can memorise then forget as soon as the exam is

over). Nevertheless, any methodology which demands deeper

affective and cognitive processing by the student will make the

consequent learning more personal, memorable and permanent.

To a large extent, then, the teaching of grammar will be

inextricably entwined with the teaching of skills and

vocabulary. At times explicit grammatical features of a text -

perhaps new, perhaps not - will be highlighted, rules of

grammar made explicit: at other times students will be exposed

to "new" grammar but it will not be the object of specific

attention, rather it will be "noticed", feed the acquisition system

and modify the interlanguage of the student the next time it is

encountered. Thus we can hope to incorporate some of the

suggestions from SLA research into our methodology, and


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combining these with our own understanding, based on

experience, reading, conversations with colleagues etc., we can

come up with some simple "do's" and "don'ts", e.g

1.

Allow processing time (although the "silent period" recommended forbeginners is rarely possible)

2. Provide plenty of exposure to longer written and spoken texts3. Don't consistently isolate structures as this will prevent students from seeing

how they interact with and modify each other

4. In most cases, work from meaning to form5. Provide plenty of opportunities for interaction and negotiation of meaning

(e.g. via the use of tasks)

6. Accept that there is no one-to-one equivalence between teaching and learning7.

Don't relentlessly demand accuracy in some structures which researchsuggests, and your own experience tells you, are late acquired, e.g. third

person simple present 's' with low level students

8. Allow time for repetition and revision so that elements of grammar canbecome "automatically" accessible, leaving processing time for higher level

decisions.

9. Try to precede a focus on form with a) some extensive skills work (whichincludes the item or items of "new" grammar) some days earlier which may

encourage "noticing" and begin the process of interlanguage adjustment and b)

within the same lesson, some receptive skills work with a focus on meaningbefore switching to form.

10.Make grammar the explicit focus of some activities, particularly grammarwhich students have already encountered in the classroom, perhaps through

grammatical consciousness raising.

There is an assumption implicit in this list that "grammar" is a

single, monolithic entity and these guidelines apply to any and

all aspects of it, but this is not the case. There are, for example,

features of grammar for which repetition and drilling can be

more appropriate than others. These tend to be aspects of

sentence-level grammar where there can be no debate about the

requirement to use certain forms, such as question formation

with auxiliary verbs. A great deal of grammar, however, is

dependent on context, speaker intention, discourse-level

meaning and even knowledge of the world. This is another

variable the teacher needs to be aware of when planning

classroom activities.


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Our approach to grammar teaching will, then, be informed by

these (and other) provisional specifications gained from the

study of instructed second language learning, by the teacher's

understanding of syntactic and semantic significance but will

be tempered greatly by the needs and learning styles of ourstudents, and by our own understanding gained through

experience of how we can use a framework of the types

described above to provide the security of a structure for

ourselves and our students. Ultimately, however, it is highly

likely that this security will come more from a course book that

meets the teacher's practical and theoretical requirements with

the minimum number of amendments.

References

Borg Teachers' Theories in Grammar TeachingELTJ 53/3

Ellis, RSecond Language Acquisition Research - What's in it

for teachers? IATEFL Conference 1998

Harmer, J.How to Teach English Longman 1998

Nunan, D.Language Teaching Methodology Prentice Hall

1991

Nunan, D. Teaching Grammar in Context, ELTJ 52/2

Allwright, D. Observation in the Language Classroom

(Longman, 1988) Brown, D. Principles of Language Learning

and Teaching(Prentice Hall, 1987, 2nd. edition)

Lewis, The Lexical Approach, Language Teaching

Publications, 1993

Scrivener, J.Learning TeachingMacmillan 1994

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