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Ken Paterson On Spoken Grammar PDF
Ken Paterson On Spoken Grammar PDF
Spoken grammar is the term that’s been given to a certain number of language features that
we know are common in everyday speech, but haven’t really found a place in traditional
grammar syllabuses. For a quick flavour, take a look at the italicized language in the
examples below:
As teachers, we’ve been aware of this kind of language, but in terms of a formal description,
we’ve had to wait for the publication of corpus-based grammars such as the Longman
Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999) and the Cambridge Grammar of
English (2006).
I think there are at least four reasons why you might want to introduce students at
intermediate level and above to some of these features. Firstly, when they are used
together, the features of spoken grammar help to create a personable, easy-going style of
English that is acceptable in most situations these days. Secondly, spoken grammar is often
easy: it’s simpler, for example, to say ‘Any luck?’ and ‘So I said to her, look are you are sure?’
than ‘Did you have any luck?’ or ‘So I asked her if she was really sure.’ Thirdly, spoken
grammar is often a polite grammar because we use it to be less direct, as in a request such
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as: ‘I was sort of hoping you might come with me.’ And finally, it offers students who are
ready a number of ‘buttonholing’ techniques that are typical of the interplay in social
conversation, e.g. ‘It’s so expensive, London.’
You can’t really because, although a number of articles and book chapters have been
written on the subject (see Further reading at the end of this piece), the area is still evolving.
In A Handbook of Spoken Grammar, we sifted through all the material we could find
(including a word bank of reformulated student language built up at the University of
Westminster) trying to locate features that we believed were useful and teachable. We
came up with twenty. In our book, we focus on one language feature per unit, devoting two
pages to an explanatory section called ‘About the language’, two to a ‘Practice’ section, and
finishing off with an ‘Extension’ activity such as a simulation.
Just like any other grammatical item! Once you’re familiar with the rules and purpose of the
features, it’s up to you to decide on an inductive or deductive approach, and whether to use
boardwork, texts, tasks, tests, reformulation or fluency activities etc. But here are some of
the techniques that we found useful and which are featured in A Handbook of Spoken
Grammar:
1. ‘Compromise’ dialogues
These are short conversations that are deliberately ‘loaded’ with the target feature. In unit
14, for example, we explain how people often report what someone has said not by
changing tenses, pronouns etc. but by introducing direct speech with a ‘marker’ word such
as ‘listen’, ‘oh’ or ‘well’. In the dialogue we use below, we ask students to listen, identify the
three marker words, and notice the stress that is placed on them:
But you could also use a dialogue like this simply for raising awareness or for reading aloud,
or you could ‘gap’ it as an exercise.
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2. Written exercises
Written exercises offer a good way for students to practise working with new features on
their own or in groups, without the pressure of real-time production. In unit 19, we take a
look at how bits of language (called ‘heads’) are taken from their normal place and put at
the front of sentences, e.g. ‘Your new pink dress, did you wear it to Jo’s party?’ (rather than
‘Did you wear your new pink dress to Jo’s party?’). The exercise below appears in our
‘Practice’ pages (written by Caroline Caygill and Rebecca Sewell):
Rewrite the sentences in two parts using the underlined heads and the pronouns in
brackets.
1 Could you pass me that jug of water please? (it)
That jug of water, could you pass me it please?
2 Is the book you’re reading at the moment any good? (it)
3 Are the swimming baths far from the school? (they)
4 Did you see those amazing documentaries on Africa? (them)
5 Do you remember the name of the Russian girl in your evening class? (her)
6 I can’t find my memory stick anywhere. (it)
3. Creative practice
A spoken grammar lesson wouldn’t be complete without the students getting a chance to
make their own conversations, using one two of the new features. Below are some
examples from the ‘Extension’ sections at the end of each unit in A Handbook of Spoken
Grammar.
B. Practising the interjections Oh, Ah, Ooh, Wow, Aha, Aah, Oops, Ouch, Ow and Yuk:
(from unit 12) Imagine you are at a very luxurious party. Practise the conversation you
might have with your friend about the food and drink you taste and the people and
clothes that you see. Use some of the new words you have learnt in this unit.
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C. Practising the use of statements as questions:
(from unit 13) Finish the following statements as questions.
So you’ve been to …? We’ll meet at …? You’re a … then? But you
didn’t …?
Prepare and practise some short dialogues using the sentences above, where one person
needs to confirm something the other person says, or needs to express surprise or doubts.
Use ‘statements as questions’ in your dialogues. Afterwards, record your dialogues, paying
particular attention to stress and intonation.
A Handbook of Spoken Grammar is of course a good starting point for any teacher (or
indeed student) interested in teaching and learning spoken grammar. We also recommend
the following titles for those wishing to delve further into this fascinating area.
Further reading
Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan. 1999. The Longman Grammar
of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman
Carter, R., R. Hughes and M. McCarthy. 2000. Exploring Grammar in Context. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Carter, R. and M. McCarthy. 2006. Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Carter, R. and M. McCarthy. 1997. Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Gavioli, L. and G. Aston. 2001. 'Enriching reality: language corpora in language pedagogy'.
ELT Journal 55/3: 238-46
McCarthy, M. and R. Carter. 1995. 'Spoken Grammar: what is it and how can we teach it?'.
ELT Journal 49(3): 207-218.
Swan, M. and C.Walter. 2001. The Good Grammar Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Timmis, I. 2005. 'Towards a framework for teaching spoken grammar'. ELT Journal 59(2):
117-125.
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