Review and Discussion (2) for

Chapter 2: Grammar
1.What are the possible different kinds of Grammar we could talk about?
-Prescriptive grammar
-Descriptive grammar
-Pedagogical grammar

2. What should be included in the Grammar to be used with L2 learners?

 Input flooding, which means, increasing the number of times that
students encounter the target structure in a particular text.
 Peer interaction has been used effectively in promoting noticing
through the use of specific ‘consciousness-raising’ tasks
 Input-processing tasks in which students are guided to pay
attention to particular aspects of the target language, especially
those aspects that differ between the L1 and the L2, rather than
working on explicit rule learning and application.
3. What are some important issues to consider in deciding what to focus
on?
 Which rules to describe
 Form and function
 Types vs tokens
 Discourse grammar
 Spoken and written grammar
4. What do we know about how people learn?
In earlier years, grammar learning was thought to take place through a
process of verbal ‘habit formation’ which led to overlearning of the
grammatical patterns in a language. Today, grammar teaching has shifted
towards a more communicative approach. The learning of grammar took
place implicitly and is proven to work much better than previous
methods.
5. What do we know about ways to teach grammar? Are some more
effective?
Using a spiral syllabus has proven to be more effective as it recycles
particular structures from time to time during a course. Another way to
effectively teach grammar is not to adopt a grammatical syllabus at all. In
this way, grammar teaching becomes more responsive than proactive.