4.

Teaching Grammar

Grammar is the branch of linguistics dealing with the form and structure of words or morphology, and their interrelation in
sentences, called syntax. The study of grammar reveals how language works, an important aspect in both English acquisition
and learning. Grammar is also one of the more difficult aspects of language to teach well.

The statement “grammar teaching should be implicit, not explicit” could be argued both for and against. Whether to teach
grammar as an extracted focus of ELT (English Language Teaching) or more passively as an inductive, integral topic has
been the theme of countless debates. Strictly explicit grammar study however, and even grammar-focused lessons are often
not communicatively based. They can therefore be boring and difficult for students to assimilate. The strict teaching of
grammar / structure can be frustrating and highly ineffective.

Implicit approach of teaching grammar.By providing grammar in context, in an implicit manner, we can expose students
to substantial doses of grammar study without alienating them to the learning of English. In inductive learning, students are
asked to discover grammatical rules by themselves. They are given input and asked to make sense of it by discovering the
rule. The principal manner in which we can accomplish this is by teaching short grammar-based sessions immediately
followed by additional function-based lessons in which the new grammar / structure is applied in context.

Explicit approach of teaching grammar In deductive instruction, grammatical rules are made salient through teacher-
directed instruction. Some basic features of English language grammar structure are illogical or dissimilar to speakers of
other languages and do not readily lend themselves to being well understood, even in context. In cases where features of
English grammar are diametrically opposed or in some other way radically different from the manner of expression in the
student’s L1, explicit teaching may be required.

Some students also are logical or linguistically-biased thinkers who respond well to structured presentation of new material.
Logical-Mathematical and Verbal-Linguistic intelligence learners are prime examples of those that would respond well to
explicit grammar teaching in many cases.

ExplanationsThe purpose of grammar explanations is not simply to describe structural features; it is to build bridges from
the learners’ present knowledge to the knowledge we want them to have. Given too much information, learners won’t
assimilate it. Explanations don’t have to give the whole truth: they must be true enough to be useful, but also short, simple,
and clear enough to be taken in, remembered and acted on.

Examples should be realistic.Corpus examples are generally hard to interpret taken out of the context that gives them their
authenticity, and are full of nuisance vocabulary that distracts attention from the relevant grammar point. What we need is not
corpus authenticity but classroom authenticity: not ‘real’ examples, but realistic examples which serve our pedagogic
purposes.

Exercises The communicative approach has brought us a greatly enriched repertoire of exercise-types, enabling learners to
practise grammar while saying real and interesting things to each other. The communicative emphasis on pair-work and
group-work is particularly beneficial: if students speak one at a time, nobody gets enough practice to master a grammatical
feature. Gap-filling is pretty unexciting, but here as elsewhere we can benefit from some common sense. Students often need
to get used to building a structure, or to contextualising it appropriately, before they are ready to use it more freely. In this
respect, undemanding ‘mechanical’ exercises which enable students to think about one thing at a time have obvious value.

Presenting and explaining a new grammatical structure

1. Include both oral and written form, both form and meaning

2. Give contextualised examples

3. Older or more analytically-minded learners will benefit from the use of terminology

4. Present and explain in English but as a last resort you can always use students’ mother tongue

5. A simple generalisation is more helpful than a detailed grammar-book explanation

6. Speak clearly and at appropriate speed

7. Elicit the rule or give it explicitly

Grammar practice: from accuracy to fluency

• Awareness – introduction to new grammar to focus students’ attention on new form and meaning

• Controlled drills: students produce examples of the structure

• Meaningful drills: controlled responses but with a certain limited choice

• Guided meaningful practice: students form sentences according to a set pattern but the choice of vocabulary is
theirs

• Free-sentence composition: students respond to a visual or contextual clue and compose a response; they are
directed to use the structure

• Discourse composition: students hold a discussion or write a short text on a topic; students are led to use some
examples of the structure

• Free discourse: students are given no specific instruction to use the structure but the situation is such that it is likely
to appear

Error Correction Teachers can use error correction to support language acquisition, and avoid using it in ways that
undermine students' desire to communicate in the language, by taking cues from context.

 When students are doing structured output activities that focus on development of new language skills, use error
correction to guide them.

 When students are engaged in communicative activities, correct errors only if they interfere with comprehensibility.
Respond using correct forms, but without stressing them.

Using Textbook Grammar Activities

Textbooks usually provide one or more of the following three types of grammar exercises.

 Mechanical drills: Each prompt has only one correct response, and students can complete the exercise without
attending to meaning.
 Meaningful drills: Each prompt has only one correct response, and students must attend to meaning to complete the
exercise.
 Communicative drills

Before the teaching term begins, inventory the textbook to see which type(s) of drills it provides. Decide which you will use
in class, which you will assign as homework, and which you will skip.

Assigning Time

When deciding which textbook drills to use and how much time to allot to them, keep their relative value in mind.

 Mechanical drills are the least useful because they bear little resemblance to real communication. They do not
require students to learn anything; they only require parroting of a pattern or rule.

 Meaningful drills can help students develop understanding of the workings of rules of grammar because they
require students to make form-meaning correlations. Their resemblance to real communication is limited by the fact
that they have only one correct answer.

 Communicative drills require students to be aware of the relationships among form, meaning, and use. In
communicative drills, students test and develop their ability to use language to convey ideas and information.

Assessing Grammar Proficiency

Just as mechanical drills do not teach students the language, mechanical test questions do not assess their ability to use it in
authentic ways. In order to provide authentic assessment of students’ grammar proficiency, an evaluation must reflect real-
life uses of grammar in context. This means that the activity must have a purpose other than assessment and require students
to demonstrate their level of grammar proficiency by completing some task.To develop authentic assessment activities, begin
with the types of tasks that students will actually need to do using the language. Assessment can then take the form of
communicative drills and communicative activities like those used in the teaching process.

Mechanical Tests

Mechanical tests do serve one purpose: They motivate students to memorize. They can therefore serve as prompts to
encourage memorization of irregular forms and vocabulary items. Because they test only memory capacity, not language
ability, they are best used as quizzes and given relatively little weight in evaluating student performance and progress.

‘Grammar’ is many different things which are best taught and learnt in very different ways. Learners and teaching situations
also vary widely; an approach which works well for one kind of student in Britain may be totally inappropriate for someone
else studying English for 3 hours a week in his or her own country. Level is crucial: the more learners know, the more
effectively grammar work can be integrated into other more communicative activities; the lower their level, the more likely
they are to benefit from separated-out syllabus-based explanations and practice. We should reject nothing on doctrinaire
grounds: deductive teaching through explanations and examples, inductive discovery activities, rule-learning, peer-teaching,
decontextualised practice, communicative practice, incidental ‘focus on form’ during communicative tasks, teacher correction
and recasts, grammar games, corpus analysis, learning rules and examples by heart – all of these and many other traditional
and non-traditional activities have their place, depending on the point being taught, the learner and the context.