most English teachers feel comfortable

teaching a conversation lesson or a

lesson that integrates other skills such
as listening reading or writing they
show creativity in those lessons and
include a variety of ideas to help
students improve their language skills
however this might be more difficult
when teaching a grammar topic
unfortunately grammar topics are often
taught as if they are not part of the
language students have been practicing
in integrated skills lessons in grammar
lessons rules are explained or memorized
written exercises are the focus and
students end up feeling they grasped the
rule but they cannot use it when trying
to communicate
how can we combine speaking listening
reading and writing in a grammar lesson
and show students that learning grammar
does not need to be boring and the
grammar is in every sentence they want
to say or write
let's see some basic points present the
grammar topic in context focus on the
function first then the form and show
your students how the grammatical
pattern is used in everyday conversation
it is important to remember that the
function cannot be understood out of
context therefore what a grammar point
means and how it is used go hand-in-hand
let's take as an example the present
continuous tense there are other
functions of this tense but the most
common one refers to actions happening
now let's think of a sentence in this
tense for example I'm walking now or I'm
drinking coffee if the teacher minds the
action and says the students I am
walking or I'm drinking coffee and tells
the students that this tense is used to
talk about actions happening now the
students may understand that very well
however the teacher is not putting the
tense in a real context so that it can
become more memorable and therefore
students can see and understand when to
really use this tense in conversation
how often do we tell our listeners that
we're walking our drinking coffee and
what context can that be used let's see
some examples of meaningful contexts to
show another function of the present
continuous let's say to describe ongoing
actions in order to teach this function
in a meaningful context a teacher can
use the personalization technique with
personal photos like of the teachers
last vacation the teacher can show the
photos while telling the students I have
pictures of my last vacation look in
this picture I'm with my friends we're
having lot
at a very expensive restaurant in this
other picture my friends are swimming
but I'm sunbathing following the suspect
this way of presenting or even
practicing the present continuous is fun
and engaging a detective following a
suspect reports the police what the
suspect is doing the teacher can pretend
she is a detective and show a scene of a
movie that is appropriate to this idea
use any action movie for this
presentation the teacher shows a scene
and says the suspect is walking out of
the building now he is walking along Bay
Street he's crossing the street now he's
getting into his car now remember think
of context situations and memorable ways
of presenting grammar
+
1. What is grammar?
2. 8. Grammar syllabuses Selection and grading  Complexity  Learnability  Teachability
Usefulness and frequency
3. 9. Why teach grammar?
4. 10. Reasons for  The fine tuning argument  The learner expectation argument  The
fosilization argument  The advance argument
5. 11. Reasons against  The communication argument  The natural order argument  The
lexical chunks argument  The knowledge how argument
6. 12. How to teach grammar
7. 13. Rules  The rule of context: teach grammar in context  The rule of use: teach grammar
to facilitate comprehension and production of language  The rule of economy: economise
on presentation. Maximum practice  The rule of relevance: teach grammar students have
problems with  The rule of nurture: teach grammar cyclically  The rule of appropriacy:
teach grammar according to level, interests, expectations and learning styles
8. 14. Inductive approach (discovery learning) example rule
9. 15. Deductive approach (rule-driven learning) rule example
10. 16. Text and context text rule
11. 17. What will learners learn by doing this? Make these sentences passive Example: John
wrote that letter. That letter was written by John.  1.- The cow jumped over the moon.  2.-
Willy ate his sister’s porridge.  3.- Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.  4.- Somebody broke into
our house last night.  5.- Koala bears eat eucalyptus leaves.  6.- The Queen has just
opened the Parliament.
12. 18. What will learners learn by doing this? Make these sentences passive Example: John
wrote that letter. That letter was written by John.  1.- The cow jumped over the moon. NO
SENSE  2.- Willy ate his sister’s porridge. LACK OF COHERENCE  3.- Shakespeare
wrote Hamlet.  4.- Somebody broke into our house last night. TAUTOLOGY  5.- Koala
bears eat eucalyptus leaves. NO SENSE  6.- The Queen has just opened the Parliament.
TAUTOLOGY
13. 19. TIPS TO TEACH ENGLISH GRAMMAR  Teach the grammar they need  Teach
grammar when they need it  Teach grammar in a text  Teach grammar communicatively 
Use pedagogic translation sparingly NEVER FORGET COMMUNICATION IS THE BOSS
14. 20. (c) Oral Skills in EFL - Montse Irun
1. Teaching Grammar Meaningfully How to make grammar fun while actually getting
students to learn Aaron Monroe Anna Nesterova
2. Importance of grammar • Why have grammar? • Students value grammar in language
learning. • Support/supplemental course – Grammar is useful in being taught in support of
language skills • Grammar can be taught in a way that is meaningful and communicative.
3. Issues in teaching grammar • Traditionally, grammar has been used as the focal point
of language teaching • Explicit teaching of grammar does not solely lead to improvement in
use of communicative skills; it needs practice in context of language use • Repetition of
practice with forms is important to help students retain what they learn • Which forms are
important to teach?
4. Making grammar meaningful • Consider the level of your students and their purpose in
learning English! • Lower level students often focus on learning fundamental structures of
English. • Intermediate groups often focus on communicative language learning, not grammar
• Advanced students typically focus on complex grammar of academic registers.
5. Teaching Grammar meaningfully • Purpura (2004) presents grammatical structures in
order from low order to higher order • Consideration of this order is important, but also
frequency of use in language context • Many textbooks include the teaching of grammatical
forms outside of their normal context of use; i.e., present perfect progressive in a intermediate
level writing textbook
6. Accommodating students’ learning styles • Deductive Grammar Teaching (i.e.
through rules) Advantages: • Time-saving • Appeals to adult learners • Confirms to many
students’ expectations
7. Example: Deductive teaching
8. Accommodating students’ learning styles • Inductive Grammar Teaching (i.e. through
examples) Advantages: • Students are more involved • Discovered rules are better memorized
• Promotes learner autonomy
9. Teaching Grammar in context • Studies (Swain, 1995) have shown grammar is best
taught when taught in the context of its language use • Communicative activities that involve
use of language skills lead to better retention of forms as well as provide practice with
language
10. Integration of language skills Grammar & Listening Grammar & Speaking
11. Integration of language skills Grammar & Reading Grammar & Writing
12. Integration of language skills Fun with Grammar
13. activities: The Dictogloss • Task: dictogloss encourages students to reflect on own
output. • Short, dense text is read at normal speed. • Students jot down familiar words and
phrases. • Learners work together to reconstruct the text from shared resources. • Various
versions are analyzed and compared in a whole class setting.
14. Activities: The Dictogloss • The house was built in the middle of the 18th century and
some signs could still be found that it had once been a famous meeting place for criminals.
15. Discussion: The Dictogloss • Swain (1985, 1995) hypothesizes that the requirement to
produce may act as a means of drawing learner’s attention to form and meaning • Students
then become aware of gaps in grammatical or lexical knowledge when attempting to produce
a text. • A teacher can then take student samples & provide corrective feedback, helping
students see how to correct these gaps.
16. What happens? • Kowal & Swain (1994): 3 things happen: 1. Student may learn through
explicit / implicit feedback from group work. 2. While attempting to produce an utterance,
students notice what they don’t know, leading to techniques to fill gap. 3. Students reflect on
grammar.
17. Implications for Classroom Use • Kowal and Swain (1994, 1997): Findings: if solved
correctly, students typically earned 80% of post-test items correct • When students made
mistakes, students generally repeated their proposed solutions from previous task; follow-up
 thus needed • Not stand-alone activities -= teachers must be active during and after task,
giving feedback
18. Reasons to Use • Gigglesworth & Storch (2009); Collaborative writing allows learners to
produce more accurate texts than those by individual learners. • Kowal & Swain (1994);
Raises awareness of links between form, function, and meaning of words as they construct
the message; effective way to teach grammar.
19. Benefits of Collaboration • Gigglesworth & Storch (2009): Pooling of linguistic
knowledge = more accurate, but shorter text than individually • Storch (1998): Text
Reconstruction tasks are effective in helping students focus on form.
20. Text Reconstruction • Kowal and Swain (1997) found similar benefits to the dictogloss •
Requires students to practice with editing and writing • Allows for practice with academic
writing and more complex structures
21. Activities: garden path technique • Teacher: Here is a sentence using words: think and
problem. I think about the problem. Now make a sentence using talk and problem. • Learner:
We talk about the problem. • Teacher: Good. Read and fire. • Learner: We read about the fire.
• Teacher: Good. Discuss and poem. • Learner: We discuss about the poem. • Teacher: No.
We do not use about with discuss. Adapted from Nation & Newton (2008)
22. Activities: garden path technique • Introduces a grammatical rule & leads learners into
situations where they can overgeneralize • Student is made aware of the exception to the rule
in a meaningful context • Better than creating decontextualized exercises for error correction
23. Activities: Collaborative Dialogue • Teacher coaches the student through the process
of saying/writing in a grammatically correct language • Incorporation of a new grammatical
form • Meaningful and more memorable context
24. Activities: Story Circle • The teacher writes a short sentence on the board focusing on a
tense or grammatical structure: • That day, when Julia came back from school, she knew
something was different… • Students write down a sentence and then pass their papers to the
left. Students continue to add to the story until they receive their original paper.
25. Questions?