Week 6

142 Language Teaching Methodology
···i:r
g should be devoted ~· Chapter Eigh t
to foreign langua ge contex t, the initial stages of langua ge learnin
those occasio ns when I have lived and
almost entirely to vocabu lary work. On
nicativ e value for effort in
Focus on Form: The Role of Gra mm ar
worked in a foreign country , I have found more commu
lary to the compar a-
focusin g, in the first instanc es, on develop ing a survival vocabu 1 ,
tive neglect of other aspects of the target languag e.
ge teachin g has done
The develo pment of commu nicativ e approa ches to langua
interes ting empiric al and
much to enhanc e the status of vocabu lary, and some
ken in the area. Theore tical and empirical
practic al work is current ly being underta
investi gated include work on word lists and frequen cy counts.
issues current ly being
raphy and the role of th~
the import ance of contex t to vocabu lary acquisition, lexicog
feature s, and cogniti ve process es, particularly
diction ary, semant ic networ ks and
ses and memor isation . On a practic al level, an indicat ion of the
lexical search process
enhanc ed status of vocabu lary is the recent publica tion of a major course book based 8.1 Introd uction
introdu ction to lexical syllabu ses see Willis 1990.)
on a lexical syllabus. (For a good
ge classro om, the
As vocabu lary teachin g regains an import ant place in the langua Lay person s, language learner s, and many teacher s th emseJves would probab ly see
chapte r will becom e increasingly
issues, principles and practic es reviewed in this the central pedagogical role of th 1 · .
_ teahcher as the teachin g of gramm ar' a~d
the correcting -of learners' errorse ~nguage
that the chapte r has provid ed insights which
useful and significant. It is hoped . h
their own classro om. It is also to be hoped that some of the I . · owever , t e place. of g ramma r In t e languag e
teacher s can test in c assroom IS current ly rather uncerta . Th.
despite the renewed . '?· IS uncerta mty has been brough t about
issues may find their way into an enhanc ed research agenda , for,
interes t, the amoun t of publish ed researc h in the area remain s disappo intingly small. •. "t the
"th th . ttve a roache .
ng
l WI. eoretlcal and empirical insights from second la
this chapter we review this researc h d
,1 focusing in particu lar on the !'olio wmg
_t
I
. ..
. _nguage acquiSitiOn research. In
. an ex~ ore Its Implications for the classroom •
questiOns:
. . .
1. What is the 'contra stive' hypothesis and w
~thesis for teaching gramm ar? ' hat are the tmphca twns of the hy-
2. . h~t were the 'morph eme order studies ' and wh at were the methodological
Implications of these studies?
3. How can we accoun t for the fact that certain gram matica . .
predete rmined sequen ces? litems seem to appear in
4 What is' gramm atical · . .
. consciousness-raising' and h d
grammatical instruc tion? ow oes It dtffer from traditio nal
5. What is the contrib ution of s ste . f unctiOn . .
gramm ar? y mic- al linguistics to the teaching of
6. What ~re pedagogical gramm ars and how can t h ey be used m the classroom?
.
7. What the differen ce betwe . d .
en m uctive and deduct ive approa ches to the t~ach-
JS
ing of gramm ar?
8.2 The 'tradit ional' langu age class room

j Tr d' ·
a Itlonally' the language classroom was a
IOstr~ction in the gramm ar' vocabu lar and place wh_er~ learner s r_:ceived
svstematic
provtded with opportu nities for practi;i ng tfronun~ratton of the languag e, and were
e new eatures of the language as these
J
l
r
144 Language Teaching Method
ology
Focus on Form: The Role of
Grammar 145
. d . . 'ocu
wer e mtr o uce d · Me tho dol ogy tram mg ,. sed on the most effective ways for children acquiring a second
teac her s to pre se? t and prov~d . tice in the targ et gra mm ar. language app eare d to follow
e.. pra che 'con tras tive ' hyp which could not be acc oun ted
for in terms ofth e frequency with
a pre dete rmi ned ord er
For man y curnculu~ spe cmh othesis provided an imp ort- the language items. Moreover which lear ner s hea rd
sts, t ·n of items for instruct , children from very diff eren
ant gui de to the s~lectlon an~ ion (see , for exa mp le, grounds (Spanish and Chines t first language back-
seju.enct t:at a lear ner 's first e) acquired a num ber of mor
Jam es 1980). Thrs hypothesrs language will have an same ord er. How eve r, the ord phe mes in virtually the
c mms f a second. It predicts that er differed from that of the
imp orta nt influence on t_he acq whe re first investigated by Brown. Bailey first language lear ner s
mstt:on o Ies then errors reflecting the eta/ . (1974) replicated the stud
lang uag e rule s conflict wtth first and came up with strikingly sim ies with adu lt learners
. sec ond anguahge ru nd' lan gua ilar results.
ge- in oth er words, the
lang uag e will occur as 1ear ne rst .
ryt ous ete sec o As a result of these and oth er
first lang uag e wr•11 ,.m teu
-"er e' wrth the secon d . Fo r example ' it predicts that Spantsh .
nor adult set:ond language per
investigations, it was conclud
ed that in neit her child
·n . E J'sh to . . f form anc e could the majority of
first languag~ lear ner s WI e nd whe n learnmg ng 1 ,
t plac e the adje cuv e a ter the lear ner s' first languages, errors be attr ibu ted to
' h' . h that learners in fact made man
the nou n, rath~r t h an. befo r eit ast tsts t ewa y r't is don e in Spanish. Such an erro r gra mm ar that are comparable y errors in areas of
is the resu lt of negative tran ' , f the first language rule to the second language. contrastive hypothesis predict
in both the first and second lang
uage, erro rs which the
sfer o d hen the rules of the two lang ed would not occur. The rese
'Pos itiv e tran sfer '' on the oth
er han ~i~~~~~: :rst language uages these investigations tha t a univ
ersal ord er of acquisition exis
archers concluded from
knowledge in learning
s exf~mt is whe re a linguist
coin cide , and lear ner s can .thu an innate learning process. It ted which was driven by
the sec ond language. A thu ic feature ?f the target also app eare d that the nat ure
d poss rath er than contrasts between of the target language,
lang uag e doe s not exist in the y ( . the case with the first and second language,
first Iangua~e as IS f nominal the Eng hsh system of process. drove the acquisition
articles for Chinese learners Classifiers in Tha i for
? or th~ existence o Krashen (1981, 1982) and Dul
ay eta/. (1982) seto ut a num ber
rs Enghs~). I ,tha t lear ner s'
lear ner s who se first language tice which they claim are deri of principles for prac-
The con tras tive hypotheSIS hol difficulties in lear nin g a ved from the mor phe me stud
ds, rstby,. fa research rep orte d in the lite ratu ies as well as oth er SLA
sec ond lang uag e can be pre d. ted on the asts o systematic comparison of the two re (see , for example, Hatch 197
in fact, eith er highly con tent iou 8). These claims, are ,
IC f d·fferent first lanouage backgr s, or self-evident, as can be seen
lang uag es, and sec.ondly.that
lea~
Chi nes e and Spamsh) will exp n~~~ ~~:er~nt difficulties when atte mpt ing t_o learn
ounds (say examples, which are extracted
from Dulay eta/. (1982: 261 -3).
from the following
ene gloss/comment on each claim. 1 have also provided a
a com mo n sec on d Ianguagc ( such as Eng I.IS h) ' an d that thev• will mas ter dtfferent (As you read these principles,
. the fact that many of these you should bea r in mind
. As we see in the next sectiOn . · claims go well beyond the rese
aspects of t h ~ gra mm a r at .drfferent trmes. , It was arch findings themselves.)
the stro ngc latm sof con tras uve al sis which ultimately got it into trou ble ' for when
had with diff eren t feat ureys

an y
rese arch ers actu allY ana 1 ed the erro rs th a t Ie arners made and the difficulty they
'
s of the targ et 1anguage, they were unable to sus tam many
·
1. The re app ear to be innate
secon-d language in the same

process·es which guide L2 acq
[The finding that learners, rega uisition.
rdless of thei r first language,
J
app ear to learn a
of the claims mad e by the con ord er pro mpt ed the notion that
trastivtsts. mechanism 'trig ger ed' the acq an internal mental
uisition process.]
2. Exposure to natural commun
ication in the target language
subconscious processes to wor is necessary for the
k welL The richer the lear ner
8.3 Se con d lan gu ag e ac qu isit ion research and its targ et language, the mor e rapi
d and comprehensive learning
's exp osu re to the
is like! y to be.
inf lue nc e on pra ctic e (The fact that conscious, exp
licit instruction was unable
acquisition led to the suggestion to alter the ord er of
that the processes responsible
guage acquisition must be larg for second lan-
Dur ing the earl y 1970s a sen.es . . I investigations ely subconscious.]
of emp mca h , o pheme into lear ner language were
order' studies, and their
3. The lear ner needs to com pre
hen d the con tent of natural com
b
carr ied out . T hese ecam e kno wn as t e m r new language. mun icat ion in the
. h . a 'nat ura l' sequence in the ·
principal atm was t o fi n d out whe ther. t ere the
lS ord er JO [The largely commonsensical
not ion that we can not acquire
which sec ond language lear ne:s gra mm ar of the target languag Th what we do not com-
acq~tre . of research by Brown (1973)
e. e pre hen d, and the limited succ
ess of oral drilJs, led to a focu
stud ies followed ~n from a
disc ove red tha~ chtldre_n.learnm
~w~ er; 7s~ ~~:c ~rst
, who
language passed through strikingl
as the key to acquiring a seco
nd language. J
s on com pre hen sion
g y 4. A silent phase at the beginni
similar stag es m acqmrmg four ng mmatical structures and that
, contrary to req uire d to pro duc e the new
ng of language learning (wh
en the stud ent is not
. te_e n ghra b twe en the ord er in which items wer language) has proven useful
exp ecta tion ther e was no relatiOns tp e cutting down on interlingual erro for most stud ents in
s,
acq uire d and the frequency wrt . h h. h theyewere used by the rs and enhancing pro nun ciat ion
parents. [This poi nt is der ived not from .
I
Dul ay and Bur t (1973, 1974a, w) frc d th t like thei r first language the mor phe me studies, but from
b oun a , counterparts, studies carr ied out in the early a series of case
1970s and rep orte d in Hat ch (197
8).]
!
146 Language Teaching Methodology 147
Focus on Form: The Role of Grammar
.
5. The learner's motives, .
emo_~o~:· an d attitudes screen what is presented in the In an important study conducted in the 1970s, Larsen-Fr eeman (1975) used a
language classroom , or outhsi e! . d . n methodology had to account for. the range of tasks for eliciting morpheme orders in adult subjects over a six month
f a compre ension- nve \ period. The tasks included the Bilingual Syntax Measure, a sentence repetition task,
[Proponen ts o learners to acqmre. . Th ey did this by postulatin g an emotiOnal
failure of some J a listening comprehension test, a doze test and a writing test. While the morphem e
'filter' which blocks the target language.] . ,. 'bl ·n grammar accuracy orders on some tasks were similar to those of Dulay and Burt, they differed
~
h I ' first language IS neg Igi e I . :_J:
6. The_ influ_ence oft e. earner s the findin that learners tend to make similar on other tasks. This raises the possibility that the order in which items appear to be
[This pomt stems directly f~oml ua e Jowever it should be noted that even 1 acquired is determine d in part by the type of instrumen t employed. In a follow-up
mistakes regardless o~ ~h_eu rst an~o; heme studi~s became widesprea d there investigation, Larsen-Fr eeman (1976) found that frequency of input might be one
in the days before cnltcism of,the
was controver sy over the actua percen a
tge
of errors which could be attributed to
·1·
. factor influencing acquisition orders.

Despite criticisms of the early morpheme studies, subsequen t research has pro-
first language interferen ce.] vided substantial evidence that certain grammatical items appear in predeterm ined
:_,. sequences, and that these predeterm ined sequences do not appear to be alterable by
ndations was to play down the role of grammar in
instruction (see, for example, Cancino eta/. 1978; Hyltensta m and Pienemann 1985).
The net effect of these recomm:mmaticall structured syllabuses was questioned,
the classroom. The efficacy of gr nd the rol{ of error correction . The role of gram-
1 For example, all learners, regardless of whether they are learning in a second or
as was grammati
..
cal mstruchon
II
,a .
. ed was thus senous1y un ermi
d ·ned Whether or not such
. l foreign language context, and regardless of whether they are receiving instruction,
chers, classroom practice is another ,, appear to go through the following four stages in the acquisition of negation:
mar, as_tradttto
. . na Ylly
1 had any' e ffect on 1ea
concetv
I d 1 b lookingat whatteach ersactuall ydo;howe ver, No work/No understan d.
I'
prescnptiO ns ac ua . h l't t r Stage 1: 'no+ verb'
matter, which could be sett e on y y I don'tlike/ He don'tcan swim.
. d .d read currency tot e I era u e. Stage 2: 'don't+ verb'
they certainly game WI esp . h e orne in for severe criticism in the years since .l' Stage 3: 'auxiliary + negative' She can't go./He don't stay.
The morphem e order st~~~~s a~ ~been made of the way in which the data were l Stage 4: analysed don't He didn't stay.
their appearanc e. Major cn~~I::,:seli~~tation instrument used by the researche rs- the
collected and analysed, and of cartoon-style pictures whtch .
are '.l
The most elegant hypothesis on the developm ent of acquisition orders is one first
M u e (BSM) a sequence
..
Blhngual Syntax eas r heme~ lthasbeen suggested thattheres ultsobtam edby developed for German as a second language by Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann in
t't If and that data collected by other j Germany, and later applied to English. These researchers claim that we can explain
I.
meantto ehcit the target morp .·
the BSM may be an artif~ct o~t~e ms~~~:~s \;~r ~ discussion of this, see Larsen- and predict the order in which grammatical items are acquired by what are called
means may have resulte m 1~8;~nLarseri"Freeman and Long 1991. The sconng . speech processing constraints which limit the amount of language we can hold in
language we pass
Freeman 1975, 1976; Nunan ''d t h ve 'acquired' a structure if they used b
It lj. short-term memory. In developing our competen ce in a second
· h' h bJ'ects were sm o a to e no a series of stages. Each stage is more complex than the one before it,
procedure , m w IC su . e has also been criticised. There seems through
th than ' say ' 80 per cent or 100. per cent should ! complexity being defined in terms of the limits on short-term memory.
correctly 90 per cent of the lim .
hy90perc ent ra er
. . 1d
pnnclp e reason w ll ' . . . ortant to collect informatw n on mcorrec 1 j According to this hypothesis, learning a second language is basically a matter of
have been selected. Additiona y, ~ I~!~fon the developm ental process. -l mastering a series of mental operations . In order to speak a language
fluently, these
as well as correct usage, as this she s tg . rincipled relationsh ip between the l must become largely automatic , in the same way as the physical operations in
Other criticisms include ~he fa~t th~t t~e~::~t::which behave quite differently are j breathing, walking, running and driving a car must become automatic for us to carry
different items selected formvesi!Jat~nft~ite article were grouped together' although ·l out these actions competently. Because speech processing operation s are very
grouped together (the defimte and·~~ e tly (Pica 1985)). In a detailed critique of the l complex, and also because the time available for speaking or comprehending is
we now know they b_e?~ve qmte I eren. n uistic forms are studied in isolation from •. limite~,
·! it is only possi~le
to focus on a limited parht oft?e whole spefech_p:ocessing
studies, Johnston cntiCISed the fact ~hath g1985) It is also claimed by Pienemann . operatiOn at any one time. Learning a language, t en, ts a matter o gammg auto-
their communicative functtons (Joh ~ston d e.searchers fail to offer a theoretical .
1 matic control of these complex mental routines and subroutin es.
and Johnston (1987) that the ;;'or~ erne ort::t ~he researchers are unable to say why . In learning English, we first learn isolated words and phrases. The next stage is the
rationalef or the findings. By t Is t ey ~ean t make prediction s about the likely .J 'standard' word order of subject+ verb+ object, for example: 'I like rice', 'I go
~h:fve ~~~o~eeon home', 'I can swim'. Then comes a stage in which the learner adds an element to the
appear
the fmlure
criticised place
ing takes
in the orde; investigated. Breen (1985) has also
acqUisitiOn ord~rs of Items wh c h t take the social context withm whtch learn~
the items
of S~A re~ea~c t~rsdo . and implemen tation of their research.

into constdera hon m e estgn
I. 'core' structure, for example 'yesterday, I go home'. After this comes a sequence of
: stages in which the learner develops the ability to rearrange internally words from
J the core structure, for example 'can you swim?'. Here 'can' is moved from the middle
Ii
Focus on Form: The Role of Grammar 149
of the structure to the front. At the next stage, learners would be able to carry out determine where the boundaries are. and therefore to know wh .t. .
more complex rearrangements, producing structures such as 'where are you going to use one structure rather th h E" ., en 1 IS appropnate
tonight?'.
You can see from these examples that each stage builds on the one preceding it, ~~ei~~=~;~!~ ~~:~a~~~n; closer; r:~;~;:~r~ss~~~~~~~:: i:~~~;~:~~ut~~~~~~~t~~~:e:~
and makes progressively more demands on memory. I have grossly oversimplified marksoffit . eman Jc_an_ g~amrnatical system in such a way that each
the hypothesis here to give you some idea of the logic behind it. For a more detailed In. summ s ow~~~amng domam, Le. In the case of verbs, its own portion of time
ary' research has done a great deal to advance o k .
and comprehensive account see Johnston (1985) and Pienemann and Johnston languag~ learning processes and outcomes. Above all else it ha dur nowled~e of
(1987). complex_Ity of the processes involved in learning a second 'langu~g:m~nstrate h the
':n~~: fr~";
There have been a number of different, even contradictory responses to the
finding that some grammatical items are impervious to instruction (in other words, ~~:a d:~~~~p~~;:lh::a~e t;~:~~~~~ ~~~;e;e:~:;c::~s~~~e thought. to
that instruction cannot change the order.in which the items are acquired). As we have learners have been telling us for years· that "f th. pports somethmg which
already seen, one suggestion made as a result of the morpheme order studies was that the classroom Oth d . I . , I any mg, we tend to overload them in
. er pe agogica outcomes are less certain Th, .
we should abandon all attempts to grade syllabuses grammatically and to teach
grammar systematically. Rather, learners should be immersed in communicative ~~~~~~;o;han app~oach fin which all explicit grammatical inst:~~t~~~7ss ~~c~:~~t~~
' equestwnso when how andhowmuchf
activities in which the focus is firmly on meaning rather than form. An alternative not been settled. Ultimately claims m~de b SL ocus top 1ace on grammar has
suggestion is that syllabuses should still be grammatically sequenced but that the can ~e settled only by valida~ing studies insi~e th~ ;~sesarrocohmersRoeuctesidte thekclassroom
sequencing should follow the 'natural order'. These conflicting suggestions underline t 1 · • · n wor on gram
rna •.c~ consciousness-raising has attempted to marry SLA research with eda 0 -
the fact that research is often neutral as to its-implications for practice and that we and tt 1s to such work that we now turn. P g gy,
need to test these ideas in the classroom to determine their effects on acquisition.
There are, in fact, a number of problems which emerge when one attempts to
apply the results of this research. If one is to follow a natural order of instruction one
must have classes consisting of learners who are all at the same developmental stage. BA Grammatical consciousnes s-raising
·It is also necessary for these learners all to progress at the same rate. While these
conditions might obtain in some foreign language contexts (for example, with total
beginners), they are problematic in second language contexts. Additionally, in ~hceo'~;~~:~~, ;~~ othfelangut_age lefarning presented at the end of the preceding
·
section
no IOn o grammatical ,·nstruct·Jon as conscwusness-raising
second language contexts, we need to consider the possibility that learners may need (CR) Th . .
to learn some language items (such as question forms) as formulae to enable them to
t . d. 1
e c earest and most perceptive mtroductions to grammatical CR are con
aJ~e m Rutherford (1987) and Rutherford and Sharwood-Smith (1988) -
communicate at early stages of their second language development. Another factor R rejects the split between conscious learning and subcons . . ..
£;Jif:~i;~~i~~lf~J::.E:f:~:~:;~od~~r.~ !f:~~~:=;~:~~~:~!~~~1~~~~:~:~
which needs to be considered is the long-term effect of instruction. It may well be that
even though learners are incapable of reproducing a particular item at the time it is
taught, systematic exposure over a period of time will speed up acquisition in the long
run. This is certainly one of the implications we can derive from Long's (1983) litera-
•
1
~ roa er IScoursal context. In addition jt takes an
ture review which demonstrated that instruction speeds up the rate at which learners •
orgamc rather than lmear yJew of learning and the f . ' 7
learn in contrast with those who try and pick the language up naturalistically, without , notion th t . re ore reJects the rather naive
,f Rutherfo:d o~~;7so~ethi~g. has ~een taught it wi~l of necessity have been learned.
i the 'traditio~al' b~iie~ ~~~~::ng his ca~e for consciOusness raising, explicitly rejects
formal instruction.
Lastly, there is a problem in assuming that the learning of a language occurs in a
linear sequence. We know, in fact, that language learning is an organic process .J language I . s . a anguage IS constructed out of discrete entities and that
characterised by backsliding, leaps in competence, interaction between grammatical J rejects th earn~ng c~nststs of th~ gradual accumulation of these entities. He also
elements, etc. This organic rather than linear nature of language development is due through te n~~JOn ~ at grammatical rules can be directly imparted to the learner
in part to the fact that structures are not learned in isolation, but that they interact
.l'
interrelati~:~~i;~ b:~:~:: ~~:~e ~~;~~~:i;~a~~nm~:ys;~;e~ia:;r~ because of the
with each other. Eisenstein et al. (1982) investigated the development of progressive bei_n? _basically inductive rather than deductive (see section om actiVIties as
and simple forms and came to the conclusion that the problem of learning closely
related verb structures is that while each has its own job to perform, it is also ~~;~~~~~re reant t~ facilitate the learning process by providing ~~~a~~~~:~h ~~~~~
interconnected with other structures. This makes it difficult for the learner to what they :ire~~~ ~n tes~h~pkotheses._ and also by helping learners link the new with
no.w. n I e traditional approaches to teaching grammar, then,
a means
.
, .
.. ....•...
grammat ical CR fulfils a process rather than product role: it is a facilitator, A: ............ holiday.
It been argued that for language -to- B: When ............ ?
to an end rather than an end in itself. has
the gap between their own
! A: Next week.
language developm ent to occur, learners must 'notice
for B: ···· sorry.
producti on and that of native speakers (Schmidt and Frota 1986). One function A: Why ........... ?
CRisto assist learners to 'notice this gap'.
that B: ·· ... work.
Sharwoo d-Smith (1988) take a rather different line from Rutherfo rd, arguing
n is one type of consciou sness-rai sing. He draws attention to When we are surprised by a statement we can show ou . .
'tradition al' instructio question, and
n between 'explicit' knowled ge and 'implicit' (the former denoting a putting the stress on the question word. . F or example· r surpnse by askmg a
the distinctio
features of the language , the latter Tl1e weather looks okay. ~ Does it? ·
consciou s, analytical awarenes s of the formal ~ Is it?
be both The wood's wet.
referring to an intuitive feeling for what is correct), and suggests that CR can
Whhattqyuesti~ns would we ask to sho; surprise at these questions?·
highly explicit or largely implicit. (For a detailed
see
treatmen
Bialystoc k
t of
1981,
the role
1982.)
of implicit and
T a IS oshi over there. ~
explicit knowled ge in language learning, Alice likes white wine ~
been
The following example s of grammat ical consciousness-raising exercises have I live next door.
some of
taken from Rutherfo rd (1987) and Nunan and Lockwoo d (1989). While Tomoko is from Japan.
have
them bear a superficial resembla nce to 'tradition al' grammar exercises , they Alex lives across the road.
quite a different purpose. In the first place, they are derived from genuine inter- 1 The wine is cold.
actions and authentic texts, not ones which were designed for pedagogi cal purposes
. l
What do the italicised referents in the following text refer to?
II
from which they have been extracted is
In the second place, the pedagogical context After they saved a little money, Howard and Ellen wanted to.
basically commun icative in nature. Addition ally, the exercises ·recycle'
language
floo:plan was almost exactly the same as rhatofEII en' ~uy a house. So they did. The
points over several units of work, allowing learners to reformul ate their understan
d-
Buymg it was not easy for the young couple but Ell s parents h~me where she was reared.
ing of the structure s over time. Lastly, they invite learners, inductive ly, to develop She could not stand living in their small .t en was determme d to go through with it.
hypothes es about the target feature of the language. l that she had alw~ys lived with Howa daparlmd e,nt a~y longer. She wan red the.kind of space
j · · r cou n t qmte understan d 1 · ·t ·
moving to more spacious quarters. Their small a a . us WI e s msistence on
was almo~t like the one he had lived in as a child ~ rtment was btg enough ~or him. In fact it
Look at a map of the city.
almost daily, 'If only /had more room' . ut he could remembe r Ius mother saying
Find the suburb where you live.
Imagine you are having a party at your place this Saturday night. (Rutherfo rd 1987: 160-1) ·
What would be the easiest way to get from the city to your place by public transport? d' d· .
Gramma tical consciousness raising
the a?ove example s, can be re~lised in' ~~n IS~~;;:re m t~IS section, and illustrate
Now write instructio ns on a piece of paper for a friend. d by
Look af. this conversat ion skeleton: creative techniqu es for sensitising lea y nt w_ays, a~d ~here are numerou s
municative context. The different exa~~e~~st~hgramm.atJcal prmciples within
a com-
A: Coming?
ways of teaching grammar ' and it is wron~ t . ow quite clearly that there are many
B:
A:
Where?
Ayers Rock. two mutually exclusive choices when it c;mo Imply that. teachers are c~nfront ed with
of grammar alto th es to_ teachmg grammar : either avoiding
B: Why? the teaching
A: Holiday. approach . ge er' or returnmg to a 'tradition al' form-focused
B: When?
A: Next week.
B: Sorry.
A: Why? 8.5 System ic functio nal linguis tics and pedago gical
B: Work. gramm ars
Now expand it into a complete conversation.
One of the major models of langua e i f . . .
functional linguistics. This approach argue~ t~rmlmg this bo?k ~s t~at of
A: ............ coming ........... ? systemic
B: Where ............ ?
the context and purposes for which Ia g . at an ~aue exist~ I ontext; and that
j language is realised at the levels oft n~uag; Is usedwlll_Q_e_:ernunet iseno
A: ............ Ayers Rock.
B: Why ............ ? l. ex an grammar . While there
ways in which.
one-to-o ne
relationship between form and function (otherwise we should not be able to com-
municate to a very sophisticated degree at all), the relationships between the two are
not arbitrary. The fact that there are principled links between form and function has
been eloquently argued by Halliday (1985a, b).
I
J ~~~~~~:~~~(~~~~~~ ~~~~~e6~~at~e grammatical
sy~tem
is properly assimilated by
weight to this claim sho : th ore recently Swam (1985) has added empirical
contexts is insufficie~ wmg at exposure to the target language in meaningful
153
Recent work in systemics has also addressed the issue of grammar, and the debate edge of grammar Su~:~r :ost_
learners to de:el.op a sophisticated working knowl-
over whether or not grammar should be taught. Like most contemporary views of to express thems~lves co~:t~~~~ekdn~;~t~~g:~~e':~~r~l~i~~et~:use learner~ ab~ity
is
grammatical consciousness-raising, this approach advocates explicit grammatical meanmgs grammatically. y can en co e t elf
instruction, though not a return to 'traditional' grammar teaching. Not surprisingly,
given the general approach to language as summarised above, the approach is a top-
down one which begins with whole texts and works down, rather than beginning with
ij~:~:~~~ :o;~~~~~'Z:;;~ ~:~~sn~ :~~~~er~~:~,~~~aar~, ·~:~~~. ~~~~~~~,~~::~~~~~
individual grammatical items and working up (usually, only as far as the sentence).
o ogy' e ~ ate, as we have seen, has been over the proced~res throu h which
In other words, when the teacher wants to focus on a particular grammatical item, ~i~~n=~ ~~~am m~stery, whether and to what extent they should undertake ~xercises
that item is introduced within a particular context, and learners work from context to e I erat: ocu~ on for~, or whether they should pick up the grammar in the
text to sentence and clause, rather than from clause/sentence to text. (For examples ~races~ ~f meamngful mteractJOn. Information about the target language which may
of how this is done see Butt 1989.) The pedagogical approach derived from this ine ;:~ag~it::t~;:~:~ studednts of the langu~ge for learning purposes is presented
model of linguistics also seeks to show learners how language differs according to the rs, an we now exam me the concept of pedago ical
mars, as .wei.! as a number of recently published books on teaching gra;mar r~~~~
context in which it is produced, the purposes for which it is produced, and the commumcat1ve age.
audience to which it is addressed.
:(~aroJ~cal grammars ~re i_ntended to provide those involved in language teach-
Within the context of literacy development, Hammond suggests that the teaching
of grammar from a systemic functional perspective, in which learners are taught how
.
1
mb me u mg ea~ners) With mformation on the grammar of the Janguaoe forth
language actually works at the level of text, has a number of major benefits. Principal pu~poses o~~;chmg and learning, syllabus construction, materials dev~lopmen~
1
among these is the fact that it can contribute to learners' literacy awareness. It also an so. on. e they may reflect current theories of grammatical description and
provides teachers and learners with a shared vocabulary for talking about language ~hna 1~SIS, pehdagogical grammars do not necessarily follow a particuhlr grammatical
e01y or sc ool of thought. <
and the way it works. This, she claims, contributes significantly to successful literacy PitCorder(1988)makesth · tth · ·
development. by the bel" f f h h e pom at any grammatical presentation will be shaped
le ~ O t ~ aut orson the nature of language, the intended uudience and
A teacher who, as part of the regular language sessions, talks abou!, analyzes, compares. the purpose for which the grammar was written in the fiJ·st pi'Jce A I' . '..
fo 0 th r . . < • mgmst wntmg
contrasts and reflects on written texts, whether they be published texts or the students' own .r er mgmsts Ill order !o p~esent a new grammatical theory will produce aver
writing, not only promotes an interest in written texts, but provides the students with a ~Jffere~~ work fr~m an ~ppl!ed hnguist writing for a foreign language teacher in orde~
language that enables them to reflect on and analy:z;e written texts themselves. It enables
the students to remove themselves from the process of creating a written text, to objectively
f~Ij~~:~ e matenal whJch can be used in the classroom. He
exemplifies this point as
analyze it and to develop an insight into what makes one -text successful and another Author Reader Object of •grammar'
unsuccessful. (Hammond 1989: 19) Linguist Linguist
To illustrate and validate a rarticular linguistic
No one seriously interested in the development of second and foreign language has theory
Linguist Student of
ever suggested that learners do not need to master the grammatical system of the To teach syntactic theory inductively through its
linguistics application to a particular language ~
target language: the debate has been over how learners can best acquire the target
Applied Educated native
grammar (see Widdowson 1990 for an incisive discussion on the relationship between To systematize in linguistic terms the implicit
linguist speaker
grammar and meaning). Wilkins, one of the principal architects of communicative knowledge of the reader
Applied Teacher of the
approaches to language teaching, argues for a notional syllabus, that is, one in which To systematize the implicit or explicit knowledoe of
linguist mother tongue
the basic building blocks are the meanings and concepts expressed through the the r~ader ~n a form which is pcdagogic<tlly app~opriate
language, not the grammatical elements. However, he also points out that acquiring for his (native speaker) pupils
Applied Teacher of a
the grammatical system of the target language is of central importance, because an linguist To systematize the implicit or explicit knowledoe of
foreign language
inadequate knowledge of grammar would severely constrain linguistic creiltivity and the r:ader in a f?rm which is pedagogically app~opriate
limit the capacity for communication. 'A notional syllabus, no less than a grammatical for his (non-native speaker) pupils
(Pit Corder 1988: 128)
Rutherford (1980) suggests that the development of some pedagogical grammars -

1. Presentation. Making the st ruet ure sa1Ient through an input text in whi.ch th e 1"tem
involves the principled selection of items which reflect pedagogical experience as appears.
well as linguistic theory. He points out that since the development of communicative 2. ISolation and explanation. Ensuring that students understand th e vanous.
approaches to language teaching, the selection of structural elements is often con~ · . .
of the structure und er mvesttgat10n. aspects
strained by the prior selection of semantic and functional elements. Several books 3. Practice. <?etting students to absorb and master the language
have been published in the wake of the debate on the place of grammar in the 4· Test. Gettmg learners to demonstrate mastery. ·
curriculum which are aimed at providing teachers with ways of teaching grammar
Frank and Rinvolucri (I987) attempt t "d
within a communicativ e context, and it is to three of these that we now turn. activities which while pro "d" I o p_roh~I e a ~ange of classroom exercises and
In her book on teaching grammar, McKay (1987) suggests that there are three .' . VI mg earners wrt mtensJve practice in a number of basic
different views on what it means to 'teach' grammar. The first view is that teaching ~~rp~?syn_ta~t!c Items, do so within a context which stresses 'communicative' rather
grammar entails the formal explanation of grammar rules. While learners who n mgUJstrc competence, language in action rather than Ia
receive a great deal of grammatical explanation will end up knowing quite a lot about symbols to be manipulated, and ability rather than knowledge T~eua~es asbseths of
approach m terms of 'awareness' su . · Y escn e t e1r
the language, they will not necessarily be able to put the language to communicative
effect. The second view is that teaching grammar is basically a matter of providing
learners with practice in mastering common grammatical patterns through a process
of analogy rather than explanation. The learners may becollle fluent in the structures
:~~S~~~~~~~i~u~~;~:.~;~~l~~i~~Jf~I~~~£:~~i~~~~~~e:i:~~~~:~~;~:~~~i
h · , e earners control what is said wh ·1 th
teac er provides direction on how it is said. 'This adds up tot t I. I ' I e e
they have been taught, but may not be able to use them~ appropriately in genuine
communicatio n outside the classroom. The third view is that teaching grammar is a learner's whole person, with total responsibilit for what o a mvo vement o~the
matter of giving students the opportunity to use English in a variety of realistic ra~her~oose frame~ork of predetermined cues' (Frank and ~~nO:o~~:rip;~;~.c;) m a
situations. The disadvantage of this approach is that learners will not be able to prin:i~l:s~:~~ ~e;~~~~i~:.e look at how these authors have attempted to p~t these
provide explanations of the grammatical rules of the target language. McKay's text is
based on the belief that the primary purpose of instruction in grammar is to help our
students use English correctly and appropriately. While some classroom time will
undoubtedly be devoted to teaching grammar rules and to having students practise 8.6 Pedagogical materials and techniques for teaching
grammatical patterns, it is important to remember that such instruction is only the means grammar
toward helping out students gain competence and co.nfidence in the language. (McKay
1987: xi-xii) Most contemporary co b k d .
establish ame-Ijke situ u~se o_o s ~n matenal~ _for teaching grammar attempt to
In other words, explicit treatment of grammar should be seen as a means to an end, through a~ask h. h h atrons m _which t?e rep_ettttve practice of the structure occurs
rather than an end in itself. Teachers should therefore keep this end in view, .,-~';"""-"'-7"' w IC as a meamngful dimensiOn In other w d th I .
regardless of the particular pedagogical techniques and classroom activities they simply performing drills. Illustration 8, from Ur, i~ a good on~~ s,~
employ.
In the introduction to her book, Ur (1988) raises the issue of whether or not
grammar should be explicitly taught. She argues in favour of explicit teaching in
the belief that mastering the individual elements of a language, be they lexical,
phonological or grammatical, is a valuable means toward eventual ability to com-
municate in the language. She makes a point which was raised earlier in this book,
that learning to do something need not necessarily consist of repeated attempts at the
target performance. In other words, learning is not necessarily the same as skilled
performance, although at some stage in the learning cycle, it will entail an attempted
rehearsal of the skilled performance. However, form-focused exercises should pro-
gess to meaningful activities which should themselves ultimately give way to tasks
where the emphasis is on successful communication. Ur advocates a fairly traditional
four-stage approach to the teaching of grammar items:
ILLUSTRATION 8 ILLUSTRATION 9
11.3 Detectives In class

Ask the students to write down the 'opposites' of these words·
Affirmative, interrogative and negative of have; simple oral repetition. typins real angry Monday
good
Procedure: An object to be 'stolen' is decided on -say a coin, or a ring. ~ th~ students to suggest the 'opposites' they have come up With Jot down
One student (the 'detective') is sent out of the room. One of the e vanous acaoptable 'opposites' on the board. ·
remaining students is given the object: he or she is the 'thief'. The Good has produced; naughty, evil, bad, nasty.
detective returns and tries to find out who is the thief by asking each th .: hand-w_riting, ~ng, walking (in that typing is a kind
~~f:'::: ~th
participant: o e fingers). silent wnting etc.
••<=-Zl'6 WI
Do you have it I the ring? . · f

Get students to explain why they propose a given word as the oppos:te o one
on the list.
Each participant- including the actual thief- denies guilt, and accuses
someone else: 3 Write 0e following scene up on the board and ask the students to writ "ts
1
N,o, I don't have it, A has it! OppoSlte or reversaL Don't give examples of how to do this as if you d~ th"15
Whereupon the detective turns to A with the same question- and so will reduce the diversity of the students' reactions to the task. ' '
on, until everyone has been asked and has denied responsibility. The Thewaitfl'SS came up to Table No.3 and offered the tall man the H
detective then has to decide in three guesses who is lying- who 'looks chose and ordered. She went back to the kitchen to get what he w:"ed: e
guilty'. The process is then repeated With another detective and another ConEJ:onted with this tas_k. some students simply put all the sentences into the
thief. negative. Others try to find 'opposites' and write:
Variations: The activity may be made more lively by encouraging 'A waiter went down to chair letter C and took away the bill from the :snort
.c
woman.'
students to act innocence or indignation as convincingly as they can:
they may change the emphasis or intonation of the set sentences as they Group the students in four.; to read their 'reversals' to one another.
wish, add gesture and so on. Another technique, which abandons
5 Now. tell the students that your are going to tell them the reversal of a bad
verisimilitude but helps fluency, is to get the class to complete the expetlence from your Ol'Jillife. We once told this story in class:
round of'interrogation' as quickly as possible: ('Let's see if we can get
round the whole class in two minutes' .•• 'Let's see if we can do it again 1 went. to work as an au pair in Fran~. It was a marvellous family with vt>ry
few children. My hostess was very kind and understanding I had aim
in even less time'). work to do and oceans of free time I had been . · ost no
in the end r stayed for 6 months.' · gomg to stay for 2 weeks, but
Source: P. Ur. Grammar Practice Activities (Cambridge .University Press.
1988), pp. 123-4. Reproduced by permission.
6
Ask the students to shut their eyes and think of some bad ~ they
! :::.se~d· Also ask them to prepare to tell the experience to someone else.. but
A basic distinction in learning theory is between deductive and inductive learning.

l 7 Find out how ~y people have brought back bad experiences to mind
gro~p them With people who haven't and ask them to tell their---~·
Deductive learning is j stones. I<OYC»<:Q
an approach to language teaching in which learners are taught rules and given specific l
.!
8 Ask the lisl:enen; to now tell the stories they have heard to Ouot::~~
and so on.
• L - • .L.
Ill ule group,
information about a language. They then apply these rules when they use the language.
Language teaching methods which emphasise the study of the grammatical rules of a j Rationale
1 th ·
language (for example, the GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD) make use of the principles of Atfirst..;~J..
"''''t, e exerose
strong 1:~....._,__ ......!.
above
• th seem a little"'"""'""""
may --~-..,
b u t 1., provo....,
'--· very
deductive learning. . ~'""·"'0 comy..ouenszon, as e listener is doing a double decoding .) /h
~ , thsense of th.e so~ and words of the 12; and ii) s/he is trying t:0 I s e
This may be contrasted with inductive learning or learning by induction in which learners
are not taught grammatical or other types of rules directly but are left to discover or induce
rules from their experience of using the language. (Richards et aL 1985: 73)
j reverse e scme being listened to, to find the real meaning.
Variation
Illustrations 9-11 are from the introduction to grammar practice books published I Instead of bringing sad situations to mind and telling th .
the students to bring back happy situations and tell thernemsa~~~ily, you could ask
since the beginning of the debate on the place of grammar within the communicative l1 All sorts of opposites can be played, e.g. with: trivial/important
curriculum. All are aimed at teaching the simple past. From the extracts, it can be rect!ntlfar back in time
selfless/boasting.
seen that there is considerable divergence in the approaches taken by the authors,
Source: C . F ran k an dM . R involucri, Grammar in Action (H
some favouring an inductive approach, while others favour a more deductive
Hempstead: Prentice Hall, 1987), pp. 46-7. erne!
approach.
ILLUSTRATION 10 ILLUSTRATION 11
tht Present Progrt::rsiveand Past Ttmt
"d n also be used to contrast particular verb tenses. For 23.1 listening to stories
A gn ca
example, in order to ~ntrast the P;:::: ::g;:e
·ve and past tense,
students such as
you migh~ be~indby&!"~! ~h~:~dent is O~Jening the window, say Use of past for narrative; listening comprehension and slot-filling; oral.
"Open I e wm ow· . ~ Th tell the same studentto close the
"Luv3nisopeningthewmdow .. en "L v dosed the window.~ Procedure: Tell the srudents a story - improvising from skeleton
window. After he has done th1s, say, u an
Then put the following grid on the board.. notes, or reading our from a text (see BIBLIOGRAPHY for recom-
PRESENT PAST mended sources). The story should have plenty of action, and be
easily comprehensible to the students. Get them to focus on past
I .
1. Luvanisopemngthewmdow.. . 12· Luv nclosedthewindow. J
3 . forms by asking occasionally for a translation of an irregular form,
grammatical point in English, two basJC or by stopping and getting them to supply the verb- bur nor so often
ap~~o;::~s l~pr~~~~~i~~~~~~n:ei~ea~l\~~~~~;~h?!:l~ce~ ~Y~~~X,~~

·n wilh an
as to interfere with overall 'pace' or comprehensibility. After you
int In this case. or
have finished, ask them ro recall some of the sentences in the past
stnve o e . ammar
man~ examples of a parttcu~r g~ many~nte.nceswhichindicate that were mentioned in the story- using one-word 'cues' to jog their
"h'm, ~~y~~::~ ~~~~~n~ 0~ ~:~;done, students w~uldsee how
memories.
wa... f d'1 Enghsh Comment: You do not have to finish a single story in one session; use
th~=~:~~er:n~~~=ea~sd :~!~::...:r:p;::ch 7n which .Y?U tv~ longer stories, or complete books, and read them in serial form, a few
explicit altention to the differences in rorm.ln this case, you ml~ :e minutes each lesson.
several short questions such as the following, and then summanze
students' responses. '
I. - What are the two verbs in sentence t? (is opening) What has been
added to the main verb? (ing) ?
2 _ What has been added to the main v~rbin sen~ence_2. ~~ at the
gomg
23.2 Piling up events
3. Which sentonce descn'bes somethmg that IS
present moment?
Use of past for narrative; repetition and construction of simple sentences
. ld as shown below underline
~:~~~~~~~a: ;::·;~eq~:~~";~~o;r~:de' a brief explana;ion of the
.
based on given past forms; oral, with optional written follow-up.
diffetences between the two tenses.
Procedure: Give each student a verb in the past tense ('sat' or 'stood' or
PRESENT PAST 'gave'). Then start a simple chain of events with the sentence:
l t. Luvan il" opening the window. j 2. Luvan cl~ the window. j Yesterday I went to town and I bought a loaf of bread_ . ,
The first student continues, repeating your sentence but adding a
roach ou use will depend on such things as the age of your further clause including his or her verb:
:~:n~p:nd the :,m~lexity of th~:::7a~~~~1j·.,.:.i~o~!~er;n~~~
.h
Yesterday I went to town, I bought a loaf of hread and I sat on a
i~d~~:iv;a~~l~~~=~~ :~;!~~c~yt oriente] adults, t~e
students may
park bench ...
a· u ' d ppreciate an explanation of the grammalical rule. The second continues likewise:
expect ~a a 10 rovide further practice in contrasting the pr~ent Yesterday, I went to town, I bought a loaf of bread, I sat on a
On~iv: and :ast tense for reporting actions would be to descnbe a
p_ro~ rocess such as scrambling an egg. First, go through the proc~ park bench, and I stood at the bus stop ...
::p ~:monstrate each step. Use simple commands such as I e And so on, until all the students have contributed, or until the chain
following. becomes impossible to remember.
4. Cook the egg.
1. C~clnheegg. 5 Sit down.
2. Sttr the egg. · . Source: P. Ur. Grammar Practice Acth'ifies (Cambridge University Press.
3 Pour the egg in the pan. 6. EnJOY the egg. . 1988), p. 213. Reproduced by permission.
gh h rocessone time, repeat the process, but thts
~!::i:;:soy~~~~ ea~:~ep a~k s~udents i~u a;~ed:~~;
.
and the what
The~ can then respond with such thm_gs as :~~~~~~:~~s ~~t..hat did I
After you complete each step, you_~,fu~:things as ~y ~ cracked the
0 Illustration 12 is from a self-study book for second and foreign learners of English.
just ~o?" Theyv':'~:::~,:~~:;rd:scribe a simple process for the class
e~-u~~~~:demonstrations to further practice the present progres-
You might like to make a note of the similarities and differences between this way of
:i:e and past tense for reporting actions. introducing the simple past and the teacher-directed suggestions above.
Source: S McKay Teaching Grammar: Form, Functi_on
a~d Tech~ique (Hemet Hempstead: Prenttce
Hall,l987), pp. S-7.
ILLUSTRATION 12 We now turn to the classroom itself, to see how these various ideas are realised in
practice (for further examples from a range of foreign language classrooms, see Peck
a) Study this example: 1989). In the two classroom extracts which follow, the two teachers are both trying
to teach wh- questions to relatively low-level learners. However, both have very
Tom: Look' It's raining again .
. not a ain It rained all day yesterday too. different ways of realising their pedagogical intentiOns. The first teacher adopts an
Ann: Oh
Rained no,past simple
is the
. le to talk about actions or situations
g . tense. We use t h e past Simp inductive approach, while the second uses deduction as a teaching strategy.
in the past.
Pre-reading task
1 very much enjoyed the party·
Mr Edwards died ten years ago. k
:::: When I lived in Manchester, I worked in a ban . 1. What strategies would you expect to see employed in an inductive teaching
lesson? What strategies would you expect to see in a deductive lesson?
b) Very often the past simple ends in -ed: . but they decided not to come .
.- We invited them to our party h e last night. 2. As you read the extract, decide on the teacher's objectives.
: : "fl:: :~~~ ~~:~;:~~a~~o:be::!se ~~e studied very hard. Classroom extract 8. 1: Grammar lesson
For spelling rules see Appendi~ 3. l Th.' s means that the past simple does not end in --cd.
But many important verbs are Jrregu ar.
For example: · The teacher circulates around the room, asking questions about train travel. The students all
have copies of a train timetable.
leave-+ left We all left the party at 11 o'clock. f . d f "ne
Yesterday 1 went to London to see .!1 nen o m• . T: Now ... back to the timetable. Where do you
go
cost --+ went
cost This house cost £35,000 in 1980.
--+ catch the train? Where do you catch the train?
The past of the verb be (am/is/are) is was/were: [She points to a student in the front row.]
1/he/she/it was we/you/they were S: Keswick
T: Yeah.
_ ___ use Tom and Ann were late.
I was angry .OCUl
.
[She turns and writes on the white board 'Where do you r:atch the train?'.]
For a list of irregular verbs see Appendix 2. T: Do you know where Keswick is? ... Okay,
c) .
In past simple questions and neganves we use did/didn't+ the infinitive (do/open/ram etc.): where do you catch the train? At Keswick.
I it rained did it rain? it didn't rain I Keswick is near the city- but not the big
railway station. It is about, oh, one kilometre-
Ann: Did you go outthlast.n~~!' ~~~t didn't enjoy the film. two kilometres from the city, and- the big
Tom: Yes, I went to e ~m ·
) trains go from Keswick. If you want to catch
_ When did Mr Edwards dle?
- What did you do at the week-end. . 't come. the train to Melbourne, or to Sydney, or to
_ We didn't invite her to the party, so sh~ dldn Alice Springs, you go to Keswick. It's the new
- Wh didn't you phone me on Tuesday. railway station. All right. So, where do you
y did/d'd 't with have:
Note that we no~7:Ja~l~uu~:ve tirr:e 7o
write the letter? . at catch the train? At Keswick. Now-whattime
=
I didn't have enough money to buy anythmg to e .
Bttt we do not use did with the verb be (was/were):
. what time does the train leave?
Why were you so angry? b Ss: Nine. Nine o'clock. Nine pm. Nine pm.
-_ Th eyweren't able to. come because they were very usy, Nine am.
.L )
[Leans over a student and checks the
_ Was Tom at work yesterW~y.
timetable] OkaY. Depart nine am. So ... [She
For the past simple see also Units 12, 20, 21. returns to the board.] ... what can I write
here? What time ... [She writes' What time'
Source: R. Murphy, English. ~rammar in u,e (Cambridge University Press, 1985), P· 22. on the board] What comes next, what time
Reproduced by permiSSIOn. . ? Does ... does ... [She writes 'does the
train·. J . . . does the train ... yes?
S: [inaudible comment]
No, what time does the train ... ? What's
another word for 'depart'?- Leave. What time
does the train ... leave? (She writes 'leave' on
162 Language Teaching Methodology Focu s on Form : The Role of Gram mar
163
seem s that wh- ques tions with 'do' are
the boardl Okay •You • you tell me ....
.
It leaves
· ? beyo nd the processing capacity of the stud
The teach er's attem pts at eliciting the ents
atnin eam. O k a y • what time does ttarn ve. . ques tion form from the stude nts is not
S: Er,el even fifty- etght am. ticularly successful, even after several par-
T: [Leans over his shoulder and checks
examples are on the boar d, and she ends
~is . supplying the forms herse lf. On the up
othe r hand , when focusing on the sema
timetableJ Okay · Now -whe redo estta rrrve at cont ent requ ired by the ques tions , the ntic
· ht? At Victor Harb our? stud ents are quite successful.
e)evenfi f ty-etg · It wOuld appe ar that majo r prob lem
Ss: No.G o6lw a. here is that there is a twin focus: on the
hand on the form ation of wh~ ques tions one
T: No. with do inser tion, and on the othe r hand
extra cting key infor mati on from writt , on
Ss: Gool wa. Gool wa. en broc hure s. While the task succeeds
T: Gool wa. Have a Jook at your map second obje ctive , it fails in the first. In in its
and see if addi tion, the stude nts do not know what
that the teac her is trying to do in this it is
youc an findGoolwa · Seei fyou canf ind part of the lesson, nor whet her they shou
ld be
Gool wa on this map. focusing on mean ing or form (or both
). I believe that the inter actio n wou ld
S: Near ' er, near the Victor Harb our. been more successful if the teac her had have
restr icted her focus to a single obje ctive
Near Victor Harb our' yeah. [She writes if that obje ctive had been spell ed out. , and
'What
T: · • JOkay what comes next? . · ·Wh at The following extra ct is take n from a
wne · • · n!Wh tf class which is very similar to that in extra
time ... ? Wha t's the questlo a tme 8.1 (bot h consist of low proficiency learn ct
ers). The grammatical focus of the sessi
. . ·~? ... does [does]? (teaching wh- ques tions ) is also similar. on
S: ... the train arriv e. · · How ever , the teach er is quite diffe rent,
l her teach ing appr oach . as is
~
.
T: A rnve. [She writes 'does the train arrive at
G00 I ?' ] All right so what ttme . h
does t e
wa._ • '?O
train arnv e at Gool wa. k
ay.
Wha t time?
S: Eleven. Eleven. Eleven fifty. ~ Pre-reading task
As you read this seco nd extra ct, mak e
T: Eleven fifty ... eight. Wha t's an.otherw a note of the differences betw een this teach
ay of appr oach to the teach ing of gram mar, er's
saymg e Iever lfifty-e>ght?· Two mmu tesOk to· · · and the teach er in the prec edin g extra
ct.
twelve. Yeah , two mmutes to twelve.
[She continues in thts fashton, atte~ptm
g
ay.l .t questions and answers from the
toe
students,
eb~~rd until the followmg patte rn is dtsplayed
j Extract 8.2: Teaching gram mar thro
ugh drill and prac tice
an d buildmg up the question paradtgm
. 7 on th 1 - The teach er and students are sitting
in a large circle. The teacher has some cards
Wher e do you catch the tram. i She looks at a question. in her hand .
What time does the train leave?
What time does the train arrive at Gool T: Let's have the question ... 'live' [She
wa? gestures
How long does it take to go to Victor Harb with her hand.]
How long does it take to come back?
our? ~
~1 S: What do Jive.
How long do you spen d in Victor Harb }, T: No, not'w hat', what's the question?
our?
How much does it cost? S: Where .
. .T: Where! Good . Whe re ... [She leans
. tude
nts to the boar d, the teach er gtves them forward
With out draw ing the atten uon of~~~ and gestures with her hands.]
sasks them to find simi lar infor mati on
anot her broc hure and t_tme~ab.le, t the to that S: Whe re ... you ... live.
which they have foun d m re atton o excursion to Vict or Harb our. T: [Gestures encouragingly] He ·s nearly there
.
Can you help him?
Post-reading task S: Whe re.
[The teach er begins counting the words
. nduc tin a teach er-fr onte d ques tion and off on her fingers and repeats each word
as the stude nt
1 In this extra ct, the teac her ts co .d g t dent s to wh- ques tions wtth .ans~e~ says them.]
· . tt
session. She ts a em pting
.
to mtro uce s u do S: Where[wherc] ... do [do] ... you[y
. th ugh an mdu cttve . h Revi ew the extra ct. Is t here an y ou] ..
insertiOn appr oac . live [liveJ.
ro h. b. tive is too difficult for the learn T: Okay. Listen [The teach er speak s rapid
~~n~~~~~~!ti~~~s ,!;~uld you mak e to this lesson?
ers? ly and
makes sweeping gestures with her hand
2· s to
. .t indicate the intonation conto ur. JWhere
. f ng the reqm red struc ture, I d"you
From the difficulties the stud ents are live? Where d'you live? Where d'you live?
havi ng'" gene ra '
164 Language Teaching Method
Wh ere do you live? Eve ryon e.

her han d arou nd the grou p.)
T: Oka y. Victor, please ask Rob

erto
ology
[She swe eps
.
S: Whe re do you live?
S: Wh ere do you live?

l any brot hers or siste rs? Rem
Oka y. Helena, coul d you ask
question, please?
Vic tor the
Focus on Form: The Role of
emb er yest erda y?
S: Have you got any brothers

Grammar
, er, sisters?
S: Yes. I've got er two brothers
165
T: Wh ere do you live? , two siste rs.

S: 1 live ... in Smithfield.
T: Okay, fine. Whatwas.~umb Pos t-re adi ng task
erfive-the
que stio n- 'languages . 1. \Vhich lesson do you thin k
Ss: Wh at, er 'wh at ... what ... is mor e successful? Wh y?
what .. 2. What would you have don
lang uag es. · · e diff eren tly in this lesson?
T: Wh at languages· · ·
S: Wh at ... languages. · ·do In con tras t with the teac her in
· ·· extr act 8.1 , this teac her pers
if one stud ent fails to resp ond ists with her pro bes and .
T: Do app rop riat ely, she asks ano the
S: ... you ... speak. the stud ents with the req uire r rath er than sup plyi ng
T· Yes Wh atla ngu age sdo you
d resp ons e hers elf. Wh eth er
spea k?W mak e the stru ctur e par t of thei the stud ents are able to
· · · hat r pro duc tive rep erto ire is high
lang uag es do you spea k?· Rem
..
emb er? Wh at
.
to the research of Pie nem ann ly dou btfu l (acc ord ing
lang uag es do you spea k? Oka and Joh nsto n 1987, the stru
y, Dam e!, ask processing capacity of lear ner ctur e is bey ond the
s at this level of proficiency).
Pia. stru ctur ed, drill-like exe rcis e Des pite this, in the high ly
S: What lang uage s do you spea pre sen ted in the tran scri pt,
k? com e up with the req uire d stru mos t lear ners are able to
s: 1 spea k Eng lish . ctur e.
T: Uh huh , All righ t. And in
you r cou ntry ... I
spea k Vie t. ·
S: 1 spea k Vie tnam ese. 8. 7 Inv est iga tin g the tea chi
ng an d lea rni ng of gra mm
T: Goo d, I spea k Viet nam ese.
Am i. . S: And ... And a littl e.
ar
T And a little Eng lish . And
a little Eng lish. And Task 8.1
. a littl e Eng lish . And ... a Record-a lesson or lesson seg
little [The t_eacher men t in which the focus is
pau ses, gest ures and smiles enco
urag mgl y at aspect of gram mar . Ana lyse on teaching an item or
the seg men t. Wh at beliefs eme
one ofth ema lest ude nts. ] gram mar and lear nin g? rge abo ut the nat ure of
S: E ng1.IS h •
T: Oka y I kno w you don 't like
sayi ng you spea k ,j Task 8.2
a littl~ Eng lish . [lau ghte r] Wha ~-'- Analyse several cou rseb
t's th~ next ook s, looking in par ticu lar
one ? [She cons ults her card s.] at the intr odu ctio n to the
Q~est~on. , teacher's edition. Wh at doe
s the analysis
Mar ried ... Wh at was the ques
·abo ut the auth or's beliefs abo and the exercise and activity
tiOn.
ut the natu re of gra mm ar and types reveal
S: Are ... lear ning ?
s: Are you mar ried ? Task 8.3
T: Uh, huh ,are ... Ask Ros
a please. Dev elop a com mun icat ive task
s·. Are you mar ried ? (e.g . role play , discussion, pro
blem ). Dec ide wha t
items of gra mm ar learn~rs will
S: Yes ,Iam . nee d in ord er to carr y out the
. . my the task to two par alle l gro ups task successfully. Tea ch
T: Yes lam . Th ISIS ? [The teac her poin or classes, pro vid ing explicit
.... ts gra mm ar inst ruct ion to
one gro up bef ore com plet ing
to one of the mal e stud ents .] the task but not to the oth er.
s: This is my wife. tasks. \Vere the stud ents who
rece ived the explicit inst ruct
Rec ord and ana lyse the
T: Wife? [laughter] carry out the task or not ? Wh ion bet ter equ ipp ed to
;j y or why not?
S: Ah, hus ban d. ~~
T: This is my husb and . Oka y.
Hav e you got. i Task 8.4
Hav e you got any chil dren ? Hav
e you got a ? "! Develop a com mun icat ive task
(e.g . role play , disc ussi on, pro
pen ? Hav e you go t · · · a boo k? Hav e you got. ;~ used in task 8.3. Rec ord som blem ) similar to tha t
e nati ve spe ake rs carr ying out
the task. Tra nsc ribe the
11;Jj
'i
inter actio n. Teac h the task .

to two arallel grou ps or classes, allow
ing one Chapter Nin e
pk h ndle d the task befo re completi group to
stud y the way a grou p of nauv e sphea ng the task
erks ~ere the stud ents who received
themselves. R ec ord and anal yse t etas s. the native
Focus on the Learner: Learning Sty
spea ker mod el bett er eqm.ppe d to carry out the task or not? Why or why no t?. les an d
Task 8.5
Strategies
.
Select a gram mar pom t and develop! a lesson to teac h it inductively and deductively.
T eac h t he lesso n to two parallel c asses. R e cord and analyse the lessons. Which
seem ed the mor e successful? WhY?·
8.8 con clu sio n 9.1 Intr odu ctio n
at
In this chap ter I have look ed f dthe curr ent statu s of gram mar in the language In language teac hing , research into
learn ing strategies and c.ognitiye_iryl
t cla,·ms mad e som e years ago that the es has been
classroom. I too k as mY Pomt o . epar ure a nota ble area of growth in recent year
s (see , for example, Pearson 1988;-Re
of mar I "l"t SI"nce then a mor e balance d . h Rubin 1975; Rub in and Tho mps on iss 1985;
gma vtew as
teac hing of gram mar was . . uti 1 y.
h. h amm ar has' been rein state d (assum . 1983; Wenden 1986, 1991). In this
chap ter,
eme rged from the liter atur e, a vtew mg I review this research and consider
m wdic Hgr its implications for language teaching
that , in reali.ty, It
. h d been depo se ) . owev er ' the new appr oach es, informed implications for methodology in part . The
a _eve: . . theo r and psycholin . icula r are considerable. given evidence
by recent advances m hngmsllc guistic research, are qurte suggests that accommodating learn which
Y . d the teac hing of gram ing style and strategy pref eren ces in
diffe rent from appr oac h es w hich .char acte nse mar in the 1950s room 'can resu lt in improved learn er the class-
fu f onal lingu istic s has prov ided . . satisfaction and attai nme nt' (Willing
and 1960s. In part icul ar' syst emic - a prmctpled This chap ter answers the following ques 1988: 1).
n~ t d f rm Adv ance s in linguistic theo tions:
way of linking cont ext and text , func ry
tto~
have also foun d their way into peda gogy ~~ n~tio~ of grammatical consciousness·
1. Wha t are learn ing styles and strat
egie s?
vta e h 2. Wha t are the findings from rece
. d'
raisin·g. Des pite their 't
Iversi y, the new er appr oac es have som e common features. nt theo ry and research into learning
style and
. . t"on of language and learm.ng to strategy pref eren ces by second lang uage
The y brin g a muc h m?re_ so Phisticated conc ep ' 3. Why should we inco rpor ate strat egy
learners?
ntext of com mun icati ve language teac . Th train ing into our teaching?
peda gogy ' and OCCUr With Ill the CO hmg. e 4. Wha t are som e techniques for teac
. I" ste -by-step procesS has largely been hing learning strategies and developin
noti on that the learn ing of gram mar
IS a mh~ar ·, .P w in which the development of learning how to learn ? g skills in
repl aced by an orga mc, . ven meta mor p ICa ' vie
~ . t rms of proc ess as well as prod uct. 5. How can learn ers be enco urag ed to
activate their language outside the class
gram mati cal com pete nce IS seen m room?
e 6. Is ther e such a thing as the 'goo d'
language learn er?
9.2 Research into lea rnin g sty les

and stra teg ies
There is a larg e body of literature on
the issues of cognitive style, learning
learning strat egy, and- some of this style and
work is being embraced by second
language rese arch ers. While there and foreign
is obvious overlap between second
acquisition rese arch and learning lang uage
strategies, rese arch which seeks to
strands of rese arch is lacking. (A nota link both
ble exce ptio n is work by Rod Elli s-
l example, Ellis 1987.) As an example
of the over lap between thes e two area
see, for
~' sider the claim mad e by Kras s, con-
hen (1981, 1982), refe rred to in the prec
-~~!!_~l!!~-~~~-~~-~cif- eding chap ter,
?1!-S __ pn?_cess~ and that gram
j matical instruction is
IDEAS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR I 47
~easfor
SPELLING·
3rd person: add·~· or 'es'
Teaching Grammar PROI\!!JNCIA TION Present tense USE:

SIZ:I!Z.. · t with certain
worksc adverbs,- often,
lives · seldom,
washes sometimeS~ etc.
You may be a teacher who normally teaches students to understand and
FORM 2. to show habitual
translate texts by studying the vocabulary and grammar in your own Affirmative: He works actio'ns
language. In other words, you use a Grammar Translation method to NegatiVe: He does not work 3. for scientific
teach English. The activities in this chapter will introduce some variety Q: Does. he work? truths
into your lessons, while giving your students a good knowledge of Neg Q: ..Doesn't he work? 4. after 'when',
grammar in order to prepare for their exams. before 'until',
etc.
First, let's have a brief look at how all teachers, whether new or experi- Figure7.1
enced, can improve their ·awn knowledge of grammar. Then we shall
look at activities which present grammatical structures to our students
in a clear and interesting way, and which help to practise using these
structures correctly.
CONTINUOUS or
SIMPLE PROGRESSIVE
J
iMPROVING··. YQ"U~;()*'tfKNOW,t.E~~~ OF GRA.MMA!!. He works
l
Present He is working
There are many ways in which you can revise and improve your own Post He worked He was working
English grammar. You can learn on the job. Don't expect to learn the
Present perfect He hos worked He hos been working
I
whole of English grammar before you teach it, but spend time reading :, I.
and studying the structure you are going to teach when you plan your
next lesson. Try to find a grammar book tbat you find easy to under-
Post perfect He had worked He had been working L
stand, or find someone (maybe another teacher) who will help you. Future He will work He will be working
Make notes on the gramn1ar you need-for the next lesson in a way that Future perfect He will have worked He will have been working I
you understand. Keep your notes carefully. If you do this during the
year as you teach, then at the end of the year, you will have your own Figure 7.2
granunar book which is completely relevant for your own teaching and
which you can easily understand.
Let's think about the sort of information you might want to record However, using grammar is just as important as knowing about
about a grammatical structure, for example, the present tense (Figure grammar. B;; using the PPP framework for planning lessons, you will
7.1). help studei:tts to apply their knowledge. Here are some activities for
You may also need to know the names of all the tenses, together with an presenting and practising grammar. You can adapt the activities to
example, so you can make a diagram like that shown in Figure 7 .2. practise the structures that are in your course book or ones that your
students need to study for the exams.
48 / THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER'S HANDBOOK IDEAS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR / 49
When teaching grammar remember: Presenting grammar through a text

Another way of presenting granunar directly is by asking the students
.- You can present grammar directly or indirectly. to underline particular granunatical points in the text. Students then
.,. Always put the grammar in a context so that the meaning is clear have to work out a granunatical rule. They can do this by discussion in
and students know when to use the structure. Ask questions to pairs or groups.
check this .
..._ Students need to practise the new grammar. Example: underline all the examples of the past tense in these sentences .
..,. There is a wide variety of activities in which students can practise How do you think the past tense is formed?
using the new grammar fluently; for example, discussions, debates,
role plays, simulations and presentations. 'Yesterday, I worked in the fields until dusk. As the sun faded, I leaned
against the old tree and looked with pride at the neat rows of seedlings.
PRESENTATION PHASE Then I gathered up my tools and walked towards the house.' I
You remember that in Chapter 4, we saw that when you present a new
language item to students, they must understand what it means. They
must know when to use this language and how it is formed grammati-
cally (how and why the endings of the words change (Example 1) and in
what order the words go and how and why this changes (Example 2).
This technique can be used with many grammatical structures like con-
ditionals, conjunctions, comparatives, pronouns, adjectives, etc.
Presenting grammar through comparison

The teacher puts two similar grammatical structures on the board.
1
:· i
.
:'r
Students must discuss the differences in form, meaning and use.
Example 1: I play the violin: You play the violin: He plays the violin:
Example 2: He can play the guitar.
Example: 'My sister lived in Kampala for three years.'
(Question form): Can he play the guitar?
'My sister has lived in Kampala for three years.'
There are several ways of presenting new grammar to students.
This technique is particularly useful when comparing the different
'Overt', or direct, teaching of grammar is when the teacher presents the
uses of tenses. (The timeline, Figure 7.4, can help present these struc-
grammatical rules and information. 'Covert', or indirect, teaching of
grammar is when the teacher does not explain the grammar to the tures.)
students, but helps them to understand it in different ways. Let's look
at how we can use these approaches. Presenting grammar indirectly
In this approach, the teacher does not draw the students' attention to
Presenting language directly any specific gramn1atical information. Let's look at some examples of
In this approach, the teacher clearly presents rules and explanations. how we can do this.
For example, to teach the question form in Example 2 above, the
teacher tells the students that to make questions in the present tense Presenting through a situation
u~ing 'Can', you must invert the subject of the sentence and the modal The teacher either tells a simple anecdote or story or draws a series of
auxiliary. This inversion is then followed by the bare infinitive of the pictures which give an outline of a situation.
verb 'to play'- the infinite without 'to'.
Grammatical structure: He should have ... /He shouldn't have ...
The teacher can then give other examples to help students understand
the meaning of the new language, so that they know that you use 'Can
you . . . ?' or 'Can he . . . ?' to ask about someone's ability to do Example:
Teacher: 'Last week a friend came from England. He was very tired
something. The teacher can also draw a clear diagram on the black-
after his flight. It was very hot and sunny. At 10 in the morning, my
board to help students understand the grammar. (In Chapter 19 there
friend put on his swimsuit and sat in the garden reading his book. After
are more ideas for using the blackboard to present grammar.)
')
'f
50 / THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER'S HANDBOOK IDEAS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR / 51
a half an hour he went to sleep. The sun came out and the temperature Using diagrams and time lines to help students understand
was 35°C. At two o'clock, he woke up. He was badly burnt and felt very
grammar
sick. When we put him to bed he was shivering and feverish. What did
he do wrong?• 1t is sometimes easier for students to understand the meaning of a
grammatical structure by looking at a diagram. Clear b~a?kboard
Sometimes, one or two students will already know the right phrase, but presentation is very important. You c~ use boxes, un~erlmmg and
if they do not know it the teacher has to tell them. 'He should have worn arrows to show the relationship of words m a sentence (Ftgure 7 .3).
a shirt.' Students should then be able to think of other things the friend
should or shouldn't have done in order to practise using the phrases. The
teacher must check that students understand the meaning by asking Making questlo~s from sblte-
Making questions from
statemerits using .modals .ments without modals
questions like 'What is your advice to him?', 'Did he have to sit in the
garden?', 'Did he know he would burn?', etc. He can play th~ guif~~" Hediv~ inthecity
Presenting grammar through pictures and real objects

Grammatical structure: prepositions of place ('on', 'in', 'between',
'under').
The teacher draws a room on the blackboard or shows students a large
X!
Can he play th¢ guitar:? .
. !! !!!·
IDoes I he live]>( in the city?
picture of a room. He now asks questions about the position of things in Figure 7.3
the room. 'Where is the radio?' Once again, some students may know
the new language already and can supply the prepositions: 'It is on the
table.' If none of them knows it, the teacher must say the sentence
Time lines are a very good way of showing lengths of time and their
clearly and teach the prepositions. You can also use real objects or your
students to do this kind of presentation. relation to present time (Figure 7.4).
::,_
Using the students' knowledge to present grammar
Grammatical structure: comparison of adjectives: ... er than ... PAST~------------ Now-------... FUTURE
Teacher asks: 'Is Guiyang big or small?'

Students reply: 'Big' x---~ ... X
Teacher says: 'Yes, it is big, but Beijing is very big. It is bigger than
Guiyang.'
My sister lived in
Students reply: 'Bejing is bigger than Guiyang.' Kampala for three
years
Then the teacher can then write the populations of Beijing and
Guiyang on the blackboard in two columns like this: X-------------~-.c
Beijing Guiyang My sister has lived in

12 million 2 million Kampala for three
years
Presenting a grammatical structure indirectly is often an easy way to
make students understand the meaning and when to use the structure.
Many teachers then go on to openly explain the grammatical form and
teach the pronunciation and the spelling.
I
1
52 I THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER'S HANDBOOK IDEAS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR I 53
PRODUCTION PHASE
Once students understand a new grammatical structure, they need a In the Presentation and Practice phases, the teacher normally uses
chance to practise it by drilling, writing, reading and listening. prepared sentences or texts which contain the gran:~atical st~cture.
When you start the Production phase of the lesson, tt ts a good tdea to
Example: 'should have', shouldn't have'. change the context of the presentation and the practice and to use
activities based on students' own lives.
Students practise speaking in pairs from a series of cues on the board
such as For example, using the grammar we used above of 'should have' ~nd
'shouldn't have', each student in a group can think of somethmg
Student A: Very hungry. difficult or unpleasant that happened to them. Others in the group can
Student B: eaten your breakfast.
Student A: Really tired. then tell them what they should or should not have done. Students can
Student B: gone to bed earlier.
Student A: Can't see the blackboard. write about what they did at certain ages (when they were 6 or 10 or 13)
Student B: brought your glasses.
Student A: Missed the bus. to practise regular or irregular verbs in the past tense.
Student B: got up in time.
Production activities which are related to the lives of students allow
Students practise dialogues from these cues like this: them to express their own opinions and ideas on a text or items from the
coursebook. These kinds of activities are motivating and interesting.
Student A: 'I'm very hungry.' Student B: 'You should have
eaten your breakfast.'
Controlled written grammar exercises are useful and can be done as Choose a grammatical structure that you are going to
homework, for example, changing all verbs in a text into the past tense, teach your students soon.
changing all sentences from 1st to 3rd person. Make sure you understand the meaning and that you know
Less controlled or guided practice will give students the opportunity to the form, and how and when this structure is used.
use the new language item. Think of a situation in which you might use this grammati·
cal structure. Either practise telling the story or draw a
Example: practising the grammar of asking and responding to series of pictures which tell the story. Now you are ready to
questions vvith different auxiliary verbs. present this grammar.
Language: Does it ... /Has it ... /Is it ... ?
Decide how you can present this clearly on the board (look
Yes, it does/has/is. No, it doesn't/hasn't/isn't. at Chapter 19).
Think of a series of cues which will prompt your students to
The teacher thinks of an animal. The students must ask questions to practise this structure.
find out what animal it is. When you have taught the lesson, don't forget to make
notes about how the lesson went. Then discuss the lesson
Student A: 'Does it eat people?' Teacher: 'No, it doesn't.' with your colleagues and see if you should make any
Student B: 'Has it got a tail?' Teacher: 'Yes, it has.' changes.
Student C: 'Does it live in the forest?' Teacher: 'Yes, it does.'
Student D: 'Is it poisonous?' Teacher: 'No, it isn't.'
Now the activity can be repeated in groups so that many students get
the chance to ask and answer questions.
Studying
language
Language study refers to any stage in a lesson where students and teachers focus in
on (the construction of) a specific feature of the language in order to understand it
better. The immediate goal of language study is to increase knowledge of the language
system so that the longer-term aim of improving productive and receptive skills can
be achieved. As we shall see in Chapter 12, students should not only study language in
the classroom under the direction of a teacher, but should also research language on
their own. We need to have as one of our goals the training of autonomous learners
(see Chapter 24A). However, the activities in this chapter are designed for the vast
majority of students who benefit from a teacher-led focus on specific language forms .
. .a, Studying structure and use

The language study described in this chapter focuses on the structure and use of
language forms, particularly in the following areas:
- the morphology of forms (e.g. the fact that is and am are forms of be, but
"'amn'tis not)
- the syntax of phrases, clauses, and sentences (e.g. the rules of question
formation or the construction of ifsentences)
- vocabulary, including the meanings of words, their lexical grammar (e.g. the
fact that enjoy can be followed by an -ingform but not by an infinitive), and
collocation rules (e.g. we say even-handed and not "'even-footed)
- the meanings and functions that phrases and sentences can convey
- pronunciation
- spelling
There are of course other ways in which students can study language, such as genre
analysis and the study of written and spoken text construction (see Chapters 15 and
16). In both these cases, however, students are asked to notice a number of different
aspects of the texts in front of them rather than focusing on a specific language item
or items as they will be asked to do in the examples below. Pronunciation is part of
this, but it will also be dealt with separately in Chapter 13.
A1 Language study techniques

There are a number of study techniques which we can use to ensure that students
not only understand the meaning of a language form and how it is used in
exchanges or texts, but are also clear about its construction:
154
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STUDYING LANGUAGB
• Demonstration: we can demonstrate the language forms which we want students

to study by offering them a situation which shows the language in action and
then modelling the language ourselves (see Chapter 4 02). The language can be
used in a text which dearly shows what it means; we can also use pictures or
various items of realia to demonstrate meaning (as described in Chapter 10 ),
Demonstration on its own may not be enough; some students will need a
mixture of demonstration and explanation, and the other techniques described
below to be sure of understanding the new form(s) correctly.
• Explanation: we can explain the construction of language in diagrams using
the board or overhead projector, We can make use of equipment such as
Cuisenaire rods to show syntactic relationships or stress patterns (see Chapter
100). We can use finger-pointing to show how contractions are made, e.g:
I
Uncontracted form Contracted fonn
At higher levels we can offer grammatical explanations by saying things such

as We don't use words or phrases which refer to a specific time in the past (like
'yesterday' or 'last week') with the present perfect or The choice of which verb we use
to talk about the future depends on our precise intention- how definite 'We wish to be
about future plans and arrangements. We can explain rules in the students' own
language, but this can detract from the English atmosphere of the class.
In the traditional PPP model, explanation is frequently given by isolating and
distorting bits of the language which the teacher is modelling (see Chapter 6, A2).
The way we offer explanation to our students will depend upon the language
form we are focusing on and the age, level, and preferences of the class.
• Discovery: students can be encouraged to understand new language forms
either by discovering them for themselves in a text, or by looking at
grammatical evidence in order to work out a grammar rule.
In order for us to have confidence that discovery leads to real
understanding, we need to be available for students to check with us whether
they have worked things out correctly. In the words of one Swedish student
'You can't be 100 per cent sure that you've found the rule. You must have the
possibility to get the right rule from the teacher' (Fortune 1992: 168).
• Accurate reproduction: one of the ways students learn new language forms
best is through an accurate reproduction stage. J;lere we ask students to repeat
new words, phrases, or sentences in a controlled way, correcting them when
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CHAPTER 11
they get things wrong and showing approval when they use the form correctly.
Not only does this allow them to try out the new language, but the teacher's
feedback also serves as further demonstration and explanation of the new forms.
Accurate reproduction- or controlled practice- is the 'practice' stage of the
PPP model \see Chapter 6, A.2). However, where students show an immediate
grasp of the language forms such controlled repetition may not be necessary.
This is especially the case at higher levels.
• Immediate creativity: where students show an understanding of the
meaning, use, and construction of the language form we are focusing on, we
can ask them to create their ov.rn sentences using the language form. Such early
language production will give a good indication, to both students and the
teacher, of how well the language form has been understood.
Immediate creativity is the 'production' phase of the traditional PPP model.
A.5 an early activation of language it is not strictly a study activity, though most
study sequences will allow for it at some stage. It can also be used after any
explanation, or after a discovery activity.
• Che<:k questions: we can use check questions to see if students have
understood meaning and use. If students are learning to use past continuous
sentences such as At eight o'clock she was watching television we can measure
their comprehension by asking Did she start watching television at exactly eight
o'clock or before? If they are working with as ... as comparisons in sentences
such as Denise isn't as tall as Chris, we can ask Who's taller?to check their
understanding of the language.
A2 Language study in lesson sequences

The status of language study depends on why and when it occurs. It may form the
main focus of a lesson: we might say, for example, that a chief part oftoday's lesson
will be the teaching of relative clauses (or the future continuous, or ways of
suggesting) and design the lesson around this central purpose.
Many study activities (especially in coursebooks) have tended to follow the PPP
model. Yet, this may be entirely inappropriate for certain types of students and with
certain areas of language (see Chapter 6, AJ). We may also wish to preface a study
exercise with activities which show us how much of the language in question is
already known, or we may interleave the study with other elements. Rather than
always following 'straight arrow' sequences, in other words, we will often find that
'boomerang' or'patchwork' lessons are more suitable (see page 84).
Language study may not be the main focus of a lesson sequence, however, but
may be only one element in a grander design, in which case a decision will have to
be taken about where the study activity should be placed in a sequence. Should the
focus on any necessary language forms take place before, during, or after the
performance of a communicative task or a receptive skills activity?
One approach (often taken by materials writers) is for students to study language
in a variety of ways, then explore a topic, and then use what they have learnt to
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perform a task (see, for example, Cunningham and Moor 1998). Alternatively, the
study of language forms may happen during a task~based sequence. We might focus
on one or two past tense forms in the middle of an extended narrative-writing task;
we might have our stUdents study vocabulary to describe the weather in the middle
of a sequence on holiday planning. Students can also research language as part of a
task (see Chapter 12).
Sometimes we study forms after the students have performed the task. This
usually happens as a form oflanguage repair when the task has shown up language
problems- or when students might have found the task easier if they had been able
to produce certain language forms which they did not use at all. Studying language
after the task has been completed is a feature of the Task-based model followed by
Jane Willis (1996).
However, even where we have not planned to include language study in a
·particular lesson sequence we sometimes find opportunities presenting themselves
which we find impossible to ignore, and, as a result, we get students to focus on
language items which we had not anticipated including. Such 'opportunistic' study
may happen because a student wants to know how or why some language is
constructed; it might take place because completely unforeseen problems present
themselves; we might suddenly become aware of the chance to offer students some
language which they cannot use but which- if they are now exposed to it- will
significantly raise the level at which they are performing the task.
Opportunistic teaching- studying language which suddenly'comes up'- exposes
the tension between planning lessons in advance but yet responding to what actually
happens in class (see Chapter 22, c1). When used appropriately, the relevance and
immediacy of opportunistic language study may make it the most memorable and
effective kind oflanguage study there is.
Known or unknown language?

Apart from real beginners each individual student has some degree of linguistic
knowledge and ability in English. In addition to this, individual students learn at
different speeds and in different ways. These two facts taken together explain why so
many classes can rightly be described as 'mixed ability'- though this is more
extreme in some cases than in others.
The fact of mixed ability throws up a problem for the study oflanguage forms
since it will frequently be impossible to know whether such forms really are new or
not for the individual students in a class. And even if most of our students have
experienced the language before, it is not necessarily the case that they can all use it.
If- for the reasons stated above- we cannot be sure whether or not our students
know the language we are about to ask them to study, we will need to find this
information oul If we do not, we risk teaching them things they already know, or
assuming knowledge they do not have.
One way of avoiding teaching already known language is to have students
perform tasks and see how well they use the language forms in question before
Jeciding whether we need to introduce those forms as if they were new. A less
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CHAPTER 11
elaborate technique is to attempt to elicit the new language forms we wish them to
study. If we find that students can produce them satisfactorily we will not want to
demonstrate or explain them all over again, and accurate reproduction will be a
waste of time. If elicitation is unsuccessful, however, we have good grounds for
treating the language forms as new and proceeding accordingly.
A4 Choosing study activities

We will frequently decide how and when to have students study language form and
use on the basis of the syllabus and/or the coursebook since it may offer an
explanation and an exercise that we are happy to use almost unchanged. However,
many of these sequences may not suit the particular styles and progress of our
learners, and may thus need adjusting or replacing in some way (see Chapter 21, c2).
We may want to try out new activities, or be concerned not to go on using the same
kind of activity day after day. How then do we make such decisions?
• Following planning principles: when deciding how to have students study

language form we need to bear general planning principles in mind (see
Chapter 22A). This means that we have to think about activities which the students
do before and after this study session so that we do not simply repeat the same
kind of activity again and again. We need to offer a varied diet of exercises when
studying language forms both because all our students have different learning
styles (see Chapter 3, B3 and B5) and also to help sustain student motivation.
• Assessing a language study activity for use in class: when assessing an

activity designed for the study of language form we need to decide how
effective it will be when we take it into class. It should justify the time we will
need to spend on it both before and during the lesson. We need to believe that
the activity demonstrates meaning and use dearly and that it allows
opportunities for a focus on (and practice of) the construction of the language
form. We have to think that it will engage our learners successfully.
Scott Thornbury, in his book on grammar teaching, suggests measuring
activities according to 'efficiency' and 'appropriacy' factors. In the first category
he wants us to work out the economy, ease, and efficacy of the activity (Is it
do-able economically? How easy is it for the teacher? Does it work?). In terms
of appropriacy we need to judge whether the activity is suitable for our
particular group of students at their level, for that time of day, for those
classroom conditions, and so on (Thornbury 1999a: 25-27).
We often take activities and exercises into class that we have used before
with other groups. We will have, therefore, a good idea of how effective they will
be. Nevertheless we need to remember that groups are different, and that what
was appropriate for one class may not work as well with other students.
• Evaluating a study activity after use in class: we need to evaluate the

success of an activity which focuses on language form, whether we do this
formally or informally. That is one reason why we should keep records of our
!58
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classes (see Chapter 22, c2) and why we should conduct our own action
research (see Chapter 24 Bl).
Evaluation of an activity answers questions such as whether or not the exercise
helped students to learn the new language, whether it was clear, whether it took
more or less time than anticipated, whether students were engaged by it, and
whether or not we want to use it again. Part of this evaluation involves us in
thinking about how we might modify the activity the next time we use it.
8 Examples of language study activities

The activities in this section demonstrate both the teacher-led introduction of new
language, and material designed to enable students to work things out for
themselves with the teacher's help.
81 Introducing new language

The following example shows how a situation can be used to provide the context for
the introduction of new language (though elicitation will show if the language really
is new).
Language: should/shouldn't have dane

Age: any
Level: intermediate/upper
The sequence starts when the students are asked if they ever read science fiction,
making sure that they understand what genre of fiction we are talking about. This
might develop into a quick discussion of what they read and why. The point is to get
them engaged and interested in what is coming. Students can be prompted to say
what they would expect to find in a science-fiction text.
We now ask the students to read the following text. While they do this they must
find out information such as how many people are in the space station at the
beginning and end of the text, whether they are men or women, and how long they
have been there.
""'"""""""""""-='~""~-.--,... ""- ·- -- --
_....,-.,~-·~"
They had been up here for five years. Five years for five people, cut
off from earth since World Wanv. True the Moonshuttle came every
six months with a supply of food, but it was pilotless. They had not
been able to make contact with Moonbase for two years. Cathy said it
was weird.
'You say that three times a day; Rosie answered.
'Well it's true. It's weird and I don't think I can stand it much longer:
'Oh for Jupiter's sake shut up! Go and play eight-dimensional death-
chess and leave me alone. You drive me crazy!'
'Thanks!' Cathy said quietly, 'I can see I'm not wanted: She left the
cabin.
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CHAPTERil - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The door hissed behind her.

When she got to the exit chamber she didn't look at the record book where
Mitch had written '9- motor malfunction. Do not use: She got
into suit number nine and pressed the exit key. The outside door hissed open
and she sailed out into space. She hadn't told the others where she was
going {space station rule 345/2/z3). It gave her a good sense of freedom.
Back in the station Rosie saw the red warning light above the exit
control but she ignored it. They'd had trouble with the lights recently.
Nothing serious. Captain Clarke saw it, though. She got on her personal
people communicator and called Tim Hotzenfop the station engineer.
'I think we've got a problem. You'd better come up quick; But Tim was
deep in conversation with Leila so he said 'Sure. I'll be up; and then
switched off the radio. Leila was nicer to listen to than old Clarke.
Mitch was in the repair shop next to the exit chamber when the audio-
alarm went off. But he was wearing his spacewalk-man. He didn't hear a
thing.
200 metres away from the station Cathy suddenly realised that she had
forgotten to close the station exit door. She must go back. She pressed
the motor control on the front of her suit. There was no response. She
pressed it again. Nothing. At that moment, Looking back, she saw the
space station she had just left roll over and she thought she heard a
scream echoing out into
the
When the students have read the text and shown that they have understood it by
answering comprehension questions we can then ask them to say what they think
happens next: ' \.Vhat is the light? \.Vhat has happened to the space station and why?' The
object is to get them to be creative with language and with their response to the text.
We now ask the students to list things that people did that were'bad' or'not
sensible' and write them on the board, for example:
a Rosie was rude to Cathy.

b Cathy didn't look at the record book.
c Cathy didn't t~::ll the others where sh~:: was going.
d Rosie ignored the red warning light.
e Tim switched off his radio.
f Tim didn't do anything about the captain's call.
g Mitch was wearing his spacewalk·man.
~ h Cathy didn't close th~:: station exit door.
'
We then ask the students if they can make a sentence about event (a) using should
not to elicit the sentence Rosie shouldn't have been rude to Cathy. We may write
should (not) have DONE on the board. We then encourage students to make
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sentences about the other 'silly' actions using the same construction. We may get
students to come up to the board and write the sentences so that the board ends up
looking like this:
If students are having trouble pronouncing any of the parts of the sentences we may
model those parts and possibly have students repeat either chorally or individually.
For example, we may focus on /'f:Jd';JV/ and /'J;;~dnt;~v/, showing how the phrases are
stressed and contracted.
Students are now in a position to tell stories of things in the past which they
should/shouldn't have done (1 should have done my homework on timefl shouldn't
have left the car unlocked) after the teacher has told stories, perhaps, about himself to
demonstrate what is expected.
Other situation-based contexts for introducing new language might include (for
vocabulary) asking students to label items in a house with 'new' words we give them
or (for a functional lesson) getting them to try and match problems and suggestions
as a lead-in to the introduction of suggestion language.
Discovery activities
In the following examples, students are encouraged to work out for themselves how
language forms are constructed and used.
Example 2: Comparative adjectives

Language: word formation -
comparative adjectives
Age: any
UUUUU!a Level: elementary/pre-intermediate
In this example students have listened to a dialogue in which people have been
comparing things. Before moving on to make their own sentences, the teacher wants
to draw their attention to the way that we make adjectives comparative. She could have
done this by giving rules, or perhaps just by ignoring such technical information and
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hoping that students will 'notice' the various possibilities for themselves. Instead she
chooses to put them in pairs and give them the following exercise:
Look at tMs!
old ~older
oew ~newer
light ~lighter
big ~bigger
thin ~thinner
noisy ~ noisier
silly ~ sillier
expensive ~ more expensive
beautiful ~ more beautiful
Now work these out!
a How do we make one-syllable adjectives into comparative adjectives?
b Why are 'big' and 'thin' different?
c What has to change when we make words like 'noisy' and 'silly' into
comparative adjectives?
d What is different about 'expensive' and 'beautiful'? Why?
When the pairs have finished she checks through the answers making sure they
understand that one-syllable words which end with a vowel and a consonant double
the last letter, that -y becomes -i-, and that longer words are preceded by more but
otherwise stay the same. She now moves on to a practice exercise.
There are two potential problems with this approach. First, it is not always easy to
give a complete grammatical picture. This exercise does not give all the necessary
information about comparatives. There are no irregular ones here (like good-
better), nor are there examples of words that are made comparative by either taking
-er or being preceded by more (e.g. clever in many spoken varieties of the language).
Second, it is not necessarily the case that all students enjoy this kind of detective
work. But as a way of encouraging them to think about how language works such
exercises are extremely useful, especially when, as here, the language rules they are
investigating are fairly easy to discern.
language: tunctions- expressing
obligation (can't/have to/
Age:
Level:
must/allowed to)
adult
intermediate
In this example from an intermediate coursebook, the students are going to look
=-,~~
at obligation language, some of which they may have already come across separately.
The teaching sequence starts when students discuss how many rules and
regulations they can think of for either the school they are studying in, or related to
162
STUDYING LANGUAGE
different ages (e.g. before people are eighteen), or for when there is a political
election, or for when you travel to a foreign country. The object of this discussion is
to interest the students in the topic and to elicit some of the language which will be
the focus of study.
The teacher now gets students to look at the following illustration. They are asked
how many signs they can see and what they mean:
~~~,~,~~u
!/SMOKING
From Cutting Edge Intermediate, by S Cunningham and P Moor {Pearson Education Ltd)
At this stage the teacher will be happy to accept sentences like Don't smoke or Smoking is
okay. The main thing is that students should understand the meaning of the signs.
Students are now asked to put a tick next to the following sentences if they mean
the same as the signs in the picture and a cross if they do not:
a You gn use a credit card in the duty·free shop. f21'l!

You have to use a credit card in the duty·free shop. ~
b You have to have a visa to leave the transit lounge. D
You've got to have a visa to leave the transit lounge. D
c You can't smoke in the area at the back. D
You're allowed to smoke in the area at the back. D
d The public mustn't go through the door that says 'staff only'. D
The public aren't allowed to go through the door that says 'staff onlY. D
e You mustn't smoke in the area at the front. D
You don't have to smoke in the area at the front. D
This is an ideal opportunity for the students to do an exercise in pairs or groups.

By discussing each sentence and sharing their knowledge they help each other
understand things they did not previously know.
163
CHAPTER ll
The teacher checks through the answers with the whole class and then asks them
to go through the following 'Analysis' box where they have to work out the grammar
and meaning of the underlined verbs:
62 2 WMM!i J
1 Look at the underlined verbs m the sentences above. Complete

the following lists showing how the verbs are used.
a it is necessary b it is okay! c It Is a good ideo I

ltaveW permitted the correct thing
~"
d /tis not e it Is not okay I f it is not o good

necessary it is prohibited ideo 1 not the
correct thing
2 What is the difference (if any) !n the use of must and have to in
the following pairs of sentences?
a • You must finish all the medicine -It's really important.
• The doctor says I hove to finish all the medicine- it's really
important.
b • You mustn't walk home alone in the dark- it's dangerous.
• You don't have to walk home- we'll give yau a lift.
Now read Language summary A on page J 50.
Once the teacher has checked that the students have been able to complete the
analysis chart, she can get them to do a fill· in exercise where they have to
discriminate between have to, don't have to, should, shouldn't, and are/aren't allowed.
They then make their own sentences about what the rules are in places which they
know and visit, or they can give rules and the other students have to guess what
place is being talked about (e.g. You have W be quiet. You can't take books unless you
sign them out at the desk. You can't take food into this place. etc).
We can also have students discover grammar with any reading text (where we
might ask them to find if-sentences, for example, and work out the different
constructions they find), or get them to study the transcript of a conversation to see
how people agree and disagree.
~.3
.;>--~
Remembering
At various stages of learning teachers will want students to revisit language forms
which they have been exposed to previously. This may be part of an overt correction
stage, part of a sequence which the teacher has slotted in because students have had
trouble with that language in a task, or part of a straightforward revision process
where language forms are recycled from time to time to help students remember
them better.
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Remembering activities usually fall towards the middle of the 'communication

continuum' (see page 85); they encourage students to bridge the gap between
language study and language activation (see Chapter 6, A3). In more
communicative activities we hope that students will activate pre~ously learnt
language forms subconsciously, but in remembering exercises students will be
aware of an overt focus on particular forms, which they will then be expected
to use.
The following examples of remembering activities all presuppose that the
students have already worked on the language areas which they will be using.
Example 4: Perfect one-liners Language: structure- past perfect
Age:
Leve!:
continuous
any
in~~iate/advanced
trt ·
In this activity students practise the past perfect continuous tense based on prompts
from the teacher. They are required to use their imagination and/or sense of humour
and the exercise is given added enjoyment by being designed as a team game.
The teacher divides the class into small teams of two to four people. She tells them
that she will be reading sentences for which they have to find appropriate responses,
using the past perfect continuous. She starts by giving them a sentence such as When
I got home last night my jlatmate was asleep in the car. She asks the class, in general,
what kind of reason they can think of, and hopes to elicit sentences like Wei~ she had
been listening to a programme on the radio and fallen asleep, or Yes, well that's because
she had been talking to a hypnotist on her mobile phone, etc.
Now that the students understand the idea of the exercise she reads out the
following sentences:
a When I came to see you yesterday your cat was in the fridge.
b Can you explain why you bit my dog?
c That was my new Rolls Royce your son pushed over the cliff.
I [d
I' e
'f
g
You had blood all over your wedding clothes after the ceremony.
You were the only one in the room before the theft.
You had different coloured socks on the other day.
Why did Henry VIII have his wife Anne Boleyn beheaded?
From The Anti-Grammar Grammar Book by N Hall and 1 Shepheard (Pearson Education Ltd)
For each sentence the teams are given a short time to come up with good sentences.
If they are correct and/or appropriate the teacher awards a point, but no team can
offer a sentence that has been used previously.
This game-like practice does nothing more or less than force students to make
sentences using a particular verb tense. Yet by adding the element of surreal humour
it can cause great enjoyment. Of course students may find it difficult, and teachers
may want to use different sentence prompts from those given here for any number
of reasons. But the idea of a teacher giving prompts in this way has considerable
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attraction since it requires no material or technology and can be slotted into a lesson
at various stages.
Example 5: In the queue Language: vocabulary- physical
Age:
Level:
description
adult
beginners
In this practice activity designed to get students using the language of description
(e.g. He's quite talL She has blond hair. He has a beard), an artificial 'information gap'
•
is created by getting the students to look at different pictures.
The teacher starts by putting a picture of people in a queue on the board and
giving the students a list of names. They can then ask him, e.g. YVhatS john like?to
which the teacher replies HeS quite tall with glnsses. He has a beard. A student then
comes up and points to the correct person in the picture.
The teacher now puts students in pairs. In each pair one student is A and the
other is B. Each A student looks at the following two pictures- which are in colour
in the original- and is told (a) to find out which of the following names apply to
which of the people in the cinema queue (picture Al):
Cathy Jim Karly Kit Mick Monica Philip Susan
and (b) to answer B's questions about the people in picture A2. Thus, for picture Al,
A will ask YVhat's Cathy like?and B will reply She's quite young. She's tall and thin and
her hair is quite long.
4 5 6 7 8
A2
Silly Jill Nigel Natalie Tim Caroline Bill
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Each student B, on the other hand, looks at the following two pictures and is told (a)
to find out which of the following names apply to which of the people in the queue
to 'Magic City' (picture B2):
Alex sm Caroline Jm Natalie Nigel Sally Tim
and (b) to answer 1\s questions about the people in picture B1. Thus, for picture B2,
Bwill ask \.VhatS Alex like? and A will reply She's medium height and quite well-built.
She has dark hair.
Jim Monica Cathy Susan Karly Mick Philip
B2
7 6 5
8 4
' 2
When the activity is over the teacher has different students describe the various
characters (Alex, Cathy, Susan, etc.) to check that they are happy using the
description language.
Chapter notes and further reading

• Situations for introducing new language
In his ground-breaking book English in Situations Robert O'Neill was one of the
first to create situations which provoked a nwnber of examples of the target
language (O'Neill1972).
• Mixed-ability classes
On mixed-ability classes, see L Prodromou (1992), B Bowler and S Parminter
(1997 and 2000) and J Rose (1997).
167
9
GRAMMAR
Goals
At the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• state how functional grammars differ from formal grammars, and how repro-
ductive tasks differ from creative tasks
• distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive grammars
• outline the advantages and disadvantages of deductive and inductive
approaches to the teaching of grammar
• create tasks based on techniques such as grammar dictation
• describe four important principles for teaching grammar
• summarize the arguments for and against conscious learning and subcon-
scious acquisition
Introduction
In the last chapter, I pointed out that the status of vocabulary within the English
language curriculum was anything but stable. In the heyday of audiolingualism, it
was forced to play a secondary role to grammar, but was reinstated as an equal
partner once communicative language teaching came into ascendency. Interest-
ingly, with the advent of communicative language teaching, grammar was similarly
challenged. Two versions of CLT developed: the strong view and the weak view.
The strong view argued that the explicit teaching of grammar is unnecessary, that
learners will ‘pick up’ the grammar subconsciously when they engage in commu-
nicative language learning tasks (Krashen, 1981, 1982). The weak view is that the
explicit teaching of grammar is helpful to second language acquisition (Doughty
122 Grammar
and Williams, 1998). Although the strong view is still popular in some quarters,
these days, the consensus is firmly in favor of the weak view.
So, what is grammar? In my 2013 book, I argue that there are two aspects to the
definition:
The first is that grammar has to do with how words are formed, and the
second is that grammar is all about how words are combined to form sen-
tences. The academic study of word formation is called morphology . . .
while the study of ordering and combining words is called syntax.
(Nunan, 2013: 63)
The basic building block of grammar is the clause. There are seven basic clause
types. These are described below along with examples.
Clause type Example

Type 1: Subject + Verb Maria + sang
Type 2: Subject + Verb + Object William + saw + a UFO
Type 3: Subject + Verb + Complement I + became + wary
Type 4: Subject + Verb + Adverbial I + ’ve been + in the office
Type 5: Subject + Verb + Object + Malcolm + bought + his wife + a diamond
Object
Type 6: Subject + Verb + Object + We + think + traditional grammatical
Complement analysis + is rather pointless
Type 7: Subject + Verb + Object + We + had to take + our relatives + home
Adverbial
(Adapted from Nunan, 2005: 4)
Grammarians distinguish between prescriptive grammars and descriptive

grammars. Prescriptive grammars lay out what is grammatically correct and
incorrect, while descriptive grammars articulate what people actually say. You
might find it strange that we make this distinction. However, English is ever-
changing, and people constantly break prescriptive rules. Think about the rule for
countable and uncountable nouns. The prescriptive rule is that we use ‘fewer’
with countable nouns, and ‘less’ with uncountable nouns. Thus, we say “There
are fewer people going to the movies these days” and “Doctors say we should eat
less salt.” Well, guess what? Only yesterday, I heard a commentator on television
assert that, “There are less people going to the movies these days.” In fact, the use
of ‘less’ with countable nouns is becoming increasingly common. (Interestingly, I
have yet to hear anyone say “Doctors say we should eat fewer salt.”) The challenge
for descriptive grammarians is to come up with an explanation for the use of
‘less’ with countable nouns.
Grammar 123
There are two basic approaches to the teaching of grammar: the first is a deduc-
tive approach; the second is an inductive approach. I put these approaches under
the microscope in the ‘issue in focus’ section. In the deductive approach, the
teacher explains the rule and then gives the learners exercises to apply and consoli-
date the rule. In an inductive approach, learners study samples of language contain-
ing a particular grammatical rule and have to figure out the rule.
Vignette
This vignette is based on a popular technique for reinforcing previously intro-
duced grammar points. It is called grammar dictation, or ‘dictogloss.’ The tech-
nique is relatively simple. The teacher reads a short text at near normal speed.
Students jot down key (content) words and then work together in small groups,
pooling their resources to reconstruct the text. Grammar dictation is one of my
favorite activities because it presents grammar within a communicative context, it
requires learners to be actively involved in their learning, it can be used with learn-
ers at all levels of proficiency from beginner to advanced, and it can be used with
mixed level groups.
The class taking part in this lesson is a group of intermediate level secondary
school students. Some of the students have had limited experience with the gram-
mar dictation technique. However, there are several new students in the class who
haven’t encountered the technique before, so the teacher begins the class by going
over the procedures.
The teacher begins by writing ‘grammar dictation’ on the whiteboard. He turns
back to the class and says, “OK, so today, we’re going to do a grammar dictation.
Do you remember how to do grammar dictation, Kim? We haven’t done one for
a while.”
“Kind of,” says the student.
“Kind of. Hmm.” The teacher pauses, “Well, just to remind you, I’m going to
read you a short passage.” He holds up a book containing the passage and waves it
at the class. “And, I’m going to read it twice. The first time I read it, I want you
to just to listen. Listen for the meaning, and to get a general idea of the story. Then
the second time I read it, I want you to write down key words. So are you going
to write down the little grammar words, Eun-ha, like ‘the,’ ‘to,’ ‘in’? Are they key
words?”
“No,” says the student.
“Good,” says teacher. “You’re right. These are grammar words. They’re impor-
tant, but I don’t want you to write them down. Later you’ll need to come up with
these words yourself. Write down the key content words individually. Then, in
groups, I want you to share your words and reconstruct, or reproduce, the story.
Appoint one person – someone who’s a good writer, to be the scribe. When you’ve
finished, compare your version with another group and see how similar they are.”
A student raises her hand, and the teacher says, “Yes, Erika?”
124 Grammar
“Do we have to write the, write the . . .” She pauses, struggling to express
herself.
“Write the . . .?” asks the teacher encouragingly.
“The exact words?” says the student.
“No,” says the teacher, “you don’t have to be exact, but you have to try and get
as close as you can. The group that gets the closest to the original version will be
the winner.”
Several students in the class laugh.
The teacher continues, “But first of all, look at these words.” On the board, he
writes: ‘disaster,’ ‘Scrabble,’ ‘not feeling too good.’
“Do you all know these words?”
“What is Scrabble?” one student asks.
“Oh, it’s a kind of board game. I thought you all knew Scrabble. You have to
make words from letters of the alphabet that are printed on little tiles.”
“Oh, yes, we played it one time,” says another student.
“We played it last semester, I’m sure,” says the teacher. “Well maybe not all of
you.”
“Not feeling too good?” asks another student.
“Feeling a bit sick,” says the teacher. “Not terrible, but not very well. All right,
these are some of the words you will hear. So you don’t have to write then down.
I’ll leave them on the board. Now, if you’re ready . . .” He picks up the book from
which he is about the read the passage and says, “I’ll read the text the first time.
And . . . And what are you going to do?”
“Listen. Just listen,” say several students.
Teacher nods. “Just listen. Right.”
The teacher reads the text at near normal speed while the students listen. He
then says, “OK, now I’m going to read it again. Listen and write down the
words you hear. Remember, just write down key words.” He then reads the text
a second time. While he does so, the students scribble furiously on their sheets
of paper.
TEXT
My weekend was a disaster. I had to change all my plans. On Saturday after-

noon I was going to watch football, but my grandmother turned up. So I
stayed home and played Scrabble with her. On Saturday night, I was going
to go to the movies, but I had to help my dad move furniture. Then on Sun-
day, I was going to work on a science project with a friend, but he didn’t
show up. He called and said he wasn’t feeling too good. So I played basket-
ball with my brother.
Grammar 125
When he has finished, he pauses, giving the students time to finish jotting down
words. Then he says, “All right, in groups of four, I want you to work together to
reconstruct the story. First of all, decide who is going to write it down then help
him or her. Off you go.”
The students arrange themselves into groups and begin reconstructing the text.
When they have finished, the teacher has them exchange their reconstructions with
another group and compare drafts. He then projects the original onto the white-
board, and gets them to compare it to the version that they have produced. The
lesson ends with a review of the future in the past – the main tense in the passage.
REFLECT
What 3 things did you notice in the vignette? Write them down in note
form.
1.
2.
3.
My Observations on the Vignette

1. Learning is collaborative. The students work together in small groups and
pool their resources to reproduce the original text. One of the benefits of the
grammar dictation task is that all learners are expected to contribute to the
completion of the task. In the course of completing the task, they are engaged
in authentic communication.
2. The main target structure to be revised is ‘future in the past’ – was going to. The
structure is presented in a naturalistic text rather than as isolated sentences, so
that the purpose for the grammatical form is clear to the students. It is also inte-
grated with a range of other forms including the simple past, and conjunctions.
3. The task stimulates students to activate their grammatical knowledge of a range
of structures, as they are reconstructing the original texts by working with con-
tent words. They have to provide the function or grammar words that are the
‘glue’ holding the sentences together. These include such grammatical items as
articles (‘the,’ ‘a/an’), prepositions (‘on’), pronouns (‘I,’ ‘he’), possessives (‘my’), etc.
Issue In Focus: Deductive Versus Inductive Approaches

to Teaching Grammar
In this chapter, the issue I wish to focus on is deductive versus inductive learning.
As indicated in the introduction, in a deductive lesson, the teacher provides the
learners with a rule and then gives them exercises in which they apply the rule. In
126 Grammar
other words, the focus is first on principles, and then on examples. This approach
to instruction has dominated Western education from the time of the Greek phi-
losopher Aristotle to the Middle Ages (Cohen and Manion, 2007). At that time,
the philosopher Francis Bacon suggested an alternative, looking at examples, and
from them, formulating principles. In a grammar lesson the teacher could imple-
ment this principle by giving learners samples of language containing a grammati-
cal structure and getting them to figure out the rule.
In some ways, inductive learning is a more ‘natural’ approach to learning. As we
grow up, most of the learning we do outside the classroom involves induction. As
children, we observe parents and others who are more skilled than we are, draw
conclusions and derive principles based on what we see, and then try them out for
ourselves. In traditional societies that don’t have formal educational systems, this is
the way that learning happens. For example, in Australian aboriginal societies,
children learn the ways of their culture by observing and imitating their elders.
So, which is preferable, deduction or induction? The answer is ‘it depends.’ Nei-
ther is inherently superior to the other, and both are complementary. In my own
teaching, I tend to favor inductive learning because I believe that having to figure
something out for ourselves stimulates a greater depth of processing than simply
having it told to us. As one teacher said to me, “When I tell my students something,
it goes in one ear and out the other. But, if I get them to work it out for themselves,
they remember.” As we will see when we look in greater detail at learning styles and
strategies, there is evidence that some students learn more effectively through a
deductive approach, while others appear to learn more effectively inductively.
Mouly (1978) has suggested that learning is a process of shuttling back and
forth between induction and deduction. He argues that as we learn, we use one
approach then the other, first working inductively, observing and hypothesizing,
and then switching to deductive learning, seeing whether the implications of the
hypothesis are borne out in actuality. Deduction thus provides us with a way of
validating the hypothesis that we have developed through induction.
Although Mouly’s observations on the interrelationship between inductive and
deductive reasoning were made to describe the process of scientific investigation,
it is easy to see how they can capture processes of learning in the grammar class-
room where there is a back-and-forth movement between grammatical rules and
language data in the form of texts, sentences, and utterances.
Each of these approaches has pros and cons. Deductive approaches get straight
to the point, thereby saving class time. They are also in line with the expectations
of students in many learning contexts – they come into the classroom expecting
to be told. On the other hand, certain learners, particularly younger ones, may not
get the point, particularly if the explanation is clothed in grammatical terminology.
It also encourages the belief that language learning is simply a matter of learning
the rules of that language.
The advantages of inductive approaches are that they stimulate a greater depth
of processing, which makes learning more meaningful and memorable. Students
Grammar 127
are active constructors of their own learning rather than passive recipients of the
teacher’s wisdom. It fosters independent learning skills, and, if tasks are carried out
collaboratively in the target language, learners actually get practice in using the
language authentically while learning it. On the other hand, inductive learning
takes more time – figuring something out for ourselves takes more time than being
told. The students may also reason their way to a wrong conclusion. Induction also
places a greater burden on the teacher because the lesson is less teacher controlled
than in a deductive classroom. Finally, it can be frustrating for students who have
been conditioned, through prior learning experiences, to expect the teacher to tell
them everything. (For an excellent discussion of the pros and cons of deductive
and inductive approaches to the teaching of grammar, see Thornbury, 2000.)
Key Principles
1. Integrate Both Inductive and Deductive Approaches

into the Teaching of Grammar
As I pointed out in the preceding section, in a deductive instructional sequence,
the teacher provides a grammatical explanation or articulates a rule and then gives
students a set of exercises that are intended to help the learner master the point.
The principle comes first and the examples follow. In inductive learning, the
instances come first, in the form of texts or sentences in which the grammatical
feature is embedded, and the learners, through a process of guided discovery, come
to an understanding of the principle or rule.
Most teachers have their own preferences when it comes to adopting a deduc-
tive or an inductive approach. I’ve revealed my own bias. I favor inductive learning,
although there is no solid evidence that it is more effective than a deductive
approach for all learners in all situations. My bias is partly ideological, and partly
based on research from the field of educational psychology. The ideological roots
of my bias stem from my belief in a humanistic approach to life in general, and a
constructivist view of education. I believe that learners construct their own learn-
ing and knowledge based on a range of input, including deductive input from the
teacher. From educational psychology, there is evidence that we do not receive
messages in the same shape and form as they are transmitted. We are not walking
MP3 recorders! We interpret what we see or hear in the light of our pre-existing
knowledge and biases. In addition, teaching experience has shown me time and
time again that the more actively a learner processes input the more effectively he
or she will learn.
Ultimately, we need to take our bearings from our learners. Some will be natu-
rally inclined toward a deductive approach, preferring to have an understanding of
the small bits that make up the language before assembling the language itself.
Others will prefer to jump right in and figure things out for themselves. Then, if
you are working with young learners, you may have no choice but to adopt an
128 Grammar
inductive approach. There is no point in giving abstract explanations to young

learners. Rather, you need to draw their attention to patterns in the language that
they can internalize inductively through games, songs, and chants involving lots of
repetition of the target structure.
2. Use Tasks that Make Clear the Relationship Between

Grammatical Form and Communicative Function
One of the problems with ‘traditional’ approaches to grammar is that they present
learners with grammatical rules that show how the particular feature is formed,
but not how a given form is used to express particular meanings. A commonly
cited example is the passive voice. The usual way in which the passive voice is
introduced is to show how an active voice sentence is transformed into passive
voice. For example, a sentence such as “The dog bit the man” is transformed into
“The man was bitten (by the dog)” by making the object of the active voice sen-
tence the subject of the passive voice sentence. Here, while students learn to form
the passive from the active sentence, there is no information about why we have
the passive voice form. The question, “What is the communicative function of the
passive voice?” goes unanswered. In fact, the passive voice has a number of com-
municative functions: to place the emphasis on the recipient rather than doer of
the action, when we don’t know who performed the action and so on.
3. Focus on the Development of Procedural Rather

than Declarative Knowledge
This principle raises the issue of what it means to know something. Procedural
knowledge is sometimes known as ‘knowing how’ knowledge, while declarative
knowledge is referred to as ‘knowing that’ knowledge. A statement such as “I
know that when I’m making statements in third person singular, I have to put an
‘s’ on the end of the verb” is an example of declarative knowledge. Actually putting
an ‘s’ on the end of the verb when making third person declarative statements in a
conversation would be an example of procedural knowledge. The assumption in
traditional approaches to grammar was that declarative knowledge would ‘turn
into’ procedural knowledge with practice. However, the two types of knowledge
are quite different. All of my students in Hong Kong can spout the rule for what
to do with the verb in third person declarative statements. However, more often
than not, they leave off the ‘s’ when making such statements.
What is important in teaching grammar is to keep your eye firmly on the goal
of developing procedural knowledge, that is, the ability of the students to actually
use the grammatical feature accurately and appropriately. If giving them declara-
tive knowledge assists them to do this, then incorporate that knowledge into your
teaching, but don’t assume that because they know the rule they will be able to use
it. Interestingly, the audiolingual method eschews declarative knowledge and
Grammar 129
argues for an exclusive focus on procedural knowledge. “Learning by analogy, not

analysis” is one of the catchcries of the method.
4. Encourage Learners to Use Language Creatively

Rather than Reproductively
Reproductive language exercises are those that engage learners in reproducing and
manipulating grammatical structures provided by the teacher or the materials they are
working with. Essentially, these exercises are designed to give learners practice at mas-
tering grammatical forms. Fill-in-the-blank exercises, sentence matching, listening, and
repeating are all examples of reproductive language work. Creative language tasks, on
the other hand, require learners to use language authentically. They have to come up
with their own utterances, not those provided by the teacher. The grammar dictation
task is a good example of a task that requires learners to use language creatively.
Pennington (1995: vi–vii) captures the essence of creative language work when
she says:
In [my] view, grammar is more a matter of selection than correction. Gram-

mar is, in other words, about selecting the appropriate option(s) from a range
of possibilities rather than simply recalling and producing – or reproducing –
language in one particular form, that is, the one prescribed by the grammar
teacher or another authoritative source. Because from this perspective,
grammar is a process of choosing forms and constructing language to
respond to communicative demands, it essentially involves the learner’s cre-
ative response to context and circumstance.
What Teachers Want to Know

In this section, the concept of functional grammar is discussed. The other main
point covered is the notion that developing the ability to use language creatively is
fundamental to language acquisition.
Question: I heard someone talking about ‘functional’ grammar. Can you tell us
what a functional grammar is?
Response: Grammatically, there are two ways of looking at language: as form and
as function. Formal grammar has to do with how words are formed and put
together. Functional grammar has to do with how different ways of putting words
together enable us to make different kinds of meaning.
Traditional approaches to grammar begin with the different word classes – sub-
ject, verb, object, complement, adverbial – and how these are combined to make
up different clause types. One of the problems with this traditional way of looking
at grammar is that it focuses on form but pays insufficient attention to the
130 Grammar
functions that different grammatical forms have in use. Let me provide an exam-
ple. The traditional way of introducing the passive voice is to provide learners with
a list of active voice sentences, then demonstrate how we transform these sentences
by making the object of the active sentence the subject of the passive sentence and
changing the tense of the verb. Students are then given practice in transforming
active sentences into passive ones. The hidden message in an exercise such as this
is that active voice and passive voice are alternative ways of saying the same thing.
The formal transformation doesn’t provide any insights for the learner as to the
communicative function of the passive form.
Functional grammars, on the other hand, seek to show the systematic relation-
ship between form and function. By moving the object to the front of the sen-
tence, we are making it more prominent. In “The council banned private cars
from the city during the parade” the focus is on the council. In the passive form,
“Private cars were banned from the city during the parade,” the focus is on ‘private
cars.’ The passive voice also helps us out when we simply don’t know the per-
former of the action. “Last night, the million dollar lottery was won for the second
time this year” sounds less clumsy than “Someone won the million dollar lottery
last night. It’s the second time this year that someone has won the lottery.”
Question: Can you say more about the concept of creative language use?
Response: I draw a distinction between reproductive and creative language use.
Reproductive language occurs when learners are given a model sentence or ques-
tion which they reproduce in the course of completing a task. For example, the
students might be doing a survey on likes and dislikes. They have to go around
the class asking and answering the question “Do you like . . .?” they then have to
report their findings back to the class. “Sally likes ice cream but she doesn’t like
chocolate.” There is a communicative dimension to the task, because the students
are exchanging meanings. However, they are basically reproducing and manipulat-
ing a target structure, or a limited number of target structures.
Creative language tasks, on the other hand, require learners to use whatever
language they have at their disposal to complete the task. They are not restricted
to following grammatical structures provided by the teacher or the textbook. I
believe that such tasks facilitate language acquisition because they require learners
to recombine familiar elements – phrases, lexical chunks, and so on – in new and
unfamiliar ways. So the discourse in the classroom resembles more closely out-of-
class language than does reproductive language work.
Scott Thornbury uses a nice analogy to capture this notion of grammar as a
creative resource rather than as a product, that it’s not just a thing but something
you do. He says:
An omelette is the product of a (relatively simple but skillful) process involving

the beating and frying of eggs. The process and the product are clearly two
Grammar 131
quite different things, and we could call one making an omelette (or even omletting)
and the other an omelette. Similarly, the grammar that a linguist might identify
in a statement like If I’d know you were coming, I’d have baked a cake or Mary had
a little lamb is the result of a process – in this case an invisible mental one . . . To
someone who had never seen an omelette being made, it might be difficult to
infer the process from the product. They would be seriously mistaken if they
thought that making an omelette was simply a case of taking a lot of little bits
of omelette and sticking them together. So, too, with grammar. What you see
and how it came to be that way are two quite different things.
( Thornbury, 2001: 90)
Question: Is it possible to get beginners using language creatively, in the way that
you describe?
Response: Obviously, the less language that learners have, the more challenging it
will be to implement creative language tasks. The more language that learners
have, they more they have to work with, and the more successful the task is likely
to be. However, I’ve found it possible to use creative tasks with even relatively low
level learners.
TASK
Select a textbook and review the grammar exercises. These will not neces-
sarily be explicitly labeled a ‘grammar.’ In one sense, all tasks and exercises
should have a grammar dimension. Create an inventory of reproductive and
another of creative grammar tasks.
Small Group Discussion

In this discussion thread, a group of students are discussing the role of conscious-
ness in language acquisition as well as consciousness-raising tasks in the foreign
language classroom. The discussion is a follow-up to a survey article that the stu-
dents read prior to the discussion.
JAKE: So, what did you think of the article?

KIM: There was an awful lot to think about. I had to read it several times before I
understood the arguments about conscious learning and subconscious acqui-
sition. I find it hard to accept that there is a strict separation between con-
scious learning and subconscious acquisition.
SALLY: Why is that?
KIM: It just doesn’t seem to make much sense. When we learn any skill – like
learning to drive a car, for example, to begin with, we develop the skills
132 Grammar
consciously, but over the time they become automatic. We change gears,
accelerate, brake, and do all of those other things without even thinking about
it – the skills have become subconscious. If that’s how learning occurs in
learning how to drive and the other things we learn how to do, then why
should language learning be any different?
JAKE: Well, language learning is a lot more complicated than learning to drive a car.
KIM: That’s true, but I don’t agree with the idea that we don’t need to bother
teaching grammar any more, that learners will ‘pick it up,’ if we just engage
the learners in using the language. Also, my learners expect me to teach gram-
mar. If I don’t live up to their expectations, then I’ll lose credibility. When I
learned English in school, we spent most of our time doing grammar exercises
of one kind or another, and I’m convinced that the grammar foundation gave
me a solid basis for my language.
JAKE: Well how do you explain the fact that some learners never seem to acquire
certain grammar items? My students know way more grammar rules than I
do. They can tell me the rules, but half the time they don’t use them. To me,
this is pretty convincing evidence that conscious learning and subconscious
acquisition are two different things. And most grammar rules are too com-
plicated – you just get a feel for the way the language works by using it. Also,
Kim, I have to tell you that when I lived in Italy, I didn’t study the language
formally. I just picked it up, and I was communicating quite well within a
few months.
SALLY: I bet you had an Italian girlfriend, Jake.
JAKE: Well, I did as a matter of fact. How did you know?
TONY: I think the discussion only goes to show that learners are different and
learn in different ways. Some learners like to just jump in there and pick the
language up naturally; others like to study it more formally. Also, it’s not the
case that you either know a grammar rule or you don’t. It’s a gradual process.
I liked the idea of consciousness-raising tasks, that gradually make the learners
aware of the rule and how it works. Tasks and exercises raise their awareness
of a grammatical principle but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to use the
principle or item immediately.
SALLY: What are some techniques for consciousness-raising? I’m still not clear
about the concept.
TONY: Well, it could be traditional formal instruction, or it could be guided dis-
covery – problem-solving tasks that draw the attention of the learners to
the grammatical feature and how it works communicatively. Noticing a fea-
ture can also happen spontaneously through informal means such as error
correction.
SALLY: Can you give an example?
TONY: Well, I saw a lesson once in which the teacher was teaching colors and
clothing. She was getting the kids to prepare a fashion show. She brought
in a big bag of clothes, and got the kids dressing up. Half the class dressed
Grammar 133
up and paraded up and down the classroom. The other half of the class had
to be commentators. The grammatical focus was present progressive, where
the kids were supposed to come up with statements such as “She’s wearing
a white shirt and a black hat,” “He’s wearing blue jeans and a yellow shirt.”
She found that the kids were using the present progressive accurately, but were
putting the adjective after the noun, saying things like “the jeans blue” and
“a hat black,” because in their first language that’s the way it’s done. So the
teacher just called the fashion parade to a halt for a minute – froze the action,
as it were, and demonstrated the correct placement of the adjective before the
noun. She got the students to practice saying “the blue jeans,” “a black hat.”
So, that would be a good example of consciousness-raising through error
correction, I’d say.
SALLY: Oh, I see. I get that example. Thanks.
Commentary
This discussion thread emphasizes that there are many different ways of raising
learners’ awareness about a particular grammatical feature, from formal instruction
to relatively informal consciousness-raising tasks to incidental learning.
TASK
Summarize the arguments for and against the idea that conscious learning
and subconscious acquisition are two separate processes, i.e. that learning
does not ‘turn into’ acquisition. Where do you stand on the issue?
Summary
Content focus Teaching grammar

Vignette The grammar dictation technique
Issue in focus Deductive versus inductive teaching
Key principles 1. Integrate both inductive and deductive approaches
into the teaching of grammar.
2. Use tasks that make clear the relationship between
grammatical form and communicative function.
3. Focus on the development of procedural rather
than declarative knowledge.
4. Encourage learners to use language creatively rather
than reproductively.
What teachers want to know Functional grammar; reproductive versus creative
language use
Small group discussion Conscious learning versus subconscious acquisition;
consciousness-raising in the classroom
48 The Audio-Lingual Method The Audio-Lingual Method 49
Backward build-up (expansion) drill Transformation drill

This drill is used when a long line of a dialog is giving students trouble. The ~he teacher gives students a certain kind of sentence pattern, an affirma-
teacher breaks down the line into s~veral parts. The students repeat a part tive sentence for example. Students are asked to transform this sentence
of the sentence, usually the last phrase of the line. Then, following the into a negative sentence. Other examples of transformations to ask of stu-
teacher's cue, the students expand what they are repeating part by part until dents are changing a statement into a question, an active sentence into a
they are able to repeat the entire line. The teacher begins with the part at passive one, or direct speech into reported speech.
the end of the sentence (and works backward from there) to keep the into-
nation of the line as natural as possible. This also directs more student Question-and-answer driU
attention to the end of the sentence, where new information typically occurs.
This drill gives students practice with answering questions. The students
Repetition drill should answer the teacher's questions very quickly. Although we did not see
it in our lesson here, it is also possible for the teacher to cue the students ro
Students are asked to repeat the teacher's model as accurately and as ask questions as well. This gives students practice with the question pattern.
quickly as possible. This drill is often used to teach the lines of the dialog.
Use of minimal pairs
Chain drill
The teacher works with pairs of words which differ in only one sound· for
A chain drill gets its name from the chain of conversation that forms example, 'ship/sheep.' Students are first asked to perceive the differ;nce
around the room as students, one-by-one, ask and answer questions of between the two words and later to be able to say the two words. The
each other. The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular student, teacher selects the sounds to work on after she has done a contrastive
or asking him a question. That student responds, then turns to the student analysis, a comparison between the students' native language and the
sitting next to him. The first student greets or asks a question of the sec- language they are studying.
ond student and the chain continues. A chain drill allows some controlled
communication, even though it is limited. A chain drill also gives the Complete the dialog
teacher an opportunity to check each s~udent's speech.
Selected words are erased from a dialog students have learned. Students
Single-slot substitution drill complete the dialog by filling the blanks with the missing words.
The teacher says a line, usually from the dialog. Next, the teacher says a Grammar game
word or a phrase-called the cue. The students repeat the line the teacher
has given them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper place. The Games like the supermarket alphabet game described in this chapter are
major purpose of this drill is to give the students practice in finding and used in the Audio-Lingual Method. The games are designed to get stu-
filling in the slots of a sentence. dents to practice a grammar point within a context. Students are able to
~xpress themselves, although it is rather limited in this game. Notice there
Multiple-slot substitution drill Is also a lot of repetition in this game.
This drill is similar to the single-slot substitution drill. The difference is

CONClUSION
that the teacher gives cue phrases, one at a time, that fit into different slots
in the dialog line. The students must recognize what part of speech each ~e've looked at both the techniques and the principles of the Audio-
cue is, or at least, where it fits into the sentence, and make any other Lmgual Method. Try now to make the bridge between this book and your
changes, such as subject-verb agreement. They then say the line, fitting teaching situation.
the cue phrase into the line where it belongs. Does it make sense to you that language acquisition results from hahit

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142 Language Teaching Methodology

8.2 The 'tradit ional' langu age class room

had with diff eren t feat ureys

secon-d language in the same

. factor influencing acquisition orders.

of S~A re~ea~c t~rsdo . and implemen tation of their research.

Rutherford (1980) suggests that the development of some pedagogical grammars -

11.3 Detectives In class

Do you have it I the ring? . · f

A basic distinction in learning theory is between deductive and inductive learning.

ap~~o;::~s l~pr~~~~~i~~~~~~n:ei~ea~l\~~~~~;~h?!:l~ce~ ~Y~~~X,~~

Wh ere do you live? Eve ryon e.

T: Oka y. Victor, please ask Rob

[She swe eps

S: Wh ere do you live?

emb er yest erda y?

S: Have you got any brothers

T: Wh ere do you live? , two siste rs.

inter actio n. Teac h the task .

8.8 con clu sio n 9.1 Intr odu ctio n

9.2 Research into lea rnin g sty les

Teaching Grammar PROI\!!JNCIA TION Present tense USE:

When teaching grammar remember: Presenting grammar through a text

Presenting grammar through comparison

Presenting grammar through pictures and real objects

Teacher asks: 'Is Guiyang big or small?'

Beijing Guiyang My sister has lived in

. .a, Studying structure and use

A1 Language study techniques

• Demonstration: we can demonstrate the language forms which we want students

At higher levels we can offer grammatical explanations by saying things such

A2 Language study in lesson sequences

Known or unknown language?

A4 Choosing study activities

• Following planning principles: when deciding how to have students study

• Assessing a language study activity for use in class: when assessing an

• Evaluating a study activity after use in class: we need to evaluate the

8 Examples of language study activities

81 Introducing new language

Language: should/shouldn't have dane

The door hissed behind her.

a Rosie was rude to Cathy.

Example 2: Comparative adjectives

a You gn use a credit card in the duty·free shop. f21'l!

This is an ideal opportunity for the students to do an exercise in pairs or groups.

1 Look at the underlined verbs m the sentences above. Complete

a it is necessary b it is okay! c It Is a good ideo I

d /tis not e it Is not okay I f it is not o good

Now read Language summary A on page J 50.

Remembering activities usually fall towards the middle of the 'communication

Example 4: Perfect one-liners Language: structure- past perfect

Example 5: In the queue Language: vocabulary- physical

Silly Jill Nigel Natalie Tim Caroline Bill

Jim Monica Cathy Susan Karly Mick Philip

Chapter notes and further reading

Clause type Example

Grammarians distinguish between prescriptive grammars and descriptive

My weekend was a disaster. I had to change all my plans. On Saturday after-

My Observations on the Vignette

Issue In Focus: Deductive Versus Inductive Approaches

1. Integrate Both Inductive and Deductive Approaches

inductive approach. There is no point in giving abstract explanations to young

2. Use Tasks that Make Clear the Relationship Between

ap~~o;::~s l~pr~i~~n:ei~ea~l\~~~~~;~h?!:l~ce~ ~Y~X,