Teaching Functional Grammar

Teaching Grammar Functionally

Task One:
To indicate where you are now in terms of your knowledge, experience
and performance, colour your Jelly Baby in the grammar tree that
follows:
If you feel you know little about the topic, colour one at the bottom,
otherwise colour one in the middle or at the top.
 At the end of the session you will go back to re-colour your
Jelly Baby
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Task Two:
Agree or disagree with the following statements by marking T for
(true) or F for (false) or D for (debatable).
 At the end of the session, you will return to these statements.

N. Statement
1. Grammar describes the rule of how the language produces sentences.
2. Grammar describes the main stream language norm.
3. Grammar studies the construction of written sentences.
4. Academics', teachers' and learners' grammar is the same.
5. Sentences can be either grammatically correct or not.
6. Teaching Grammar is teaching the construction of sentences.
7. Bilingual exercises have no place in teaching grammar.
8. In teaching Grammar the rules should come first and the examples
should follow.
9. Rules explain the language in the best possible way.
10. Drill is the way to mastering Grammar.
11. Grammar describes only recurrent language.
12. A grammatical utterance can be incorrect.
13. Grammar inaccuracies can at the same time be spoken norms.
14. Declarative grammar is the knowledge of the rules.
15. Procedural grammar is the knowledge of language examples.
16. Explicit grammar helps develop implicit grammar knowledge.
17. The words " grammatical and correct" are not synonyms.

Task Three:
What is grammar?
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Task Four:
There are different approaches to grammar teaching
(Traditional & communicative approaches)
Which approach do you support? Why?
Which approach does "English for Palestine" adhere to? Explain.
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Task Five:
Modern second language courses include various types of grammar
activates, overt and covert.
When to teach covert grammar activities?
When to teach overt grammar activities?

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Task six:
When teaching a grammatical point, what do you think your students
need to know?
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Task Seven:
What is inductive teaching of grammar? Exemplify.
What is deductive teaching of grammar? Exemplify.
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Task Eight:
Read the following points and write either inductive or deductive next to
each one.

N. Statement I D
1. It suits adult learners because it requires abstract thinking.
2. It can be appropriate for teaching difficult grammar points,
especially if these points do not exist in the learner's mother
tongue.
3. It involves learners in the process of learning.
4. It suits teaching grammar regularities .
5. It is preferred by adult learners who want to know how the
language works in a short course.
6. It is quick and easy for the teacher and thus saves time.

Task Nine:
Teaching communicative grammar means that you should think of the
function and the context.
Bits of grammar have more than one function and this could confuse students.
Consider the following sentence.
Peter is playing tennis "could mean three different things"
Look at the responses to the following questions:
1- I want to talk to Peter. What's he doing at the moment?
Peter is playing tennis. (now present time)
2- Peter has a three-month holiday. What a lucky guy! What is he doing
with his time?
Peter is playing tennis. (these days, past, present and future)
3- Can I see Peter tomorrow at three o'clock?
No, Peter is playing tennis. (future).
A- Can you think of some other grammatical points that have more than
one function?
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Context should be one which native speakers use frequently and it should
make the meaning of the tense clear for students.

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B- Check "English for Palestine" Student's Book 8 – the book map pages 4
– 5) and try to associate functional and grammar points in situation
context to fill the table below:

Unit Points of grammar Functions Situation or context

1. Present continuous Describing  Describing changes that are
changes happening now in terms of
prices, numbers, degrees,... etc.
 Describing graphs
2. Past simple and
-------------------- ---------------------------
"used to"
3. Present perfect -------------------- ---------------------------
4. Should/shouldn't -------------------- ---------------------------
Must/ mustn't
5. Agreement with -------------------- ---------------------------
So/ neither
6. Past simple + past -------------------- ---------------------------
continuous
7. Past simple + ---------------------------
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past perfect
8. Conditional/ -------------------- ---------------------------
type 1

Task Ten:
In teaching grammar, we need three drilling techniques.
What are they?
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Task Eleven:
Study the diagram below which is related to the logic of teaching
grammar.

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How best can you describe the logic of teaching grammar?

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Task Twelve:
When teaching grammar we take into consideration the micro three-
phase framework i.e. presentation, practice and production.
Study the graphs to complete the paragraphs below:
Explanation
deductive Exemplification
Explication
Presentation
Illustration
inductive Interaction
Induction

controlled
Practice guided
free

Pre-task (introduction to the topic and to the task)

Activity Task cycle (doing the task)
Language focus (reflections on the language that was used)

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Fill in the gaps:

In teaching grammar we can follow the ppps approach; presentation of
the new material can be done with rules and examples; this is of course the
………… approach, or it could be with texts, situations, language observations,
and rules formulations; this is of course ………….. approach. If presentation
stage is rule induction, then micro three-phase framework can be …………….
and …………. .

If presentation stage is deduction of examples from the rule, the three

phases can be ………………, ……………….. and ……………….. .
During the "practice stage", the three-phases framework can include
…………….., ………………… and …………… . Grammar production stage
can be taught in the following three phases ………………, …………….. and
………………….. .
Grammar correction is very important. During the focused practice,
correction should be ……………… and …………… , but in …………… it
should be opportunistic and delayed.

Task Thirteen:
Watch the sketch adopted from "English for Palestine" Student's Book,
unit 6 lesson 2 Ex. 2 page 27 Ask and answer, then label the drilling
techniques you observed into "M" for meaningful drilling, "F" for formal
drilling and "C" for Communicative drilling.
T. Ok everybody, it's time to show you something – watch carefully and tell me
what's wrong?!
T. displays a picture of a girl with sad looking and red eyes.
T. Does Laila feel O.K? How does she look like? Sad? Unhappy? Awful? …
etc.
T. Why do you think her eyes are red?
T. Elicits she has been crying. Drilling 1
T. She has been crying. Yes. It could be. Oh! Look there are some tears right
down here.
T. points to the tears saying: Yes, she has been crying.
T. Yes, Ali why are Laila's eyes so red? What has been happening?
Ali: She has been crying 2
T: What do you think O'sama? What has been happening?
Yes, She has been crying. 3
T :Ramy! Can you tell us what's wrong with Laila?
Ramy: She has been crying. 4
T: Ok. All agree that she has been crying, so altogether what's wrong?
Class: Laila has been crying. 5
Now in pairs ask and answer about Laila.
S1: What has been happening?
S2: She has been crying. 6
Drill students as many times as they master the structure and pronunciation.

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Now work on your own. In pairs ask and answer about what has been
happening 7
Let's move to the workbook Ex. 1: Make sentences.
T. discusses the first example. 8
T. drills he is tired because he has been running. 9
Now in groups continue. 10
T. discusses Ex.1 publicly to give feedback. 11

Ex.2
T. reads the instructions. Students work out answers.
T. encourages students to say their sentences 12
Which tense is it?
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What is it made of ? 13
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Task Fourteen:
Fill in the diagram below to sup up techniques of teaching grammar
communicatively.

Communicative Grammar Teaching

………………. Deductive

Examples ………………. ………………. Rule Explanation ……………….

Activities

Pre-task ………………. ……………….

practice

………………. ………………. free

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Track the teacher's sequencing and steps in teaching.

The Preset Perfect Continuous to fill in the table below.

N. drilling Typed Grammar stage Activity stage

1.
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11.
12.
13.

Has the Present Perfect Tense here been taught deductively or inductively?
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- Can we stipulate the following equations?
- Deductive teaching of grammar = overt teaching of grammar.
- Inductive teaching of grammar = covert teaching of grammar.
Justify your answer giving concrete examples from "English for Palestine"
grammar tasks.
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Which language function has been targeted? Has it been perfectly

contextualized? Explain.
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One forward step and two backward steps is a strategy in teaching grammar:
where in the booklet can you find a parallel strategy? Elaborate by giving real
examples from the grammar lessons you have ever taught?
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Task Fifteen:
Drilling Techniques

Formal

Meaningful

Communication

Explain the diagram above. Refer to actual grammar points from "English for
Palestine" textbooks.
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Task Sixteen:
Now colour your Jelly Baby to indicate where you are in the tree after the
session.

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