TEACHING

GRAMMAR
GrammarGramm
ar
How do you understand this concept?

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WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Grammar in general Grammatical meaning
Grammar is a set of rules that defines how words The meaning of a particular grammatical
(or parts of words) are combined or changed to structure
form a suitable unit of meaning within a language It is the hardest part to teach
(Ur, 1999)
Eg. The meaning of
Grammatical structure
“I have been to…”
A specific instant of grammar is a “structure”
“he has gone out…”
“I went to…”

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Let’s….!
Let’s revisit some grammatical
terms

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Units of Language

Morpheme Word Phrase Clause Sentence

If you want to listen to English well, it is useful for you to watch movies in
English regularly

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Parts of the sentence

Subject Verb Object Complement Adverbial

People all over the world love football and watch it everyday.
He made me very angry

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Parts of speech

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb Pronoun Auxiliaries Modal Determiner Preposition

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1.
To teach or not to
teach?
Let’s start with some ideas

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The teaching of grammar

Extract 1 Extract 2 Extract 3

The language teacher’s view of what
The important The student craving for constitues knowledge of a language is…a
point is that the explicit formulization knowledge of the syntactic structure of
study of grammar of generalizations can sentences…The assumption that the language
teacher appears to make is that once this
as such is neither usually be met better by basis is provided, then the learner will have
necessary nor textbooks and no difficulty in dealing with the actual use of
sufficient for grammars that he reads language…
learning to use a outside class than by There is a good deal of evidence to suggest
that this assumption is of very doubtful
language discussion in class. validity indeed.
(Newmark, 1979) (ibid.) (Widdowson, 1979)
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2.
Presenting and
explaining grammar
Let’s start with some ideas

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Three Dimensions of Grammar Teaching
◈ Form/Structure; Meaning/Semantics;
Use/Pragmatics and Discourse
◈ Every grammatical structure can be analysed
according to these three dimensions
◈ Teacher’s task is to identify the learning
challenge for his/her set of students.
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Three Dimensions of Grammar Teaching
◈ FORM – How is it formed?
◈ MEANING – What does it mean?
◈ USE – When/Why is it used?
(Larsen-Freeman, 1991)

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◈ form

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Questions on how to present grammar?

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Guidelines on teaching and explaining grammar
1. Both oral and written form of both form and meaning
2. Plenty of contextualized examples of structures
3. Older and more analytically-minded learners will benefit more from the use of terminologies
4. The language of instruction depends on your own situation and judgement
5. Explanation should be clear and simple enough (better than follow a detailed grammar book)
6. Speech and text delivery should be at an appropriate speed
7. Rules to deliver structure are based on particular situations (Inductive or deductive)

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What
approach?

PPP
model
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DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE APPROACH?
◈ A deductive approach starts with the
presentation of a rule and is followed by
examples in which the rule is applied
◈ An inductive approach starts with some
examples from which a rule is inferred
(Thornbury, 1999, p. 29)
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A deductive approach-PPP model
◈ 1. Presentation
◈ In this stage the teacher presents the new
language in a meaningful context.
◈ Building up stories on the board, using realia
or flashcards and miming are fun ways to
present the language.
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2. Practice
◈ gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations,
split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires,
reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures.
◈ It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage
as students have only just met the new language. Many student’s
books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be
used at this stage.

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3. Production

◈ information gaps, role plays, interviews, simulations, find someone who,

spot the differences between two pictures, problem solving,…are all
meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practice the
language more freely.
◈ It is important to note here that using the PPP model does not necessarily
exclude using a more inductive approach since some form of learner-
centered guided discovery could be built into the presentation stage.

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DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE? Disadvantages

◈ Students may be expected to have ◈ Time and energy needed

considerable metalanguage
◈ Teacher-fronted, transmission style;
teacher explanation vs. student
interaction
◈ Explanation is less engaging than
other forms of presentation – e.g.
demos
◈ Encourages viewing lang. as
declarative (Thornbury, 1999, p.
30)
◈ Time on understanding rule vs.
time on productive activity
◈ Hypothesise the wrong rule
◈ Demands on teacher in planning a
lesson
◈ Can frustrate some students who
prefer to be simply told the rules
(Thornbury, 1999, pp.54-5)
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DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE? Advantages
◈ Gets straight to the point;
time-saving
◈ Respects the intelligence and
maturity of students, esp.
adults
◈ Meets expectations about
learning
◈ Allows teacher to deal with
grammar points directly
◈ Self-discovery leads to better
integration
◈ Students are more actively
engaged
◈ Favours students who like
pattern recognition and problem
solving
◈ Allows for added language
practice through problem solving
group work
◈ Prepares students for autonomy 23
IN THE CLASSROOM-THE PPP MODEL
Presentation – grammar explanation
Practice – to achieve accuracy
Production – achieve fluency
Logical appeal
Assumption: language is learnt in bits and is linear
Assumption: Accuracy always precedes fluency
(The P-P-P Model –see Thornbury, p. 128 & Ch. 8)
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TYPES OF GRAMMAR PRACTICE: FROM ACCURACY TO
FLUENCY

Type 1: Type 2: Controlled drill Type 3: Guided,

Awareness meaningful practice
Learners produce the structures
Focus learners’ which are pre-determined by Learners form sentences of
attention on teachers, conforming to very their own according to a set
forms/meaning close-ended cues pattern, but the vocabulary
they use is up to them
Eg. Underline the Eg. John drinks tea but he
examples of the doesn’t drink coffee Eg.
simple past tense a. like: icecream/cake If I had one million dollars,
in a given text I would…….
b. speak: English/Italian

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TYPES OF GRAMMAR PRACTICE: FROM ACCURACY TO
FLUENCY

Type 4:Free sentence Type 5: Discourse Type 6: Free discourse

composition composition As in type 5, but learners are
Learners compose their Learners discuss a topic or not given specific direction to
own responses using the write a passage a text use the structure
structures. according to a given task, Eg. “you see your friend
Still, structure-based using some examples of the cheating in an exam”
structure
Eg. Learners make -Recommend some solutions
sentences using Eg. “you see your friend
appropriate tenses to cheating in an exam”
describe a picture having -Recommend some solutions
different people with using modal verbs
different actions
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THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF DICTOGLOSS
◈ And another example

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Dictogloss
◈ Let’s try it!
◈ Form groups of 3-4
◈ Listen to the text two times
◈ For the first time, do not write anything; just grasp what the text talks
about
◈ For the second time, jot down as many key words as you can
◈ Then reconstruct the text with your group members. Make sure you try to
keep the meanings as far as possible and all sentences are grammatical

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Teaching Grammar Communicatively
◈ https://youtu.be/TNaG1uN40gI

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Grammatical practice
◈ Jill and Charlie Hadfield. 2015. Teaching
grammar creatively. IN Maley. A & Peachey.
N. Creativity in English Classroom. British
Council: London. pp.51-64
◈ Chapter 6

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THANK
S!
Any questions?