Learning Grammar

Pearson ELT Professional Development

TWENTY

Nick Dawson


Learning Grammar By Nick Dawson

There are many different ways in which we help learners to learn grammar. They all work to a different degree, but some are more learner-friendly than others.

Understanding Grammar Students can learn grammatical patterns without understanding them, in the same way that we can memorise phone numbers without understanding them. We can only memorise phone numbers if a) they are fairly short (about 6 digits), b) we associate them with people we like, and c) if we use them frequently.

We can do the same with grammatical patterns a] if we link them to real experiences, and if we use them frequently.

Rote learning is learning through repetition without meaning. Repetition with meaning is more successful. Repetition with meaning and value is even more successful. In the traditional grammar exercise, students are writing or completing sentences about the characters in textbooks; people who they do not know or care about. If students write or complete sentences about their friends or classmates, then the learning will be more deeply retained because the students understand and value what they are writing. By using the grammatical pattern to talk or write about people they know well, students will absorb and retain the pattern and its meaning. Students start to become owners of the grammar.

So what are the implications for teachers? Repetition activities in which the students are talking/writing about textbook characters or abstract situations, as we find in classroom oral exercises, workbook exercises or tools like My Grammar Lab, are extremely valuable. They build confidence and give students a good level of grammatical fluency.

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When students start to use a new grammatical pattern to talk about their own lives, or the lives of people they know, then the pattern becomes part of their own language, their own English.

Different types of understanding 1) Receptive When students understand the meaning of a grammatical pattern in something they hear, read or view, they have processed the language in order to get that understanding. Therefore listening, reading and viewing are all important parts of the learning process if they also lead to understanding. In learning grammar, processing and understanding is very important so we should always make sure that students listen to English, read English, play video games in English and watch videos in English. The maximum receptive exposure to English will bring the greatest benefit.

Penguin Readers and Penguin Active Readers provide a range of stories and topics which give students receptive exposure to English through interesting, graded and comprehensible language. They are not grammar books, but they give students receptive exposure to written language which students need. The CDs or MP3 recordings of the texts develop listening comprehension. Students who are listening or reading are not doing grammar exercises in the traditional sense, but they are using and processing grammar in order to gain comprehension and follow the story.

Different types of understanding 2a) Controlled

production Soon after a new grammatical pattern has been introduced, students are given simple exercises in which there is no new vocabulary and no unfamiliar situations. The exercises are designed to prompt students to produce the correct patterns repeatedly.

The purpose of these exercises or drills is to imprint the pattern in the students minds. We cant expect students to use a new pattern creatively without this stage of controlled practice.


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Different types of understanding 2b) Creative

production Students start to use Creative Production when we ask them to tell stories, take part in a role play, record videos, send messages or write articles and compositions. In these contexts, students will not know all the vocabulary they need, they will have to ask for help, consult a dictionary or the internet. In Creative Production, students are not reproducing ideas from the teacher or textbook, they are expressing their own ideas which have been generated from their own brains.

Creative Production is very difficult. Students may need to plan and research the language they need, they may need to rehearse a scene many times or produce several drafts before they are ready to produce their final version.

When students are introduced to a new grammatical pattern, they are not ready to produce this pattern spontaneously to express their own ideas. They may be able to reproduce the pattern in controlled practice, but they are not ready to generate the new pattern to express their own ideas.

Speaking or writing in a foreign language is a performance in the early stages. This performance naturally requires planning and rehearsal. It is important that teachers show students how to plan and rehearse, and give them time to do this before spontaneous creative production is expected.

Word Order English is a word order language. Unlike Latin, words are not given special forms or special endings to show if they are the SUBJECT, VERB or OBJECT of the sentence. Word order is very important, so headlines like DOG BITES MAN and MAN BITES DOG have different meanings because of the word order.

The basic format of the English sentence is SUJECT > VERB > OBJECT:

The boy ate the cake.

or, using pronouns,

He ate it.


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Adjectives and adverbs This basic format can be extended with adjectives:

The tall boy ate the chocolate cake.

or adverbs:

The tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake.

We should remember that adverbials are also used to mark time:

Yesterday, the tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake.

and place;

Yesterday, the tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake in the kitchen.

Adverbs can also indicate frequency:

The tall boy often eats chocolate cake.

As you can see, with adjectives and adverbs we can add information (and interest) to our basic sentence.

Direct and indirect objects Yesterday, the tall boy gave the chocolate cake to Susan.

or

Yesterday, the tall boy gave Susan the chocolate cake.

The Direct Object is the chocolate cake. The indirect object is Susan. As we can see, in English there are different ways to include the indirect object.

Verbs in simple sentences A simple sentence will have just one main verb. The main verb may use an auxiliary verb:

Yesterday, the tall boy didnt eat the chocolate cake.


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or a modal verb:

The tall boy mustnt eat the chocolate cake.

Although the main verb may have an auxiliary or modal verb attached to it, it is still just one main verb.

Compound sentence A compound sentence combines two simple sentences using a conjunction.

The boy took the cake out of the box and ate it.

As we can see, the compound sentence has more than one main verb.

The boy ate the cake but he didnt like it.

He didnt like the cake so he threw it away.

Complex sentence The compound sentence combines two simple sentences. The complex sentence absorbs another sentence into the main sentence. Look at these two sentences:

The boy ate the cake.

The boy comes from Warsaw.

this becomes

The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake.

or even

The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake which Julie made.

Complex sentences allow us to make sentences which contain a great deal of information.


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Unpacking Students can learn to unpack a complex sentence to list all the information which the sentence contains. This is not something you will want to do every day but it is a useful exercise in analysis.

The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake which Julie made.

o There is a boy. o He comes from Warsaw. o He ate a cake. o Julie made the cake.

As you can see, our complex sentence combines all these ideas.

Main and subordinate clauses A clause is part of a sentence which contains a verb but is not a complete sentence. The main clause is still the boy ate the cake. The subordinate clauses are adding extra information.

As we can see, the SUBJECT of the verb ate is no longer just The boy but is now The boy who comes from Warsaw. This provides more information than simply adding an adjective like The Polish boy.

Whiteboard activity Use a headline like:

MAN STEALS MONEY FROM BANK

Work with the class to build in details from this headline. The class might produce:

A middle-aged man stole 500 from the High Street branch of City Bank and escaped in a red BMW car which was parked outside.

If students try to produce very long sentences, they will often make grammatical errors. The standard advice is to keep sentences fairly short and clear. This will help them to avoid many grammatical errors.


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Analysing grammar Students can learn grammar by memorising rules, but this is not the most effective method. A better method is to ask students to use their understanding of grammar in order to solve problems.

At the simplest level, these problems may involve asking students to talk about the difference in meaning between two different sentences:

Mario goes to work every day.

Mario is working now.

These problems might include either selecting or writing appropriate captions beneath pictures or adding language to speech bubbles. Students may select or write commentaries (which they later record) for one of their home-produced videos. Students may write dialogues for specific situations, buying a rail ticket, enrolling at a gym, asking permission to borrow something. They may act these prepared dialogues in front of the class or make a little video of the scene.

Towards perfection in grammar Even native speakers often make grammatical errors. One of the most frequent errors in high level proficiency examinations is forgetting the s in the 3rd person singular of the Present Simple. Your students will make many errors while they are learning and will continue to make a few errors in later life.

Most of these errors do not cause problems because they dont lead to a breakdown in communication. If a breakdown occurs, students need to learn repair strategies. If they cannot understand what someone is saying, they must ask:

Could you repeat that?

Are you saying .?

Do you mean .?

If they cannot make themselves understood, they should:

Point at what they mean.


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Mime what they mean.

Give a similar example, I mean like .

They should also learn to check after making a repair and ask if the other person understands.

Summary 1. Students build understanding as they learn to copy, adapt and

create using new patterns. 2. Regular receptive practice through listening and reading

teaches students to process the language. 3. Controlled production in drills and exercises are essential to

imprint new patterns. 4. Personalise controlled production to add value to the

meaning. 5. Stimulate creative production, but give students time to plan

and rehearse. 6. Teach students the grammatical function of words and the

basics of sentence structure. 7. Do not expect immediate perfection. 8. Teach students to repair breakdowns.

Learning Grammar

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