Teaching+Grammar+Effectively

7/27/2019 Teaching+Grammar+Effectively

1/4Cambridge University Press 2011

Teaching grammar efectively

Nowadays grammar is taught in a variety o dierent ways. Some o these are more suitable or

certain learners than others. We can see this i we look at these extracts rom three grammar

activities. They illustrate some choices teachers have to make when they teach grammar.

1

Have to

The verb have to is one way o expressing obligation in English.

Have to is a modal verb.

Have to has a modal meaning.

Have to makes its interrogative and negative orms like ordinary verbs, not like a modal verb

e.g. does he have to?; he doesnt have to

Complete these sentences with the correct orm o these verbs.

1 I do some homework tonight.

2 Guests wear ormal clothes or the wedding its up to them..

3 we take a present when we visit them?

2

Ask your partner these questions. Make a note o his/her answers.

HOUSE RULES

Your partners name:

1 What time do you have to go to bed?

2 Do you have to take your shoes of when you go in to your home?

3 Do you have to help your parents look ater your home? What do you have

to do?

3

Complete these sentences with has or have.

1 My son to leave the house very early every morning.

2 To become a doctor you to pass lots o exams.

3 Engineers to be very careul in their work.



These three activities ocus on dierent aspects o grammar. Activity 1 provides inormation about

the use, meaning and the orms o have to, using grammatical terms to do this. I a learner doesnt

know or ully understand grammatical terms, this activity will not be suitable or him/her. Activity

2 does not include rules or grammatical terms. It ocuses on the meaning o have to by setting this

structure in a real-lie context (that o house rules) which shows its meaning, then its asks students

to practise the structure by using it to communicate about that context. Activity 3 contains no

mention o rules or grammatical terms, nor does it ocus on the meaning o have to. It simply ocuses

on the correct orms o the verb.We can see rom these extracts that teaching grammar can involve: showing the meaning and

use o the structure, giving rules about its orm or use, using grammatical terms to describe these

rules, practising using correct orms and using grammatical structures to communicate in a given

context. The question or teachers is what should grammar teaching involve in their classrooms?

The answer depends largely on who our learners are: their level, their age, what they need to learn

and the learning style they have. Lets look at some examples.

Alara is a seven-year-old who is just starting to learn English. Her rst language is Turkish and she knows a

ew grammatical terms in Turkish.

Teaching Alara grammar by ocusing on rules and grammatical terms is not likely to be successul.

Young children cannot make good use o this approach as their cognitive skills have not yet

developed suciently to let them work easily with abstract terms and ideas. Young children learnby doing, so using language to communicate and get practical things done is likely to be the best

way or them to learn grammar. As they become more fuent their grammar is likely to improve

naturally and automatically, as unconsciously they absorb and work out the language. Children

learn their rst language just through using it, and all the research shows that they learn a oreign

or second language best in the same way. In act, this is not only true o children but o many adults

as well. They preer to learn through doing and working with concrete things rather than through

thinking about things in an abstract way.

Pawel and Stean are classmates. They are 15 years old and have learnt English at school since they were six.

Their level o English is around intermediate. Pawel does not understand grammatical terms or rules and

thinks they are boring. He likes to learn by talking and using the language, and does not worry about making

mistakes. Stean likes grammar rules. He eels he needs rules to guide him and he hates talking unless he eelsvery sure that he is not going to make mistakes.

Here we have a problem that many secondary-school teachers ace. In the same class there are

learners who learn in dierent ways, who have dierent learning styles. A learning style is the

way in which a person most naturally and best learns rom their environment. For example, some

people learn language by analysing it, others learn by using it to do activities, some learn through

hearing language, others by seeing it. A teacher needs to make sure that their teaching appeals to a

wide range o learning styles. Generally this means that when teaching secondary-school students

and adults we need to vary our approaches by, or example, including in a lesson or across a series

o lessons some activities which analyse language, some which involve using language, some which

include hearing the language, some which show the written orm o the language. Imagine Pawel

attending a class which only works on the rules o language, or Stean going to a class which only

uses communicative activities. Both would probably learn little and quickly lose interest.We can also see rom these two contrasting learners that teachers need to be fexible in their

attitudes to grammar mistakes. Pawel may not mind being corrected. However, Stean is likely to be

discouraged by a teacher who corrects him a lot. Teachers oten worry when they hear their learners

making mistakes. They see it as evidence that the learners have not learnt, and that they as teachers

have thereore ailed in their jobs. In act, research into language learning shows that it does not

work in this way. We do not start using language correctly as soon as we have learnt it. What we

need is time to absorb it and unconsciously work out how it ts in with the other language we have

learnt beore. Many mistakes will disappear by themselves over time and as learners try to make

their message clear in their attempts to communicate.

Roxana is a 26-year-old who works as a hotel receptionist. She learnt English at school by learning grammatical

terms and rules. She did very well in her end-o-school English grammar exam. Now she needs to use herEnglish to speak to guests at the hotel. She has diculty communicating because her accent is not clear, she

doesnt understand many oreign accents and she does not know much vocabulary or expressions related to her

job. She is sociable and eager to learn but nds it dicult to be fuent.




It is possible that Roxana does not need to learn any grammar at the moment as she already has a

solid base. What she needs is to practise and develop her speaking and listening skills, and to learn

vocabulary and expressions related to her work as a hotel receptionist. As she learns these things

she will o course need to use the grammar she has already learnt, practising it and probably having

her mistakes corrected, but other things about learning English will be more useul to her learning

than grammar.

We can see rom the example o Roxana that learning grammar is only one part o learning a

language. Learning a language also involves learning the skills o speaking, listening, reading andwriting and learning vocabulary so as to communicate and interact. I we ocus on just learning

grammar then we are not really teaching the learners the language but just a small part o it. We

can see rom her exam result that Roxana has learnt her grammar well. Now though she lacks

fuency. Maybe she still tries to piece her sentences slowly together, thinking about each word at a

time and making sure its orm is correct. This is a slow process which probably means your listener

will have stopped paying attention to you beore you have nished constructing your sentence!

Roxana needs to practise using language fuently, i.e. just ocusing on getting her message across at

a natural speed without worrying about the grammatical accuracy o the orms she is using. Talking

reely will help her activate and make the most o all that grammar she learnt at school, taking it o

the page and turning it into a tool or communication instead o a tool or getting good marks.

So what general points can we take rom these examples that would help us to teach grammareectively?

Grammar reers to both the orm and meaning o grammatical structures.

How we teach grammar depends on the characteristics o our learners such as their language

level, age, learning needs, learning style and past learning.

Presenting grammar in suitable contexts helps communicate its meaning to learners.

It isnt necessary to know grammatical terms and rules in order to use a language well.

Teaching grammar by ocusing on rules and/ or grammatical terms is unlikely to be successul

with those learnerswho are not yet able to think in abstract ways.

Some learners, particularly those with an analytic learning style or who have learnt and

appreciated grammar beore, may nd learning some grammatical terms and rules helpul.

Learning grammatical rules is not the same as using grammar correctly, so even learners who

learn rom rules and grammatical terms need fuency practice. We need to match the way we teach grammar with the variety o learning styles that our learners

have. These learning styles usually include analysing language, seeing it, hearing it or using

it in communication to do something real. Our lessons can include dierent activities to suit

the dierent learning styles. Here are some activities that ocus on the past tense and involve a

variety o learning styles.

telling learners a story about something that happened in the past

discussing the rules or the use o the past tense

asking learners to sing a song that uses the past tense

asking learners to read a story about something that happened

asking learners to complete exercises using the past tense

playing games using the past tense (e.g. ask some learners to perorm some actions round the

class. Ater about ten learners have done this, ask the class as a whole to say who did what.) We shouldnt expect learners to get grammar right immediately or even quickly. Achieving

accuracy takes time and a lot o unconscious language processing. We dont need to worry about

correcting every mistake we hear our learners make.

Learners dont just need to be able to use grammar accurately but also fuently. This means that

they need opportunities to speak or write reely without pressure to get things right.

Using grammar accurately is only one part o being able to use a language. Learning other things

may be more important or learners than learning grammar at some stages o their learning.

We can learn grammar unconsciously simply by communicating and using language to carry

out tasks. This may be very eective or some learners. Others learners may benet more rom a

more obvious ocus on grammar through activities that highlight its orms and uses.

I we teach grammar in the wrong way or at the wrong time learners may not learn it, and,

worse, they may lose interest in the lesson, and possibly eventually in English too.




I you were teaching someone to play ootball, would you just give them exercises to build their

muscles or would you make them play in matches? Would you teach them how muscles work

or how the dierent parts o the human body interact to produce dierent kinds o movement?

Perhaps you would preer to teach them the dierent ways o kicking a ball? Or would you combine

all these dierent approaches? Maybe it would depend on who you were teaching, what they liked,

what they needed and what they responded to best. The language teacher is aced with the same

kinds o choices is it better to teach grammatical knowledge and skills separately, or to ocus on

learning through using, or to use a combination o these? The answers will depend on who yourlearner is, their previous learning experience, reasons or learning English and learning style.


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