Unit 1: What is grammar?

1. What is syntax? (p.2)The system of rules that cover the order of words in a sentence (chains)

2. What is morphology? (p.2)The system of rules that cover the formation of words (slots)

3. How is grammar conventionally seen? (p.2)As the study of the syntax and morphology of sentences; the study of the way words are chained together in a particular order and of what kinds of words can slot into any one link in the chain

4. What do many second language learner errors result from? (p.2)Overgeneralizing rules from their own language

5. What are three problems with a learner’s ability to recognize and produce well-formed sentences? (p.3)(1) There is a lot of debate about how this ability is developed, (2) It is not entirely clear what ‘well-formed’ really means when a lot of naturally occurring speech seems to violate strict grammatical rules (e.g. We ain’t at home vs. We are not at home), and (3) An exclusive focus on sentences, rather than on texts or on words, risks under-equipping the learner for real language use as both texts and words also have grammar, in the sense that there are rules governing how both texts and words are organized.

6. What does grammar communicate? (p.3)Meaning

7. Language often operates at what level? What rule of thumb can be formulated as a result? And where does grammar come in? (pp.3-4)Lexical; the more context, the less grammar; grammar is the process for making a speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear when contextual information is lacking

8. What do learners need to learn? (p.4)Not only what forms are possible, but what particular forms will express their particular meanings (grammar is a tool for making meaning); thus, teachers need to be aware that the learner’s attention needs to be focused not only on the forms of the language, but also on the meanings these forms convey

9. What meanings do grammatical forms convey? How does this relate to new language learners? (pp.5-6)Representational (to represent the world as we experience and perceive it) and interpersonal (the way we use grammar to ease the task of getting things done); new language learners need to see how the forms of the language match the range of meanings – both representational and interpersonal – that they need to express and understand

10. What happens when we are trying to process language? (p.6)We are not only trying to make sense of the words and the grammar, but also trying to infer the speaker’s or writer’s intention – the function of what they are saying or writing

11. What is needed to successfully match form and function? (p.7)Reading clues from the context to understand the speaker’s meaning

12. What does Thornbury say about spoken grammar versus written grammar in terms of mutual intelligibility? (p.8)Learners should try to a kind of neutral English without marked regional, idiomatic, and cultural features (as they can be difficult for the learner to understand, and can be inappropriate for use in the kinds of contexts in which many learners will be operating), or without a strong bias to either the spoken or written mode (which often accounts for the stilted style in many traditional coursebooks)

13. How is a syllabus described? What two sets of decisions inform it? What are the two important criteria for selection? (p.8)It is to teaching what an itinerary is to package tourism; it’s a pre-planned, itemized, account of the route – telling the teacher what is to be covered and in what order. Decisions: selection and grading. Criteria: usefulness and frequency.

14. What does the criteria for grading the syllabus include? (pp.9-10)Complexity, learnability, and teachability

15. Other than meaning and functions, what are some other organizing principles for a syllabus? (p.10)Tasks, topics, and genre – or a mix of these (multi-layered)

16. What is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive rules? (p.10)Prescriptive (what should be said or written) vs. descriptive (generalizations about what speakers of the language actually do say rather than what they should do)

17. What are pedagogic rules? (p.12)Rules that make sense to learners while at the same time provide them with the means and confidence to generate language with a reasonable chance of success (rules that a teacher might give learners to apply)

18. Why are rules of use more controversial than rules of form? (p.12)Rules of use are heavily dependent on contextual factors (and as a result need to be taught through examples and means of contexts)

*Review the conclusions on page 13.

Unit 2: Why teach grammar?

1. What are the seven arguments in favor of grammar teaching? (pp.15-17)A. The sentence-machine argument (grammar is a description of the regularities in a language, and knowledge of these

regularities provides the learner with the means to generate a potentially enormous number of original sentences – limitless linguistic creativity)

B. The fine-tuning argument (the teaching of grammar serves as a corrective to ambiguity in spoken and written language)C. The fossilization argument (the more instruction, the slower the fossilization of linguistic competence)D. The advance-organizer argument (studying grammar primes learners for noticing and acquiring language in natural

communication)E. The discrete item argument (language is made digestible by tidying/packaging it up and organizing it into neat categories –

e.g. the present continuous or possessive pronouns – which most textbooks do)F. The rule-of-law argument (grammar is a system of learnable rules; transmission of a body of knowledge from those who have

the knowledge to those who don’t)G. The learner expectations argument 1 (learners have fairly fixed expectations as to what they will do in class –> apprenticeship

of observation and experiences learning languages)

2. What are the six arguments against grammar teaching? (pp.18-20)A. The knowledge-how argument (learn by doing not by studying – experiential learning vs. translating rules into skills)B. The communication argument (grammatical knowledge is just one component of communicative competence; shallow –end

approach: learn the rules and then apply them in life-like communication; more radical: use a language in order to learn it – i.e. studying rules is a waste of time as learners will virtually acquire them unconsciously by engaging in life-like communication)

C. The acquisition argument (Krashen argues that acquisition is a natural process – it occurs when the learner is exposed to the right input in a stress-free environment so that innate learning capacities are triggered)

D. The natural order argument (Chomsky argues that humans are ‘hard-wired’ to learn languages – there are universal principles of grammar that we are born with, which helps explain similarities in the developmental order in first language acquisition as well as in second language acquisition; textbook grammar is not, nor can ever become, a mental grammar)

E. The lexical chunks argument (lexical item-learning and chunks play a role in language development too; later unpacked into their component parts)

F. The learner expectations argument 2 (some students just want to talk/communicate – not study grammar)

3. What are the two basic design decisions concerning grammar? (p.21)Should the method adhere to a grammar syllabus? Should the rules of grammar be made explicit?

4. What are the basic principles for teaching grammar? (pp.25-27)The E-Factor – Efficiency = economy (student, amount of instructions), ease (teacher, preparation), and efficacy (learner attention, understanding, memory, and external motivation)The A-factor – Appropriacy (age, level, size of group, constitution of group – monolingual vs. multilingual, needs, interests, available materials and resources, previous learning experiences, present expectations, cultural factors affecting attitudes, and educational context)

*Review the conclusions on page 28.

Unit 3: How to teach grammar from rules

1. What is the difference between a deductive approach and an inductive approach? (p.29)A deductive (rule-driven) approach starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by examples in which the rule is applied. An inductive (discovery) approach starts with some examples from which a rule is inferred.

2. What are some disadvantages of a deductive approach? (p.30) Inadequate metalanguage or inability to understand the concepts Teacher-fronted, transmission-style vs. student involvement and interaction Explanation vs. demonstration (show/model) Too much emphasis on learning rules when trying to learn a language

3. What are some advantages of a deductive approach? (p.30) It gets straight to the point; time-saving – rules can be more simply and quickly explained than elicited from examples,

allowing more time for practice and application Respects the intelligence and maturity of students and acknolwdges the role of cognitive processes in language acquisition Confirms many students’ expectations about classroom learning Allows the teacher to deal with language points as they come up, rather than having to anticipate them and prepare for them

in advance

4. According to Michael Swan, what makes a good rule? (p.32) Truth (Is the rule true?) Limitation (Is it clear what the rule covers and what it doesn’t?) Clarity (Is it clearly expressed; free of ambiguity or obscure terminology?) Simplicity (Is it uncluttered with sub-rules and exceptions?) Familiarity (Does it use concepts that the students are familiar with?) Relevance (Is it a rule that reflects students’ specific needs and problems?)

5. What is the point in each step in sample lesson 1? (p.37)Step 1: Establish, from the outset, the terminology necessary to explain the difference between subject and object questions Step 2: Establishes a contrast between two grammatical forms – subject questions and object questionsStep 3: The teacher explains the language point.Step 4: Test the learners’ grasp of the rule and prepare them for independent practiceStep 5: Greater freedom and creativity; opportunities for personalization; focus on meaning as much as form

6. What is a trap-setting technique? (p.40)Anticipate an error that students will make and deliberately have them do something in order to make a point about grammar (e.g. overgeneralize the common ground between soler and used to in order to make a point about the fact that used to has no present tense form)

7. What is sample lesson 3 based on? (p.43)The belief that learners can teach each other through collaboration and exchange of information (by adopting the principles of the classic jigsaw activity and creating an information gap)

8. What are common types of materials in most self-study texts? (p.46)Gap-filling tasks, ordering tasks (e.g. correcting the order of words in a sentence), expansion tasks (which involve producing whole sentences or texts from prompt words), and transformation tasks (e.g. transforming direct speech into reported speech or active into passive sentences) – all of which are designed to help the learners help themselves

*Review the 4 sample lessons on pages 33-47, as well as the conclusions on pages 47-48.

Unit 4: How to teach grammar from examples

1. For an inductive approach to work best, what seems to be required? (p.50)Exposure + the intervention of either the syllabus designer, the materials writer, or the teacher, or all three (i.e. some sort of guidance and support)

2. What was the fundamental belief behind the Direct Method? What happens in Direct Method classes? (p.50)Our first language is acquired through the process of forming associations between language and the real world; the rules of language are supposedly acquired out of the experience of understanding and repeating examples which have been systematically graded for difficulty and put into a clear context (it isn’t necessary to draw the learners’ attention to an explicit statement of the grammar rule; instead, it was considered sufficient to rely on the learners’ unconscious processes to do the job)

3. What is a generative situation? How is Situational Language Teaching different from the Direct Method? What was this change in thinking precipitated by? (p.51)(1) A situation which the teacher sets up the lesson in order to generate several example sentences of a structure(2) An explicit rule statements are tolerated, (3) Noam Chomsky’s claim that language, rather than being a habit structure, was instead rule-governed creativity

4. What is discovery learning? (p.51)It involves cycles of trial and error, with guidance and feedback by the teacher

5. What is the ‘up-the-garden-path’ procedure? (p.52)A way to trick learners into misapplying their developing rule systems, thereby getting negative feedback, which in turn forces then to re-think their initial hypothesis

6. What are the advantages of the inductive approach? (p.54)

7. What are the disadvantages of an inductive approach? (pp.54-55)

*Review the 5 sample lessons on pages 55-68, as well as the conclusions on page 68.

Unit 5: How to teach grammar from texts

1. What does Thornbury say about language? (p.69) It is context-sensitive (meaning that, in the absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase)

2. What are three types of context that we need to help make meaning clear? (pp.70-71)Co-text (the text that surrounds and provides meaning to the individual language items in a text), context of situation (the roles and relationships of the speakers and the mode of communication), and the context of culture (features of the target culture)

3. What are two implications of a text-level view of language? (p.72)(1) If learners are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it in its context of use via texts (2) If learners are to achieve a functional command of a second language, they will need to be able to understand and produce not just isolated sentences, but whole texts in that language

4. What are the four sources of texts? (p.72)Coursebooks, authentic sources, the teacher (story, travel plans, etc.), and the students (texts they generate based on their interests)

5. What are a couple of compromise positions between advocates of coursebooks and advocates of authentic texts? (p.73)Take authentic texts and simplify them (i.e. modify the lexical and syntactic complexity to suit the level of the learners), or write classroom texts (modify coursebook or authentic texts)

*Review the 5 sample lessons on pages 73-89, as well as the conclusions on pages 89-90.

Unit 6: How to practice grammar

1. What are the three objectives of grammar practice? (p.91)Accuracy (precision at applying the system), fluency (automization of the system), and restructuring (integrating new knowledge into old)

2. When accuracy is the goal, what characteristics should practice activities have? (p.92)Attention to form, familiarity, thinking time, and feedback

3. When fluency is the goal, what characteristics should practice activities have? (p.93)Attention to meaning, authenticity, communicative purpose, chunking, and repetition

4. Practice activities designed to aid restructuring might have what characteristics? (p.94)Problematizing (forced to reassess grasp of rule; negotiate meaning), push (out-perform their competence), and scaffolding (support to provide the security to take risks with language)

*Review the 6 sample lessons on pages 95-111, as well as the conclusions on pages 111-112.

Unit 7: How to deal with grammar errors

1. What are some questions a teacher might ask when faced with a student’s possible error? (p.113)Is there an error here? What kind of error is it (i.e. how to classify it)? What caused it (i.e. transfer or developmental)? Does it matter (i.e. is it intelligible)? What should I do about it?

2. What are the categories of errors? (p.114)Lexical, grammar, discourse, and pronunciation

3. What is transfer? What are the two types of transfer? (p.114)L1 influence on L2 production; positive and negative (L1 interference)

4. What are developmental errors? (p.115)Errors made during the process of hypothesis formation and testing of language

5. What is a fair, subjective criterion for determining if an error really matters or not? (p.115)Intelligibility – to what extent does the error interfere with or distort the speaker’s message

6. What is your attitude to error and correction? (*Opinion)

7. What are some options when faced with a student error? (pp.117-118)(1) Negative feedback (self-correction), (2) teacher repairs the utterance, (3) pinpoint the kind of error the student made (self or peer correction), (4) feedback signal for the class (peer correction), (5) lead up to the error and pause right before it (isolate for peer correction; finger-coding), (6) echo the mistake with a quizzical intonation (self-correction), (7) clarification requests (signal lack of clarity), (8) literal interpretation to show unintended effect of the error, (9) reactive teaching (impromptu teaching point), (10) reformulation (covert feedback), (11) “Good” (focus on meaning over form), (12) teacher says nothing but writes down error for future reference (postpone feedback so as to interrupt the flow of talk vs. real operating conditions – correct at the moment the error is made)

8. The choice of feedback strategy depends on what factors? (pp.119-120)The type of error (Does it have a major effect on communication? Is it one the learner could probably self-correct?), the type of activity (Is the focus of the activity more on form or on meaning?), and the type of learner (Will the learner be discouraged or humiliated by correction? Alternatively, will the learner feel short-changed if there is no correction?)

*Review the 2 sample lessons on pages 120-126, as well as the conclusions on page 126.

Unit 8: How to integrate grammar

1. What does the PPP model represent? (p.129)Accuracy-to-fluency

2. What is an alternative model to PPP? (p.129)Task (learners first perform a communicative task that the teacher sets up) > Teach (the teacher then uses this to identify language features learners could have used in order to communicate their intentions more effectively, and these are taught and practiced) > Task (students reform the original or similar task)

*Review the 4 sample lessons on pages 130-149, as well as the conclusions on page 140.

Chapter 9: How to test grammar

1. What are discrete-item tests? Individual components of the learners’ knowledge (e.g. irregular past tense verb forms) are tested using tasks such as gap-fills.

2. What are six factors that need to be taken into account when assessing the value of a test? (pp.141-143) Practicality (easy to design, set up, and mark) Face-validity (meet learners’ expectations of what a test should look like – fair and perform to their ability) Reliability (consistent results) Validity (test what we want to test) Spin-off (can be used subsequently for review and remedial learning) Backwash (positively influences the teaching that will be done in preparation for it)

*Review the 2 sample tests on pages 143-149, as well as the conclusion on page 150.

Chapter 10: How NOT to teach grammar

1. What conclusions can we draw about the teaching of grammar? (p.153) The Rule of Context (teach grammar in context) The Rule of Use (teach grammar in order to facilitate the learners’ comprehension and production of real language, rather

than as an end in itself) The Rule of Economy (minimize presentation time and maximize practice time) The Rule of Relevance (teach only the grammar that students have problems with) The Rule of Nurture (provide the right conditions for grammar learning – *see below) The Rule of Appropriacy (interpret all of the above rules according to the level, needs, interests, expectations, and learning

styles of the students – and know your grammar inside out)

2. What are the conditions for grammar learning The Rule of Nurture argues for providing? (p.154) Input (engaging, leading to intake) Output (sufficient quantity and/or quality > develop both fluency and accuracy) Feedback (type and quantity > attention directed at form) Motivation (content and design of the lesson > motivated to attend to input, produce optimal output, and take account of the

feedback)