Should we be planning to teach grammar? If so, how? Catherine Walter
Should we be planning to teach grammar? If so, how? Catherine Walter
Tuesday 19th April 2011 9.00 - 10.10 am
Catherine asked the above question and demonstrated during her talk that theories and research indicate that we should indeed be teaching grammar.
Theories which accommodate explicit grammar teaching include:
· The input - interaction - out approach
· Task based instruction
Evidence for explicit teaching can be found in studies by:
· Norris and Ortega (2000)
· Gass and Selister (2008)
· Spada and Tomita (2010)
Catherine told us that we should be selective with which grammar rules we teach and recommended not teaching 'fuzzy' rules. Fuzzy rules are those with many exceptions or those that occur rarely.
The following learners would find grammar rules challenging:
· Young children
· Adutls from backgrounds which have not prepared them to analyse at this level (e.g. those who are not literate in their first language)
In addition some courses may be focussed on giving learners certain skills in a short time such as 'survival' courses and therefore have little time for explicit grammar teaching.
There is some evidence that inductive teaching is more effective than deductive teaching. Catherine gave a brief guide to using inductive grammar activities:
· Don't use 'fuzzy' categories. Rules need to be clear, true and differentiated from those for other structures.
· The grammar rule needs to be appropriate to the learner's level of conceptual development.
· When planning start by considering with the rule you want the learners to finish with.
· Guide the learners towards the rule (e.g. by using guided questions or other relevant activities).
Catherine said 'Grammar isn't everything but it is an important part of language...... Planning and teaching grammar makes sense.'
