Transcript A WORKABLE APPROACH TO GRAMMAR

A WORKABLE APPROACH TO GRAMMAR
FORM
VS
MEANING
ACCURACY
FLUENCY
CONTENT
CONTEXT
DEDUCTION
INDUCTION
LANGUAGE DISSECTED
LANGUAGE AS A WHOLE
GRAMMAR POINTS
TAKEN AS ISOLATED
PARTS AND PLACED
IN SPECIFICALLY
PREPARED UNITS
GRAMMAR IS IMMERSED
IN SEMI OR AUTHENTIC
TEXTS ACCORDING TO
THE TEACHERS´SELECTION
GRAMMAR IS GRADED
AND SEQUENCED FOR
TEACHING PURPOSES
ATTENTION FOCUSES
ON STRUCTURES
GRAMMAR IS PRESENTED
ACCORDING TO THE
TYPE OF TEXT
ATTENTION FOCUSES
ON CONTEXTUAL
CLUES
SUGGESTED STEPS TO INTRODUCE GRAMMAR IN THE
CLASSROOM
1. AWARENESS
Learners are given opportunities to encounter the
structure in different types of discourse. (oral or
written)
Example: Students are given extracts from newspaper articles
and are asked to find and underline all the examples of the
structure they can find.
Learners are introduced to the structure.
Purpose: Focus their attention on the structure.
2. GUIDED AND
SEMI-GUIDED PRACTICE
Learners produce examples of the structure (predetermined task)
Ex.: John drinks tea but he doesn’t drink coffee. (scotch brandy)
John drinks ………… but he doesn´t eat ………
3. MEANINGFUL PRACTICE
Learners form sentences of their own according to a
set pattern, but the vocabulary they use is their own.
4. REFLECTION
Students independently analyze, compare, reflect.
5. PRODUCTION - APPLICATION
Students are capable of producing sentences of their
own.
Grammar ........... yes,......no..... how......
“The language teacher’s view of what constitutes
knowledge of a language is …. The assumption that the
language teacher appears to make is that once this basis is
provided, then the learner will have no difficulty in dealing with
the actual use of language….”
There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that this
assumption is of very doubtful validity indeed.”
(From H.G. Widdowson, “Directions in the Teaching of Discourse “ in Brumfit
C.J. and Johnson, K. (eds.) The Communicative Approach to Language
Teaching, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 49-60
“The evidence seems to show beyond doubt that
though it is by communicative use in ‘real speech
acts’ that the new language ‘sticks’ in the learner´s
mind, insight into pattern is an equal partner with
communicative use in what language teachers now
see as the dual process of acquisition/learning.
Grammar, approached as a voyage of discovery into
the patterns of language rather than the learning of
prescriptive rules, is no longer a bogey word.”
(from Eric Hawkins, Awareness of Language: An Introduction,
Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp- 150-1)
“The important question is not whether teaching and
learning grammar is necessary and/or sufficient for
language learning,. But whether it helps or not. And
my own opinion is that yes, it does help, provided it
is taught consistently as a means to improving
mastery of the language, not as an end it itself.
(from Penny Uhr, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and
Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 77-78.)
THE ROLE OF GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
THEN
SENTENCE-GRAMMAR THE FOCUS OF
TEACHING
LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE THE GOAL
OF LEARNING
GRAMMAR OFTEN TAUGHT DIVORCED
FROM CONTEXT
ACCURACY-BASED METHODOLOGY
NOW
ACCURACY AND FLUENCY OF EQUAL
STATUS
FLUENCY-BASED METHODOLOGY
GRAMMAR TAUGHT IN MEANINGFUL
CONTEXT THROUGH TASKS
FOCUS ON GRAMMAR IN DISCOURSE
AND TEXTS
COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE THE
GOAL OF LEARNING