TEACHING GRAMMAR

TEACHING GRAMMAR FROM CONTEXT

Teaching grammar through texts is a good way to let students know how actually a word or a grammar item is used. With this technique they can process it in an easier way as they get immediately the meaning of it not only the form. Many teachers are used to teach since the level sentence, but real communication goes beyond, groups of sentences joined together to construct meaning using different markers and linking words. So if real language is like this we must consider teach with texts.

Texts do not mean only books or plain writings; texts mean all kind of context in written or oral form, for example: street signs, invitations, football commentaries, postcards, jokes, conversations, magazine articles or advertisements to mention some.

We can mention four sources of texts which are the course book, authentic sources, the teacher and the students themselves when they produce language they are producing authentic texts.

I will analyze and evaluate the following lesson plans based on the basic principles for grammar teaching (Scott Thornburny): The Efficiency Factor and The Appropriacy Factor and the criteria for good rules (Michael Swan): Truth, limitation, clarity, simplicity, familiarity and relevance; teacher’s role versus students’ role and correction of mistakes.

Sample lesson 1

In this lesson the teacher wants to teach the simple present through a dialogue about daily routines; in step one she plays the conversation and let students to answer some questions about it, they can discuss it in groups. In step 2 they need to arrange some words as they listen to them to test their familiarity to such words, then in step three she focuses on which activity does each one of the speakers in the conversation. In step four and five she works with the frequency adverbs having students match the adverbs with each activity according to the listening. In the previous stages the teacher tried students to get the meaning to later focus on the form of sentences and she starts to write; now the students have a visual aim.

In steps six, seven and eight they focus on the form of sentences to later invite students to write their own following the same pattern. As we can see the teacher gives the rule as follows: subject + adverb + verb + complements; this is very clear and simple to understand after they were in contact with such pattern because they are already familiar with it.

In this lesson the teacher’s role was first of all to choose a text in which they found a lot of good and simple examples according to their level; then she guided them step by step to finally let them express themselves. In the final stage the teacher can observe if the students can use the thought patter or not, since the step eight we can check if they have some mistakes and correct them. The lesson plan do not specify how mistakes were treated however it is important to correct them as they come up because it is a writing activity.

The lesson is effective if we choose the appropriate text, not too difficult to demotivate students but at the same time not so easy. If we do not find the appropriate text we can also write our own of course it will take more preparation time but it is worth.

About the appropriateness, this lesson match students expectations as is developed using a dialogue of a real situation and better they can use this language on their own easily if they wish as it is a daily language used.

Sample lesson 2

In this lesson the teacher is going to present a passive structure and she decided to work with an authentic text. This has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. Even though we can look for authentic texts that at the same time match our necessities for the class, the time of preparation increases of course.

In step one the teacher want students to predict the vocabulary they will see by the topic of the text, in step two the students read silently and answer some comprehension questions; then in step three the teacher extract one sentence of the text and write it on the board, such sentence is in passive voice but she also writes the sentence in an active voice to make students compare the structures. In step 4 the teacher elicits the structure, so students are lead to discover the rule by themselves. Then they retell the story with their own words. Finally students write a similar story.

Sometimes the use of authentic texts had the difficulty that they contain grammar items or vocabulary that is difficult to assimilate, in such case the teacher can adapt the text or explain giving the exceptions of the rule, it will depend of the objective of the class and the time available.

This lesson is economical as it does not require specific material just the text, of course we can always illustrate it with a picture, it is also appropriate if the students have the level required to understand an authentic text, otherwise it could be very difficult for them.

Students’ role was to discover the rule and apply it when necessary; they were guided through the lesson by the teacher to finally write their own stories using the passive voice.

As in the first lesson, this one ends up with the students’ production in a written form where we can test their learning and treat mistakes.

An important aspect to be considered when we choose a text to work in an English class is that such text is familiar to the students, an interesting topic that somehow is related to their lives. It might be interesting, or funny, something that let us to engage students in the activity.

Using these techniques we have a real context to work on, and students understand better because their question what is this for is already answer, it is implicit so they can be more motivated in the class making real uses of communicative language.

REFERENCES

· Scott Thornbury, How to Teach Grammar. Longman. 2002. pp. 69-90, 113-126, 128-138.