English Teaching Congress IV - Presentation Summary and Resources

Beyond Fill-in-the-Blank: Meaningful Grammar Activities to Support Acquisition and Promote Collaborative Learning 

Presentation Summary and Resources

Introduction: This blog post was created to provide a summary and resources related to a practice-oriented presentation given as part of the IV English Teaching Congress Region Huetar Norte on December 1, 2022. 

Session Goals: 

• Discuss the limitations of traditional grammar practice exercises.
• Analyze the features, rationale, and instructional applications of two alternatives to traditional grammar practice: structured-input and discourse frames.
• Consider the importance of your roal as a materials developer.

Guiding Questions: 

• What are the limitations of traditional approaches to grammar practice?
• What are the features of structured-input and discourse frames activities and why are they beneficial techniques in grammar instruction?
• Why should teachers view themselves as materials developers and what criteria or principles can guide their materials development choices?

Topic 1: Challenges of Traditional Grammar Instruction

Grammar is an essential component of any foreign language course and students need ample opportunities to clarify, practice, and produce target structures. Despite its importance, many students find grammar learning to be boring and tedious. This is not surprising given the repetitive fill-in-the-blank style exercises found in most commercial English language teaching textbooks and, more recently, in online resources and games. Besides its detrimental effects on motivation, an overemphasis on mechanical form-focused drills consisting of discrete items with minimal contextualization does little to help students make the necessary form-meaning relationships that support acquisition (Wong & VanPatten, 2008).

Topic 2: Structured Input Activities

VanPatten proposes a pedagogical intervention called processing instruction in which learners receive an explanation about the target structure as well as information about first language processing strategies that might have a detrimental impact on their ability to process the structure correctly. They are then asked to complete input processing activities rather than drills or other mechanical practice that require production of the target forms (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011). These input processing tasks are also known as structured-input activities because they are designed in a way that requires students to attend to the target forms to comprehend the meaning of the text and complete the task (Ellis, 2011). All structured-input activities require students to respond to the input, not by producing their own samples but by classifying the responses in some way such as ticking a box, marking a picture, agreeing or disagreeing, or indicating the speaker of a statement. Activities can additionally be classified into two varieties according to the required response types. Referential activities are those that have one definite correct answer and affective activities are ones which require a personal response from the learner such as agreement or disagreement or preference. In either case, the task cannot be successfully accomplished without adequate processing of the target forms to comprehend the input (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011).

• Sample Structured-Input Activities: CLICK HERE

Topic 3: Discourse Frames Activities

Development of communicative ability in lower levels is challenging because learners lack the linguistic resources to maintain a conversation. The ability to converse requires control of language at the discourse level, any use of the language beyond a single sentence. Celce-Murcia (2016) argues that lower-level learners can benefit from the presentation of discourse models in the form of short texts provided by the teacher from which sample organizational phrases or discourse frames can be introduced. The texts used by teachers to introduce new language structures to students are in the form of dialogues or monologues that show how the target forms fit within typical organizational patterns. After highlighting the target structures in their communicative context, similar discourse frames can be provided to allow students to communicate their own ideas using the same structures. Celce-Murcia gives the example of a family tree diagram and the following accompanying discourse frame. “This is my family. I am -----. My mother is ----- and my father is -----. My sister is ----- and my brother is ----- (Celce-Murcia, 2016, p. 4).” After the teacher models with her own family information, students can use the frame to tell their partners about their families. This approach provides necessary scaffolding to the learners by offering a supportive framework to organize and communicate their own ideas while incorporating target grammatical structures.

• Sample Discourse Frames Activities: CLICK HERE

Topic 4: Principles for Materials Development

Grammar teachers are also materials developers since they are responsible for selecting, modifying, and creating learning resources for their lessons, so it is important for them to develop effective strategies for designing these resources. Tomlinson (2010) argues for the importance of taking a principled approach to materials development for language teaching rather than relying on one’s intuitions about what is appropriate or simply copying the design features of commercially successful publications. He outlines 10 criteria for materials development based on principles of language acquisition and teaching. Below, I cites how five of Tomlinson’s principles are exemplified through the use of structured-input and discourse frames activities during grammar instruction.

• Principle 1: “a prerequisite for language acquisition is that the learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use (Tomlinson, 2010, p. 87).”

• Comprehension-based approaches to grammar instruction do just that. Structured-input activities are meant to provide learners with more extensive exposure to the target grammar structures in context with the aim of helping them process the structures, identify the form-meaning relationships in the input, and add this knowledge to their developing linguistic system. The use of discourse frames to support meaningful communication also fulfills this principle as conversation with classmates is a legitimate source of input of language in use.

• Principle 2: “in order for the learners to maximize their exposure to language in use, they need to be engaged both affectively and cognitively in the language experience (Tomlinson, 2010, p. 88).”
• Structured-input tasks have a high potential for affective and cognitive engagement. The content, examples, and response tasks the teacher designs in a structured-input activity can be localized to better reflect topics that students are interested in. Additionally, the need to be cognitively engaged in the language experience is fulfilled through the intellectual effort of attending to the relevant features of the input to complete the task.

• Principle 3: “the teacher needs to be able to personalize and localize the materials and to relate them in different ways to the needs, wants, and learning-style preferences of individual learners (Tomlinson, 2010, pp. 96-97).”

• Teachers know their own students’ needs, likes, personalities, and learning context far better than a commercial materials writer. Therefore, teachers are in a unique position to develop appropriate learning materials that catch their students’ interest. Examples used in structured-input tasks can be contextualized to reflect current events, celebrities, people and places students are familiar with, and other aspects of their reality. The use of discourse frames to encourage communication between lower-level students helps center the topic of discussion on students’ lives, experiences, preferences, and opinions.

• Principle 4: “language learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input (Tomlinson, 2010, p. 93).”

• Structured-input tasks are designed to require learners to attend to the grammatical forms present in the input in order to complete the activity. Discourse frames also provide learners with models how the target grammatical structures can be used to express meaning. 

• Principle 5: “learners need opportunities to use language to try to achieve communicative purposes (2010, p. 94).” 

• When completed in pairs, a structured-input activity provides the opportunity for communicative language use as learners collaborate and negotiate meaning in order to complete the task. Additionally, discourse frames help lower-level students combine their own ideas with target grammar structures to facilitate communicative interaction. 

Presentation Slides

Presenter Bio: 

Mark Cormier is an English teacher, trainer, and teacher educator. He has a master’s in TESOL from Marlboro College and undergraduate degrees in English teaching and Latin American studies from Universidad Americana and Appalachian State University. Mark’s interests include teacher development, reflective practice, materials design, and online teaching. He is currently Head of Training and Professional Development at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano professor in the school of education at Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología, and an English teacher at Universidad Castro Carazo.

References: 

Celce-Murcia, M. (2016). The importance of the discourse level in understanding and
teaching English grammar. In E. Hinkel (Ed.) Teaching English Grammar to Speakers
of Other Languages. Routledge.

Ellis, R. (2010). Second language acquisition research and language-teaching materials. In
N. Harwood (Ed.) English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and Practice (pp. 33-
57). Cambridge University Press.

Nassaji, H. & Fotos, S. (2011). Teaching Grammar in Second Language Classrooms.
Routledge.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon
Press. Inc.

Tomlinson, B. (2010). Principles of effective materials development. In N. Harwood (Ed.)
English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and Practice (pp. 81-108). Cambridge
University Press.

VanPatten, B. (1993). Grammar Teaching for the Acquisition-Rich Classroom. Foreign Language Annals 26(4), 435-450. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1993.tb01179.

Wong, W. & VanPatten, B. (2008). The Evidence is IN: Drills are OUT. Foreign Language
Annals 36(3), 403-423. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2003.tb02123.