Teaching Grammar and Writing - Week 2 - Grammar as a Process

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 2 of the course Teaching Grammar and Writing for the Master's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IC 2023. In this class we will discuss challenges to the traditional structuralist views of grammar and instead make the case that it is a skill and a dynamic organism. We will also look at your grammar drill design and consider principles for guided discovery techniques in grammar instruction.

Today's Goals:

• Discuss ways grammar can be viewed as a dynamic process or action rather than a product or object.
• Describe the relationship between grammar and context.
• Consider alternative metaphors for grammar and langauge acquisition.

Guiding Questions:

• What are some differences between product and process views of grammar?
• What is the relationship between grammar and context?
• In what ways is a mechanic view grammar and an acquisition view of language learning inadequate?

Task 1: Activity Type Demo - Grammar Drills

In this course you will be asked to create sample grammar activities in order to compile a portfolio of grammar activitiy types that describes their basic features, strengths, and challenges. 

• Characteristics: What are the features of a drill or restricted output activity?
• Example: What activity did you create?
• Strengths: In what ways are drills potentially beneficial?
• Challenges: What potential limitations or challegnes are associated with drills?

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Assigned Reading Discussion - Grammar as a Process

For homework you read the chapter "Grammar as a Process" from the book Uncovering Grammar (Thornbury, 2001). Take a few minutes to discuss the questions below to review some of the concepts.

• Thornbury begins the chapter by asking the question "Is grammar a thing or is it something that happens?"

•  What does he mean by that? 
• In what ways can we think of grammar as a noun and in what ways can we think of grammar as a verb?

• Consider this quote from the beginning of the chapter. Read it carefully then describe what it means to you and what you think about it.

• "Inferring the process of language acquisition from its product (grammar) is like inferrring the process of 'omeletting' from the omelette... It ignores the fact that the product and the process are two quite different things - that there is grammar and there is grammaring, and the latter is not easily inferable form the former. In short, a description of used language is not the same as language being used."

• Another part of the chapter descriped situations in which very little (if any) grammar is needed to communicate and other situations in which grammar is needed to "fill in the gaps". 

• What are some examples of situations where less grammar is needed? 
• In other situations, what are the kinds of gaps that grammar is needed to fill?

• There chapter also contained the first two diagrams below talking about the relationship between context and grammar. I also added a third diagram to illustarate the influence of social distance and status on grammar. Explain in your own words what you undertand these diagrams to mean.

Click to view full size image.

• In the chapter there were two sample dialogues. Read each one aloud then discuss these questions.

• Which dialogue sounded more natural? Why?
• Which circle(s) from the diagrams above does this example help to illustrate?

Click to view full size image.

Task 3: Grammar as a Dynamic Organism

Chapter 3 from Diane Larsen-Freeman's (2003) book Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring contrast the traditional "static"conception of grammar by proposing four ways in which it is a "dynamic" system, one that is better described with an ecological or organic metaphor rather than the traditional mechanistic ones.

References:

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring. Heinle Cengage Learning.

Thornbury, S. (2001). Uncovering Grammar. Macmillan Education.