Teaching Grammar and Writing - Week 3 - Techniques for Teaching Grammar

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 3 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 common strategies for teaching and practicing grammar and we will consider a model of instructed SLA that give a bigger focus to the role of input in grammar practice. 

Today's Goals:

• Share your design choices behind your proposed guided discovery activity.
• Highlight the strengths, challenges, and potential variations of common grammar teaching techniques.
• Analyze several sample structured input activities to identify their key features. 

Guiding Questions:

• How can I support learners' discoveries about English grammar?
• What grammar teaching techniques are in my instructional repertoire? 
• How can I provide higher quality input to support students' grammar acquisition?

Task 1: Activity Type Demo - Guided Discovery Activity

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 guided discovery activity?
• Example: What activity did you create?
• Strengths: In what ways is guided discovery potentially beneficial?
• Challenges: What potential limitations or challegnes are associated with guided discovery?

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Reading Response - Techniques to Teach Grammar

Let's see which grammar teaching techniques from the assigned reading you decided to highlight and react to. 

Click to view full sized image.

Task 3: Input Based Approaches to Grammar Instruction

Most grammar practice focuses on controlled production. VanPatton's Processing Instruction model provides an interesting alternative by arguing for an input focused approach.

• Sample Spanish Activities: CLICK HERE
• Sample English Activities: CLICK HERE

References:

Folse, K. (2017). Keys to Teaching English Grammar to English Language Learners. (2nd ed.) University of Michigan Press.