Teaching Grammar - Week 5 - Grammar Teaching Techniques

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 5 of the course Teaching Grammar for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT Term IIIC 2023. In this class we will do several activities to explore and evaluate specific techniques for teaching grammar including analyzing a sample grammar lesson, sharing our reading reactions from last week, and analyzing a sample grammar podcast episode.

Today's Goals:

• Particpate in a grammar lesson sequence and analyze the lesson to identify techniques to teach grammar communicatively.
• Share your favorite grammar teaching techniques and explore their strengths, challenges, and variations.
• Review the design features of your structured input task.

Guiding Questions:

• How can grammar be taught communicatively?
• What techniques can I use to teach grammar effectively?
• What is the importance of input in grammar learning?

Task 1: Sample Grammar Lesson Sequence

Here your teacher will walk you through a sample grammar lesson. Just participate as a student. Later you will be asked to analyze the lesson sequence from the teacher perspective.

• Worksheet: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Analysis of Grammar Lesson

Take 5 minutes to discuss the following questions with your partners about the lesson sequence. You will probably not have time to answer them all so just do what you can.

• What are your immediate thoughts or impressions about the lesson?
• How did the lesson begin? What happened after that? How did it end?
• What was the purpose of the different stages of the lesson? 
• How can you describe the role of students in the different stages of the lesson?
• How was the grammar topic introduced and clarified?
• What specific teaching techniques from this lesson do you think are likely to help learners? Why?
• Is there anything you disagree with regarding this lesson or is there something you would do differently if you were to teach it? Why?

Task 3: Input Processing and Structured Input Activities

Let's consider one popular theoretical model that has been proposed to explain the process of language acquisition and also to explore a grammar teaching strategy in alignment with that theory . We will look at Bill VanPatten's 1993 article Grammar Teaching for the Acquisition Rich Classroom to explore his idea of Processing Instruction.

• "...there are no cases of successful first or second language acquisition without some form of comprehensible input present during learning. Conversely, an absence of comprehensible input is consistent with unsuccessful first and second language acquisition.”

• “From second language research, we also know that the output of learners is not simply a reflection of the input. First, something happens to the input as it is processed. In addition, there is nonlinear development of the learner’s linguistic system over time. Thus, the output of learners at any given stage may bear only a partial resemblance to the input that they have been exposed to (pp. 435-436)."

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

Task 4: Sharing your Structured Input Task

Now we will take a look at the sample task you created.

• What is the grammar point?
• Are students asked to process the form and meaning?
• How are the required to respond to the input?
• What possible follow up tasks could you include?

Task 5: Our Favorite Grammar Teaching Techniques

Take turns sharing some of your favorite techniques for teaching grammar based on the reading response activity you did for this week. Do not read directly from your study guide. Instead, use the graphic below to guide an impromptu (improvised) presentation to introduce the technique, explain how to do it, justify why it helps, and express your own personal thoughts and experience with the technique.

Because of time, each student will only share one.

Click to view full size.

References:

Folse, K. (2016). Keys to Teaching Grammar to English Language Learners: A Practical Handbook. The University of Michigan Press.

VanPatten, B. (1993). Grammar Teaching for the Acquisition-Rich Classroom. Foreign Language Annals 26(4). 435-450. 1111/j.1944-9720.1993.tb01179.x