How to teach grammar

How to teach grammar: Three Golden Rules

There are three golden rules for successful grammar teaching. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are. So instead, let me offer a few personal opinions. I'll try to be brief: I've spent the last three years writing a practical grammar course that's moving towards publication, and I've got so much in my head that it's hard to sum it all up.

Theory
There's a lot of theory around, much of it contradictory. It can be valuable, but I sometimes feel, to quote Mark Twain, that "the researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it". My rather unhelpful view is that it all depends. Learners vary greatly in their response to grammar teaching: some get a lot out of it, some very little. Learning contexts and purposes also vary greatly. And 'grammar' means so many different things that it's extremely difficult to generalise about how to teach it.

Explanations
In general, I have little sympathy with people who are hostile to giving students rules. Explanations of how things work are often useful. They do need to be clear and simple, though: the whole truth can be counterproductive, in language as in life. I get uneasy if an explanation in a book for learners takes up more than two or three lines of text. They should be in the mother tongue if possible. Some points can be usefully learnt through an inductive 'discovery' approach, others probably not.

Examples
Good realistic examples are vital, but they don't replace explanations – an example on its own never tells you exactly what it's an example of. Suitably chosen authentic material – advertisements, cartoons, songs, poems, etc – can make examples memorable and fix them in students' minds. I've often found it helpful myself to learn examples by heart – they act as a sort of template for generating similar phrases or sentences – and I think this is true for many learners.

Exercises
Variety is really the key. There's nothing wrong with mechanical exercises – gap-filling, sentence transformation and so forth. These can help learners to grasp the form of a complex structure at the outset without having to think too much about the meaning. But it's important to move on to activities where the structure is used in more interesting and realistic ways. I like structure-oriented problem-solving activities and quizzes, games, picture-based work, text-based work, role-play, exercises that get students using the structure to talk about themselves and their ideas, exercises that combine grammar practice with vocabulary learning, and internet-exploration activities, to name just a few approaches.

Supplementing the coursebook
The coursebook (if there is one) generally won't provide enough work on key points. More practice will be needed in class, using groupwork and pairwork. Out-of-class work (corrected or self-access) using good grammar practice materials can also help a lot. 

'Carry-over'
The real problem, of course, is getting learners to carry over their grammar learning from controlled practice to spontaneous real-life use. They get their tenses all right in the grammar exercises on Tuesday morning, and all wrong in the discussion on Friday afternoon. Up to a point, we have to live with disappointment: foreign-language learners don't get everything right. We certainly need to keep coming back to key grammar points, revising them, practising them in semi-controlled speaking and writing activities, and correcting mistakes by whatever approach we find most useful, but we won't get anything like complete accuracy. (My basic view of grammar teaching is that if we teach some grammatical structures to some students, some of them will get better at using some of those structures some of the time. Definitely.) I think we also need to respect students' decisions. If they have learnt when to use third-person -s, have had plenty of practice, have had their mistakes corrected, and still go on dropping it – well, that is their choice, and we shouldn't waste any more time on the point, or beat ourselves up because we haven't got the students to do what we want. Life is too short.

Average: 3 (8 votes)

Submitted by jvl narasimha rao on Thu, 02/10/2011 - 17:10

Dear Mr swan,

I am really doubtful whether teaching of grammar helps the acquistion of language in the initial stages.It may be helpful in the higher stages when a student is knowing about a language. 

It may help him to pass an examination or write better but never help him speak fluently.I think grammar canot be taught for the sake of grammar.it should be internalised through real life situations.

regards,

JVL Narasimha Rao

Andhra Pradesh

India

 

Submitted by K.Rajalakshmi on Thu, 02/10/2011 - 05:56

Greetings Sir,

Your method of teaching is amazing.Is it possible to make the students to understan by giving mere examples without rule?

Submitted by Ajit Singh Nagpal on Thu, 02/10/2011 - 01:42

Hi Michael,

 

The moment I saw the title of your blog I had to read all of it.  I don't think it's all that lengthy, but honestly and I am sorry to say this but I don't think there was much to chew on.  With due respect, it's not your fault, but it is just the subject of 'grammar'.

I believe that grammar rules are not to be taught.  If one wishes to know the rule, sure go ahead and read about it, but for sure it is not going to help you to understand how to write or speak better.  Yes, you will know the rule and you will be able to regurgitate the rule.

Many a time after completing a grammar lesson, how often do you ask yourself, "How much of what I have taught will be rememberd by the students and how much will be reflected upon for actual use when speaking or writing?"

Good grammar comes with exposure (reading, reading and reading) and using the language regularly.  Grammar should be taught with exposure to different usage and meaning of phrases, sturctuires and word patterns.  That has been my experience

 

Cheers             

 

 

 

 

Submitted by Vlazaki on Wed, 02/09/2011 - 20:53

Open minded, humorous, focused. That's the approach of a good teacher!

Thanks for reminding

Submitted by acLiLtocLiMB on Wed, 02/09/2011 - 20:07

Hi Michael,

Actually, to me, "I didn't say nothing to nobody" means "I said something to somebody"! Haha.

Seriously though, I find that the majority of students actually like learning grammar; grammar provides them with a sort of comfort zone: they need to know why something is this way and not another. The problem is that a lot of teachers, especially native, aren't very comfortable with teaching grammar because they don't know the rules! This is why your book, Michael, remains a bible to many of us. It's true; I find that, generally, non-native teachers have a better grasp of grammar.

What students, especially the younger ones, don't like are repetitive written exercises because they find them boring. Whenever I've got students to do my online exercises (in the form of quizzes and games), I find that their level of enthusiasm shoots right up.

Kind regards,

acLiLtocLiMB

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