LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

DEVELOPMENT:
Teaching Grammar
AKL3030 TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE METHODOLOGY

P R O F. D R . N E M I R A M A Č I A N S K I E N Ė
Overall Language Proficiency
(CEFR, 2018)
Knowledge of the world Reception

Socio-cultural
Production
competence
COMMUNICATIVE
GENERAL COMPETENCES
LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES
Intercultural
Interaction
competence

Professional experience Mediation

OVERALL LANGUAGE
PROFICIENCY
Linguistic Planning

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE

Sociolinguistic Implementation
Vocabulary COMPETENCES LANGUAGE STRATEGIES
Grammar
Pronunciation
Pragmatic Evaluation & Repair
Orthography

AKL3030 TEFL METHODOLOGY N. MAČIANSKIENĖ

 Contents

1. Grammatical structures in L1 & L2

2. Place of grammar in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) &
Post-CLT
3. How to teach grammar?
◦ (A) Types of teaching grammar. Where does grammar fit in?
◦ (B) Stages in teaching grammar
◦ 1) Presenting grammar: explanations
◦ 2) Practice/consolidation – from accuracy to fluency
◦ 3) Communicative activities

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 Grammatical structures in L1 & L2

1. Grammatical structures
A specific instance of grammar is usually called a ‘structure’
◦ Tenses
English Lithuanian
◦ Noun plurals
 Articles  No articles
◦ Comparison of adjectives  16 tenses  4 tenses
◦ Articles  < diminutives (-let)  > diminutives (-ytis, -utis, -iukas, -čiukas, -ėlis ...)
◦ Conditionals  Stable word order  Loose word order
◦ ...  2 noun cases  7 noun cases
 Adjectives: not declined, no  Adjectives: declined, have gender
gender  Noun genders
What about grammatical  Nouns: no gender  Verbs conjugated (depending on person, number, tense,
structures in your L1?  Verbs: not conjugated aspect, voice, mood)
 Accentuation system
 Diacritical marks: ą, ę, į, ų č, š, ž, ū, ė

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 Place of Grammar in CLT/ Post CLT

2. Place of Grammar in CLT/ Post CLT

Communicative approach (Communicative Language Teaching (CLT):
◦ Situational language teaching in 1960s
◦ Functional language teaching in 1970s-1980s
◦ SS are provided with opportunities to use language for communication
◦ Place for grammar: You have to be accurate to be understood (focus on fluency)
Post-communicative approach – 1990s onwards:
◦ Language is learnt for/in communication
◦ Teaching effective communication (professional, academic, personal)
◦ Place for grammar: Effective communication is bound to be accurate (fluency + accuracy)

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 How to teach grammar?

3. A. Types of teaching grammar

Covert / Implicit
◦ SS have opportunities to hear, read and use the correct grammar structures, but no exlanations are
provided, SS might not even know they’re learning grammar

Overt / Explicit
◦ SS are provided with explanations of correct grammar structures

Deductive vs Inductive
◦ DIDUCTIVE: RULE + examples (usu. in textbooks)
◦ INDUCTIVE: EXAMPLES + SS work out rules for themselves (we remember better, but might take time if structure is
complicated)

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 Place of Ggrammar in CLT/ Post-CLT

Where does grammar fit?

Beginners
◦ a lot of structure (+ function) teaching & practice, personalization, < free communicative activities
◦ emphasis on listening and reading (reception)
◦ covert grammar teaching – aim is to get ss to practice / use the lg as much as possible

Intermediate level: grammar teaching is overt

◦ > free communicative activities
◦ > grammar teaching (in a meaningful & communicative way)

Advanced level: grammar teaching is overt

◦ Problems:
◦ students have seen most of it already
◦ it can be bitty (incoherent)
◦ should be systematic – form system of tenses, system of articles …
◦ requires explanation of subtle differences

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 How to teach grammar?

Practice makes/ does not make perfect?

Discussion: place of explicit grammar practice – drills and exercises
Opinion 1:
◦ Students continue making mistakes even after extensive practice
◦ Ellis (2001): consciousness raising is important, practice exercises are pointless (Ur 2012, 79)

Opinion 2:
o Dekeyser (2006): Practice does substantially improve performance (in Ur 2012, 79)
o Rhalmi (2016): Drill can be meaningful and used to develop fluency (Rhalmi 2016)

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Watch the video & express your opinion
about the importance of grammar
in Forum 3: Teaching Grammar
Overly, Debbie. 2019. Why is grammar important?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYcIuh0VTqQ

AKL 3030 TEFL METHODOLOGY N. MAČIANSKIENĖ

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 3. Stages in Teaching Grammar: Presenting & Explaining Grammar

3B. Stages of Teaching Grammar

 Verbalisation (presentation/introduction) Engage – Study - Activate
 Automatization (practice, consolidation)  Study – Engage - Activate
 Autonomy (communicative activities/ fluency practice) Activate – Study – Engage – Activate –
Engage – Study …

Automatization
Autonomy
Verbalisation Practice
Communicative activities
Consolidation

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 3. Stages in Teaching Grammar: Presenting & Explaining Grammar

Stage 1: Presenting & Explaining Grammar

Difficulties
A. You have to understand yourself
what is involved in ‘knowing’ the structure = its written & spoken forms, its
nuances of meaning
what is likely to cause difficulties to the learners

B. You have to know how to present examples and formulate explanations that will
convey the necessary information

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:

Presentation – Presenting & Explaining Grammar

3 dimensions of grammar

Pragmatics

 Personalization – as soon as possible

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Presenting & Explaining Grammar
Presenting Grammar
Explicit teaching
• Provide examples of target feature in meaningful contexts before explaining it
Providing • Both say & write examples of the target form
examples

• Teach form - meaning - usage

• In ss’ L1, unless they are proficient enough to cope with English explanations
• You may/may not use grammatical terminology
Explanation • Useful to provide an explicit rule (inductively vs deductively)
• Compare the English structure with an L1 parallel if you can

• Quantity
• Variety. Success. Interest
Practice • Meaningfulness
• Personal application

• Informally
Testing • Formal tests

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Meaning & Use Presenting & Explaining Grammar

Presenting the Present Continuous

“What am I doing?” – when do we use PrC in real life?
◦ Cookery demonstrations
◦ The police
◦ Test pilots reporting to base
◦ Radio commentators
◦ ...

Singer: sing/work in the garden

Doctor: cure patients / swim in the pool
◦ The singer sings. Now the singer is working in the garden.

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Presenting & Explaining Grammar

Presenting Tenses
Present Perfect – possible ways of presenting the use of PrPF
“Have you ever been to Birštonas?“ (HAVE you ever BEEN to …?)
3 truths & 1 lie or 3 lies & 1 truth?
◦ I’ve had dinner with Vytautas Landsbergis.
◦ I’ve jumped in a parachute twice.
◦ I’ve been to Santa Barbara, CA, 3 times.
◦ I’ve won prizes in 4 Lithuanian swimming championships.

Meaning: Finished action, the result is important now

Use: When we are interested in the result (have you seen …?), speak about completed actions = result
(I’ve finished/ won/ had …)

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Presenting & Explaining Grammar

Past Simple:
◦ Meaning? = to speak about a past action that happened in the past (He won the silver medal in 2019.);
sequence of actions in the past (She entered the room, took off her coat and shoes and sat down quietly on the
sofa.) …
◦ Usage: to talk about finished past actions when we know when they happened: yesterday, last year, when I
studied at school …

Past Perfect – meaning? use?

Present Perfect Continuous – meaning? use?

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Presenting & explaining grammar

Presenting Articles
A short context may be provided to explain the usage of articles:
I remember when I was 4, I received a teddy bear for my birthday. The bear was so big I couldn’t
carry it myself.

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Presenting & explaining grammar

Presenting degrees of adjectives

Iken Edu. 2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skrMbHdoDi0

https://curvebreakerstestprep.com/comparative-superlative-positive-adjectives-degrees-of-
comparison/

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 Presenting prepositions

https://www.grammar-
monster.com/lessons/prepositions-of-time-at-in-
on.htm

https://www.ifioque.com/grammar/preposition_of_direction

https://abletolearn.com

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Grammar practice

Stage 2: Grammar Practice Activities

The aim:
◦ to get Ss to learn the structures to be able to produce them correctly on their own – to consolidate the use of
grammatical structure until it becomes automatic (automatization)

Practice is like a ‘bridge’ for students to go from focussed accuracy work to fluent, but acceptable,
production - communication

focussed accuracy fluent production

From non-communicative, ______________________________to communicative, free grammar
controlled activities Lack of focus on use in context
accuracy may result
in FOSSILIZATION

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Communicative Activities
Stage 3: Communicative Activities
Declarative & Procedural knowledge
 Knowledge about something – enables us to Knowledge of how to do something -
describe a grammatical rule and apply it in enables us to apply a grammatical rule
pattern practice drills communication
 apply it automatically while listening,
speaking, reading, and writing
Both don’t translate automatically into another
• SS may be able to state a grammar rule, but consistently fail to apply the rule when speaking or writing
• Many native speakers can use their language clearly & correctly without being able to state the rules of its
grammar
We have to teach both: declarative knowledge (rules) & procedural (how to apply them)

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
HOW? Communicative Activities

Traditional approach: grammar for grammar's Communicative approach: grammar for communication
sake
 AIM: To learn the language of which the grammar is a part (enable students to
AIM: to learn a grammatical structure carry out their communication purposes)

E.g., Teaching Past Simple:

E.g., Teaching Past Simple:
 Regular -ed form with its 3 pronunciation variants [t] [d]
[id]  Ask students to tell a story looking at a set of cards (each card being a word,
phrase or picture)
 Doubling rule for verbs (e.g., wedded)
 Hand out a list of irregular verbs that students must Features:
memorize Grammar in context
 Do pattern practice drills for -ed Interaction activities
 Do substitution drills for irregular verbs More personalized activities
Games, quizzes

Sample activities
◦ E.g., “Complete the sentences. Put the verb into the Sample activities: Personalised activities
correct form, positive or negative”.
◦ E.g., “Tell about your childhood “ (instead of ”Use the past simple to
◦ E.g., “Put in must or can’t”. complete the sentences“)
◦ E.g., “Join the two (or three) nouns. Sometimes you have ◦ E.g., “Ask Ieva about herself and her family”.
to use -‘s or -s’ and sometimes you have to use ‚of‘“

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 Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Communicative Activities

Other communicative tasks

◦ E.g., “You have been away for a while and have just come back to your hometown. You meet
Saulius, a friend of yours. He asks you a lot of questions: … (questions are given). Now you tell
another friend what Saulius asked/told you. Use reported speech.”

◦ E.g., “Read what Sam says about a typical working day. … Yesterday was a typical working day
for Sam. Write what she did or didn’t do yesterday.”

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 E.g., Teaching the Past Perfect Tense Stages in Teaching Grammar:
Communicative Activities
“Migle, Vytautas Magnus University was re-established in 1989. You were born in 2004. So, when you
were born, VMU had been re-established for 15 years / 15 years earlier. When you entered VMU in 2020,
it had been providing studies for over 30 years!.”
TIPS:
◦ give as many examples as you like
◦ go over briefly how the past perfect tense is formed (had + past participle)
◦ make sure they understand you’re talking about 2 events that took place in the past, but one before
the other
◦ then, have students come up with examples of their own using the timeline

Once they are comfortable using the past perfect in affirmative sentences, move on to examples with
questions; then have them ask each other questions: When you were born, what social media websites /
social networking sites/ apps hadn’t existed? (FB – 2004; Twitter – 2006; Instagram - 2010 …)
Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas in 2002. So, when I was born …

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 Practical tasks for Mid-term test
Analyse the slides and theoretical material, be able to teach the following structures:
Pr Pf C; Pa Pf; Pa C; Articles; Degrees of adjectives; Conditionals
1. Present their form-meaning-use
2. Formulate personalized tasks with these structures
3. Formulate communicative grammar tasks with these structures (instead of traditional
ones)

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References

Curvebreakers. Degrees of comparison: Comparing nouns. N.d.

https://curvebreakerstestprep.com/comparative-superlative-positive-adjectives-
degrees-of-comparison/
Harmer, Jeremy. 2015. The Practice of English Language Teaching. OUP
Iken Edu. 2012. Adjectives: Degrees of Comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skrMbHdoDi0
Overly, Debbie. 2019. Why is grammar important? bjupresshomeschool.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYcIuh0VTqQ
Rhalmi, Mochammed. 2016. Drilling in English language teaching. What is it? How to use it?
https://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/drilling-in-english-language-
teaching/?utm_content=cmp-true
Ur, Penny. 2012. A Course in English Language Teaching. OUP.

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