I Teach the Grammar but They Don t Learn It

8/14/2019 I Teach the Grammar but They Don t Learn It

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I teach the grammar, but they dont learn it!

Grammar - The G word. Once taught only by unimaginative fascists, but now

possibly coming back into vogue.

(from Simon Barnes deliciously irreverent TEFLese glossary)

Cinderella

Grammar may have been out of fashion for some time in many parts of the world, but

in Greece this has never been the case. Few English teachers in this country would

even consider the notion of grammarless language teaching and, although grammar

has not always been taught in the most pedagogically sound ways, it has at least never

been abandoned. And while recent research (Norris and Ortega 2000, R. Ellis 2002,

N. Ellis 2002) suggests that explicit grammar instruction is, indeed, beneficial, certainaspects of this research focusing on what kinds of explicit instruction are most

relevant to the task of learning a foreign language are often overlooked.

Grammar has always been one of the most important components of the curriculum of

Greek foreign language centres, most of which devote at least a third of their course

time to the explicit teaching of grammatical rules. In commercially unmistakable

recognition of this fact, publishers keep churning out grammar books for all levels,

including junior, while teachers keep reading out the rules and examples, occasionally

throwing in a bit of a lecture on the finer points not comprehensively covered by the

books in question, to classes of terminally bored students, who are then required to do

countless form manipulation exercises.

And yet...

Nevertheless, on the rare occasions when these same students attempt to communicate

in English, what most teachers (and examination boards!) would call basic errors

invariably raise their ugly heads: My sister go to primary school. I am playing

basketball twice the week. I had gone to the cinema last week. This may have been

one of the reasons why the explicit teaching of grammar fell out of favour with many

misguidedly communicative teachers a few years ago, but in Greece it has produced

the opposite result: more grammar instruction was felt to be necessary.

This must be the Greek approach to education par excellence: the emphasis on

quantity rather than quality. If students dont pass CPE, it is because they havent had

enough practice, so lets do more practice papers with them. If they cant produce

grammatical sentences, its because they havent studied enough grammar, so lets

give them more hours of grammar instruction. If they dont display enough

vocabulary knowledge in their compositions, lets give them more and lengthier lists

of words to learn by heart. The preoccupation with quantity is rarely questioned on

the contrary, it has become commonplace, and publishers have of course realised and

capitalised on it; hence the plethora of supplementary books for every level: speaking

books for elementary classes, readers for juniors, composition books for pre-juniors;

the more books you use, the more certain you can be that you have covered

everything!


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And yet... A typical private language centre English course at elementary level

comprises 90 or more hours of instruction. At intermediate and advanced levels the

number of hours could rise to 180. Greek First Certificate students have usually had

more than 850 hours of instruction over eight years, at least a third of which is

grammar instruction. By the time they take the exam theyve done the present perfectfive times, and each time theyve done dozens of exercises on it. And yet, the pass

rate is the lowest in the world! What gives?

Less is more

I would argue that what Greek students need is less grammar, better taught. It isnt

necessary, for example, that students should know all of the grammatical terminology

that describes the phenomena they are studying, nor is it necessary that they do

countless gap-fill or multiple choice exercises on each grammatical item they focus

on. But it is essential that they are exposed to new language items in a realistic

context, that they become aware of how the target language differs from their ownproduction, and that they are fully cognizant of their own deficiencies in using the

language grammatically. What this clearly presupposes is that the grammar lesson

contains some receptive skills work (: reading and/or listening) that involves realistic

instances of language use, as well as a lot of productive skills work (: speaking and/or

writing), which will give them the chance to see for themselves what gaps there are in

their performance.

Optical illusion

We dont necessarily notice everything that we see or hear. A learner might have

heard and read and understood sentences using the present simple third person

singular a number of times, and yet they may not have noticed that the form of the

verb is different. If they fail to notice the difference, they will fail to reproduce it. This

is why teachers explicitly focus on grammar, so that learners can actually notice

language forms. The problem is that if this focus on grammar consists entirely in the

recitation of rules and formulae, it soon becomes so boring that learners switch off.

They may simply be on automatic pilot when they repeat forms after the teacher, fill

in gaps accurately and make the right choices in exercises and, in spite of the

impression given that they have mastered the forms, they may in fact not have

consciously noticed or internalised them. Which is one of the reasons why they will

get it wrong when they next attempt to produce language freely.

Mind the gap

In fact, learners need to realise not just how the grammar works in the target

language, but also how different the grammar of the target language is from their own

production. In other words, they need to notice the forms (Schmidt 1990, Batstone

1996), notice the gap between their own performance and that of a competent speaker

of the language (Schmidt and Frota 1986), and also, and perhaps most importantly,

notice what forms they lack whenever they need to express their personal meaning in

the foreign language, or, in Swains terms, they need to notice the holes in theirknowledge (Swain 1985, 1998).


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To do this, learners need to be given the chance to compare their own spoken and

written production with that of a competent speaker (so as to notice the gap) and they

need to be given the chance to express their own meanings in the target language,

using whatever linguistic resources they have at their disposal, thus realising what

linguistic resources are not (yet) at their disposal (so as to notice the hole). Suchprocedures should, in my opinion, form the bulk of the grammar lesson. I am not

claiming here that controlled practice of certain forms is irrelevant or useless, but I am

suggesting that it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for learning to take

place.

Grammarless Grammar Teaching?

This is, unfortunately, very different to most peoples understanding of what grammar

teaching is about. The explanation-example-exercise cycle has become not only the

de facto method of teaching grammar in Greece, but also the de facto expectation of

learners (and their parents)! Greek ELTs collective experience has sanctioned it and,of course, publishers have perpetuated it by producing grammar books which

merely contain cycle after cycle of explanation, example, exercises. Learners have

come to expect that this is what will happen in the grammar lesson. Any departure

from this model is likely to be considered radical to the extent that it may not even be

recognised as a grammar teaching sequence. I am therefore not suggesting that this

method be wholly abandoned yet, but that it should be toned down and complemented

by procedures that have been found to enhance the grammar learning experience and

improve the learners eventual output:

awareness-raising activities that help the learners actively notice forms andmeanings

language production (speaking and/or writing) activities followed by explicitcomparison between how the learners expressed meanings and how competent

speakers express meanings

challenging language production (speaking and/or writing) activities that forcethe learners to use as much of the language as they have at their disposal

That so much free speaking and writing should form part of a grammar lesson may

look strange at first, but let us bear in mind that it is precisely the exclusion of

speaking and writing from the grammar lesson that has led to the current situation of

learners who have been studying English grammar for years and years and can still

only speak a severely limited, ungrammatical pidgin!

References

Ellis, N. C. 2002a. Frequency effects in language processing. A review with

implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in

Second Language Acquisition 24: 143-188

Ellis, R. 2002. Does form-focused instruction affect the acquisition of implicit

knowledge? A review of the research. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24:

223-236


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Norris, J. M. and L. Ortega 2000. Effectiveness of L2 Instruction: a research synthesis

and quantitative meta-analysis.Language Learning 50 (3): 417-528

Schmidt, R. W. 1990. The role of consciousness in second language learning.Applied

Linguistics 11 (2): 129-158

Schmidt, R. W. and S.N. Frota 1986. Developing basic conversation ability in a

second language: A case study of an adult learner of Portuguese. In R. Day (Ed.),

Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition. Rowley, MA:

Newbury House, 237-326

Swain, M. 1985. Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input

and comprehensible output in its development. In S. Gass and C. Madden (eds.)Input

in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA.: Newbury House.

Swain, M. 1998. Focus on form through conscious reflection. In Doughty, C. and J.

Williams (eds.) 1998. Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 64-81

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I Teach the Grammar but They Don t Learn It