Presenting Structures: Grammar Surprises

Recently, I have been thinking about different strategies for presenting grammatical structures. It was also the topic of our October Trainers’ Meet-Up so I thought I would put a few ideas down.

To begin with, here is a quote I love:

“…content and emotional depth of experience are crucial factors in the acquisition of grammar.” (Stewick 1989, in Gerngross et al. 2006)

 

Acquiring, internalising and being able to use actively, a new grammatical structure takes time and, as all teachers know very well, repeated exposure and practice of the structure over time. The presentation stage of a new idea is just the first of many steps but in order to get this process off to a good start, in my lessons I aim, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less so, to design activities that fulfill the following three criteria.

Meaningful

Grammar is presented in a context that means something to the learners at some level, such as emotional, personal, societal, local or global level. This context needs to be real in some way, not some made-up conversation between people who do not exist.

Engaging

Learners need to be actively involved in content before focusing on form. This means that they should have the opportunity to engage with and react to content before they are asked to think about form. This engagement is likely to make them more receptive to the language.

Surprising

This could refer to the content itself or the way in which it is presented. Creative pedagogy rearranges old material and ideas, making old seem new, exciting and surprising. This may engage learners and make structures more memorable.

The next obvious question is what this means in practice. Here are some very basic ideas that can be adapted and used at many different language levels and with many different structures:

• using photos and pictures to engage first and then elicit the target structure (or to make learners realise they don’t how to say something yet!)
• using teacher text, i.e. a teacher anecdote, focusing on meaning first
• Using songs or poetry
• using discussion questions that include the target structure
• using learner text, i.e. getting learners to react to a prompt in writing. I usually get them to write in pairs/grps of 3 and take it from there.

All these methods involve focusing on content first. They also allow learners to be exposed to and potentially notice new language before explicit attention is given to it. Finally, as learners will engage with the content productively, they also give the teacher an idea of prior knowledge before dealing with the target structure.

Reference

Stewick 1989, in Gerngross et al. 2006, Teaching Grammar Creatively. Helbling.

 

Photo: Talking of surprises, that storm was definitely one. A 36-hr power outage due to flooding. Kahalui, Maui.