Unit 7 Teaching Grammar

First,the teacher writes an example on the board or draws attention to an example in the textbook。

Teaching Grammar

• 1.The role of grammar in language learning
  • 1.the role of grammar in language learning,the importance of grammar cannot be denied.
  • 2.grammatical competence is essential for communication
  • 3.there is often an inadequate treatment of grammar in most communicative syllabuses resulting in lower level of accuracy than the cases under formal instruction
  • 4.grammar teaching 'can enhance learner proficiency and accuracy and facilitate the intemalization of its syntactic system.
  • 5. the answers to whether grammar should be taught and to what extent grammar should be taught depend on certain variables in the language teaching/learning context, such as leamner variables and instructional variables
  • 6.teaching grammar is less important for children than for adults,and it is less important in listening and reading than in writing
• 2.Grammar presentation
  • There are different ways of presenting grammar.Among them,the deductive method,the inductive method,and the guided discovery method.
    • The deductive method
      • First,the teacher writes an example on the board or draws attention to an example in the textbook
      • Then the teacher explains the underlying rules regarding the forms and positions of certain structural words use native language/ grammatical term
        • comparisons are made between the native language and the target language or between the newly presented structure and previously leamed
      • Finally,the students practise applying the rule to produce sentences with given prompts.
    • The disadvantage of deductive method
      • 1.it teaches grammar in an isolated
      • 2.little attention is paid to meaning:
      • 3.practice is often mechanica
    • The advantage of deductive method
      • 1..First,it could be very successful with selected and motivated students
      • 2.Second,it could save time when students are confronted with a grammar rule which is complex but which has to be learned
      • 3.Third,it may help increase students'confidence in those examinations which are written with accuracy as the main criterion of success
    • The inductive method
      • In the inductive method It is believed that the rules will become evident if the students are given enough appropriate examples
      • the teacher provides leamers with authentic language data
      • induces the leamers to realise grammar rules without any form of explicit explanation.
      • Then students are invited to apply the newly presented structure to produce sentences with given visual aids or verbal prompts.
      • Finally, but optionally, the teacher may elicit the grammar rule from the students.
    • The advantage of inductive method
      • meaningful
      • learning in contexts
      • motivate interests
      • invite thinking=inspire think ability
    • the guided discovery method
      • The guided discovery method is similar to the inductive method in that the students areinduced to discover rules by themselves
      • different in that the process of the discoveryis carefully guided and assisted by the teacher and the rules are then elicited and taughtexplicitly.
    • guided discovery method,students are presented
      • In the guided discovery method,students are presented with contextualised scenariosillustrating a specific structure.
      • Students are then guided to discover the underlying ruleof the structure as well as its meaning in context
      • followed by explicit teaching andlearning of the target structure.
    • The advantage of guided discovery method
      • meaningful;interesting,motivating;effective
    • The disadvantage of guided discovery method
      • teacher-centredness
      • rely on the teacher
• 3.Pennington useful guidelines for teaching grammar.
  • collocational
    • the grammar should be built on collocational relations between indivdual lexical items and their subcategories
  • constructive
    • ,more teaching time should be devoted to semantic structure of the lexicon and of the connected discourse rather than higher order grammatical rules.
    • it means that one's knowledge of grammar is built bit by bit,which closely model the way language is learned and used
  • contextual
    • it means that elementsand structures are taught in relation to their context.Syntactic and lexical choices are explicitly related to pragmatic ones,and to social and cultural contexts.The focus is onhow the speaker and hearer create and negotiate meaning in that social and cultural context.
  • contrastive
    • it means that grammar involves drawing the learner'sattention to contrast the differences between the target language and other languages,and between sets of similar features and items of the target language
• 4. Grammar practic
  • factors contribute to successful practice
    • Pre-learning
      • Practice is more effective when new language is clearly perceivedand taken into short-term memory by the learners.
    • volume and repetition
      • The more language the leamers are exposed to or produce,the more they are likely to learn
    • success-orientation,
      • Practice is most effective if it is based on successful practice.
    • heterogeneity（不均匀性）.
      • Practice should be able to elicit different sentences and generatedifferent levels of answers from different learners.
    • Teacher-assistance
      • Practice is most effective when teacher assistance is availablesuch as suggestions,hints and prompts.
    • interest
      • Interest is an essential feature of successful practice.
  • Mechanical Practice
    • ①　Bottom-up model
    • ②　Top-down model
  • Meaningful practice
    • substitution drills
    • transformation drills
  • Practice prompts
    • using prompts for practice