G R A M M A R
It may also be
Holistic
grammar
teaching 5
Rod Bolitho determines a strategy
for teaching determiners in discourse.
very time I ask practising
E
teachers about the grammar
topic they least like teaching,
the responses nearly always
include articles (along with lexico-
grammatical items such as prepositions
and phrasal verbs). When I pursue this
further and ask why they dislike
teaching articles in English so much,
I get comments like these:
● ‘Because they’re messy.’
● ‘Because there doesn’t seem to be a
system – you need to keep coming
back to them.’
● ‘Articles are used in different ways in
my language.’
● ‘The rules don’t always seem to be
right when you listen to native
speakers.’
● ‘Our textbooks don’t really help much
with articles.’
● ‘Honestly, I don’t know how to teach
them.’
I did a fun exercise based on metaphors
for grammar topics with a mixed-
nationality group of teachers, and an
Austrian colleague declared, ‘Articles in
English are like mosquitoes in your
bedroom; just when you think you have
got on top of them and you relax, one
comes back and bites you!’
12 • Issue 77 November 2011 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
in spoken English.
Attacking articles
All of the above comments are
understandable for different reasons.
But underlying each of them is one of
two broad issues:
1 Teachability
You can’t parcel the topic up and teach
it in a lesson or a series of lessons – as
you can with, say, the present perfect or
comparatives and superlatives, topics
which can conveniently be presented
and practised at sentence level within a
PPP paradigm. This has led, at worst,
to large-scale avoidance of articles by
textbook authors and, at best, to token
treatments of the topic in easily
identifiable and ‘practisable’ contexts
such as geographical names (definite
article with rivers, seas and oceans but
zero article with street names, castles
and palaces and mountains; definite
article with superlative adjectives, etc).
2 Learnability
Many teachers I’ve worked with confess
to never having mastered the topic
themselves. This may have its roots in a
lack of correspondence with L1. Slavic
languages, for example, get along very
nicely without articles, and even the
most advanced Russian or Polish
speakers of English often show a
cavalier disregard for articles, especially
connected with a widespread belief
among learners that skipping an article,
or getting one wrong in English, is not a
major crime and, in any case, is not
going to interfere with communication:
articles are seen as irritating mosquitoes
rather than as elephants, such as verb
tenses or modal auxiliaries.
However, the correct use of articles
in English is often vital to good
communication and there are systems
which can be teachable, even at a
relatively low level. The problem is that
many teachers have simply never been
taught to engage fully with grammar at
discourse level. Here is a very simple
awareness-raising exercise, which can be
used with a lower-intermediate class:
Activity A
Read this short text and answer the
questions that follow.
A tornado1 is a very strong rotating
wind. Tornadoes 2 are often caused by
thunderstorms over land or at sea.
They can destroy almost anything in
their path. The tornadoes 3 that hit
parts of the mid-west of the USA
recently were the strongest this
century.
1 Why is a used here?
2 Why is there no article here?
3 Why is the used here?
Now write a short text about
tsunamis following the same pattern.
You may need these words to help
you: wave; earthquake.
The three questions can be discussed
and answered in L1 if necessary, as
awareness-raising is not about practising
– here it is about engaging the learner
cognitively with the basics of the article
system. The practice exercise on
tsunamis is a chance for the learners to
check whether they have understood the
system, and to understand its value in
communication. It is also, of course, a
first step towards reinforcement.
Dealing with
determiners
But to stop here would be just to scratch
the surface. Articles are part of a bigger
subsystem, operating at discourse level,
generally covered by the term determiners.
Determiners are used in front of nouns to
refer to something specific or something
of a particular type. They include articles,
demonstrative pronouns (this, these, that,
those), possessive adjectives (my, you, his,
her, its, our, their), so-called ‘general’
determiners (eg some, a few, both, each,
any) and adjectives which function as
determiners (eg next, last). Here is an
exercise at intermediate level, which
draws attention to the importance of
determiners, this time in spoken English.
Activity B
Work in pairs. Read this conversation
aloud. Does it make complete sense
to you? What words could you add
to make sense of it? When you have
decided, read your new version
aloud and see how it sounds now.
Traveller Hello, is this lost property
office?
Clerk Yes, can I help you?
Traveller I left mobile phone on train
morning.
Clerk train?
Traveller 6.30 from Liverpool Street
to Norwich.
Clerk Can you wait moment,
please?
Traveller Sure.
Clerk No, nothing was found on
train.
Traveller Oh dear! Maybe someone
found it and liked it. Do you
think there is hope?
Clerk You never know! week
someone handed in wallet
day after finding it.
(based on a real conversation overheard in
the customer service office at Norwich
station)
The exercise draws attention to the
way a conversation between two people
is built up as collaborative discourse,
with meaning dependent on clear and
unambiguous use of determiners. With
a weaker class, the conversation could
be presented as a gap-fill, but this would
deprive the learners of the opportunity
to compare the impact of the two
versions when spoken, and it would be
less cognitively demanding. In a
stronger monolingual class, awareness
can be further raised by translating the
conversation into their own language to
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 77 November 2011 •
trigger a discussion about contrasting
ways of marking meaning in English
and L1.
Deconstructing
discourse
At a more advanced level, there is a
need to look into markers of all types in
order to locate articles and determiners
in a much more comprehensive view of
the way discourse is constructed and of
the key role of some of those little
mosquitoes. This kind of exercise is best
based on an authentic text.
Activity C
Work in pairs. As you read this diary entry,
answer the questions alongside.
We were camped in the square1, watching
events unfold in front of our eyes. There
were people with banners2 and others
shouting slogans. The side streets were
blocked off by militia with shields and
batons. They were mainly just standing
there, watching. This was different from last
time3, when they charged at all the
demonstrators and lashed out with their
sticks4. Maybe they understood that this
demonstration5 was going to be peaceful.
Maybe they were just aware that everything
was being captured by TV crews from all
over the world.
What we saw next6 was evidence of
that7. Some of the women in the crowd
went up to the militia officers and gave
them flowers8. I can’t imagine that
happening back then9. Some of the officers
actually put the flowers10 in their uniform
buttonholes. Then, for some reason, my
part of the crowd started to surge forward
and I began to feel scared. I don’t really
remember much after that11 ...
(from a friend’s diary, edited and reproduced here
with permission)
This activity raises awareness of the
complex web of meaning at discourse
level, and it contains examples of
different kinds of reference (anaphoric,
cataphoric and exophoric) as well as a
range of other ways of creating
cohesion in written discourse, including
the use of articles and determiners.
Referencing
● Anaphoric reference is indicated by
a word (or words) referring back to
something earlier in a text.
● Cataphoric reference is indicated
by a word or words relating to
something later in a text.
● Exophoric reference is indicated by
a word or words referring to an idea
or information which is beyond the
text but usually assumed to be
understandable to the reader.
1 What does the writer assume
about the reader? How do you
know?
2 Was everybody carrying a
banner? How do you know?
3 What does the writer assume
here?
4 Which word is echoed by ‘sticks’
here?
5 Which demonstration?
6 What does this draw the reader’s
attention to?
7 Evidence of what?
8 Specific flowers? How do you
know?
9 When? How do you know?
10 Specific flowers? How do you
know?
11 After what?

A staged teaching approach over an
extended period might move through
the three stages illustrated by the
examples in this article, starting at basic
level with the article system embedded
in ‘mini’ discourse contexts, moving into



13
 Holistic
grammar
teaching 5




a wider range of contexts for
determiners, and from there to a study
with advanced students of the different
ways in which discourse is ‘stitched
together’ to ensure that it is coherent.
Working at discourse level is more
challenging than working at sentence
level, but it enables the learners to see
the big picture and to deconstruct as a
basis for constructing their own
meanings, rather than requiring them to
build up meaning from sentence level
without support or guidance. Activities
like these are best tackled
collaboratively, giving the learners the
chance to compare ideas and,
importantly, to talk about language.
Key to activities
Activity A
1 Because this is a general statement.
2 Because this refers to all tornadoes.
3 These are specific examples of
tornadoes.
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Activity B
Traveller Hello, is this the lost property
office?
Clerk Yes, can I help you?
Traveller I left my mobile phone on the
train this morning.
Clerk Which train?
Traveller The 6.30 from Liverpool Street
to Norwich.
Clerk Can you wait a moment, please?
Traveller Sure.
Clerk No, nothing was found on that
train.
Traveller Oh dear! Maybe someone
found it and liked it. Do you
think there is any hope?
Clerk You never know! Last week
someone handed in a wallet
the day after finding it.
Activity C
1 As this was part of a daily blog, the
writer assumes that the reader
knows which square she is referring
to as the square. The reference is to
shared knowledge beyond the limits
of the text. (exophoric reference)
2 Probably not. The word others which
follows indicates this. It refers back
to people. (anaphoric reference)
3 Again, the writer assumes that the
reader is aware of the meaning of the
time reference: the last time.
(exophoric reference again)
IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
Do you have ideas you’d like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities; simple or
sophisticated; well-tried or innovative;
something that has worked well for you?
All published contributions receive
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editor@etprofessional.com
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4 batons: an example of a near-
synonym used to achieve lexical
cohesion.
5 The one she is now describing – this
(expressing immediate closeness)
rather than that (which would express
distance).
6 What we saw next draws the reader’s
attention to what is about to follow.
(cataphoric reference)
7 evidence of that points back to the
previous sentence. (anaphoric
reference)
8 Definitely not. There is no article or
determiner here.
9 A vague reference to former times or
perhaps simply to the last
demonstration. (either anaphoric or
exophoric reference)
10 This time we know which flowers (the
definite article makes this clear) – the
ones the women gave them.
(anaphoric reference)
11 After the crowd began to surge.
(anaphoric reference)
Rod Bolitho is Academic
Director at Norwich
Institute for Language
Education, UK.
Previously, he spent 17
years at the University
College of St Mark and
St John in Plymouth. His
most recent book is
Trainer Development,
co-authored with Tony
Wright.
rodbol44@yahoo.co.uk
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