TEACHING GRAMMAR

E – FACTOR = EFFICIENCY

 ECONOMY: + instructions = + confusion

 EASE: in terms of planning, resources, set up

 EFFICACY: attention it arouses + understanding + amount and quality of contextual information + motivation (
tasks and materials) + memory ( how memorable)

A – FACTOR = APPROPRIACY

 ACTIVITY EVALUATED IN TERMS OF:

 Age and level

 Interests

 Needs

 Goals

 Materials and resources

A DEDUCTIVE APPROACH (RULE-DRIVEN LEARNING)

 Starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by examples in which the rule is applied

 It is associated with the Grammar Translation Method: the grammar rule is presented and the learner engages with
it through the study and manipulation of examples.

A TYPICAL LESSON…

 …starts with an explanation

 and goes on with practice activities

 Problems: explanations are seldon memorable, this approach encourages the belief that learning a language is
simply a case of knowing the rules

LANGUAGE STUDY
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  STEPS:

1. Be exposed to it

2. Understand its meaning

3. Understand its form and its use

4. Practice it

1.BE EXPOSED TO IT

 By means of:

 Realia ( pictures, objects)

 Gestures

 Texts / listening passages

 Examples from different sources ( books, newspapers, ads, conversations, etc.)

2. UNDERSTAND ITS MEANING

 BEGGINER/ELEMENTARY LEVEL

 Showing and eliciting

 Making students speculate

 Establishing facts

 LOW-INTERMEDIATE

 Showing pictures and asking “check” qs ( comparatives)

 Using timelines ( e.g. for tenses)

 UPPER-INTERMEDIATE

 By listing different items, by explaining opposites, by providing enough explanations so that the meaning comes up
naturally

3. UNDERSTAND ITS FORM AND USE

 FORM: means the grammatical form of an item and the rules for it. For example, does a word have and –s at the
end? When do we add an –ed to the end of a verb and when not? What is the word order of a question? When do
we use do and when do we use did in a question?

 Hearing and seeing language + understanding it + knowing how it is constructed, or the teacher gives this info or the
sts work it out for themselves

 Tables

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  Coloured cards ( red for nouns, blue for adjs, etc.)

 Cards, drawings + getting sts stand in line to show phrases, sent. construction, etc.

 Treat consecutive words as a single unit ( chunk)

e.g. Would you like to come to a party?

 Make sts discover the construction:

Re-read the text:

what is the comparative of “safe”?

what are the rules for short adjectives?

what comes before and after the word X?

 USE: deals with context. When or where is an item used? To discover the use of an item, ask yourself, In which
situation is an item used in natural communication? For example, one use of the present simple tense is for
describing actions that people do every day ( I get up at 7.30) , so in your presentation include a natural situation
where a person is telling someone else what they do every day, such as a learner writing to a new penfriend, telling
her about a typical day at his school.

4. PRACTICE IT

 1st in a controlled way, e.g. by means of repetition ( choral first < add variations> and individually later)

 Then in a guided way

 Finally let them try!