Unit 7 Teaching Grammar

Unit 7 Teaching Grammar By Xu Zhijian 龙岩学院外国语学院省级精品课程－《英语教学法》

Aims of this Unit

I. The importance of grammar • English grammar is the core of English language. Without grammar English language cannot be well constructed. • There is naturally Chinese grammar in the minds of Chinese students, and it's not easy to take in the grammar of a foreign language. If you cannot solve this difficulty, the foreign language you write, though it may be understandable, will be Chinese style English.

II. The role of Grammar 1. How grammar is currently taught Task 1 Read the statements on page 61/103 about grammar in English learning and decide if you agree with them or not.

× × × √ ×/√ √ √ √ ×/√ ×

Student-centered instruction For many years Chinese teachers of English have followed the traditional way of teaching grammar as the following three steps:

2.Place of Grammar in English teaching? Grammar is not a separate `subject', nor is it even a separate division of English work. Language teaching theory has tended to emphasize on the rapid development of automatic speech habits, and the need to discourage students from thinking consciously about the underlying grammatical rules.

2.Place of Grammar in English teaching? • Advocates of the `Oral Method', the Audio-lingual method' and the Natural Approach in their more extreme forms have assumed that language learning is an inductive rather than a deductive process, • the most effective method of teaching is to provide plenty of oral and written practice, so as to use the language spontaneously (本能地) without the need for overt(明显的)grammatical analysis.

IV. Grammar presentation methods 1. Deductive method: The deductive method relies on reasoning, analyzing and comparing. Teaching procedure

Deductive method: Advantages: good for selected and motivate students save time to explain complex rules increase students’ confidence in examination Disadvantages: grammar is taught isolatedly little attention is paid to meaning the practice is often mechanical

2. Inductive method In the inductive method, the teacher induces the learners to realize grammar rules without any form of explicit (clear) explanation. Students will become evident to the grammar rules if they are given enough appropriate examples.

Teaching procedures e

the presentation of grammar is more complex and time consumption grammar is not taught directly some rules can not be induced easily Advantages • inspire students’ thinking activities • motivate students’ learning interests • grammar is taught in context. Disadvantages

It is believed the inductive method is more effective in that students discover the grammar rules themselves while engaged in language use. This is especially true with grammatical regularities which are easily perceived, understood and applied.

3. The guided discovery method Similar to the inductive method the students are induced to discover rules by themselves (similar) the process of the discovery is carefully guided and assisted by the teacher and the rules are then elicited and taught explicitly.(different)

3. The guided discovery method Implicit and explicit knowledge Implicit knowledge refers to knowledge that unconsciously exists in our mind, which we can make use of automatically without making any effort. Explicit knowledge refers to our conscious knowledge about the language. We can talk about it, analyse it and apply it in conscious ways. Learning and acquiring (second language acquisition theory)

3. The guided discovery method Example on page 105 Task 3 (work in groups of 4. How would you present the structure “have/has been doing”. 10 minutes preparation and then demonstrate)

4. The synthesis approaches to grammatical pedagogy Pennington emphasized that grammar teaching should be: Collocational Constructive Contextual Contrastive”

The synthesis approaches to grammatical pedagogy Collocational:grammar should be built on collocational relations between individual lexical items and their subcategories. Constructive:one’s knowledge of grammar is built bit by bit, which closely model the way language is learned and used.

The synthesis approaches to grammatical pedagogy Contextual: Elements and structures are taught in relation to their context. Syntactic and lexical choices are explicitly related to pragmatic ones, and to social and cultural contexts. Contrastive:grammar involves drawing the learner’s attention to contrast the differences between the target language and other language

V. Grammar practice According to Ur successful practice should consists of the following factors: Pre-learning; Volume and repetition: Success-orientation. Heterogeneity (多样化) Teacher assistance Interest

1. Mechanical practice Mechanical practice involves activities that are aimed at form accuracy. By doing mechanical practice, the students pay repeated attention to a key element in a structure. The form of practice: Substitution and transformation drills

2.Meaningful practice In meaningful practice the focus is on the production, comprehension or exchange of meaning though the students “keep an eye on” the way newly learned structures are used in the process

3.Using prompts for practice The prompts can be pictures, mimes, tables, charts or key words, etc. Using picture prompts. Using mimes or gestures as prompts Using key phrases or key words as prompts

VI. Home work Write a mini teaching plan to teach"present continuous tense"

Goodbye ! The end of Unit Seven

Unit 7 Teaching Grammar