Inductive approach: The students works out the rules of the grammar point
Deductive approach: The teacher gives the rules of the grammar point

Teaching grammar inductively: Teaching grammar from text.

Read the text about teaching grammar from text and do the tasks that follow.
The text
Most people think of a “text” as a piece of writing: a short article, an email, or even a poem, for
example. But don’t forget that a text can also be an audio text, like a song, a speech, or a
dialogue. Either option will work, but keep in mind that the grammar itself may determine
which one makes more sense. The passive voice, for example, is rarely used in casual
conversation, but occurs quite frequently in news reports and newspaper articles. So if you’re
wondering what kind of text to use, consider the grammar you want to teach. In which
situations or contexts does it normally occur? Then choose your text accordingly. You’ll want
to make sure the text is short and fairly simple. If you’re teaching a lesson that’s anywhere from
45 to 90 minutes, you won’t want to spend much time dealing with the text itself- you’ll want to
get to the grammar as soon as you can. This may seem obvious, but remember that in a
grammar lesson, the main focus is the grammar you’ve set out to teach. That means you don’t
want to have to devote any time to new vocabulary in the article or other complex grammar that
isn’t your target language. So if you’re writing the text yourself, make sure the vocabulary and
structures you use (aside from the examples of target language you plant in the text) are nice
and simple. If you’re using a text you found in a course book or elsewhere, look it over with a
critical eye. Is it longer than 200 words or so? Does it contain a lot of vocabulary you suspect
your students don’t already know? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, consider this
your official permission to take a hatchet to it. Adapt, adapt, adapt! Cut that thing down and
make it work for you. Just make sure you leave the target language intact!
The text should contain at least a few different examples of the target language. Ideally, it will
include examples in the negative and question form as well, though this isn’t essential. You just
want more than one example so that when you pull them out later in the lesson, you can help the
students notice patterns in meaning and form.
Procedure
Lead in
Exposure to Target Language (Comprehension work)
Anytime you give the students something to read or listen to, it’s unfair to ask them to
completely ignore the content and jump right to the grammar instead. The students first need an
opportunity to digest the main idea of the text before they’re ready to analyze the language
within it. So first, give the students a simple task that will help them understand
just the gist of what they’re reading or listening to. For example, you could ask them to read or
listen to the text and choose the correct title from a short list of options. If the text is a dialogue,
you could ask a few general questions about it, such as “What is the relationship between the
speakers? How do you know?” There are many options here; the point is that you allow the
students to first focus on general comprehension of the text before bringing up the grammar at
all.
Analysis of examples from the text
Analysis of Examples from the Text” is just a fancy way of saying it’s time to shift the focus to
the grammar. The only purpose here is to shift the students’ focus on to the grammar. This
could be as simple as asking the students to underline all the verbs in the text. Or you could put
just the sentences containing examples of the target language on the board or on a worksheet
and ask students to identify what the sentences have in common. Again, there are many options-
just make this something concrete and quick that will direct students’ attention to the grammar
you’re about to clarify.
Clarification
Now you’re ready to move onto the clarification, or “teach” stage of your lesson. Transition
smoothly into this stage by using the same sentences you planted and pointed out in the text.
Again, it’s a big waste of time and material to spend the first twenty or so minutes of your
lesson on a particular text containing particular examples of the target language…only to then
turn around and work with completely different sentences in your clarification stage!
Controlled practice
Free practice
II. PLANNING A PRONUNCIATION LESSON
1. Views of pronunciation and teaching pronunciation.
Read the following extract about two view of pronunciation. Answer the following questions:
- What is narrow view/ broad view of pronunciation?
- What can be some implications of teaching pronunciation from these two views?
According to Brown (1987), there are two different views of pronunciation. The first view is
called a narrow view which regards pronunciation as the production of the right sounds in the
right order. This view includes learning the individual vowels and consonants. The second view
refers to a broad view which says that pronunciation is an important part of communicative
competence. This view involves all the vowels and consonants, and supra segmental features
like word stress, sentence stress, and intonation (Morley, 1991). The narrow view of
pronunciation concentrates on individual sounds and the motor skills that are involved in
producing them.
Brown (1987) says that they are separate from the acquisition of the communicative aims of
language. As a matter of fact that, Brown does not regard pronunciation as an important
component of communication. In this view, pronunciation is recognized with the production of
individual sounds and somehow with the stress and intonation patterns of the target language.
Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996) declares that the broad view of pronunciation
includes a focus on how pronunciation is really used to communicate. This has been supported
by Pennington and Richards (1986) who express that pronunciation is considered as an
important element of expressing referential meaning and a key component of the interactional
system of communication. Based on this idea, we should not separate pronunciation from
communication and other features of language usage, because sounds are absolutely necessary
for communicating and understanding lexical, grammatical, and sociolinguistic meaning.
Therefore, it can be said that pronunciation consists of a complex interplay between perceptual,
articulatory, and interactional elements.
2. A framework to teach pronunciation
1. Description and Analysis
Initially, the teacher presents a feature showing when and how it occurs. The teacher might use
charts (consonant, vowel, or organs of speech) or he or she might present the rules for
occurrence either inductively or deductively. For example, the teacher can either present the
rules for –ed endings or provide multiple examples and ask the learners to figure out the rules
themselves.
2. Listening Discrimination
Listening activities include contextualized minimal pair discrimination exercises. The speaker
(who may be the teacher or another student) pronounces either sentence a or b. The listener
responds with the appropriate rejoinder.
a. He wants to buy my boat. Will you sell it?
b. He wants to buy my vote. That’s against the law.
In another discrimination activity, the student listens for either rising or falling intonation in
utterances where either is possible. Using a transcript with a short listening passage, learners
can mark the pauses and/or circle
the prominent elements they hear. In general, the listener’s task should be clearly defined and
focused on only one or two features at a time. At this stage, we want to focus learners’ attention
directly on a feature that they might not be recognizing yet. The three final stages, which
involve practice and production, actually progress on a continuum. It is less important to define
an exercise as strictly controlled, guided, or communicative. Rather, it is important to sequence
our oral production activities so that they move forward systematically.
3. Controlled practice
At the beginning, in more controlled activities, the learner’s attention should be focused almost
completely on form. Any kind of choral reading can work if the learner’s attention is clearly
focused on the target feature. Poems, rhymes, dialogues, dramatic monologues –all of these can
be used if the content and level engage a learner’s interest. When performed with student
partners, contextualized minimal pair activities (as mentioned above) are a combination of
controlled practice for the speaker and listening discrimination for his or her partner.
4. Guided practice
In guided activities, the learner’s attention is no longer entirely on form. The learner now begins
to focus on meaning, grammar and communicative intent as well as pronunciation. Teachers
need to develop a continuum of bridging activities, which shift attention gradually to a new
cognitive task while the learner attempts to maintain control of the pronunciation target. As an
example, Hewings and Goldtein (1998, p. 127) make use of a memory activity while practicing
–s endings. Students are instructed to study a picture containing a number of common objects
for one minute (two bridges, three suitcases, four glasses, etc.). With the picture hidden, they
then try to recite the correct number of each item, while concentrating on pronouncing the
plural –s correctly.
5. Communicative practice
In this stage, activities strike a balance between form and meaning. Examples include role
plays, debates, interviews, simulations, and drama scenes. As the activities become gradually
more communicative, the learner’s attention should still be focused on one or two features at a
time. It is overwhelming to suddenly monitor all pronunciation features at once. Set an
objective, which can be different to different learners, and students know it in advance.