Grammar

Foreign language teaching:

Amaia Aguirregoitia
Planning lessons

• How do we teach grammar?

– Analysis framework, induction/deduction and
activity types.
How do learners acquire grammar?
1. Learning is a gradual process involving the mapping
of form, meaning, and use; once presented,
structures do not just appear perfectly in learners’
interlanguage, fully developed and error-free.

2. It is not uncommon to find backsliding.

3. Second language learners rely on the knowledge and

the experience they have (L1 + L2).

4. Different learning processes are responsible for

different aspects of language.
How can we teach grammar?
1. The PPP approach: presentation, practice and proroduction.
2. Recasting in a more appropriate manner
3. Communicative-oriented approach (Savignon and Snow, 2001; Skehan,
1998).
1. Enhancing the input (Sharwood and Smith, 1993) (Boldfacing the text)
2. Input flooding (Texts using the form frequently)
3. Collaborative dialogue (Donato, 1994) Preparing a roleplay
collaboratively (different from interaction =Autonomous but in front of
others)
Promoting students’ noticing of grammar
1. Consciousness-raising task (Fotos and ellis, 1991)
Induce from the text . ex. give him sthg ; sthg to him alternation)
2. The garden path (Tomasello and Herron, 1988; 1989) (give partial
information, just the general rule wo. exceptions)
3. Input processing (Van Patten, 1996) Process the language to do things ,
apply the commands , use activities that require attention to relevant
features (commands, draw )
Traditional PPP and CLT approaches

1. PPP
– The focus is on learning a grammatical point. For
that, the teacher presents the grammatical point
first. Then pupils are shown in which contexts
they can use them. This is done by making them
do control-free activities.
2. CLT
– The focus of learning should be communication.
Pupils should be presented with a communicative
situation and the teacher should help them
address it successfully.
Sequencing of a grammar lesson
1. Think of a communicative situation.
2. Think of the language used in that situation and decide on the grammar
point to teach.
3. Decide on the language skill you will work on to raise pupils’ awareness
about this grammar point (usually reading or listening).
4. Follow the sequencing of the language skill making sure that you (and your
pupils) use the grammar point so that they realise about its importance.
– You can ask introductory questions using the grammar point.
– You can ask questions that require that pupils answer using the grammar
point.
• If pupils know the grammar point, they will simply use it.
• Even if pupils do not know the grammar point, they might copy the
teacher.
• If pupils do not know the grammar point, the teacher can help them
complete the sentences – without focusing on the form.
Sequencing of a grammar lesson
5. From the reading/listening/speaking extract examples of the
grammar point.
– You can do this by ensuring that the answers of the
comprehension/discussion questions include the grammar.
6. Discover the grammar point by eliciting the information.
– What is the function of the grammatical structure? - MEANING
– In which contexts is it used? - USE Focus
on form
– What is its form? – FORM session
 Depending on the age of the pupils, the teacher might decide to
avoid explicit linguistic concepts during the discovery.
7. Do activities to use the newly learnt or reviewed grammar
point.
– Mechanical – meaningful – communicative
How my board should look like
after a Focus on form session:
 What we do with this language

Example 1 from reading/listening/speaking

linguistic
linguistic
information information

Example 2 from reading/listening/speaking

linguistic linguistic
information information Use
Example 3linguistic
from reading/listening/speaking examples/restrictions

information linguistic
information
Other examples from interaction with learners.
linguistic linguistic
information information

STRUCTURE: specific linguistic pattern

Sequencing of a grammar lesson
1. Sequencing

1. Inductive vs Deductive Presentation

1. Patterns and Reasons,

Not Rules
 Teachers who focus students’ attention on
linguistic form during communicative
interactions are more effective than those who
never focus on form or who only do so in
decontextualized grammar lessons.
Spada and Lightbown, 1993; Lightbown, 1998
A Three-Dimensional Grammar
Framework (Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

FORM MEANING
How is it What does it
formed? mean?

USE
In which
situations is it
(not) used?

Grammatical structures not only have (morphosyntactic) form, they

are also used to express meaning (semantics) in context-appropriate
use (pragmatics).
A Three-Dimensional Grammar Framework
(Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

• Possessive ‘s
• Mary’s sister • a debtor’s prison
• students’ opinions • a month’s holiday
• Jack’s wife
• my brother’s hand
• Shakespeare’s tragedies

Possessive determiners: the referent of the

possessor is clear from the context
of the used with nonhuman head nouns and
‘s with human head nouns – not always… (‘s
if head noun is performing an action: train’s
arrival
Noun compounds: table leg
13
 A Three-Dimensional Grammar Framework
(Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

• Phrasal verbs
• look up
• hang up
• keep up with
• run into
• break down vs give up
• come across “discover by
• bring sth up vs bring up sth
chance” vs “make an
• to look up a word vs
impressions”
to walk up the street

put out a fire vs extinguish

14
 (1)

‘
‘ # (3)

(1) There are two forms: V+Part (break out, join in, get away)or V+Part+ Prep (catch up with, loop up to, get back at, cut
down on)
(2) Break down , get up, pass away instransitive (The lift has broken down) vs She has given up smoking/ I give up without
object is also posible Or switch on the light /turn down a proposal -> Transitive)
Bring something up-> to start to talk about a subject (SEPARABLE), raise or bring from a lower position give up, pass away
(INSEPARABLE)
(3 ) Stress and juncture pattern (stress on the preposition and stop after it. When it is a preposition you say the verb and stop)
(1) Sometimes you can guess the meaning of it knowing the meaning of the verb or/and the particle hang up, get up ,grow up
(2) Run into sbdy (meet sbdy unexpectedly), Come up with (discover sthg unexpectedly)
(3) Come across, Go out (leave and stop burning –of fire-), look up (improve and in a dictionary) , put off (arrange for later –
The meating was put off, and made sbdy not want to go – The bad weather put me off)
It is typical to find them in informal discourse.
When do we separate them? When the noun phrase is long, elaborated

Put all the remainings of the party away / Put her new clothes on
A Three-Dimensional Grammar
Framework (Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

• Teaching grammar means enabling students to

use linguistic forms…
• accurately
• meaningfully
• appropriately
A Three-Dimensional Grammar
Framework (Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

• Remember: 3D pies are for the teacher. They are a

good tool to reflect about the grammar point from
the three perspectives required to consider for CLT.
The pies include comprehensive information about
the grammar point. Next, it is the teacher who
decides what information to address with the
learners.
• Remember: 3D pies ARE NOT FOR THE LEARNERS!!!
Creating a 3D pie – let’s practise

• Reading:
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001). Teaching Grammar. In Ed: M. Celce-Murcia, Teaching English as
a Second or Foreign Language, Heinle&Heinle, 251-266.

Complete Activity 8
(find the grammar points on the padlet)