Разработка для обучения грамматике в 8-9 классах “Teaching grammar-is that so challenging?”
методическая разработка по английскому языку (8 класс) на тему

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Санкт-Петербурга

Разработка для обучения грамматике в 8-9 классах

“Teaching grammar-is that so challenging?”

Автор разработки:

Кравчук Наталья Викторовна

Учитель английского языка

_________________

2014 год

Teaching grammar-is that so challenging?

I would like to share these teaching grammar methods  with you as it is considered to be the most difficult aspect in teaching English nowadays.  I’ve explored many different approaches in understanding the grammar of English in the course of the time. In the following ways of teaching grammar I can underline the difference between tense and time in English, different ways of referring to the future in English, the importance of teaching spoken grammar. All these aspects are very difficult for our learners’ understanding and applying in real life situations. Let’s think about how much time is spent on the exercises and various tasks, but learners can’t fix and use all these grammar rules in real life though they can understand them perfectly well. So, where is the secret? Why the teachers don’t want or maybe can’t use all the new techniques? Maybe it is so difficult and sophisticated? The answer is clear- we are afraid of changing methods and approaches,  we used to teach deductively and it seems to be more effective for us.  But,  techniques are so simple and  interesting, that teacher and learners enjoy the process. Sometimes it’s better to give and explain grammar rules to your learners or let them discover it with your guidance. But in some situations it’s better to use so called inductive method of teaching grammar when learners discover grammar rules themselves through the tasks and projects.   

Jim Scrivener describes the process of inductive teaching using the term guided discovery:

“ Guided discovery is demanding on both you and the learner, and although it may look artless to a casual observer, it isn’t enough to throw a task at the learners, let them do it and then move on. Guided discovery requires imagination and flexibility. Your job here is not simply to pass over a body of information, but rather to create the conditions that information can be learned. This seems to be a particularly fruitful way to work in the language classroom.” (Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching, Macmillan 1994).
Inductive teaching involves asking learners to work to discover language. A teacher in an inductive lesson might be heard saying things like: “Check with your partner”, “ Why did you use that tense”.  

I would like to show you  these inductive activities that perfectly stimulate learners’ way of thinking:

1. A group of your learners decide they want to learn more slang expressions in English, so you bring an English film to school and they watch it at break time to pick up and discuss new expressions. They write up a dialogue and perform it for you, and you give them some feedback. The teacher helps them by providing some material and giving them feedback, but they've done the exploring and the work of learning the English.
2. You tell a story about your childhood. Each time you use a past tense verb, you hold up a card with that verb. At the end, you have them write ‘past simple’ in their notebooks, and copy all the verbs. You explain that you used the past simple because it happened in the past. The teacher gives  them the words and explains that they are past tense.
3. You hand out a copy of two pages out of a comic book, and ask the learners to find examples of three different forms of the future. You then hand out another comic page with empty speech bubbles, and ask them to use the forms in their own comic. By getting learners to find three different forms of the future, they are exploring and discovering the language, thinking about it.

I use these  grammar technics ( all these techniques are in the presentation “Teaching grammar 8-9 forms ):

1. Using a song( The teacher finds a song which has examples of the target language. She plays the song once for gist.  Then the teacher uses gap- fill task. After feeding back on the gap-fill she focuses learners on the form and use through guided discovery, elicitation or by explaining.

2. Using a timeline. The teacher uses this technique to show how tense is related to time

3. Using visuals. The teacher uses pictures to set the context and elicits the target language.

4. Using realia. The teacher uses things already in the classroom or brings in things that can be used to draw out the target language.

5. Personalising.  The teacher provides some model sentences related to themselves  or their friends or family

6. Explaining directly. The teacher writes the form of the grammar point  onto the board and explains to the class its use.

7. Practicing then presenting. The teacher gives a very structured exercise such as  a substitution table and the learners work together to produce sentences.

8. Using a text.  The teacher uses a text to highlight a target language.

9. Using a chart. The teacher draws a table with the names, places, verbs and etc

10. Guided discovery.  The learners are asked to look at some examples of the target language in context

11. Dictogloss. It’s a classroom dictation activity where learners are required to reconstruct a short text by listening and noting down keywords, which are then used as a base  for reconstruction. Learners practice listening, writing, speaking ( by working in groups ) and use vocabulary, grammar and discourse systems in order to complete the task.

 So, all these techniques are not the full ones as there is a lot to discover in teaching. Summarizing the article, I would like to highlight the main issue that is forgotten by many teachers nowadays- it’s inductive learning, the process of discovery by the learners themselves, they should be taught by the teacher as “ learner is a leader and companion, he must find out the knowledge himself and the teacher guides him or her in the process”.