Pearson ELT Professional Development

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Learning
TWENTY Grammar
Nick
Dawson
By
Nick
Dawson

There are many different ways in which we help learners to learn

grammar. They all work to a different degree, but some are more learnerfriendly than others.

Understanding Grammar
Students can learn grammatical patterns without understanding them, in
the same way that we can memorise phone numbers without
understanding them. We can only memorise phone numbers if a) they are
fairly short (about 6 digits), b) we associate them with people we like,
and c) if we use them frequently.
We can do the same with grammatical patterns a] if we link them to real
experiences, and if we use them frequently.
Rote learning is learning through repetition without meaning. Repetition
with meaning is more successful. Repetition with meaning and value is
even more successful. In the traditional grammar exercise, students are
writing or completing sentences about the characters in textbooks; people
who they do not know or care about. If students write or complete
sentences about their friends or classmates, then the learning will be
more deeply retained because the students understand and value what
they are writing. By using the grammatical pattern to talk or write about
people they know well, students will absorb and retain the pattern and its
meaning. Students start to become owners of the grammar.
So what are the implications for teachers? Repetition activities in which
the students are talking/writing about textbook characters or abstract
situations, as we find in classroom oral exercises, workbook exercises or
tools like My Grammar Lab, are extremely valuable. They build
confidence and give students a good level of grammatical fluency.

Pearson 1

Pearson ELT Professional Development

When students start to use a new grammatical pattern to talk about their
own lives, or the lives of people they know, then the pattern becomes
part of their own language, their own English.

Different types of understanding 1) Receptive

When students understand the meaning of a grammatical pattern in
something they hear, read or view, they have processed the language in
order to get that understanding. Therefore listening, reading and viewing
are all important parts of the learning process if they also lead to
understanding. In learning grammar, processing and understanding is
very important so we should always make sure that students listen to
English, read English, play video games in English and watch videos in
English. The maximum receptive exposure to English will bring the
greatest benefit.
Penguin Readers and Penguin Active Readers provide a range of
stories and topics which give students receptive exposure to English
through interesting, graded and comprehensible language. They are not
grammar books, but they give students receptive exposure to written
language which students need. The CDs or MP3 recordings of the texts
develop listening comprehension. Students who are listening or reading
are not doing grammar exercises in the traditional sense, but they are
using and processing grammar in order to gain comprehension and
follow the story.

Different types of understanding 2a) Controlled

production
Soon after a new grammatical pattern has been introduced, students are
given simple exercises in which there is no new vocabulary and no
unfamiliar situations. The exercises are designed to prompt students to
produce the correct patterns repeatedly.
The purpose of these exercises or drills is to imprint the pattern in the
students minds. We cant expect students to use a new pattern creatively
without this stage of controlled practice.

Pearson 2

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Different types of understanding 2b) Creative

production
Students start to use Creative Production when we ask them to tell
stories, take part in a role play, record videos, send messages or write
articles and compositions. In these contexts, students will not know all
the vocabulary they need, they will have to ask for help, consult a
dictionary or the internet. In Creative Production, students are not
reproducing ideas from the teacher or textbook, they are expressing their
own ideas which have been generated from their own brains.
Creative Production is very difficult. Students may need to plan and
research the language they need, they may need to rehearse a scene
many times or produce several drafts before they are ready to produce
their final version.
When students are introduced to a new grammatical pattern, they are not
ready to produce this pattern spontaneously to express their own ideas.
They may be able to reproduce the pattern in controlled practice, but
they are not ready to generate the new pattern to express their own ideas.
Speaking or writing in a foreign language is a performance in the early
stages. This performance naturally requires planning and rehearsal. It is
important that teachers show students how to plan and rehearse, and give
them time to do this before spontaneous creative production is expected.

Word Order
English is a word order language. Unlike Latin, words are not given
special forms or special endings to show if they are the SUBJECT,
VERB or OBJECT of the sentence. Word order is very important, so
headlines like DOG BITES MAN and MAN BITES DOG have different
meanings because of the word order.
The basic format of the English sentence is SUJECT > VERB >
OBJECT:
The boy ate the cake.
or, using pronouns,
He ate it.

Pearson 3

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Adjectives and adverbs

This basic format can be extended with adjectives:
The tall boy ate the chocolate cake.
or adverbs:
The tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake.
We should remember that adverbials are also used to mark time:
Yesterday, the tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake.
and place;
Yesterday, the tall boy quickly ate the chocolate cake in the kitchen.

Adverbs can also indicate frequency:

The tall boy often eats chocolate cake.
As you can see, with adjectives and adverbs we can add information (and
interest) to our basic sentence.

Direct and indirect objects

Yesterday, the tall boy gave the chocolate cake to Susan.
or
Yesterday, the tall boy gave Susan the chocolate cake.
The Direct Object is the chocolate cake. The indirect object is Susan.
As we can see, in English there are different ways to include the indirect
object.

Verbs in simple sentences

A simple sentence will have just one main verb. The main verb may use
an auxiliary verb:
Yesterday, the tall boy didnt eat the chocolate cake.

Pearson 4

Pearson ELT Professional Development

or a modal verb:
The tall boy mustnt eat the chocolate cake.
Although the main verb may have an auxiliary or modal verb attached to
it, it is still just one main verb.

Compound sentence
A compound sentence combines two simple sentences using a
conjunction.
The boy took the cake out of the box and ate it.
As we can see, the compound sentence has more than one main verb.
The boy ate the cake but he didnt like it.
He didnt like the cake so he threw it away.

Complex sentence
The compound sentence combines two simple sentences. The complex
sentence absorbs another sentence into the main sentence. Look at these
two sentences:
The boy ate the cake.
The boy comes from Warsaw.
this becomes
The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake.
or even
The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake which Julie made.

Complex sentences allow us to make sentences which contain a great

deal of information.

Pearson 5

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Unpacking
Students can learn to unpack a complex sentence to list all the
information which the sentence contains. This is not something you will
want to do every day but it is a useful exercise in analysis.
The boy who comes from Warsaw ate the cake which Julie made.
o There is a boy.
o He comes from Warsaw.
o He ate a cake.
o Julie made the cake.
As you can see, our complex sentence combines all these ideas.

Main and subordinate clauses

A clause is part of a sentence which contains a verb but is not a complete
sentence. The main clause is still the boy ate the cake. The subordinate
clauses are adding extra information.
As we can see, the SUBJECT of the verb ate is no longer just The boy
but is now The boy who comes from Warsaw. This provides more
information than simply adding an adjective like The Polish boy.

Whiteboard activity
Use a headline like:
MAN STEALS MONEY FROM BANK
Work with the class to build in details from this headline. The class
might produce:
A middle-aged man stole 500 from the High Street branch of City
Bank and escaped in a red BMW car which was parked outside.
If students try to produce very long sentences, they will often make
grammatical errors. The standard advice is to keep sentences fairly short
and clear. This will help them to avoid many grammatical errors.

Pearson 6

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Analysing grammar
Students can learn grammar by memorising rules, but this is not the most
effective method. A better method is to ask students to use their
understanding of grammar in order to solve problems.
At the simplest level, these problems may involve asking students to talk
about the difference in meaning between two different sentences:
Mario goes to work every day.
Mario is working now.
These problems might include either selecting or writing appropriate
captions beneath pictures or adding language to speech bubbles. Students
may select or write commentaries (which they later record) for one of
their home-produced videos. Students may write dialogues for specific
situations, buying a rail ticket, enrolling at a gym, asking permission to
borrow something. They may act these prepared dialogues in front of the
class or make a little video of the scene.

Towards perfection in grammar

Even native speakers often make grammatical errors. One of the most
frequent errors in high level proficiency examinations is forgetting the s
in the 3rd person singular of the Present Simple. Your students will make
many errors while they are learning and will continue to make a few
errors in later life.
Most of these errors do not cause problems because they dont lead to a
breakdown in communication. If a breakdown occurs, students need to
learn repair strategies. If they cannot understand what someone is
saying, they must ask:
Could you repeat that?
Are you saying .?
Do you mean .?
If they cannot make themselves understood, they should:
Point at what they mean.

Pearson 7

Pearson ELT Professional Development

Mime what they mean.
Give a similar example, I mean like .
They should also learn to check after making a repair and ask if the other
person understands.

Summary
1. Students build understanding as they learn to copy, adapt and
create using new patterns.
2. Regular receptive practice through listening and reading
teaches students to process the language.
3. Controlled production in drills and exercises are essential to
imprint new patterns.
4. Personalise controlled production to add value to the
meaning.
5. Stimulate creative production, but give students time to plan
and rehearse.
6. Teach students the grammatical function of words and the
basics of sentence structure.
7. Do not expect immediate perfection.
8. Teach students to repair breakdowns.

Pearson 8