InTASC STANDARD Seven: Planning for Instruction: The teacher plans instruction that

supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content

areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and

the community context.

Name of Artifact: FRE 612 Project

Course: FRE 612 Options in the Teaching of Grammar in French

Date: 4 May 2016

ACTFL Standards Addressed: Interpersonal Communication: Learners interact and negotiate

meaning in spoken, signed, or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and

opinions.

Rationale:

Grammar instruction has changed over time. For many years, it was thought that if

teachers taught the students all of the grammar rules and assigned enough grammar drills, the

students would become proficient speakers and writers. This approach did not produce the

desired results. The students could conjugate verbs and make their adjectives agree, but they

could not speak or write proficiently. Dr. Stephen Krashen posited the Comprehensible Input

Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, students will acquire language with when they hear

and read messages that they understand. In addition, Krashen claims that students will speak

correctly if they hear and read correct speech and writing. According to Krashen, some language

features are late acquired, and students will not acquire those language features until they have

acquired other language features (Gass, Behney, & Plonsky, 2013).

Some teachers started to use input exclusively. This approach also did not produce the

desired results. The current approach is a balance between the two. Everyone acquires his or her
first language without grammar explicit instruction. We start explicit grammar instruction in

elementary school. Since my students are in high school, they benefit from having a more

developed brain than when they acquired their first language. Because of this, my students may

be able to make connections more quickly. Since they are able to process more quickly than

young children, adolescents may demonstrate progress more quickly if they are supplied with

meaningful input (Brown, 2014).

There has been a shift from teaching grammar rules in isolation to teaching grammar

rules in context. This allows students to see the rules in practice. The students can observe how

the different grammatical features interact with each other. This is especially useful for

grammatical features that work in tandem such as the pass compos and the imparfait in French.

In lesson three of the project, the lesson is designed to make the content more salient because it

is about the students past interests. During the lesson, it is likely that the students will

overgeneralize concepts that they have learned. This approached is called garden pathing

(Nassaji & Fotos, 2011). A discourse approach to grammar makes it possible to learn about

grammar while using the target language as a vehicle to learn using content based instruction to

learn about a subject matter as well as the language. The students may focus on the subject

matter and forget that they are learning a foreign language. I read novels in the target language

with my students. We usually read two pages per day. My students are disappointed when we

stop. Students have told me that my class is the only one that they enjoy reading. They are

focused on the content instead of the grammar and vocabulary they are acquiring.
 References

Brown, H. D. (2014). Principles of language learning and teaching A course in second language

acquisition (6th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson.

Gass, S. M., Behney, J., & Plonsky, L. (2013). Second language acquisition An introductory

course (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Nassaji, H., & Fotos, S. (2011). Teaching grammar in second language classrooms. New York,

NY: Routledge.