Chapter seven
Teaching grammar
Presenting and
Teaching Grammar
We must distinguish between two types of
approaches to language teaching : those that
focus on analyzing the language (those
approaches have students learn the elements
of language e.g., sounds, structure,
vocabulary), building toward students being
able to use the elements to communicate and
those that focus on using the language (those
approaches that encourage students to use
the language from the start, however, in order
to acquire it (the same distinction between
the more form-oriented
grammar- translation approach to the use –
oriented direct method.
Teaching grammar:
Teaching grammar means enabling language
students to use linguistic form accurately,
meaningfully and appropriately.
Objectives of grammar instruction:
1) To familiarize students with general
introductory points which are useful in
teaching grammatical patterns.
2) To familiarize students with the procedures
of introducing structural patterns.
3) To introduce students with mechanical,
meaningful and communicative pattern drills.
4) To acquaint students with different techniques
for introducing new structural patterns.
5) To encourage students to use a variety of
teaching aids for illustrating grammatical
structures.
 The distinction between
“language
acquisition” and “language learning” is that
“acquisition” is the spontaneous process of
“picking up” language and is the only way that
leads to language mastery. The information
about grammar is automatically acquired when
the student receives a sufficient amount of
comprehensible language while language
“learning” is the linguistic knowledge which
the student learns from explicit grammar
teaching. It dose not develop his control of the
foreign language grammar. The student can
use this knowledge only (if he has time) to
polish up or edit what he has already acquired
through communication and exposure to
language in use.
Procedures in Teaching grammar
1) Briefly review the known items such as
names of objects, meanings of key words
and auxiliary verbs which you want to
introduce before explaining and practising
with the new grammatical pattern.
2) Use various techniques in presenting
grammatical structures such as diagrams,
mimes, objects, drawings, etc. and let the
students listen to your presentation
attentively.
3) Be sure to use the new structure in a
short and simple sentence in which all
the other words are known to the
students. Help the students understand
the utterance through the use of objects,
pictures, charts or actions.
4) Repeat the sentence several times with
emphasis on the new structure.
Encourage your students to identify how
to use the newly introduced grammatical
items.
5) Give additional examples of the new
structures in simple sentences. Try to
use colored chalk to highlight the usage
of language items.
6) Engage your students in varied practices
beginning with oral drills (e.g.
substitution drills) and then proceed to
written drills (e.g. completion, and
transformation drills).
The Features of Recent Grammar Teaching
1) Meaningful Teaching of Grammar:
Grammar should be seen as a meaning resource.
Grammar should enable the learner not only to
understand a certain message but also to convey
meaningful messages.
2) Contextualized Teaching of Grammar:
We do not teach grammatical forms in isolation
as abstract rules. But, we begin with presenting
the class with a text in which the grammatical
structure appears. The aim of this presentation is
to get the students to perceive the structure -
its form and meaning – in both speech and
writing.
3) Grammar Teaching has not been recently
seen as an end in itself: But rather, it should
be seen in the long term as one of the
means of acquiring a thorough mastery of
the language as a whole.
4) Instead, the prime aim of grammar
teaching is to gradually build up a usable
Reference System for the learners.
Increasingly, the learners can use such
reference to check their own performance.
Building this reference system is a gradual
process with much recycling and revisiting. To
do so teachers should link the new with the
learners’ prior and existing knowledge.
Explicit (Overt) Grammar Teaching:
It means that the teacher actually provides
the students with grammatical rules and
explanations – the information is openly
presented. However, the degree of
explicitness differs according to the teaching
technique the teacher uses.
For example, where the teacher explains how
present simple questions need ‘do’ or ‘does’
and refers to other structural points related
to this topic, his teaching is extremely explicit
or overt.
Explicit Talk about Grammar :
It can be also either systematic or incidental.
Whereas systematic talk or teaching refers to types
of teaching where grammatical points are
presented in a certain place in the lesson or in a
certain lesson in the unit(e.g. excel series),
incidental teaching refers to the teaching situations
where the learners require some explicit talk
and explanations about certain grammatical
points ( teaching in response to the learners’
needs). The most obvious and common
situation, which requires this type of teaching,
is error correction or the provision of feedback.
Implicit or Covert Grammar Teaching:
It is where grammatical facts are hidden from
the students - even though-they are learning
the language. The students may be asked to do
an information gap activity or read a text
where
new grammatical items are practised or
introduced, but their attention will be drawn
to the activity or to the text and not to the
grammar. The teacher is expected to help the
students to acquire and/or practise the
language, but he doe not draw conscious
attention to any of the grammatical facts of
the language.
Systematic Explicit Grammar Teaching
Here, the concentration is on systematic
explicit grammar teaching, where new
grammatical points are presented in a certain
place in a language learning lesson or a separate
lesson. First of all, the teacher needs to select
the type of thinking, which can be encouraged
during explicit grammar teaching.
The three broad teaching approaches for
thinking are: Three options can be introduced
for the type of thinking:
1.
2.
3.

1)
2)
3)
4)
Deductive teaching.
Inductive teaching.
Proleptic teaching.
We can study these three broad teaching
approaches critically concentrating on the
following variables:
The teacher’s role (active or passive).
The learner’s roles (active or passive).
The degree of interaction created in the
class.
The purpose of this interaction.
There are three approaches to the
learning of grammar: one is deductive, i.e.
where the teacher explains the rules and
meaning to the learner; the other is
inductive, where learners are given a lot of
examples and establish the rules and
meaning for themselves. The third is
proleptic teaching where grammatical
explanations are built up in dialogue with
students.
1 - Deductive Approach
In the deductive class, we would find this kind
of situation: the teacher comes into the class.
Teacher: today we are going to look at how we
can talk about the past.
The teacher write on the board: Yesterday they
played in the park.
Teacher: when we want to talk about something
in the past, we often add ‘-ed’ to the verb.
The teacher writes again on the board: Last
week I cooked a pie for dinner.
The advantage of this form of teaching is that
it offers the learners a clear explanation of
the structure and its use; and from the
teacher’s point of view, it is very timeeffective. In deductive teaching of grammar,
the teacher is responsible for presenting
grammatical concepts and structures to the
learners.
2 - Inductive Approach
In the inductive class, learners are involved
in the process of discovering the language
and developing their own learning
strategies. Indeed, the students become
more active and more responsible for their
learning outcomes. Yet, this approach has
its dangers; students are left to form their
own hypothesis about language. Not all
students reach to correct hypotheses.
In inductive teaching of grammar, the
learners themselves try to discover the
grammatical rules and structures included
in the teaching materials and activities.
The disadvantage of the two first
approaches
It is the problem of the missing balance
between the teacher’s role and the learners’
roles in each approach. Each approach
represents an extreme (either the teacher or
the learner) forgetting that both should be
equally involved in the process of teaching.
In other words, there is a need for
negotiation between the teacher: the more
knowledgeable person and the learners who
need the former’s knowledge and
experience.
Proleptic Teaching
The core of proleptic teaching is that there is
a need for negotiation between the teacher:
the more knowledgeable person and the
learners who need the former’s knowledge
and experience. The essential quality of
proleptic
teaching
is
constructing
explanations in dialogue with the learners
rather than imposing certain information on
them or leaving them to create their own
rules and hypotheses.
Thus, proleptic teaching is carried out in
collaboration and negotiation with the
learners, where both the teacher and the
learners are involved in the search for the
problem solution.
The distinction between negotiation
and conversation
It is important to recognize the difference
between the negotiation and the conversation
created in proleptic teaching and those used in
the communicative teaching.
Allthough the learners talk in both types of
teaching, yet their talk has a different goal in
each type. Whereas the learners talk in
proleptic teaching to understand and learn, they
talk in communicative teaching to practise
certain language aspects such as grammatical
features.
Rules for teaching grammar
It is Better to keep the use of Arabic to the
minimum as when you use English, you train your
students to understand and cope gradually with
oral messages.
Teaching grammar in English provides the
students with an opportunity to communicate
about language (here grammar becomes the
subject of communication).
When you explain any grammatical point in
English, it is better to avoid complicated
language, vague or unknown vocabulary
items. In other words, your language and
examples should be clear as much as possible
so that your students can concentrate on the
grammatical point under-consideration.
The elements upon which your
decisions of teaching depends
Your decisions of teaching depends upon two
important elements:
1) The medium of explanation or teaching:
The medium of explanation or teaching refers
to whether your teaching and explanation will
be made in oral or written form. Your choice
will be responsive to the literacy of the
students. When your students cannot write, it
is better to give them oral explanation. Yet you
can help them with other visual help such as
illustrative pictures or real objects. This point is
also affected by the learning styles of your
students: whereas some learners are more
oriented towards auditory learning, other rely
more on visual learning and consequently on
reading.
In a classroom situation, a good presentation
should include both oral and written forms. This
will take different learning styles into consideration
and provide for extra reinforcement.
The use of pictures and diagrams to illustrate
what you say adds extra reinforcement too.
Using various media or channels (auditory
and visual teaching material) can help you
keep the use of the mother tongue to the
minimum.
2) The use of terminology:
It was argued that grammatical terminology
such as ‘gerund’, ‘infinitive’ or ‘adjective’ are
not necessary and should be avoided. Instead
students are better encouraged to observe
patterns and discover rules which they can
state in their own words whether in their
mother longue or in the target language.
In other words, students should invent their
grammar.
It has been also suggested that visual
representations of grammatical concepts
such as tense, time and aspect can convey
the relationship between form and meaning
without the need for grammatical
terminology.
Visual representations include illustrative
pictures, drawings and symbols (time lines
and arrows).
It is possible to use any kind of visual
representation in combination with simple
terminology. And in this case visual
representations illustrate the concepts and the
meaning implied in the terms.
The terms supply appropriate names (to be
used later in other learning and teaching
situations) to these concepts and meanings.
They can remember these concepts when
they encounter the terms associated with
them. This dual function of using terminology
in grammar teaching may facilitate subsequent
learning situations, provided that the learners
understand the concepts conveyed by terms.
Steps recommended for Teaching
Terminology
1) A brief introduction, information expressed,
of the area of language to be student (in our
case, tenses, modification or negation may
be a sub-area in English grammar).
2) A handling of material to illustrate the
concept through exemplification (actual and
authentic examples).
3) A good presentation should be lively and
interesting.
4) A good presentation should be
appropriate. It should be a good vehicle
for the presentation of meaning and use.
5) Lastly, a good presentation should be
productive. The situation the teacher
introduces should allow students to
make many sentences and /or questions
with the new language.
Best of luck
Dr. Nissrein Abdel
Bassett El-Enany