Grammar and Language Teaching

Grammar and Language
Teaching
A professional development workshop
UC Consortium on Language Learning
and Teaching
The standard view
• We used to do grammar and now we
don’t.
• Should we start doing grammar again?
…..But this is the wrong view.
The right way to look at the issue
• We know that learners develop their own
unconscious mental grammar.
• Is there anything we can do to help
(beyond lots of input and interaction)?
• If so, what?
These are real questions
• The answers aren’t obvious.
• We don’t know everything we would need
to know…
• …but we do know some things, and that is
what we will learn about at this workshop.
This is a live research area
• There are many things we don’t know yet.
• There is disagreement about what we do
know,
• And disagreement about how to
implement pedagogically what we do
know.
As a result…
• Our speakers will agree about many things
• But they may disagree about some others.
• This is to be expected, and should make
things more interesting.
Our goal is not to brainwash you
• This workshop will not try to present some
“party line” or single way of teaching.
• You are the best judge of what is most
appropriate for your circumstances.
What you should get from this
workshop:
• An understanding of what is known about
the topic and what is still unresolved.
• Ideas on how to apply this understanding
to classroom practice.
We want you…
• To question your assumptions about language
teaching (even those very close to your heart).
• To explore new and interesting ways of
promoting grammatical development in your
students.
• To choose and adapt the ideas that are a good
match for your class, program, institution.
Much still remains to be discovered
But we already know a lot.
Here are some basic facts that everybody
agrees on (or should)…
1. What you teach ≠
What students learn
• The brain has its own syllabus.
• When exposed to a new language, your brain
begins to process the incoming information:
• New sounds
• New words
• New structures
• The brain has its own way of doing this. The
teacher and the learner have little direct control.
The implicit/explicit distinction
• When the brain processes information “on its
own”, this is “implicit learning” and it results in
“implicit knowledge”.
• Ordinary language learning and use are mostly
implicit.
• In language classrooms, students often acquire
conscious knowledge of how the language
works. This is “explicit learning/knowledge”.
The implicit/explicit interface
• Clearly, you can have implicit knowledge of
some property of the language without explicit
knowledge.
– E.g. You know something sounds right, but you can’t
explain why.
• You can also have explicit knowledge without
implicit knowledge.
– E.g. You understand how some property of the
language works, but you can’t actually do it in
spontaneous speech.
The implicit/explicit interface
• Can implicit and explicit knowledge influence
each other (is there an “interface”)?
• This is the big question. What is clear: If there is
an interface, it is limited.
• This is why you can’t assume that what you
teach (explicitly) is what students learn
(implicitly).
The problem for language teachers
• Explicit knowledge can be taught and
tested in a relatively direct fashion.
• Implicit knowledge can only be taught and
tested indirectly.
• But for many people (teachers and
students), implicit knowledge is the main
objective.
2. Anecdotes are not always
reliable
• Acquiring a language is like acquiring a
pot belly.
• Once you have acquired implicit
knowledge of a particular property of the
language, it is hard to know what caused
that acquisition.
Anecdotes
• Teachers and learners are often eager to
report what works and what doesn’t, but
how can they be so sure?
• Conclusion: Reports of personal
experiences are often valuable and full of
insight, but still they must be taken with a
grain of salt and balanced against
research results.
3. All languages have grammar
• Narrower definition of “grammar”:
How words are constructed
How sentences are constructed
Constructing words can be easy…
• Mandarin Chinese pronouns:
wo ‘I’
women ‘we’
ni ‘you’
nimen
‘you pl.’
ta ‘he/she’ tamen
‘they’
…or kind of hard
• Spanish verbs
stem + tense/aspect + agreement
com
e
s
com
a
n
com
iera
mos
• Mandarin Chinese verbs
Ta lai-le.
Ta lai.
Constructing sentences can be
easy…
• Basic word order
English:
The cat chased the mouse.
Japanese:
Nekoga nezumio toraeru.
cat
mouse chased
…or kind of hard
• French causatives
Jean a fait manger le gâteau par Marie.
Jean made eat
the cake by Marie
‘Jean made Marie eat the cake.’
Broader definition of “grammar”
• All aspects of the structure of the
language, including pronunciation.
Mandarin Chinese:
hěn + hăo = hén hăo ‘very good’
Spanish:
dedo = deðo
‘finger’
Moral of the story
• No matter how you define “grammar”, all
languages have it.
4. Learners learn all languages in
same way
• Basic processes and stages of learning
seem to be the same no matter what the
language is.
• No basis for idea that different languages
require significantly different teaching
techniques.
5. There is more to grammar than
“the grammar”
• No book covers all the grammar.
• Many crucial topics are often ignored.
An example from Spanish
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
‘Swiss chard I hate, not spinach.’
• Las acelgas, las detesto.
‘Swiss chard, I hate.’
An example from Spanish
FOCUS
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
‘Swiss chard I hate, not spinach.’
TOPIC (Clitic Left-Dislocation)
• Las acelgas, las detesto.
‘Swiss chard, I hate.’
More examples of focus
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
• Algo hiciste.
something you-did
‘You did something’
Nada compré.
nothing I-bought
‘I bought nothing’
The two constructions compared
• Focus
Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
NEW INFO OLD INFO
• Topic
Las acelgas, las detesto.
OLD INFO NEW INFO
One more thing
• Focus: Preverbal subject not possible.
*Las acelgas yo detesto, no las espinacas
Las acelgas detesto yo, no las espinacas.
• Topic: Preverbal subject possible.
Las acelgas, yo las detesto.
Las acelgas, las detesto yo.
Lessons
• Textbooks often leave out major topics.
• We don’t know how to explain everything:
Algo hiciste
vs.
Hiciste algo
• We sometimes “simplify” things in very
misleading ways.
Similar examples could be given for any language.
So beware of statements like:
• “I already taught them that; I don’t know
why they’re still making that mistake.”
• “Reading aloud helped my pronunciation.”
• “My language doesn’t have any grammar.”
• “You can’t teach Chinese the same way
you teach Spanish.”
• “We covered the whole grammar in one
year.”
Conclusions
• Students’ development won’t necessarily
follow our syllabus.
• Implicit learning (our primary goal) can’t be
taught directly.
• This is true for all languages.
• What is useful for one language will
probably be useful for all.
• No book contains all the grammar.
Overview of workshop
• Today and tomorrow
Public lectures and demonstrations
• Monday
Closed sessions for funded UC
participants.
Small working groups, development of
materials.
Today
• Leonard Newmark: “Explanation vs. Experience:
Time Economy in Language Teaching”
• Robert Kluender: “How Linguistic Knowledge
Can Ease Learning”
• Bill VanPatten: “Mental Representation versus
Ability in Second Language Acquisition” (Part 1)
• Georgette Ioup: “Putting Error Correction into
Proper Perspective”
Tomorrow
• Grant Goodall: “Fitting Grammar into the Language
Learning Experience”
• Victoria González Pagani: “Beyond Drills: Web
Technology in Teaching Grammar”
• Bill VanPatten: “Mental Representation versus Ability in
Second Language Acquisition” (Part 2)
• Robert Kluender: “How students acquire things you
never teach them”
• Elke Riebeling and Patricia Zuker: “Grammar-focused
activities based on Internet materials” (demonstration)
• Grant Goodall: “TPR and the teaching of grammar”
(demonstration)

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