I love to nerd out about grammatical explanations, and I enjoy teaching grammar in my adult ESL classes. However, I believe it is important to keep in mind that context and audience matter. Does every student benefit from explicit grammar instruction? Should you teach grammar, and if so, how?
Research about Teaching Grammar
Research shows that in the adult ESL classroom, attention to grammatical form is helpful if appropriate teaching techniques are used. It can be essential to a speedy learning process. According to H. Douglas Brown, “the question is not whether to teach grammar, but what the optimal conditions for overt teaching of grammar are.”
Marianne Celce-Murcia (1991) presents six variables to help you determine the role of grammar in language teaching:
While these should be viewed as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules, the main takeaways are:
– Focusing on grammatical form is more important for adults than children. Adults have abstract intellectual capabilities that help them benefit from overt grammar instruction.
– If we force too much grammar on beginning level learners, this can block acquisition.
– Students who are pre-literate or who have no formal educational background may find it difficult to grasp the complexity of grammatical terms and explanations, while highly-educated students are more receptive to it.
– Grammatical form is less important in informal contexts.
– Students who are learning a language for professional goals may need to focus more on grammatical accuracy than students at the survival level.
The Best Way to Teach Grammar
Teaching grammar can be difficult, even for teachers who are teaching their native language. In the field of TESOL, many have asked, what is the best way to teach grammar in a language class?
Here are some tips to keep in mind from professor H. Douglas Brown:
Grammar-focused techniques in the classroom should:
– be embedded in meaningful, communicative contexts
– contribute positively to communicative goals
– promote accuracy within fluent, communicative language
– not overwhelm the students with linguistic terminology
– be as lively and intrinsically motivating as possible
In a nutshell, make sure grammar instruction is tied to a communicative purpose that students are interested in practicing and discovering.
Tips for Teaching Grammar
When teaching grammar:
– Keep your explanations brief and simple. You’ll lose students’ attention if you go on an on about a grammar point. Use student’s native language if absolutely necessary when explaining.
– Use charts and other visuals whenever possible to graphically depict grammatical relationships. Give students a handout to refer to as they work with the grammar point.
– Illustrate with clear, unambiguous examples. Give a lot of example sentences and questions in the target grammar so students can see how it is used in conversations.
– Account for different learning styles among students. For example, analytical learners will have an easier time picking up on grammatical explanations than holistic learners.
– Don’t get yourself tied up in knots over so-called “exceptions” to rules.
– If you don’t know how to explain something (for instance, if a student asks you about a grammar point and you are not sure of the rule), do not risk giving false information. Instead, tell students you will research that point and bring an answer back the next day.
Here is more advice on how to write a lesson plan and more teaching tips.
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