Page 215 - Beyond Methods

Activating intuitive heuristics 203
8.2.8 Collect the notes that the learners have taken down. At your leisure, but as soon as possible so that you don’t forget the class dis- cussion, read their notes. After reading the notes and listening to the audiotape (if you did tape the conversation in one group), decide what additional classroom instruction is needed to help your learners un- derstand the rules governing some of the linguistic features that came up during the class activity.
8.2.9 As always, reflect on the process of doing this exploratory proj- ect. What did you learn? Is a project like this worth pursing? If yes, with what modifications? If not, why not?
In Closing
Based on the discussion in this chapter, it is fairly reasonable to con- clude that (a) activating the intuitive heuristics that every learner naturally possesses is a worthy goal to pursue, and (b) there are several options available to those L2 teachers who wish to pursue that worthy goal. It is clear that linguistic input that is carefully structured, accompanied by classroom interaction that is suitably managed, can provide a rich amount of sample data necessary for L2 learners to search for and understand the pattern underlying L2 grammatical systems.
In order to help learners with their process of self-discovery, they should be helped to see grammar “as a rational, dynamic system that is comprised of structures characterized by the three dimen- sions of form, meaning and use” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 10). This chapter provided conceptual arguments, illustrative microstrategies, and exploratory projects to help the teacher treat grammar as a dynamic system with multiple dimensions. Embedded within that multidimensional system is the notion of context. We will see in the next chapter how contextualizing linguistic input and classroom in- teraction can maximize the learning potential in the L2 classroom.