Page 13 - HOW TO TEACH GRAMMAR

4. Where?

When we talk about ‘picking up’ grammar regularities, are we talking about long exposure in a country
where the language is spoken, or about three hours a week in secondary school?

5. So does teaching help?

With many of the in-between items, surely. More in the three-hour-a-week situation, fewer in an input-
rich context, but some in any situation. If you’re unclear about German word order, five-minutes’
explanation will shortcut a whole lot of struggle trying to make sense of what seems to be very confusing
input. What would be the value of withholding this explanation?

6. But knowing what happens isn’t the same as being able to do it.

Of course, it isn’t. But it’s a start. Knowing which the accelerator is and which is the brake doesn’t
guarantee you can drive. But it beats not knowing. Most skills learning proceeds in part by moving from
conscious knowledge to unconscious mastery: it’s a matter of procedural learning ‘leaning on
declarative crutches’, in DeKeyser’s words (1998: 49).

7. But isn’t there evidence that teaching grammar makes no difference to learning?

No. Forget Krashen. There’s good evidence in the other direction: see the important research meta-
analyses by Norris and Ortaga (2000) and Spada and Tomita (2010).

8. But some people go on dropping third-person -s forever, however much you teach it.

Sure. There are things like that. The reasons are complicated and interesting. I’ve never really got hold
of vibrato when playing the violin, though I’ve been taught often enough. That doesn’t mean my music
lessons were useless. On the contrary, I would play even worse, or maybe not at all, if I hadn’t had
them, bad vibrato or not.
9. But is correctness really important?

This is like asking ‘Are boots important?’ It depends what kind of boots, and what you want to do. Rock-
climbing? Skiing? Ballroom dancing? Having breakfast in bed? A high level of grammatical correctness
is important for some purposes; less so for others. And not all aspects of grammar are equally
significant. Getting some things wrong can hinder communication quite seriously; other points may
matter very little on way or the other. It’s unconstructive to generalize.

References:

DeKeyser, R. 1998. ‘Beyond focus on form: cognitive perspectives on learning and practicing second
language grammar’ in J. Doughty and J. Williams (eds.): Focus on Form in Classroom Second
Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Norris, J. M. and L. Ortega. 2000. ‘Effectiveness of L2 instruction: a research synthesis and
quantitative meta-analysis.’ Language Learning 50/3: 417-528.

Spada, N. and Y. Tomita. 2010. ‘Interactions between type of instruction and type of language feature:
a meta-analysis.’ Language Learning 60/2: 1-46.

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