Page 37 - HOW TO TEACH GRAMMAR

❖ The learners‟ interest”.
❖ The available materials and resources.
❖ The learners‟ previous learning experience and hence present expectations.
❖ Any cultural factors that might affect attitudes, e.g. their perception of the role and status of
the teacher.
❖ The educational context e.g. private school or state school, at home or abroad.

Research suggests that children are more disposed to language learning activities that incline towards
acquisition rather than towards learning. That is, they are better at picking up language implicitly, rather
than learning it as a system of explicit rules.

How to teach grammar from rules.

First of all, here are two important definitions:

❖ A deductive approach starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by examples in
which the rule is applied.
❖ An inductive approach starts with some examples from which a rule is inferred.

In place of the terms deductive and inductive, it may be easier to use the terms rule-driven
learning and discovery learning respectively.
The reason why Grammar translation has fallen from favor is worth briefly reviewing. Typically,
a grammar-translation lesson started with an explanation (usually in the learner’s mother tongue) of a
grammar point. Practice activities followed which involved translating sentences out of and into the
target language. The problem is that, since classes were taught in the students’ mother tongue, there
was little opportunity for them to practice the target language.

Disadvantages of the deductive (rule-driven) approach.

❖ Starting the lesson with a grammar presentation may be off-putting for some students,
especially younger ones. They may not have sufficient metalanguage (i.e. language used to
talk about language such as grammar terminology). Or they may not be able to understand the
concepts involved.
❖ Grammar explanation encourages a teacher-fronted, transmission-style classroom.
❖ Explanation is seldom memorable as other forms of presentation, such as demonstration.
❖ Such approach encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of knowing the
rules.

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