Page 27 - EL108 Learrning Module
P. 27

Sharwood  Smith  (1993)  notes  that  whether  or  not  to  use  grammatical

                       terminology  is  still  an  empirical  question.  However,  once  again,  general
                       prescriptions  are  probably  not  in  order  because  there  are  aspects  of  certain

                       languages,  e.g.,  in  French,  sometimes  the  masculine  and  feminine  forms  are
                       homophones (bleu, masculine for blue, and bleue its feminine counterpart), such

                       that the concept of gender and the way it is marked would seem to be needed to

                       help learners understand why there are two forms in writing.
                              Swain  and  Lapkin  (1998)  track  students’  use  of  metalanguage  in

                       collaborative  dialogues.  For  example,  they  report  on  an  episode  where  two
                       learners of French discuss the verb sortir and whether it does or does not take the

                       reflexive  form.  The  researchers  assert  that  such  “language-related  episodes,”

                       where learners work together to use grammatical metalanguage and the reasoning
                       of others to expand their knowledge of the language, helps learners at the same

                       time to regulate their own cognitive functioning.


                       Syllabus Design
                              While developmental sequences may indeed be impervious to instruction,

                              it is likely the case that instruction accelerates the overall rate of acquisition.

                              Lightbown  suggests  that  grammar  instruction  in  advance  of  learners’
                              readiness may prime their subsequent noticing (Lightbown, 1998).

                              Terrell  offers  a  role  for  grammar  instruction  in  providing  students  with
                              advance organizers (1991).

                              Acknowledging the constraints that developmental sequences may pose,
                              but  mindful  of  the  accelerated  learning  that  comes  with  grammatical

                              instruction,  Larsen-Freeman  (2003)  recommends  that  teachers  adopt  a

                              “grammar checklist” rather than a sequence. In this way, teachers have an
                              unordered set of grammar structures they need to teach, but they can do so

                              locally in a way that attends to their students’ readiness to learn. It also

                              means that grammar structures can be worked on as they arise in content
                              or  during  communicative  activities,  thus  the  contextualization  that  is

                              facilitative  of  learning  the  grammar  is  already  present.  Finally,  using  a




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