MIDTERM

• Teaching


  The act of imparting knowledge and information to help learners develop a skill or command in a specific field
• Inductive teaching method


  • Student-led approach where teachers provide learners with examples and allow them to arrive at their own conclusions
• Deductive approach


  • Teacher-centered approach where the teacher gives the students a new concept, explains it, and then has the students practice using the concept
• Teaching principles


  • Effective teaching involves acquiring relevant knowledge about students and using that knowledge to inform our course design and classroom teaching
  • Effective teaching involves aligning the three major components of instruction: learning objectives, assessments, and instructional activities
  • Effective teaching involves progressively refining our courses based on reflection and feedback
• Learning


  The process of acquiring knowledge or skills through study, by being taught, or from experience
• Approach


  A set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching and learning. An approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught
• Prescriptive approach


  • An approach to grammar that has rules to the proper use of the language, traditionally based on Latin grammar, in contrast with the descriptive approach
• Descriptive approach


  • An approach to grammar that is based on a description of the structure actually used in a language, not what should be used, in contrast with the prescriptive approach
• Method


  An overall plan for the orderly presentation of language learning, which is based upon the selected approach
• Methods


  • Audiolingual Approach
  • Communicative Approach
• Functional Grammar


  • Concerned with meaning as opposed to formal grammar, which focuses on word classes such as nouns and verbs. Functional Grammar is interested in analyzing language at text level
• Descriptive Grammar


  • Refers to the structure of language as it is actually used by the native speakers
• Prescriptive Grammar


  • Specifies how a language and its grammar rules be used. According to this view, language use is either correct or incorrect, and any educated person should be able to understand at once and follow faithfully the norms of correctness
• Pedagogical Grammar


  • Primarily deals with syntax and morphology: sentence level and word level rules and order. A pedagogical grammar should be designed to help learners learn the most important grammar ideas and most powerful conventions of the language
• Pedagogical Grammar


  • How English Works and Grammar in Use are pedagogic grammar books, as they help learners use the grammar of English for Communication
• Aspects of Pedagogical Grammar

  • Pedagogical Process - The explicit treatment of elements of the target language systems as part of language teaching methodology
  • Pedagogical Content - Reference sources that present information about the target language system
  • Combination of Process and Content - How well these aspects of pedagogical grammar align with other forms of grammar is an open question
• Pedagogical Grammar teaches the language not about the language
• Authentic texts


  Texts not specially written for EFL, represent real-life language use
• Classroom texts


  Texts written to be more engaging and attention-grabbing
• Authentic texts can have linguistic load that makes them impenetrable and demotivating for low-level students
• Simplifying authentic texts


  Retaining genuine meaning while making them more accessible
• Using texts in grammar teaching

  • Provides co-textual information to deduce meaning
  • Can show real communication use
  • Provides vocabulary, skills practice, text organisation exposure
  • Prepares for independent study
  • Can be more engaging if from students
• Disadvantages of using texts in grammar teaching

  • Difficulty of authentic texts may negate advantages
  • Simplified texts may give misleading impression of natural use
  • Not all texts equally interesting to students
  • Students may prefer quicker, more direct approach
• Inductive reasoning


  Eliciting grammar points from stories
• Deductive thought


  Illustrating grammar points through stories
• Using stories for grammar teaching

  • Absorbing and fun if selected for class interest
  • Told with energy and student involvement
  • Students can create and impersonate characters
• Stories should last 1-5 minutes, the more exaggerated and bizarre the more memorable
• Songs


  Enchanting and culturally rich resources for language learning
• Advantages of using songs

  • Meet challenges of teenage students
  • Highly memorable and motivating
  • Broaden knowledge of target culture
• Techniques for using songs

  • Gap fills
  • Focus questions
  • True-false statements
  • Sequencing
  • Dictation
  • Adding verses
  • Antonym/synonym identification
  • Discussion
• Poems


  Contextualize grammar lessons effectively, provide structured practice and review
• Selecting poems


  • Consider grammar point, learner level/age, theme, length, classroom objectives
  • Prefer contemporary poems over older ones
• Teaching procedure for poems

  1. Pre-reading stage: motivate, unlock difficulties

  2. Reading by teacher: create images, stress prosody

  3. Reading by students: paraphrase to practice grammar

  4. Post-reading: discuss context, cultural content

  5. Reinforcement: discover deeper meaning, practice/memorize poem

  6. Follow-up: write own poem using target grammar
• Rules for teaching grammar

  • The rule of context: teach in context
  • The rule of use: teach for comprehension and production, not as an end
  • The rule of economy: economize on presentation, maximize practice
  • The rule of relevance: teach only what students need
  • The rule of nurture: provide conditions for learning, not just teaching
  • The rule of appropriacy: adapt to students' level, needs, interests
• Conditions for grammar learning

  • Engaging input
  • Sufficient and quality output
  • Effective feedback
  • Student motivation
• The Rule of Use


  • Teach grammar in order to facilitate the learner's comprehension and productions of real language, rather than as an end in itself
  • Always provide opportunities for learners to put the grammar to some communicative use
• The Rule of Use in teaching grammar

  • Reminds language teachers to teach grammar for communication's sake
  • Memorizing the rules do not guarantee language production
  • If the goal is for students to be able to use the target language meaningfully, then you have to provide opportunities for language practice
• The Rule of Relevance

  • Teach only the grammar that students have problems with
  • Start by finding out what they already know
  • Don't assume the grammar of English is a wholly different system from the learner's mother tongue
  • Exploit the common ground
• Relevance


  Learning experiences that are either directly applicable to the personal aspirations, interests, or cultural experiences of students (personal relevance) or that are connected in some way to real-world issues, problems, and contexts (life relevance)
• Teaching Procedure for a Poem

  1. Pre-reading stage: Motivate students, unlock difficulties

  2. Reading stage by teacher: Create images, stress prosodic features, elicit primary responses

  3. Reading stage by students: Read aloud/silently, paraphrase using target grammar

  4. Post-reading stage: Ease grammar, understand vocabulary, discuss theme, cultural content, visualize poem

  5. Reinforcement stage: Discover deeper meaning, discuss relevance, practice/memorize poem

  6. Follow-up stage: Write a poem using target grammar structure