Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective
Rod Ellis
University of Auckland
Defining Grammar Teaching
Grammar teaching involves any instructional technique that draws learners’ attention to some specific grammatical form in such a way that it helps them to either understand it metalinguistically and/or process it in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize it.
Problems in the Teaching of Grammar
1. Should we teach grammar?
2. What grammar should we teach?
3. When should we teach grammar?
4. Should grammar instruction be massed or distributed?
5. Should grammar instruction be intensive or extensive?
6. Is there any value in teaching explicit grammar knowledge?
7. Is there a best way to teach implicit grammatical knowledge?
8. Should grammar be taught in separate lessons or integrated into communicative activities?
What grammar?
Two separate questions:
1. What kind of grammar should we base teaching on?
2. Which grammatical features should we teach?
What kind of grammar?
Options:
1. Generative grammar
2. Functional grammar
3. Descriptive grammar
Celce-Murcia, M. and Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999): Grammar Book 2nd Edition, Heinle and Heinle
Pedagogically exploitable descriptions
Typical learner errors
Which grammatical features? (1)
1. Minimalist position (Krashen – teach only simple and probably rules for explicit knowledge)
2. Comprehensive position (e.g. Walter and Swan’s The New Cambridge English Course)
3. Note: L2 learners do seem to be capable of learning more grammar rules than Krashen allows for (see Green and Hecht 1992)
Which grammatical feature? (2)
Two general approaches for identifying features to be taught:
1. Teach those forms that differ from the learner’s L1 (e.g. *Mary kissed passionately John).
2. Teach marked rather than unmarked forms.
Note: Markedness refers to whether a structure is frequent, natural, and regular (e.g. *He made me to follow him).
But grammatical syllabuses tend to be very alike and have changed little over the years.
When should we teach grammar?
Two positions:
1. Emphasize grammar in the early stages.
2. Emphasize meaning-focused instruction early on and introduce grammar later.
Teaching Grammar Early
1. The case for:
-Behaviorist learning theory (habit-formation)
-Learners need more grammar as a basis for doing communicative activities
-Teaching grammar provides learners with hooks to grab onto (connectionist theories)
2. The case against:
-Learners are better off with a fluency/first approach (cf. immersion programmes)
-Early stages of L2 acquisition are agrammatical (i.e. learners rely on a lexicalized system)
- Learners can learn a lot of basic grammar without instruction
Massed or distributed?
Collins et al (1999):
…none of the language programs evaluation research has found an advantage for distributed language instruction. Although the finding thus far lead to the hypothesis that more concentrated exposure to English may lead to better student outcomes, the evidence is not conclusive.
Collins et al compared an ESL program taught over 10 months with one taught over 5 months and found that the massed group outperformed the distributed group.
Need for a study that investigates the effectiveness of the ‘cyclical approach’.
Intensive or extensive?
Intensive instruction = instruction directed for a sustained period of time at a single grammatical structure
Extensive instruction = instructed directed at a whole range of structures within a short period of time
Intensive Instruction
1. Present-practice-produce (PPP)
2. Problem of learner readiness
3. Underlying assumption that ‘practice makes perfect’
4. Need for both controlled and free practice activities.
Rationale:
1 Some structures may need intensive practice before they can be fully acquired (e.g. Harley 1989)
2 Ensures that ‘problem’ structures are dealt with.
Extensive Instruction
1. Grammar review lessons (e.g. as a follow-up to a task)
2. Corrective feedback
3. Pre-emptive focus-on-form
Rationale:
1. Intensive practice may not be needed to learn more structures.
2. It provides opportunity for large numbers of structures to be attended to.
3. Corrective feedback and student-initiated focus-on-form addresses learner problems with grammar and is individualized.
4. Corrective feedback has been found to be related to learning (Loewen 2002)
Explicit Knowledge
Explicit knowledge is:
1. Analyzed knowledge that is:
- consciously held
-accessed through controlled processing
-verbalizable
2. Metalanguage
- Ability to understand rules
- Knowledge of technical terms
Is explicit knowledge of value in itself?
- Researchers disagree over how learnable it is (cf. Krashen and Green and Hecht).
- It can be used to monitor output.
- It can be used in the formulation stage of message construction (Yuan and Ellis 2003).
- It can be automatized (to a degree) so that it is available even in unplanned language use.
Does explicit knowledge facilitate the development of implicit knowledge?
This concerns the interface hypothesis:
- Non-interface position (Krashen)
- Strong interface position (DeKeyser)
- Weak interface position (Ellis)
There is clear evidence that explicit instruction is more effective than implicit instruction (Norris and Ortega 2002), but these positions have not been directly tested empirically.
Consciousness-Raising Tasks
These are tasks designed to enable learners to discover rules of grammar for themselves (i.e. aimed solely at explicit knowledge).
They consist of:
1. Data
2. Some operation (e.g. underlining; sorting; classifying)
Example of a CR Task
1. Read the text and complete the table.
WH Question Embedded WH Question
How can you get more value …what the All-Continent TravelClub
for your dollar? can offer you.
2. Study the word order in the questions and statements. How is it different?
3. Can you say what is wrong with this sentence? He wants to know what country am I visiting?
Implicit Knowledge
Implicit knowledge is:
- Unanalyzed
- Held unconsciously
- Procedural
- Not easily verbalizable
Grammatical competence is generally held to consist of implicit knowledge.
How best to teach implicit knowledge?
Instructional options:
1. Input-based options
2. Output-based options
Input-based Options
1. Enhanced input (e.g. highlighting grammatical form in the input)
2. Structure input (interpretation tasks)
Output-based Options
1. Functional grammar activities
2. Focused tasks
Functional Practice
- This involves the provision of opportunities to produce the target structure in some kind of situational context
- Despite concern for meaning, the primary focus is form and learners are aware that the aim is to achieve accurate use through repeated use of target form, e.g. Harley (1989)
Structure-based Production Tasks
A structure-based production task aims to elicit the production of some pre-determined grammatical structure by making use of the structure:
- Useful or
- Natural or
- Essential
It must satisfy the requirements of all taks (i.e. meaning focused; information gap; learner chooses linguistic resources; communicative outcome).
Corrective Feedback
Key options:
1. Implicit feedback (e.g. recasts) vs. explicit feedback (e.g. metalingual explanation)
2. Input-based (e.g. recasts) vs. output-based (e.g. requests for clarification)
Some evidence that explicit feedback is more effective than implicit feedback (e.g. Leeman 2003)
Example of Corrective Feedback
S: I was in pub (2.0)
I was in pub.
T: In the pub?
S: Yeah and I was drinking beer.
So what kind of instruction works for implicit knowledge?
Ellis (2002) suggests that in order for instruction to have an effect on the acquisition of implicit knowledge, it should be:
1. Directed at relatively simple, transparent morphological features rather than complex syntactical features
2. Extended
3. Available in subsequent input
Separate grammar lessons or integrated into communicative activities?
Two approaches:
1. Focus on forms (structural syllabus; discrete grammar lessons)
2. Focus on form (task-based syllabus; communicative lessons):
a) Planned focus on form
b) Incidental focus on form
Two Positions
1. Focus-on-form is best equipped to promote interlanguage development (Doughty 2001); learners need to attend to form while they are trying to communicate.
2. Focus-on-forms can effectively promote interlanguage development – but this needs to include meaning-focused tasks.
Conclusions
1. Model of grammar needs to be that emphasizes meaning/use as well as form.
2. Grammar teaching should focus on features known to be problematic.
3. Grammar teaching may work best with learners who have already acquired the ability to communicate in the language (fluency first).
4. A massed rather than distributed approach may be more effective.
5. A focus-on-forms approach can work if it affords opportunity to practice using communicative tasks.
6. A focus-on-forms approach should make use of both input-based and out-based options.
7. Teaching explicit knowledge can assist the acquisition of implicit knowledge.
8. Incidental focus-on-form affords extensive treatment of grammar.
9. Planned focus-on-form may be necessary to assist learners to acquire difficult structures.
10. Corrective feedback is important for acquisition – explicit feedback may work better.
11. Grammar instruction can consist of separate lessons but should also be integrated into communicative activities.
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