1. Professional Development Workshops for Teachers of English
Communicative Learner-Centred Grammar
Peter Lucantoni

2. Peter Lucantoni
Started teaching in 1979 in UK, lived and worked in Europe and Middle East, now based in Cyprus
MA TESOL (Edinburgh) – Dissertation: Expectations of Cypriot Teachers of English
Author & Teacher Trainer
Cambridge University Press (IGCSE English as a Second Language levels 1 & 2, Our English Levels 1, 2 & 3, Teaching and Assessing Skills in IGCSE E2L)
Longman (KET Practice Tests Plus)
Macmillan (Super Skills A, B & C)
Hodder Murray (International English Levels 1, 2 & 3
Cambridge TKT, CELTYL, CELTA & DELTA trainer, CELTYL assessor & examiner for speaking tests
Classroom teacher

3. Workshop overview What is grammar? What is a mistake?
Who decides what’s wrong?
Why do learners make mistakes?
Grammar activities
Conclusions

4. Activity 1
What is grammar?
Discuss with your colleagues and try to agree on a working definition.

5. grammatical parts of speech
Use the words provided here to complete the gaps in the paragraph below.
grammatical parts of speech
meaning rules
Grammar is a set of …………… for combining words to express ……………. . Words are given “labels” to help us to identify their …………… roles. These labels are known as …………… .

6. Grammar is a set of rules for combining words to express meaning
Grammar is a set of rules for combining words to express meaning. Words are given “labels” to help us to identify their grammatical roles. These labels are known as parts of speech .

7. Words carry more meaning than grammar, so, in general, words determine grammar
Michael Lewis, The Lexical Approach, LTP 1999
Grammar is a process for making … meaning clear when contextual information is lacking
Scott Thornbury, How to Teach Grammar, Longman 2001

8. up and he that the in Bill Jane stand announce spring marry
Activity 2
Language without grammar would … leave
us seriously handicapped (Batstone, 2000)
up and he that the in Bill Jane
stand announce spring marry

9. Activity 3 A Coffee? B Please. A Milk? B Just a drop. A Sugar?
Can you understand the following ‘grammar-less’
exchange?
A Coffee?
B Please.
A Milk?
B Just a drop.
A Sugar?
B I’m on a diet.
A Juice?
B Mmm.

10. What is a mistake? 6 + 7 = 14 can never be right
Did you go to the beach yesterday?
Yes, I go yesterday
wrong structure, but effective communication, comprehensible
usefully he kitchen like black the by
wrong and incomprehensible

11. Who decides what’s wrong?
English is constantly changing, acquiring new words and usages from other languages, and excluding others
English has wide variety of dialects, variations, registers, modern vs old-fashioned
Dictionaries do not always agree
Anybody’s knowledge of language can only ever be partial

12. Mistakes are part of learning a language
They are inevitable
Teachers/learners may be able to eliminate some mistakes, but not all

13. Activity 4
“Some mistakes should be encouraged” (Bartram & Walton, 1994)
Do you agree? Which ones?

14. He goed to the cinema yesterday He went to the cinema yesterday
He go to the cinema yesterday
Speaker knows everything about past simple
Speaker knows nothing about past simple
Speaker knows something about past simple

15. I’m sorry sir, I did a mistake.
You didn’t DO a mistake, you idiot, you MADE a mistake!

16. forms ideas about how language works tries out language using ideas
Why do learners make mistakes?
An L2 learner …
is exposed to language
forms ideas about how language works
tries out language using ideas
is exposed to more language
changes original ideas
tries out new ideas
Adapted from Bartram & Walton, 1994

17. The grammar-centred approach, grammar translation
Approaches and methods
in teaching grammar
The grammar-centred approach, grammar translation
Communicative language teaching CLT
And now … a return to grammar …

18. Principles There is a need for grammar
If learners’ attention is directed solely to expressing meaning, they may neglect attention to accuracy and precision
Noticing an aspect of form is the first stage of learning it – teachers can help learners do this
But, learner has to do the learning – just teaching grammar doesn’t make it happen
There is a role for the explicit teaching of grammar and metalanguage

19. Noticing – an active process in which learners become aware of structure and notice connections between form and meaning
Structuring – bringing new grammar patterns into learners’ internal grammars. Usually requires controlled practice
Procedurising – making the new grammar ready for instant and fluent use in communication
Rob Batstone, Grammar, OUP 2000

20. You are going to participate in some more activities which involve ‘grammar’. What do you like/dislike about each one? Which of your classes could/n’t you use the activities with? Why/not? What variations can you think of?

21. Sloobie
A sloobie is a brumpting silop which draches in a layod. It okuls from Klooblie, an ert in Fring. In order to ning a sloobie, the layod is larted by a ticfrous layoder.

22. country, fish, dancing, river,
Sloobie
Use these words:
country, fish, dancing, river,
comes, Asia, lives
A sloobie is a brumpting silop.
It draches in a layod.
It okuls from Klooblie.
Klooblie is an ert in Fring.

23. Conclusions
Grammar is more than lists of labels and rules found in grammar books – it is closely tied to the meaning and use of language and interconnected with vocabulary
Communicating through a language and learning a language can conflict – focussing on meaning does not guarantee language development on all fronts

24. Contacts lucantoni@gmail.com peter@response-education.com.cy