Teaching the Language System Part 1

Main issues in FL grammar teaching 1.Whether to teach it at all 2.Whether to do so directly or indirectly

Issue 1: pro Krashens Hypotheses (the Monitor Model) -> Natural Approach, Procedural Syllabus, Content-based Learning, Immersion, etc. learners are exposed to communication or take part in problem-solving tasks or learning of other school subject-matter in the foreign language, and language system knowledge is learned as a by-product

Issue 1: con a native-speakerist/BANA-oriented view learning and acquisition processes nowadays seen as alternative pathways Krashens ideas best seen as drawing attention to the role of acquisition as a complement to learning, rather a replacement for it

Issue 2 direct vs. indirect teaching of language system knowledge (grammar) a par excellence example of the former: PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production)

PPP StagePurposeExample PresentationIntroduction (learning about) 1) Set of instructions for making paper aeroplane 2) Establishment of rules for, e.g., imperative, etc PracticeGuided use (learning how to) Guided freer pattern practice, etc., re using imperative in instructions ProductionFreer use (learning by doing) Students devise own instructions for making, e.g., a paper boat or flower

PPP - some benefits relatively well-defined overall procedure not dissimilar to basic paradigm of teaching in other subject areas high face-validity (looks like what language learning should be about) many learners all over world have learned successfully using it supported by some findings of SLA research (e.g., Wong-Fillmore in ONeill)

PPP - some drawbacks uninvolving, potentially monotonous usually just PP learners may well have learned despite rather than because of it no guarantee that forms focussed on in earlier stages will be used in later ones conflicts with some findings of SLA research (see, e.g., Skehan in Willis & Willis)

Focus on form vs. Focus on formS Focus on formS (direct): discrete-point grammar teaching, or what I call focus on forms, where classes spend most of their time working on isolated linguistic structures in a sequence predetermined externally by a syllabus designer or textbook writer (Long, 1997) E.g., GT, A-L, TPR, PPP, etc.

Focus on form vs. Focus on formS Focus on form (indirect): during an otherwise meaning-focused lesson… learners' attention is briefly shifted to linguistic code features, in context, when students experience problems as they work on communicative tasks, i.e., in a sequence determined by their own internal syllabuses, current processing capacity, and learnability constraints (Long, 1997) E.g., TBLT, etc.

Recommended reading

Seminar Watch the lvideo of the lesson and make notes of the main stages. Then try to answer the following questions: –Was the lesson mainly an FoF or FoFS one? –What did you like/dislike about the way language system knowledge was taught? –What would you have done differently?