Summary of the article “Teaching Grammar” written by Diane Larsen-Freeman Ana Maria Menezes

Former approaches to teaching grammar. Analysing language Using language

“Research has shown that teachers who focus students’ attention on form during communicative interactions are more effective than those who never focus on form.” Spada and Lightbown, 1993.

Grammatical structures not only have FORM, they are also used to express MEANING in context-approriate USE.

MEANING/ SEMANTICS FORM/ STRUCTURE USE/ PRAGMATICS Lexical meaning Grammatical meaning FORM/ STRUCTURE Morphosyntactic and lexical patterns Phonemic/ graphemic patterns USE/ PRAGMATICS Social context Linguistic discourse context Presuppositions about context

FORM MEANING USE How is it formed? What does it mean? When/ why is it used?

POSSESSIVES MEANING FORM USE Possession Description Amount ‘s or s’ Relationship Part/ whole Origin/ agent FORM ‘s or s’ /z/~/s/~/əz/ USE ‘s versus possessive determiner ‘s versus of the ‘s versus noun compounds

Principle of dominance PHRASAL VERBS FORM Verb + particle Verb + particle + preposition Transitive/ intrans. Separable/ inseparable Stress and juncture patterns MEANING Literal Figurative Multiple meanings USE Informal discourse Principle of dominance

FORM Meaningful practice Games Cuisenaire rods Problem-solving activities

MEANING Associate form + meaning. Realia / pictures. Actions (TPR). Concentration game.

USE Selecting between different options. (Why use one form and not another?)

The framework helps teachers identify where the learning challenge lies.

And helps teachers make clear decisions about how to teach grammar.

For more information: Read “The Grammar Book” by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999