Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Approaches to English Grammar

Fall 2006

Week 11; Answers

Thornbury (1999) Chapter 8: How to integrate grammar, pp. 128-140.

1. What is the PPP model and what are some of its problems?

What Thornbury tries to do in this chapter is to give us some new ideas about how we might go about dealing with grammar. The first thing he does is introduce the PPP model. The three Ps in the PPP model stand for Presentation, Practice, and finally Production. He also goes to the trouble to explain to us how the production part is actually a rather new aspect of grammar teaching and grammar practice. That is, in the past, teachers really didn't have their students do a lot of production in the classroom. Thus, for the most part, grammar instruction consisted of a very large amount of presentation followed by a certain amount of practice which again is an often vacuous focus on form. I think we're all extremely aware of this basic type of teaching framework. After all, it's what we were exposed to as students ourselves and is also what we often do today as a result of this early and extensive exposure. After briefly introducing the PPP model, Thornbury then decides, or at least tries to get us to decide, what is actually at fault with this model.

One of the biggest problems with the PPP model is in the ordering of the different stages. SLA research has shown time and time again that a lot of practice, especially controlled practice, does not really have an effect on people's communicative competence or people's ability to actually use the grammar that the student becomes so adept at practicing in an unreal, controlled situation. What simple research has shown us is that learners in the second language, very much like learners in the first language, really go through periods of just speaking a lot and often making a lot of mistakes not to mention a lot of errors. Following that, it would seem to make sense to actually have the production element before the practice element, or to simply blur the distinction. It would seem better to simply blend practice and production. Why do we need to have a special practice phase? It can certainly be integrated into everything else that we do, particularly if the teacher gives the students feedback or some sort of reaction to the language that they are producing so that student gets some idea about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in their production. That is key.

2. What is the TTT model and what are some of its advantages?

After criticizing the PPP model, Thornbury then goes on to introduce an alternative model. This alternative model is basically a task based model. The task based model has been strongly advocated by David Nunan over the last 10 years. Therefore, it is not a particularly new model, but it has not really yet caught on the way its practitioners would have liked, in part because of its vagueness and also due to rather different role of teacher it advoccates. Thornbury seems to think this is because the task based approach does not focus on or even allow a focus on grammar. This simply is not true. While it is true that a task-based approach treats grammar more covertly than overtly, it is still possible for a teacher to create tasks with grammar in mind in fact, she must do so based on the claims made in Lewis (see question 5 below) in relation to teacher planning in the classroom.

The basic idea behind the task based model is that the students simply engage in a particular type of language practice revolving around a specific task. There is no one particular grammar focus in this language practice, or at least there doesn't have to be, but each part of the task generally requires the use of specific grammatical structures. This is because tasks are arranged around functions, but not merely what we generally think of as linguistic functions like apologizing, but rather functions in the real world like `finding a job` or `opening a bank account`.

Tasks can divided into real world tasks and a pedagogical tasks. While we need the former as a basic means of organizing the whole endeavor we can use the latter to help the students achieve their larger real world tasks. We can use one type of task to scaffold the other. The basic idea is that a task from the real world is often quite complicated. It should be broken down into several different subtasks, all of which probably need to be done in specific order in order to move us forward towards the completion of our larger task. An important aspect of this approach is the subtasks which are often more pedagogical and it is for the teacher to decide how many pedagogical tasks she would like to have and how structured she would like them to be. Such decisions are often made with the students in mind. In a carefully constructed task chain the teacher can push the students forward by using the world as an organizing mechanism.

The idea in relation to grammar is that while each task may require the use of certain forms as demanded by the functions of the task the students themselves can and often do pick themselves what they would like to focus on or what they think they need to focus on or what simply comes as their natural focus. Constructivist research has shown that people learn what they want to when they want to (when they are ready to do so). It is hard for the teacher to force students to learn and to practice particular things at particular times and the task based approach agrees with and works within this concept. In the task based approach the production phase is the phase which comes first, possibly after a brief introduction or warmup. After that the students might go into some sort of practice phase, wherein they try to fine-tune the particular language that they are focusing on. There is no guarantee, however, that the students are all focusing on the same language forms or grammatical points. For this reason, the seemingly diminished role of the teacher in this type of practice affects many teachers adversely and they have, as a result, avoided using task based approaches is in the classroom. They find it is hard to control what is actually going on and to give students the right type of feedback or correction on what they're doing, particularly in larger classes where is hard to keep tabs on all the students all the time.

All the same, however, there are some distinct advantages, as mentioned above, to the task based approach. What I am really asking you, or least trying to draw your attention to, is that there are alternatives to the PPP model in doing grammar with your students. The basic idea is that grammar is everywhere. Every time your students do anything with language they are, in effect, engaging in grammar practice/production.

3. Which of the same lessons did you like the best and why?

I am a little leery of all of these activities simply because they don`t involve very much scaffolding. They all expect the students to simply be able to produce language freely without much help from the teacher. As a result I see them failing miserably in our larger classes or sometimes rather shy students. I was left with the distinct impression that all of these lessons would have been much better with HANDOUTS.

4. Which of the same lessons did you like the least and why?

The fourth lesson didn`t involve anything. It was simply exposing the students to the story.

The third lesson was very eclectic to the point where it is hard to tell the difference between it and the grammar dictation which we discussed earlier. While we said grammar dictation was a useful kind of activity for students we don`t want to make the mistake of putting it into a task-based framework. In the second lesson I really do not think the students will be able the listening. Teachers need to scaffold listening and not just drop this out of a hat.

Lewis (1997) Chapter 7: Adapting activities in the lexical approach, pp. 108-141.

5. For Lewis what is it that teachers need to be able to do in relation to making decisions?

The most important thing is that decisions need to be informed. That means that all decisions in the classroom have to be made based on understanding. Specifically, we need to understand what the students are doing, how they are going to do it and why they are doing so.

6. Of the various activities which one as the most striking to you and why?

A lot of these activities are scanning activities. Most of them do not involve production. They are to be used as ways of getting the students to build up their lexical notebooks. I do like the idea of using soap operas though, depending of course on the age of the students.

7. Which of the activities could he easily have left out?

I think a few of the earlier, simpler scanning activities could have easily left out. We are familiar enough with the approach to be able to have the students do this as a kind of second nature.