Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Approaches to English Grammar

Fall 2006

Week 8; Answers

Thornbury (1999) Chapter 6: How to practice grammar, pp. 91-112

1. What is the purpose of doing practice activities in grammar?

The purpose of doing grammar practice activities is quite simple. It basically revolves around the idea that practice makes perfect. Without practice how could we expect our students to be able to use grammar in any type of real situation. Practice is also claimed to be useful in increasing the automization of the particular grammatical form in use. This type of you can be supported by frequency effects in the mental lexicon. The simple idea behind frequency effects is that the more often you use a particular structure the easier it will be to use it. This idea works, at least, for words. It would be interesting to see if it really does work for grammar as well. There been few studies that focus specifically on this yet the results are not clear. All the same, it would seem impossible, even laughable, ludicrous even to try to teach language without having the students actually practice it. It might see more like a behavioristic idea but practice to a certain extent does make perfect and it certainly is necessary. Having clarified this point it should be equally clear that not all practice is equally effective for all students.

There are many different kinds of practice, some of which are effective and some of which might not be as effective. So the great question isn't whether we should do practice or not. I think it's clear that practice must be done. The great question is what type of practice will be or should be done for which situation. Teachers need to think of the purpose of their teaching and expected outcomes. Different types of practice need to be implemented based on those goals. In short the teacher should always have a clear idea why students are performing a particular type of practice and what that practice entails.

In dealing with practice teachers often try to develop both the accuracy and the fluency of the students in using certain grammar forms. Practice should focus on both, and if possible at the same time. In the past, there's been a tremendous rift between these two. Curriculum designers have tended to focus on them separately and in turns. But they are not mutually exclusive nor should they be. As teachers we should try to devise practice which allows our students to focus on both of these at the same time. Handling them one at a time would seem to be, first of all, not an effective use of time and second of all of somewhat dubious usefulness. It is above all unnatural.

One thing that needs to be mentioned as a last point here is that Thornbury tends to look at practice as output. He does not seem to be aware of grammar practice that does not involve producing any kind of grammar. Hmmmmm.

2. What are some of the techniques that teachers need to try to implement when dealing with accuracy?

In getting our students to practice accuracy what we are really doing is trying to get our students to focus on the forms that they are creating. This means that there needs obviously to be a tremendous focus on form. This generally means that the exercises/tasks/activities are highly controlled. In order, then, for the students to really have their attention drawn to form we need to set up to practice in a certain way so that the students are not totally overloaded or so that their attention is not drawn away from the form. The simplest ways of doing this is to make sure that the material they are using is familiar. We should not be introducing a whole range of new content as we try to get our students to practice the forms. Likewise, since we want students to focus on the form we need to give them time to think about the form. We know that speech happens extremely quickly or at least it should. This does not allow the students to really think very much about what they're going to be saying. The amount of planning will be minimal. It seems therefore, that if we want to get our students to focus on the form then we should try to have them practice more in writing, or by mere repetition in speech. By having students practice in writing they are allowed time to think about the types of forms that they want to use and how they can make those forms fit the context properly. Taking all this into consideration it would also seen apparent that the student should not be dealing with things that are too creative (free). Similar to the idea of not overloading then with content, the student should not be expected to be completely creative while focusing on form either. It is simply too much. Rather, it would probably be better to have the students doing some sort of controlled or guided writing when they are focusing on form. This does not mean that what their dealing with is decontextualized or highly simplified. Context must always be there, but what they're doing within the context is limited for the most part to forms. Even in the simplest type of speaking repetition activities it should always be clear why (for what purpose) the students are using the words and forms you as the teacher are expecting them to use. Repetition is no reason for a lack of context and underlying functions.

One other thing which must be mentioned here before we move on is the idea of feedback. Thornbury states very strongly that immediate and effective feedback is necessary for the students, particularly when focusing on form. There is an awful lot of contradictory evidence about this idea. As teachers we would think, as Thornbury certainly hopes, that our feedback would have some enduring effect on students. Studies have shown, however, that this might not actually be the case. There is a tremendous amount of variables wrapped up in this type of discussion. The most I can tell you is that as a teacher with your own teaching style and student goals and needs, you should try to find your own way to give your students effective feedback. It is important, but like practice their good ways and bad waves of giving feedback. This is where a highly observed version of trial and error in the classroom (Action Research) can come in handy.

3. What are some of the techniques that teachers need to try to implement when dealing with fluency?

Fluency includes the relative speed, flow, and connectedness of a piece of speech or writing. There many things that we as teachers can do to try to get our students to develop fluency in the target language. One of the main ideas, as we mentioned above, is the idea of repetition. Students need to be able to repeat over and over again the same types of practice in order to somehow make their speaking or writing processes more automatic. The greatest potential danger in this is that it is basically boring as hell for anyone over a certain age. Therefore, we need to try to do some other things which will make it more interesting and more authentic, that is the useful and challenging for the particular group of students we are teaching. For example, in creating an engaging practice designed to develop fluency we want to try to make sure that the practice has a real-world type focus. This means that the practice the students are engaged in should be something that they would need to do or could possibly need to do in the outside world. Get your students out of the classroom in mind if not in body. This is important. Also, there should be a clear communicative purpose for the type of practice the students are engaging in. This means the teacher must make sure that what the students try to say has some sort of meaning in the context created. Grammar practice without meaning, without having to adjust itself to a particular context is really not very useful. The last thing that Thornbury mentions is the idea of chunking. This is an interesting idea and it comes from observations in both FirLa and SLA that language learners first start to use/understand the language by internalizing chunks which they have memorized. These chunks are basically pieces of language which have some sort of formulaic purpose. Some of the typically cited examples of chunks would be;

How's it going?

What's up?

I'm fine, how you?

People like Lewis (1997), however, feel that chunking is much more than just that. Lewis, the designer of the lexical approach, currently believes that chunks are something which make it into adult native speaker grammar as well. In short it is certainly not a phase that people pass through and move beyond or outgrow. Chunks endure as ana integral part of the grammatical/communicative system. Lewis and many others see chunking as forming the fundamental base of grammatical development not just the beginning stages of language learning, but throughout. Lexicalists believes that chunks come in all shapes and sizes and that chunks are not restricted to simple formulaic expressions. Thornbury is familiar with the work of lexicalists and understands this idea and has tried to incorporate it, in a very small way, into this section. The basic idea then is that getting your students to memorize entire pieces of language is not necessarily bad thing. Yes, native speakers of the language are capable of breaking down utterances into their units and building up utterances from small units, but they don't have to all the time, a lot of what native speakers do is simply piece together chunks.

4. What is restructuring and how can teachers impel students to do this?

The idea of restructuring has come from ideas of cognition. The basic idea is that students need to integrate the new information into the pre-existing cognitive structures they have. This is, in effect, how people learn. In the realm of grammar this means that new grammar rules (observations about patterns) need to be incorporated into already existing grammar rules (observations about patterns) and language situations. Following this, we can see how the importance of the relationship between grammar and meaning is underscored. As Thornbury mentions, this restructuring was originally thought to occur at the presentation stage of teaching in the PPP model. In this view it is, therefore, the teachers job to try to force the relationship between the new information and the old information. Constructivist theories have, however, pushed the idea that restructuring can only really occur at the stage of practice. This is basically because each student has her own cognitive structure. The teacher simply doesn't know what to say to try to get to get the students to incorporate the old information with the new information as everyone`s internal cognitive structure is different. The students need to do this each individually and for themselves. These are the ideas that Constructivism are really based on and the types of practice that the teacher will try to get the students to do will necessarily follow constructivist ideas.

Problem solving, according to constructivist theory, is a good way to try to get the students to notice the language that they're using, or the language they need to use to try to get everything to work well in that situation. The teacher should also try to use scaffolding to get the student to outproduce their own competence. The sounds like a theoretical nightmare, but it should actually work. The ideas that by putting the students in a particular situation and then providing them with certain clues as they struggle in that situation the end result of what they are producing (with help and pushing from the outside) will actually be higher than what they would normally be able to produce, plus producing more than their true competence might allow. This can be linked to the way that feedback is given to the students.

5. How does the `opaqueness` of a structure relate to the type of practice that should be done?

The opaqueness of a language structure relates to how easy it is to see or perceive. Things like articles, for example, are very easy to see and are, therefore, extremely clear and not necessarily opaque. More opaque grammatical structures would be things like direct objects or indirect objects as well as finite vs. nonfinite clauses. These grammatical structures are opaque because they're rather hard to notice. They're so deeply embedded in what we have to do with language and involve more than just a single word or morpheme so that students often simply pass over them. It is not only the students, but also most grammar books which also simply ignore some of the more opaque problems with grammar. As teachers we need to carefully consider which grammar points are opaque and which are less opaque. This consideration will lead us to how we're going to have our students practice or how we're going to present the grammar points if it all. My personal belief is that since all opaque grammar structures are difficult for the students to pick up themselves we as teachers need to teach them more overtly. It's not simply a matter of circling a certain word or morpheme. It is hard to get the students to know these more opaque structures. Therefore, bottom-up approaches often don't work with more opaque structures. Sometimes the direct frontal assault is best.

6. What are some of the basic different kinds of practice that can be done?

There is no limit to the types of practice they can be done to work on grammar. It must remember that in effect everything the students do with language is going to be grammar practice whether overtly or covertly. As has been mentioned time and time again in this course, grammar is everywhere. There is no escape from grammar. This does not mean that we need to create practice specially designed only for grammar. This is often not an effective use of the students' time. Rather we should be trying to integrate grammar practice and everything else that we do. As we build chains of practice activities certain links in the chain might focus more on grammar, while others will not (they might focus more on content) and the end result will be more on communication, but grammar is a necessary aspect of all of that.

Lewis (1997) Chapter 5: Organising lexis, pp. 67-85.

7. Lewis lists ten different ways of organizing lexis. Of these ten which do you currently employ in your teaching and which ones do you think you would have difficultly employing.

Topic

Situation

Collocation

Notion

Narration

Metaphor

Person

Phonological chunking

Keywords

Grammar

At some point and to some degree we all should be familiar with these different concerns. Some of them jump out at us as recognized methods for organizing input while others do not (the ones in bold). The ones I have listed in bold seem to be more readily useful as ways of dealing with some of the language used in the input the students receive. The point to remember is that if we not take such concerns into account in selecting or creating input then there is no way to guarantee that they will be there, and in fact they probably won`t. Thus, in creating and/or selecting input we need to look at each of these considerations simply to make sure that they are all there. They do not each need be present in every piece of input the students are exposed to but must be taken into consideration in designing a curriculum.

Such organizational concerns also relate strongly to the type of practice you are going to have your students do. As you hopefully have figured out by now, the lexical approach advocates a long period of more passive types of practicing with the language. That is, we can see from the practice given here in relation to organization that figuring out the specific lexical/grammatical uses of the language is a first and necessary step. It is also a rather long step. It is probably something that we will need to keep on doing with our students over and over again as we expose them to new forms. For Lewis (1997) organization is a key to be able to develop productive skills in the future.

8. How can we encourage our students to keep lexical notebooks for effect?

Following, or an extremely important part of, noticing lexis in the target language is the creation of lexical notebooks. This is the next logical step and really important in trying to get students to eventually use some of these lexical chunks in their own speech and writing. Keeping a lexical notebook, however, is in not a very simple or easy thing to do. First of all students must be drawn to lexical organizational patterns as was discussed in the previous question. Their notebooks also need to be designed and kept based on organizational principles and that can be very difficult for learners. The more organization the book has from the outset the better, but it's obvious that spaces must be left in the notebook for new concerns to be entered as they are encountered. For any notebook, or dictionary to be effective students need to be able to find what they're looking for quickly when they need it. This presents a problem. Does a notebook which is organized according to notions, for example, need to alphabetize the notions themselves? It's just one of many questions which are quite difficult to answer.

Another problem is that these notebooks are essentially very learner centered. This means that the students need to do much of this work on their own. While the students might be able to recognize themselves some of the lexical chunks in the input they are receiving, again how it actually organized this into a meaningful and useful notebook where the information can be found quickly, is going to be difficult. It's hard to say whether the students are going to be able to do this by themselves. They will need your help. As they go on, as well, they will probably want to change some of the format and organization of the notebooks. It is probably therefore important for the students initially to get rather thick notebooks from which pages can be easily removed or shuffled. It would seem to me that these notebooks with need to be constantly undergoing change. Like the lexicon itself as new information is brought in other information will need to be changed to and content itself or shifted. With this in mind, teachers can use these notebooks as a development experiments in not only learner centeredness but also in seeing how language really is organized lexically. It done properly this could be an interesting and fun project for your students.

9. Of the formats Lewis (1997) mentions which one is the hardest to apply?

Collocation

Contextual opposites

Thought-speech bubbles

Story boxes

Cascades

Collocation cascades

Semi-fixed expressions in 5 formats

These are further elaborations ans more specific examples of some of the general organizations principles mentioned above.

10. What is the difference between semantic and contextual opposites?

I draw your attention to this distinction because it is one which shows clearly some of the advantages of the lexical approach as opposed to purely semantic or grammatical approaches. The basic idea is that, yes, there are semantic opposites. Some are gradable (such as hot-cold) while others are absolute (such as alive-dead) and we have a tendency to teach these. What Lewis is arguing here is that these semantic opposites are not actually opposites in terms of usage. Often when we explore collocational links (primarily adjectives on nouns) we find that people don't always use opposites as they are arranged semantically. We therefore need to teach opposites as people actually use them, which may or may not be semantic.