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Examples of language system teaching
We can now look at a few ideas for teaching grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and
language functions. These lesson sequences and ideas will include both student discovery-
type m om ents and explain and practise examples (see pages 81-82). There will be a m ixture
of straight arrows and boom erang procedures. However, there are many more ways of
approaching this kind of teaching than there is room for here. Readers should consult the
books listed on page 263 for more ideas.
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Chapter 6
Teaching grammar
One way of teaching gram m ar is to use an explain and practise
procedure such as we have described above. So, for example, if
we want to teach the present simple (see page 70) for habitual
actions, we can show elementary students pictures o f someone
with an interesting occupation (in this case a m arathon runner).
After talking about running (‘Would you like to run?’, ‘Do you
take exercise?’, etc), the students see the following pictures.
We point to the first picture and model the sentence ‘She
gets up at half past five’. We use check questions (‘Does she get
up at half past five on Monday?, on Thursday?’, etc) to make
sure they understand the concept of habitual actions. We
isolate the word ‘gets’ and show how an ‘s’ is added to the verb
for ‘she’, ‘he’ and ‘it’ (we can say ‘Listen, g e t ... s . . . ’ indicating
‘get’ with one hand and ‘s’ with the other. Now we draw the
two hands together and say‘gets,.. gets ... listen, she gets . . . ’). Then we model the sentence
again and get the students to repeat it chorally and individually.
Students now look at the second picture and we try to
elicit
the sentence (that is get
them to produce it, rather than give it to them ) ‘She has breakfast at six o’clock’. If necessary,
we model this sentence too, isolating ‘has’. Students repeat this second sentence chorally and
individually. We now start a cue-response drill where we say‘half past five’ and the students
say ‘She gets up’ or ‘six o’clock’, for them to say ‘She has breakfast’. We elicit ‘She leaves hom e
at six thirty’, and once again get repetition of this new sentence before conducting more
elaborate cue-response stages. We correct (and perhaps re-explain) where students are
having difficulties. Finally, students tell the class about their own daily routine and about
the routines o f people they know (members of their families, etc). Over subsequent lessons,
we make sure they have more opportunities to use the present simple in this way.
If we use a discovery approach to teaching grammar, our lesson sequence will look
rather different - as in the following example for upper-interm ediate students studying
conditional if-sentences.
Teaching the language system
We can start the sequence by asking students to think about grandparents. In pairs or
groups, they discuss what adjectives (‘wise’, ‘kind’, ‘old’, etc) they would use to describe a
typical grandmother. They write their words down. We then ask them to read the following
extract (from a book for children, but which is equally appropriate for adults and young
adults in this context). Their task is to see if any of the adjectives they chose fit George’s
grandm other, and if not, how they would choose to describe her.
‘You know what’s the matter with you?’ the old woman said, staring at George over
the rim of the teacup with those bright wicked little eyes. ‘You’re
growing
too fast.
Boys who grow too fast become stupid and lazy.’
‘ But I can’t help it if I’m growing fast, G randm a,’ George said.
‘Of course you can,’ she snapped. ‘Growing’s a nasty childish habit.’
‘ But we
have
to grow, Grandm a. If we didn’t grow, we’d never be grow n-ups.’
‘ Rubbish, boy, rubbish,’ she said. ‘ Look at me. Am I growing? Certainly not.’
‘ But you did once, Grandm a.’
‘Only
very little,’
the old woman answered. ‘ I gave up growing when I was
extremely sm all, along with other nasty childish habits like laziness and disobedience
and greed and slop piness and untidiness and stupidity. You haven’t given up any of
those things, have you ?’
‘ I’m still only a little boy, Grandm a.’
‘You’re eight years o ld,’ she snorted. ‘That’s old enough to know better. If you
don’t stop growing soon, it’ll be too late.’
‘Too late for what, Grandm a?’
‘ It’s rid iculo us,’ she went on. ‘You’re nearly as tall as me already.’
George took a good look at grandm a. She certainly was a very tiny person. Her
legs were so short she had to have a footstool to put her feet on, and her head only
came half-w ay up the back of the armchair.
‘ Daddy says it’s fine for a man to be ta ll,’ George said.
‘Don’t listen to your daddy,’ Grandma said. ‘ Listen to me.’
‘ But how do I stop growing?’ George asked her.
‘ Eat less chocolate,’ Grandma said.
‘ Does chocolate make you grow?’
‘ It m akes you grow the
wrong way,’
she snapped. ‘Up instead of down.’
Grandma sipped some tea but never took her eyes from the little boy who stood
before her. ‘Never grow up,’ she said. ‘Alw ays down.’
‘Yes, Grandm a.’
‘And stop eating chocolate. Eat cabbage instead.’
‘Cabbage! Oh no, I don’t like cabbage,’ George said.
‘ It’s not what you like or don’t lik e ,’ Grandm a snapped. ‘ It’s what’s good for you
that counts. From now on, you must eat cabbage three tim es a day, Mountains of
cabbage! And if it’s got caterpillars on it, so much the better!’
We can ask the students whether they liked the text or not. Did they find it funny or
outrageous? Students can check any words they don’t understand by working in groups
with dictionaries or by asking us.
Now we ask them to look at the text and find any sentences which have the word ‘if’ in
them. They will come up with the following:
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Chapter 6
1 ‘ But I can’t help it if I’m growing fast, Grandm a,’ George said.
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