internal grammars

UNLPam – Facultad de Ciencias HumanasPRÁCTICA EDUCATIVA II

(Didactics of ELT and Practicum at Primary School Level)

Blanco Gallego, Fátima

Practical N° 19

INTERNAL GRAMMARS

1. How will learners meet pedagogical grammars?

Learners will meet pedagogical grammar not only from a learners’ grammar book

(directly) but also through lessons, teacher explanations and text books (indirectly).

2. What are the characteristics of an internal grammar? What other name does

it receive?

It is necessary to make a distinction between the grammar previously mentioned

and what any individual learner actually learns about the patterns of the language:

his or her “internal grammar” of the language. Every learner’s internal grammar is

different from every other’s because each has a unique learning experience.

Internal grammar is sometimes referred to as “interlanguage” or as “linguistic

competence”.

3. How does the difference between teaching and learning apply to it?

The fact that teachers teach a certain grammatical structure does not mean that

the students will learn it. Learners may have been taught a piece of grammar on

the syllabus, but may not be able to use that grammatical form in talking or writing.

Learners seem to use words or chunks strung together to get their meanings

across, with little attention paid to grammar that would fit words or chunks together

in conventional patterns.

4. What factors influence the growth from words to grammar?

Social factors will influence the actual need for grammar to communicate. If you

can get your message through without grammar, as when a very small knowledge

of a language makes it possible to buy food in a foreign shop by naming the item

and amount, then there may be little impulse to drive grammar learning.

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5. How does hypothesis testing proceed?

Hypothesis testing are metal processes that are evidenced from a very early age.

For instance, if a baby drops her spoon and someone picks it up for her, and then

drops it again and it is picked up again, the baby will construct a hypothesis “If I

drop my spoon, it will be picked up for me” and she will be testing it through

repeated trials. The same occurs with grammar. Children do nt just produce

random words ordering and forms, but they somehow work out how to use the

language and then try out their hypothesis in saying things. It is as if the child has

worked out a “grammar rule” and is testing it out. Later, as they get more input, so

the hypothesis will change.

6. What is the importance of errors?

Errors in language use can act as windows on to the developing internal grammar

of the learner and are signals of growth. They can also suggest what type of

teacher intervention may assist learning.

7. What is the influence of the L1 over the L2? OVERGENERALIZATIONS

TRANSFER.

Constructing hypothesis about the foreign language is much more difficult than for

the first language, simply because the learners have relatively little amounts of

data to work on. When you encounter few words and phrases, it is quite difficult to

work out grammatical rules, and hypotheses are likely to be over-generalized and

incomplete. When data is limited, learners are more likely to use the first language

to fill the gaps. So, learners may assume, as a kind of default that the foreign

language grammar works like the first language grammar (transfer).

8. Explain different ways to teach grammar. Summarize them.

Grammar teaching has been as susceptible as other aspects of FLT to trends.

There are different ways of teaching grammar:

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Teaching grammar as explicit rules: learning as building blocks.

Grammar rules are introduced one-by-one, explicitly, to the learners. Metalinguistic

labels are used to talk explicitly about the grammar, e.g. “the past perfect tense”,

and the terms and organization needed to talk about the language become another

part of what has to be learnt. Learners are expected to learn the rules and to

practice using the rules to construct sentences. After more practice, the

assumption is that the rules get to be used automatically. To teach the language

this way, the structures or rules are sorted into a sequence, assumed to progress

from “easy” to “difficult”, and the sequence forms a syllabus. The ways of thinking

needed to cope with learning through explicit grammar rules are likely to be difficult

for younger children. The building block sequencing also does not fit very

comfortably with younger children’s tendency for the thematic or narrative.

Even the youngest children are intrigued by the way their first language works and

this curiosity is likely to be felt about the foreign language. Children notice patterns

as they make sense of the world around them and it may be fruitful to make use of

curiosity and pattern-noticing in foreign language learning.

Young children are quite capable of learning terms like words, sentences, letter

moving on to learn about word classes, and their labels (nouns, verbs, adjectives,

adverbs, prepositions), about a sentence construction (from seeing punctuation in

written English) and early ideas about clauses as part of sentences.

Communicative approaches: no grammar needed.

Being able to talk about the language is very different from being able to talk in the

language, and it was a reaction to the lack of fluency and ease with the foreign

language, experienced by many of those taught by grammar translation, that led to

the development of communicative language teaching. A central tenet of CLT was

that learners would learn the language by using it to communicate with others. The

process of foreign language learning was supposed to resemble child first

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language acquisition, where it all just happens without any direct or explicit

teaching. It is questionable whether such a strong form of CLT was ever adopted in

practice. More likely is that obvious weaker forms were taken up, with attempts to

make language practice activities more realistic. What certainly happened to

grammar teaching was a downgrading of its importance in foreign language

classrooms.

A form of CLT that is based entirely on listening to comprehensible input is Total

Physical Response (TPR). Students listen to commands in the foreign language

and respond only through movement and action. The difficulty of the input is

gradually increased and eventually students take over the teacher’s role and give

commands in the foreign language. It is claimed that learners develop skills in

listening and in speaking through TPR, and it has been shown to be particularly

appropriate for beginners. Along with other “no grammar” approaches, however,

there seem to be limits to what can be achieved without some attention to output

and to grammar.

Focus on form: the revival of grammar teaching.

This method trails the theory that second language learning could follow the same

route as first language acquisition. Children do pick up the foreign language quickly

and develop very good accents and listening skills. They can achieve good results

through the second language. But in terms of grammar, children taught through the

second language do not develop the same levels of accuracy as native speakers

and, without this attention to the form of the language, problems with basic

structures continue. In subject classrooms, learners seem to bypass aspects of

grammar, where more attention is paid to the subject content than to the language

that carries it. Furthermore, if all pupils in a class are second language learners,

the language that they use with each other can contain and reinforce inaccuracies

in grammar.

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Grammar may emerge naturally in first language, it may even be genetically

determined, but grammar of a foreign language is “foreign” , and grammar

development requires skilled planning of tasks and lessons, and explicit teaching.

From the learners’ point of view, it is increasingly recognized that attention to form

is vital and that learners need to be helped to notice the grammatical patterns of

the foreign language, before they can make those patterns part of their internal

grammar.

Not only are noticing and attention needed in input , but in output too, learners

need to be helped to focus on the accuracy and precision of their language use.

The potential of collaborative work in pairs and groups for grammar work is also

being increasingly recognized. Batstone suggested sequencing of grammar

learning activities around particular patterns or structures:

Noticing

(Learners became aware of the structure, notice connections between form and

meaning, but do not themselves manipulate language).

Structure

(Bring the new grammar patterns into the learners internal grammar and, if

necessary, recognizing the internal grammar. It requires controlled practice around

form and meaning).

Proceduralizing

(The stage of making the new grammar ready for instant and fluent use in

communication, and requires practice in choosing and using the form to express

meaning).

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Learning-centred grammar teaching.

Young learners need to be surrounded by and participate in meaningful discourse

in the foreign language, and it would not be conceptually appropriate for grammar

to be explicitly taught as formal, explicit rules in young learners classrooms to

children under the age of 9 or 9 years. However, it is important for teachers to have

an awareness of grammar issues, and to have techniques that they can take

advantage of learning opportunities that arise when learners need grammar to take

their language learning forward and can bring grammatical features of stories,

dialogues, songs, etc. to the attention of even the youngest children non-formal

ways. Good learning-centered grammar teaching will be meaningful and

interesting, require active participation from learners, and will work with how

children learn and what they are capable of learning.

Teaching techniques for supporting grammar learning

Working with discourse to grammar.

Many types of discourse that occur in young learner classrooms have grammatical

patterns that occur naturally, but that can be exploited for grammar learning.

Classroom discourse contexts and routines can serve to introduce new grammar,

which access to meaning supported by action and objects, or to give further

practice in language that has already been introduced in other ways. Routines are

an ideal context in which chunks can be expanded.

The language of classroom management.

Some very simple phrases for classroom management can be introduced, and as

time goes by, these can be expanded. Some of the phrases originally used by the

teacher can be used by pupils when they work in pairs or groups. The language of

classroom management can thus act as a meaningful discourse context within

which certain patterns arise regularly and help with building the internal grammar.

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Taking with children.

Conversation with individual children can be very powerful for language

development, because they can pick up on exactly what and individual child needs

to know next to talk about interests him or her, the “space for growth”. If a child

volunteers something in the first language or in what they can manage of the

foreign language, the teacher can respond in the foreign language, offering a fuller

or ore correct way of saying it. This type of “corrective feedback” can also be used

for expanding the talk. Talk with children as a class can also offer incidental

focusing on form.

Guided noticing activities.

Those are which lead to noticing of grammatical patterns in the language.

Listen and notice.

Pupils listen to sentences or to a connected piece of talk and complete a table or

grid using what they hear. In order to complete the table, they need to pay attention

to the grammar aspect being taught.

Presentation of new language with pupils.

In language syllabuses that require teachers to present new language regularly to

children, the idea of learner-noticing can be helpfully introduced into more

traditional ways of teaching grammar. When introducing a new pattern, the teacher

can construct a dialogue with a story-line that uses a “repetition plus contrast”

pattern, to be played out by puppets.

Language practice activities that offer structuring opportunities.

In structuring activities the goal is to help learners internalize the grammatical

pattern so that it becomes part of their internal grammar. The focus is on internal

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work that happens as a result of activities that demand accuracy, rather than on

fluency in production.

Questionnaires, surveys and quizzes.

These are commonly found in young leaner course books, children are asked to

interview their friends to find out their favourite food, for example. The teacher

needs to plan which language forms the pupils will be encouraged to use.

Information gap activities.

Activities with information gaps are often found in course books to practice skills.

Again, with just small adjustments, they can be used with grammar goals rather

than oral fluency goals.

Helping hands.

This is nice practice that offers opportunities for structuring the simple present for

routines. The topic was helping in the house, and the children, aged 5 or 5 years

as I recall, had drawn round their hands and cut out the hand shape. On each

finger they wrote one sentence describing something they do to help at home. The

paper cut-outs were then displayed on the wall, making a kind of palm tree out of

the hand shapes.

Drills and chants.

Drills are a useful way of giving all children same speaking practice when the class

is too large for individual speaking. They also offer language and involvement

support to children when used to practice new language, because the child can

listen to others to pick up bits that she or he is unsure about, and drills can be lively

and fun if the pace is kept up. The dangers of over-using drills occur mostly if the

children do not understand the content, and drills are then a mechanical exercise in

making a noise, rather than language learning opportunities. Repetition drills, in

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which the children repeat what the teacher says, can help in familiarizing a new

form.

Proceduralizing activities.

We want learners to automatize their use of the grammatical form so that it is

available quickly and effectively for use in communication. Task design must

ensure that grammar is essential for achieving task goals and that some attention

to accuracy is required, but the idea is that attention to accuracy can gradually be

relaxed as it becomes automatic.

(Polar animal) Description re-visited.

The production of a description to the whole class might then be a useful

proceduralizing activity for those items of grammar. Because it is a public

performance, it will justify attention to getting forms exactly right through rehearsing

and perhaps writing down a text.

Dictogloss.

This is a generic activity that offers many possibilities for young learner classroom

once reading and writing are established. The basic idea of Dictogloss is that the

teacher reads out a text several times, the pupils listen and make notes between

readings, and then reconstruct the text in pairs or small groups, aiming to be as

close as possible to the original and as accurate as possible. During the

collaborative reconstruction, learners will talk to each other about the language, as

well as the content, drawing on and making their internal grammatical knowledge.

In Vygotsky terms, if the text is carefully chosen, learners will be working in their

zone of potential development and their peers may scaffold learning in the ZPD.

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Introducing metalanguage.

Teacher uses repetitions + contrast pattern, and formulate the “rule” at the end,

after the specific example. It is useful and quite possible to talk about language

without using technical terms.

Cloze activities for word class.

A new rhyme, song or poem could give a discourse context to focus on word

classes through a simple cloze activity. The song, say, is written out with gaps; in

one version, all the nouns are omitted, in another, all the verbs, and in a third, all

the pronouns. The pupils would hear and sing the song a few times and then would

be divided into three groups, each given one of the three cloze versions. In groups,

the learners would work together to fill the gaps. This kind of activity focuses

attention on word classes and how they contribute to discourse, without going into

any heavy grammar.

Developing the grammar of a foreign language is a long and complicated process;

luckily, young learners have a long time ahead of them with the language. There is

no need to rush into technical rules and labels that will confuse. For their ultimate

success, it seems likely to be far better to give children a sound basis about

patterns and contrasts in and encouraging curiosity and between languages, and

introducing grammatical metalanguage slowly and meaningfully.

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internal grammars

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