Information collection & exchange

 Grammar in the classro
 
 Your intuitions as a native speaker 
However much grammar you know, you have a great advantage as a native speaker. In all except the really 
tr
mple, that the sentence "This is a books" is wrong ("ungrammatical" is the technical term). You also 
books" if more 
a
Your ability to tell whether a sentence is grammatical or not is part of being a native speaker of English. In 
the vast majority of cases you can trust your own
ooks to see if a sentence is correct. You can 
h
correct/incorrect, grammatical/ungramm
explanations that result from the 
speakers do." 
In those few instances where you hesitate to pasts judgment on a grammatical question, you can consult a 
reference grammar to clarify your understanding. The use of reference grammars is discussed later in this 
c
e students who want grammar 
In many cases, you will be teaching from a textbook that does not present grammar overtly in terms of rules, 
explanations, exercises, and drills, whereas your students will expect such a direct presentation of grammar 
and will be uncomfortable without it. Some students will be persistent in their requests for grammatical 
xplanations. Others will simply drop out on the grounds that your class doesn't meet their needs. 
e

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There are several ways of dealing with this situation. It makes good pedagogical sense to meet your 
students' expectations as far as you can. If you can't, you have to change their expectations one way or 
another, or risk your credibility. 
If you opt to change your students' expectations, you can try explaining that in their previous experience with 
language learning, the teachers were not native speakers of the language. You are, and so you can teach 
em how to speak English without having to load them down with grammar. 
If y
eaking in your class, you can explain to students that listening and 
speaking classes differ from reading and writing classes and that your approach is better suited to listening 
and speaking than a more grammar-based approach. This explanation can be followed by a demonstration 
tha
If 
com
On
alization" process. In every lesson, set aside time in which you allow 
tudents to work out the grammatical rules for themselves, from the model sentences you have been 
it on the discussion, and give it a structure by telling students that they are to 
rrive at a translation of the model sentence in the native language, and to observe the ways in which the 
let them conduct their discussion, with you providing 
ples of English when required and correcting errors in the English they come up with. You 
monitor such discussions. You can follow what's going on by the 
vailable locally.) You 
ight have to set aside time in class to go over the exercises. 
gy in your lessons 
. You don't, however, have to use extensive 
rammatical terminology to do it. (A parallel is your doctor, who talks about your sore muscles with his 
, but who talks to you about them in ordinary language.) In fact, one of 
against the Grammar Translation Method is that the students are required to learn too much 
sample (Figures 7.57.7), there is no grammatical terminology 
y. 
n in that place in the sentence. 
th
ou intend to focus on listening and sp
t being able to understand and speak is of great value. 
you choose not to change expectations (often the most realistic choice), there are ways you can 
promise between the demand for grammar and the approach that doesn't emphasize grammar. 
e way is to make overt the "intern
s
working with. Set a time lim
a
English and native language versions differ. Then
additional exam
don't need to speak the native language to
English words and sentences. At the end of the allotted time, have students summarize by asking what the 
agreed on translation is and how the English and native language sentences differ. 
Another way to build grammar into a non-grammar approach is to find a grammar exercise book and to 
assign relevant exercises as homework. (There are several listed in the bibliography at the end of this 
chapter. There are undoubtedly such exercise books published in your country and a
m
 Using grammatical terminolo
Grammatical terminology (everything from definitions of "noun" and "verb" to a description of the word "as") 
is the jargon developed by linguists and teachers to talk about languages. All fields have jargon, and 
grammar jargon serves the same purpose for linguists that, say, medical jargon does for doctors. It lets you 
talk easily about the things you need to talk about. 
In the language classroom you have to talk about the language
g
colleagues using medical terminology
the arguments
terminology. Note that in the English for Today
used. 
On the other hand, experienced language teachers find that the use of some terminology saves endless 
circumlocutions. 
Example: Your student comes up with the sentence, "I have a pretty." You tell him the sentence isn't 
correct and he wants to know wh
If your student knows the term "noun," you can easily explain that "pretty" isn't a noun, and that you have 
to have a nou
If your student doesn't know the term, you have to give examples with nouns and hope that the student 
will figure out that "pretty" isn't like any of the examples. 

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As you continue to teach, you will undoubtedly find yourself using as a matter of course the grammatical 
terms you and your students need. The important thing to remember is that you are not obligated to use 
rminology if you don't find it useful, or to avoid using it if you do find it useful. 
is a humorous
te