grammar and language teaching a professional development workshop uc consortium on language learning...
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Grammar and Language Grammar and Language TeachingTeaching
A professional development A professional development workshopworkshop
UC Consortium on Language UC Consortium on Language Learning and TeachingLearning and Teaching
The standard view
• We used to do grammar and now we don’t.
• Should we start doing grammar again?
…..But this is the wrong view.
The right way to look at the issue
• We know that learners develop their own unconscious mental grammar.
• Is there anything we can do to help (beyond lots of input and interaction)?
• If so, what?
These are real questions
• The answers aren’t obvious.
• We don’t know everything we would need to know…
• …but we do know some things, and that is what we will learn about at this workshop.
This is a live research area
• There are many things we don’t know yet.
• There is disagreement about what we do know,
• And disagreement about how to implement pedagogically what we do know.
As a result…
• Our speakers will agree about many things
• But they may disagree about some others.
• This is to be expected, and should make things more interesting.
Our goal is not to brainwash you
• This workshop will not try to present some “party line” or single way of teaching.
• You are the best judge of what is most appropriate for your circumstances.
What you should get from this workshop:
• An understanding of what is known about the topic and what is still unresolved.
• Ideas on how to apply this understanding to classroom practice.
We want you…
• To question your assumptions about language teaching (even those very close to your heart).
• To explore new and interesting ways of promoting grammatical development in your students.
• To choose and adapt the ideas that are a good match for your class, program, institution.
Much still remains to be discovered
But we already know a lot.
Here are some basic facts that everybody agrees on (or should)…
1. What you teach ≠ What students learn
• The brain has its own syllabus.
• When exposed to a new language, your brain begins to process the incoming information:
• New sounds• New words• New structures
• The brain has its own way of doing this. The teacher and the learner have little direct control.
The implicit/explicit distinction
• When the brain processes information “on its own”, this is “implicit learning” and it results in “implicit knowledge”.
• Ordinary language learning and use are mostly implicit.
• In language classrooms, students often acquire conscious knowledge of how the language works. This is “explicit learning/knowledge”.
The implicit/explicit interface
• Clearly, you can have implicit knowledge of some property of the language without explicit knowledge.– E.g. You know something sounds right, but you can’t
explain why.
• You can also have explicit knowledge without implicit knowledge.– E.g. You understand how some property of the
language works, but you can’t actually do it in spontaneous speech.
The implicit/explicit interface
• Can implicit and explicit knowledge influence each other (is there an “interface”)?
• This is the big question. What is clear: If there is an interface, it is limited.
• This is why you can’t assume that what you teach (explicitly) is what students learn (implicitly).
The problem for language teachers
• Explicit knowledge can be taught and tested in a relatively direct fashion.
• Implicit knowledge can only be taught and tested indirectly.
• But for many people (teachers and students), implicit knowledge is the main objective.
2. Anecdotes are not always reliable
• Acquiring a language is like acquiring a pot belly.
• Once you have acquired implicit knowledge of a particular property of the language, it is hard to know what caused that acquisition.
Anecdotes
• Teachers and learners are often eager to report what works and what doesn’t, but how can they be so sure?
• Conclusion: Reports of personal experiences are often valuable and full of insight, but still they must be taken with a grain of salt and balanced against research results.
3. All languages have grammar
• Narrower definition of “grammar”:
How words are constructed
How sentences are constructed
Constructing words can be easy…
• Mandarin Chinese pronouns:
wo ‘I’ women ‘we’
ni ‘you’ nimen ‘you pl.’
ta ‘he/she’ tamen ‘they’
…or kind of hard
• Spanish verbsstem + tense/aspect + agreementcom e scom a ncom iera mos
• Mandarin Chinese verbsTa lai-le.Ta lai.
Constructing sentences can be easy…
• Basic word order
English:
The cat chased the mouse.
Japanese:
Nekoga nezumio toraeru.
cat mouse chased
…or kind of hard
• French causatives
Jean a fait manger le gâteau par Marie.
Jean made eat the cake by Marie
‘Jean made Marie eat the cake.’
Broader definition of “grammar”
• All aspects of the structure of the language, including pronunciation.
Mandarin Chinese:hěn + hăo = hén hăo ‘very good’
Spanish:dedo = deðo ‘finger’
4. Learners learn all languages in same way
• Basic processes and stages of learning seem to be the same no matter what the language is.
• No basis for idea that different languages require significantly different teaching techniques.
5. There is more to grammar than “the grammar”
• No book covers all the grammar.
• Many crucial topics are often ignored.
An example from Spanish
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
‘Swiss chard I hate, not spinach.’
• Las acelgas, las detesto.
‘Swiss chard, I hate.’
An example from Spanish
FOCUS
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
‘Swiss chard I hate, not spinach.’
TOPIC (Clitic Left-Dislocation)
• Las acelgas, las detesto.
‘Swiss chard, I hate.’
More examples of focus
• Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
• Algo hiciste. Nada compré.
something you-did nothing I-bought
‘You did something’ ‘I bought nothing’
The two constructions compared
• Focus
Las acelgas detesto, no las espinacas.
NEW INFO OLD INFO
• Topic
Las acelgas, las detesto.
OLD INFO NEW INFO
One more thing
• Focus: Preverbal subject not possible.
*Las acelgas yo detesto, no las espinacas
Las acelgas detesto yo, no las espinacas.
• Topic: Preverbal subject possible.
Las acelgas, yo las detesto.
Las acelgas, las detesto yo.
Lessons
• Textbooks often leave out major topics.
• We don’t know how to explain everything:Algo hiciste vs. Hiciste algo
• We sometimes “simplify” things in very misleading ways.
Similar examples could be given for any language.
So beware of statements like:
• “I already taught them that; I don’t know why they’re still making that mistake.”
• “Reading aloud helped my pronunciation.”
• “My language doesn’t have any grammar.”
• “You can’t teach Chinese the same way you teach Spanish.”
• “We covered the whole grammar in one year.”
Conclusions
• Students’ development won’t necessarily follow our syllabus.
• Implicit learning (our primary goal) can’t be taught directly.
• This is true for all languages.
• What is useful for one language will probably be useful for all.
• No book contains all the grammar.
Overview of workshop
• Today and tomorrow
Public lectures and demonstrations
• Monday
Closed sessions for funded UC participants.
Small working groups, development of materials.
Today
• Leonard Newmark: “Explanation vs. Experience: Time Economy in Language Teaching”
• Robert Kluender: “How Linguistic Knowledge Can Ease Learning”
• Bill VanPatten: “Mental Representation versus Ability in Second Language Acquisition” (Part 1)
• Georgette Ioup: “Putting Error Correction into Proper Perspective”
Tomorrow
• Grant Goodall: “Fitting Grammar into the Language Learning Experience”
• Victoria González Pagani: “Beyond Drills: Web Technology in Teaching Grammar”
• Bill VanPatten: “Mental Representation versus Ability in Second Language Acquisition” (Part 2)
• Robert Kluender: “How students acquire things you never teach them”
• Elke Riebeling and Patricia Zuker: “Grammar-focused activities based on Internet materials” (demonstration)
• Grant Goodall: “TPR and the teaching of grammar” (demonstration)
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