Table of Contents
Introduction
Grammar teaching has long been a subject of debate in English language teaching (ELT). While traditional approaches often rely on isolated examples and rote memorization, modern methodologies emphasize context and meaningful interaction. One particularly effective strategy is teaching grammar through texts.
This article explores the advantages of using texts to teach grammar, practical tips for selecting texts, and a step-by-step guide for implementing text-based grammar lessons.
The article is inspired by a post by Scott Thornbury on his blog A-Z of ELT.
How to Teach Grammar Using Texts
This post will cover:
- The advantages of using texts to teach grammar.
- How to teach grammar structures through texts.
Let’s start with the advantages of relying on texts to contextualize grammar teaching!
Advantages of Teaching Grammar Through Texts
Why we should use texts to teach grammar?
Using texts to teach grammar offers numerous benefits that go beyond isolated sentence exercises:
- Contextualized Learning: Texts provide a natural context, helping students see grammar in meaningful use rather than in isolated examples.
- Inferred Meaning: Learners can deduce the meaning and usage of grammatical structures through surrounding text clues.
- Real-life Communication: Authentic texts expose students to grammar as it is used in real-life situations.
- Text Organization: Students not only learn grammar but also develop an understanding of text cohesion and coherence.
- Vocabulary Input: Texts naturally introduce vocabulary alongside grammar structures.
- Reading Skills Practice: Grammar lessons can simultaneously develop reading comprehension.
- Memorability: Grammar rules discovered within a text are often more memorable than those explicitly explained by the teacher.
- Autonomous Learning: Students develop problem-solving skills as they infer and deduce rules on their own.
Despite the benefits of using texts in grammar teaching, this may pose some issues.
Drawbacks of Teaching Grammar Through Texts
Despite its advantages, teaching grammar through texts isn’t without challenges:
- Complexity of Texts: Authentic texts may be too difficult for some learners.
- Fabricated Texts: Some texts created solely for grammar instruction may lack authenticity.
Solution: Teachers can tweak authentic texts to simplify vocabulary and sentence structure without losing overall meaning.
Tips for Selecting Texts for Grammar Instruction
To maximize the effectiveness of teaching grammar through texts:
- Keep It Simple: Choose short, focused texts to avoid overwhelming students.
- Ensure Multiple Examples: The text should contain several instances of the target grammar point.
- Adjust Authentic Texts: Simplify complex authentic texts without compromising meaning.
- Vary Genres: Use a range of text types such as letters, emails, dialogues, stories, and songs.
- Start with Meaning: Begin with a meaning-focused activity to ensure comprehension before moving to grammar analysis.
How to Teach Grammar Through Texts
Here are suggested Steps for Teaching Grammar Through Texts
A typical grammar lesson using texts can follow this structure:
- Warm-up and Lead-in:
- Engage students with a brief activity (e.g., a question, a quick game, or a short discussion).
- Introduce vocabulary or concepts related to the target grammar.
- Reading and Comprehension:
- Students read the text.
- Conduct brief comprehension tasks (e.g., true/false questions, matching titles, or identifying key details).
- Awareness-Raising:
- Highlight or underline examples of the target grammar.
- Guide students to notice patterns (e.g., past simple verb forms ending in -ed).
- Rule Discovery:
- Encourage students to deduce the grammar rule from the examples in the text.
- Controlled Practice:
- Use exercises like gap fills, sentence transformations, or matching activities.
- Free Practice:
- Provide creative activities where students use the target grammar in speech or writing.
Examples of Free Practice Activities:
- Comparing two travel destinations.
- Writing a diary entry.
- Conducting an interview.
- Role-playing scenarios
NOTE: Tasks can be done first individually, then in pairs and groups (think-pair-share.)
1. Warm-up and Lead-in:
The lesson plan starts with a warm-up and a lead-in. The warm-up can be anything that encourages the student to be in the mood for learning (chanting, game, riddle, etc.).
The lead-in, however, is intended to prepare and help in learning the target grammar structure.
As an illustration, if you want to teach the present perfect, it may be a good idea to review past simple and past participle forms of verbs. For instance, the teacher may invite the students to do a short exercise like the following:
| Infinitive | Simple Past | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| play | … | played |
| … | watched | watched |
| visited | … | visited |
| be | went | gone |
| have | had | … |
| … | spoke | spoken |
| write | … | written |
The warm-up and lead-in activities shouldn’t take a long time to do (five minutes is more than enough.)
After a whole class correction, the teacher may proceed to the reading section of the lesson.
2. Reading and Comprehension:
Because the lesson focus is on grammar, not reading comprehension, the teacher needn’t dedicate too much time to the reading section. Brief comprehension exercises will do:
Examples:
- Reading and choosing between different options the best title for the text,
- Deciding whether a short list of statements are true or false according to the text.
- Identifying who is/are speaking, etc.
The idea is that the students have a general understanding of the text.
Once the reading part is done, it is high time to start exploring the target grammar point.
3. Awareness-Raising:
The teacher may start raising the students’ awareness by devising well-designed guiding activities. The aim is to draw their attention to the target structures, notice the recurrent patterns, and discover the rules.
- The students start by identifying (underlining, circling, etc.) the target structure.
- Then they try to discover recurring patterns (e.g., the ed forms of the past simple)
- The aim is to guide the students to discover the rules.
After discovering the rules of the target structure. The students proceed to practice the target structures first in controlled practice exercises. Then, in freer activities where they have to use the target grammar structures to produce something in the form of a speaking or writing activity.
4. Controlled Practice of the Target Grammar Structure
Examples of practice exercises include:
- Matching
- Multiple choice questions
- Gap filling
- Putting words in brackets in the correct form.
- Sentence completion
- Transforming sentences (e.g., from active to passive)
5. Free Practice Exercises (Production)
During the production stage, the learners are given a context with a carefully thought-out situation to use the target language. The Teacher Talk Time (TTT) is limited and the teacher’s support is minimal.
Here are a few examples of production activities:
- Comparing two holiday destinations (e.g., New York and Marrakech.)
- Making a phone call to make a hotel reservation.
- Writing a letter of advice.
- Using surveys and questionnaires to interview one another on a variety of subjects.
Conclusion
Using texts to teach grammar bridges the gap between isolated grammar instruction and real-world language use. Texts provide context, support language discovery, and promote deeper understanding. While challenges exist, thoughtful text selection and structured lesson plans can ensure that grammar lessons are both effective and engaging.
Incorporate texts into your grammar lessons and watch your students thrive in both accuracy and fluency!