UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Have a look at the cartoon. Recapitulate how grammar and vocabulary were taught in your own school days. Discuss the place the teaching of grammar and vocabulary should have in the foreign language classroom and how it should be taught.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 90
Sample Student Answers
Grammar and vocabulary were taught in many different ways
Vocabulary: learning lists from a text book, word-searches (given a word in English, finding the German word in the word-search and vice versa), underlining unknown words in texts and finding the translation at home, etc.
Grammar was mostly learnt from teachers' explanations and textbooks, but also from activities and exercises to do at home
In foreign language learning, vocabulary should be of more importance than grammar - with vocabulary, one can mostly be understood, even with bad grammar, but it doesn’t work with grammar only and no vocabulary
Certain grammatical features should of course be taught from the start to provide clarity to the learner, but more complicated and less often used grammatical structures can be left until later
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Recapitulate and reflect on what has been stated in this section about (1) processability and teachability, (2) Interlanguage theory, and (3) learner errors.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 96
Sample Student Answers
Teachability:
Teachability is constrained by processability
Processability:
A developmental path with predictable stages of acquisition
Six stages (1 = beginner, 6 = advanced) 1. Word/lemma 2. Category procedure 3. Phrasal procedure 4. Verb phrase procedure 5. Sentence procedure 6. Subordinate clause procedure
No stage can be skipped
Must master one stage before moving to next
Each stage is more difficult
Cannot be altered or sped up by classroom instruction
Interlanguage Theory:
Result from five cognitive processes:
1. Language transfer 2. Transfer-of-training 3. Strategies of L2 learning 4. Strategies of L2 communication 5. Overgeneralization of FL linguistic material
Learner errors:
A natural part of SLA
Errors indicate the developmental stage
Learners will benefit from instruction and material that
exposes them to “structures from ‘the next stage’”
Variational mistakes are less relevant
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Look at current textbooks and discuss how grammar is presented in them.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 98
Sample Student Answers
(Green Line 2) In this book, whole pages are allocated to grammar and grammatical constructions
Grammar is presented clearly and step by step with multiple types of exercises, such as gap-filling, identifying word groups, finding or using the correct forms, etc.
A lot of space is dedicated to grammar, but there are still more opportunities to build vocabulary with lists, word clouds, puzzles, etc.; new vocabulary is also used in the grammar sections
Grammar sections are re-capped in the ‘check-out’ section of the book, where there are, again, numerous different activities and questions for further practice
UNIT 2: CHALLENGES OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Discuss possible advantages and disadvantages of these three approaches to grammar teaching. Consider, for example, (1) the relation between meaning and form, (2) the explicitness/implicitness of the approach, (3) the time and material needed.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 104
Sample Student Answers
Focus on form Form is of the first importance because it shapes meaning
This approach moves from implicit to explicit teaching, helping students to notice grammatical features through implicit recasts or explicit feedback
Proactive FonF uses material that repeats or enhances the required form, reactive FonF deals with grammar after communication: time is always devoted to learning form
Task-based Language Teaching
Meaning is more important than form
Tasks and materials should refer to the real world and require problem solution skills
Group tasks tend to take a little longer than pair/individual tasks
Useful forms may be introduced in the pre-task or reviewed in the post-task phase – but only if need be in order to have time for tasks
Acquisition-based method
The form is introduced in meaningful context
Proceeding moves from implicit presentation to explicit reflection
The discovery of grammatical rules on the part of the students may take more time than the teacher's explanation
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
With your knowledge about word retrieval, the organization of the mental lexicon, and the relation between the L1 and L2 lexicons, explain what went wrong in the following utterances: 1. ‘He hit me so hardly that it gave me a black eye.’ 2. ‘I love to color eggs for Christmas.’ 3. ‘The accident I witnessed yesterday was torrible.’
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 106
Sample Student Answers
1. 'He hit me so hardly that it gave me a black eye': the adverb ‘hardly’ has been mistakenly used in place of the correct adjective ‘hard’
2. 'I love to color eggs for Christmas': the festivities of Christmas and Easter have been mixed up. Though both are to celebrate the same personality, they celebrate different events
'The accident I witnessed yesterday was horrible': the organization of the mental lexicon according to similar sounds and meanings has led to mixing the words ‘terrible’ and ‘horrible’
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Have a look at the vocabulary file in a current textbook and assess according to which principle(s) lexical selection has been made. Discuss your findings.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 107
Sample Student Answers
The vocabulary file has been chosen according to the ‘selection of key words and phrases in thematic areas required for the achievement of communicative tasks relevant to learner needs’
Relevant to the topic of each chapter, the vocabulary lists reflect the important aspects of that topic, words which can be of good use when discussing said topic
From time to time, a selection of ‘authentic’ texts is used to teach a selection of words important to the topic
Occasionally, with topics such as Australia, key words and phrases used in that culture are also included, demonstrating cultural differences in values and beliefs
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
Practice presentation. How would you introduce and explain the following words/word fields: 1. to shout (verb) 2. tall (adjective) 3. handy (adjective) 4. vegetables (word field) 5. hobbies (word field) 6. hurricane (noun) 7. global warming (noun)
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 109
Sample Student Answers
To shout: speak loudly or shout to demonstrate the verb
Tall: choose tall and short learners in the class to stand up and compare, or teacher and students
Handy: explain the false friend, but use it as an example - ‘Ein Handy ist praktisch’ 'handy' means ‘praktisch’
Vegetables: bring in a few vegetables to show, compare to the familiar ‘Gemüse’
Hobbies: talk about own hobbies, ask students about their hobbies
Hurricane: use examples of famous hurricanes (Hurricane Katrina)
Global Warming: talk about temperatures rising around the world and the consequences
UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
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Unit 5
Grammar and vocabulary
From the activities listed above (pp. 109-111), choose three that you like most and three you do not like. Discuss the choices made and your reasons. Collect more activities for motivating vocabulary lessons.
STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 111
Sample Student Answers
Like:
False-friends can be very entertaining, and with the added humor, are easily memorable
Word cards: a traditional and successful method of learning, can be used at home and at school, alone or in groups, simply learning or integrated into a game
Extensive reading of FL texts: one of the better ways to subconsciously acquire vocab and constructions in context, whilst being immersed in a good read
Dislike:
Structuring vocabulary: sometimes useful, but often becomes very tiring and boring when trying to further extend the connections
Guessing the category: can be useful for more advanced learners, but can become frustrating for beginners who struggle to understand many of the words on the list
Word clouds: a fun activity for many students, especially if they are allowed to produce one on the computer themselves, but more focus on the construction of the word cloud, i.e. which word should go in which place, rather than the meaning of words