CLT with Grammar Instruction

1. CLT with Grammar Instruction • People learned languages before institutionalized education existed. • Natural learning processes always assert themselves over outside intervention (grammar instruction). • Traditional approaches to grammar instruction are not effective in promoting acquisition. • There is no acquisition without input: communicative or meaning-bearing language that learners hear.

2. Does explicit instruction in grammar, together with practice, error correction, etc., have any significant effect on how learners acquire a language? • Acquisition orders do not match instructional orders. • Learners seem to follow a particular path on their way to developing their L2 system; explicit instruction and practice does very little to alter acquisition order.

3. Is Classroom Learning Superior? • Learners are exposed to a wider range of language data • Instruction heightens learners’ awareness of grammatical form and structure, perhaps making forms more salient in the input. • Learners self-select.

4. Input and Traditional Instruction • Acquisition involves the creation of an implicit linguistic system; one that exists outside of awareness. • Comprehensible, meaning-bearing input is necessary for successful acquisition. • Learners process input as they attempt to comprehend the messages contained in it. It is called intake. • The brain uses the intake and not all raw data to create the linguistic system.

5. How do we get grammar into learners’ heads to begin with? • The development of an internal system does not happen because learners practice output!!! • Traditional grammar instruction is like putting the cart before the horse as it relates to acquisition.

6. What is a paradigm and why do we need them? • A paradigm is a representation that displays the various forms of a given grammatical structure. • They do not correspond to the way the knowledge is structured in the brain. • They do not exist in speakers’ heads unless put there by instruction.

7. Paradigms • Why do we think we need them? • If the goal of the lesson is to learn grammar to be tested on it, then it makes sense to use these “shorthand” devices. • BUT if the goal of the lesson is to learn how to perform particular tasks, then paradigms lose their immediacy in the class.

8. Are Mechanical Drills Effective for L2 Acquisition?? • NO!!! Not only is intensive drilling ineffective, it actually delays the acquisition of the structures and forms that were drilled. • Although learners are always speaking or writing when engaged in traditional grammar practice, a great deal of grammar instruction is neither meaningful nor communicative.

9. Food for Thought!! “Using an approach in the classroom which emphasizes the ability to exchange messages, and at the same time testing only the ability to apply grammar rules correctly, is an invitation to disaster.” (Krashen)

10. Test what and how you teach. • Promote the communication as information exchange. Still have a flavor of Q & A. • Can any oral test be a truly communicative exchange? • What would happen if the test giver were a participant in the communicative event?

11. Developing Structured Input Activities • Present one thing at a time. • Keep meaning in focus. • Move from sentences to connected discourse. • Use both oral and written input. • Have the learner do something with the input. • Keep the learner’s processing strategies in mind.

12. Structured Input Activities • Binary Options • Matching • Supplying Information • Selecting Alternatives • Surveys • Ordering and Ranking