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| 01_CV AND PERSONAL BACKGROUND |
| 02_COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK |
| 03_EUROPEAN PORTFOLIO OF LANGUAGES |
| 04_A RADICAL ALTERNATIVE |
| 95_25 YEARS MIDDLESMOOR COURSES - |
| 06_COURSES IN ITALIAN SCHOOLS |
| 07_SCHEME: TEENAGE THINKING |
| 08_TEACHERS KALEIDOSCOPE RESOURCES |
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04.1 A RADICAL ALTERNATIVE
04.2 A new systemising of teaching material
04.3 Grammar, bad and good
04.4 Description of our "Make Grammar Talk"
04.5 Some brief discussion points about language learning
04.6 Some examples of grammar "plays" for acting
plays 2 presents and exceptions
plays Im going out tonight Dad Q A (with two presents and exceptions)
playlets Qestion Answer Q A (with 2 pasts)
something in the cellar. Depression (with some any)
04.7 Some examples of "Grammared" newspaper articles
04.8 Some examples of my "Express grammar"
some, any something anything etc + a play using this grammar
04.9 What is CLIL (language integrated learning: ie.Vehicular English in subject teaching)
04.10 What would be the base for "interdisciplinary studies"?
• The idea of "grammar plays" was something that came about slowly. We used to use a certain old fashioned text book series called "Streamline". These little plays had, to some extent, a grammar structure that was high lighted. We started to write our own and these were included in our first version grammar book with Eurelle of Turin.
Subsequently we made plays that were "playlets" of sometimes as little as 2 lines. You will see in two of the examples some "play"s of such length on 2 present tenses and 2 past tenses.
The concept here is that if a student learns by heart such a "play", and then acts it - acting in which the whole cless participate and in which the less able have extra time in which to learn by watching, then a sort of bridge is made between autonomous speaking and mere written exercises. Our idea is that most students are text dependent, because the text books are so "beautiful" these days that everything is read and little held in the head. Typically such books have companion tapes which pupils listen to passively - after all, when you have heard such professional tapes, your own efforts would seem poor stuff.
In the few hours available at school, there is no hope of "natural" "acquisition". These plays by force of their tight focus, their brevity and by reason of being learnt by heart, can get as near as it is possible to building up a quasi instincttive sense of structure.Remember that if yoou have little "exposure" time at schoold (which fact of course makes nonsense of all "acquire" illusions, then memory must be expected to function on at least that which is really fundamental.
Our "grammar plays" seem artifical to some people who believe in the mythic "natural immersion" by means of all sorts of heterogeneous natural language. All that matters to me is that our highly focused system works. I get children UTTERING English: moving lips, tongue and jaw to make English sounds! . This is not of course "conversation", but the pair work of course books is often too difficult for pupils. Furthermore, the natural and therefore mongrel quality of text book discourse gives none of the severe focus of our grammar playus. When these playlets are learnt (learnt, not acquired), the student retains more than is usually kept by just hearing tapes.
Why so much unfashionable and to many experts, regressive emphasis on grammar structure?
A foreign langauge is an infinte chaos to a learner: especially if that learner is in school with all the noise and distractions. People are too afraid of grammar. They remember the absurdity of what I call bad grammar. Grammar is only part of that consistency in a language, like lexis, that has to have both constancy and a degree of variability, in order to be fully understood and therefore expressive. Grammar is simply the regularity that permits comprehensible expression. So our plays are natural enough and sufficiently entertaining to excuse the "!artificiality" of being crammed with one particulare grammar "island".
for ease of printing, examples are in word document. Follow link to word document pages of past tense plays
and to Two presents plus exceptions plays
and to 2 presents A B 2 line plays
PLAYS . Focused on 1 grammar problem. Learn by heart. These micro "plays " can be learnt in a moment and can also be expanded as they all imply a situation.
• We "make grammar talk" because speech and aural practice is an important ingredient in understanding and memorisation.
• "Grammar" is not an abstract adjunct to the "real language learning" that course books supposedly offer. Lets integrate it into speaking.
• Teachers fell back on grammars "di appoggio" this has conserved the old didactics: grammar in its old abstract rules + written exercises.
• Really, grammar needs to "come in from the cold" and just talk!.
• An ideal methodology: grammar as central reference, but move out immediately to spoken work to reinforce the grammar focus. This is precisely what we have done.
It is paradoxical that the attractive and "realistic" arrangements of textbooks can end up being dispersive and confusing. Their stimulation is short lived. The realism of "functions" excludes a lot of imaginative possibilities. My preference is for a grammar-based curricula which I think can be more effective than the function and notion categorisation and certainly better than Portfolio, which conditions the format of most textbooks. Using a grammar categorisation doesn't mean that the students have to be taught grammar in the old ways but that it is an organising principle of the teachers and their material, which then is host to all the stimulating procedures and activities of the English E.F.L. experimental didactics. Grammar can be taught as clear abstract rule and form and it can also be absorbed into realistic contexts. To this end I have written an "Express Grammar" as aid to teachers and reference to their pupils.return to top of page and indexes
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