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

Amazon facts plus my sample essay

Jose, hero

A modern witch and "Dave"

pacifism discussion TV version

04.8 Some examples of my "Express grammar"

New 2 pasts

some, any something anything etc + a play using this grammar

3 futures + plays

04.9 What is CLIL (language integrated learning: ie.Vehicular English in subject teaching)

04.10 What would be the base for "interdisciplinary studies"?

see word document versions for ease of copying our examples.

These examples of pieces originally found in newspapers and then radically rewritten, show how such reality material can be presented in form that satisfies our requirement to focus on basic grammar forms. At first sight such grammar focus mat seem unnatural but often the raw human material dealt with in the newspaper report can take on an almost poetic quality through such linguistic one sidedness. In the piece which describes the baleful doings of a Russian grandmother who attempted to sell her grandson, I use the simplified style of a Fairy story. Here the wickedness that the Brothers Grimm relate in their popular fairy stories, fits this simplified presentation of a modern horror. Similarly, the story of Dave, who passes from family to foster home to orhanage when told in simplified form, increases rather than looses in its stark reality. Both stories were refashioned with emphasis given to the use of the past remote in English.

One of the uses I make of such simplified material is to ask quick "comprehension questions", where the emphasis is yes, that the text is understood, but that pupils get practice at the on the spot rearrangement of syntax, without dependence on a text.

For example: The text is easily divided, one sentence per pupil. At some point the "recitation" stops, and I ask, "Why did Dave's parents shut him in his room"? The "answer" in fact lies in the previous sentence: "His father caught him "stealing" bread from the kitchen". The student has to form the reply to my "Why", by saying, because his father ....". This is not a humble skill.

Sometimes these short reports in newspapers can be easily transformed into short plays. "The Lottery ticket". In this case the disappointed hopes about the lost winning ticket lends itself to exaggerated use of conditionals and might have, should have etc.

At a higher level you can find a version of arguments about war and pacifism worked into the form of a discussion. We all want students to "talk in English": easier said than done. In this case I have given ready made thoughts to be divided between pupils. This may be used as a warm up, and subsequently the "argument" between the 3 voices left to develope more freely.

A simialr example is that using an article on the Amazon rain forest. Here I reduced the article to more easily retrievable facts and then rearranged the material in short sections which also included a fundamental question. I also gave translations of difficult words. Teenagers need more interesting material that also tests their critical and moral sensibilities. However too often, such serious themes as this are dealt with in what I could call a "preaching" mode. This diminishes the argument. The ideal is to give as much help with the language and then hope the argument can "take wing". At the end of the document you will find a sampèle essay on the subject. I feel that most students are not given enough help with compositions. Here I use a tecnique I used at Verona University. The student is required to write 2 parallel essays in which in one he makes a running commentary on his main essay. This helps students to become more self critical.

Newspapers are a great source of important material that helps to provoke critical thinking. If you look at section 07. you will find a discussion on how to stimulate "Teenage Thinking". The scheme that I offer was thought up partly as a result of first cataloging 500 saved newspaper articles according to 30 categories. It then struck me that such a library of articles stimulated just that sort of curiosity about the external world which many parents and teachers lament the lack of in young people. In my opinion the fault is a general fault of our hedonistic society ("make it easy") and a lack of relevance in the way so called "school subjects" are presented to the young. A typically defeatist advice was given to me by a teacher as I entered her "terrible" class of lions. "talk to them about their interest: you know, sport, music". No hope if we think those are the limits!

In "Jose hero", I took an article that was reproduced from an American newspaper at the beginning of the Iraq war. I wanted to show one of the sentimental strengths of America but also the way that this sentiment can be used for propaganistic effect, in a way that makes argument for or against a war more difficult. It was also significant that the story was carried by a right wing Italian paper. In this case, I gave a very full help with the vocabulary. In the schools in which I used it I was pleased by the serious interest and by the way the class soon had mastered the vocabulary when helped in this way: 90 words is not few. It was not that I simplky wanted to make the whole matter EASY, but that I wanted the pleasure in understanding the story to be immediate. such pieces are useful for very simple reworking as verbal fluency "comprehension", in which the questions are not so much testing of comprehension as testing of ability to reproduce the simple sentence without too much dependence on the text.

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