Meeting the challenge of
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Meeting the challenge of
EAQUALS CONFERENCE 2011, PRAGUE ENHANCING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE LEARNING: THE CHALLENGES FOR TEACHERS, TRAINERS AND MANAGERS PARALLEL SESSION Handling the challenge of grammar teaching to EFL / ESL learners Eda Gözde Girgin, Bilgi University, İstanbul (girgingozde@gmail.com) Grammar teaching has always been a challenge for EFL and ESL teachers. It is an important component of language teaching and it can be dealt with in many ways depending on the approach or method. Currently, the implicit teaching of grammar in an inductive way is favoured by teachers working with adults. However, another course of action is followed for young learners, in whose syllabus almost no grammar is specifically included. The core aim of this study was to introduce a model for the teaching of structural items on the basis of learner variables. While the needs of the learners are met, the teacher also incorporates target structures into his/her teaching. Thus, learners can make best use of the teaching as the teacher gears the model structures to the learners’ needs. The model borrows theories from such linguistic fields as Universal Grammar (Chomsky, 1986); the Lexical Approach (Lewis, 1997) and Corpus Linguistics (Stubbs, 2001). Incorporating the right approach into the classroom teaching of grammar, and also choosing the effective and right way of presenting the form of these items, are of utmost importance. Thus, the model presents the inclusion of the lexicon in classroom teaching. Moreover, components of consciousness-raising protocols with adult learners, after which the related items can be tested, are expected to create important outcomes. The ultimate aim; therefore, is to present structural items directly or indirectly within the level norms of Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in the Turkish context with much of the emphasis on cross-linguistic features. I. Introduction “If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature.” Bruce Barton Learning involves a huge variety of contributors such as age, gender, rate of learning, the amount of instructional time, motivation, past experiences, socio-cultural background and interests. That is why currently research is being conducted by academics all around the world to determine the effects of these factors on an individual’s responses to the process of learning. As these variables differ for each individual, things cannot be fixed or expected to change in a short amount of time. That is in a classroom environment, teachers meet students who show clear individual differences. Thus, it is natural that they give unique responses to classroom activities. At this point the role of teachers takes on a crucial importance. They need to reconsider these individual differences, which should result in their giving different responses to different activities and plan or modify the lessons accordingly. As Harmer highlights (1991:42), the job of a teacher is to ensure that students get a variety of activities which foster acquisition and learning, and the teacher can achieve this by considering the characteristics and the possible responses of the students. In this way, a teacher can bring out the underlying strength in each and every one of his students by building up their own confidence and personal skills (Prodromou, 1994:28). That is, the students can use their full potential, and the quality of learning can be improved. When it is limited to foreign and second language learning contexts, the process and determinants of the learning process also include differences between the syntax and the lexicon of the languages involved. These two elements of the language can have a very important effect on both analytical and global learners, whose attitudes might differ and affect their responses. As stated by Prodromou (1994:7), students carry with them an ideology which may help or hinder the acquisition of a foreign language and this affects their attitude towards a language. Analytical learners are those who are fieldindependent, reflective. In a Turkish EFL classroom context it could be said that the priority for the majority of these learners is to learn the syntax and lexicon of the target language. As Celce-Murcia stated (1991:463), ‘An observant ESL/EFL teacher knows that individuals learn in different ways (Hartnett, 1985). ‘Some learners, consciously or unconsciously, have an analytic style and learn best by formulating and testing hypotheses or "rules." Other learners have a holistic style and learn best by experiencing, gathering, and restructuring relevant data but doing little or no apparent analysis.‘(Celce-Murcia, 1991:463) As stated in the CEFR, lexical competence (5.2.1.1) and grammatical competence (5.2.1.2) play a crucial part in language learning. Each language, however, has its own features. Thus, I believe that one should also take account of these lexico-grammatical features when stating the differences between levels since every language has a unique lexicon and syntax. For instance, in English, type 2 conditionals may fit at A2 level, but in Turkish they would be more appropriate at a higher level. In the CEFR the levels are specified according to ‘Can do’ statements and include competence in four skills. Indirectly, all these skills have their underlying grammar and vocabulary. The notion of ‘unreality’ is not overtly marked in Turkish. In English, however, it is often indicated by a past tense (e.g. If I had plenty of money… ). Meanwhile it is flexibly marked in Turkish. II. Methodology: Method: a quasi-experimental design was used with learners in a language-focus lesson. Setting and Participants: The research was conducted in an English Preparatory Programme at a private university in Turkey. The participants in this research were young adults aged between 18- 21, who were at intermediate level. Class Profile: There were 9 male and 11 female students in this class. The majority of the students were usually on-task and tried to participate in the lessons. The range of the students included: • students who are analytical learners and may dominate the lesson at times. They don’t like disruptive behaviour and even warn their peers if they engage in it. They seem to prefer teacher-centered lessons; they can take notes and do individual work. • students who are high achievers, but there were also lower level students. Timetable fit: In the previous lesson, students had revised conditional clauses, type 0 and type 1. In the following lesson, students would do further practice of type 2 conditionals and write conversations in pairs to internalize the structure more. As a further step, ‘wish clauses’ would be presented later in the week. Anticipated problems related to the lesson content: As stated, there were students who might try to dominate the lesson; to minimize the possibility of this situation the teacher would try to be fair when nominating students. Because of the nature of the target structure the students might be puzzled by the meaning, so the teacher did not want to overload the students with too much information. Instead she would try to elicit from the students the correct use and meaning. If there were lower level students who still have problems with the meaning, she planned to monitor them closely and even work with them during the tasks. The Challenge of grammar teaching 2 Eda Gözde Girgin Anticipated Problems related to the linguistic background of the learners A. Syntactic Features: the fact that Turkish and English have different syntactic forms causes confusion for Turkish learners. One of the main challenges is that the verb is placed near the beginning of a sentence in English (SVO word order), while it is placed at the end of a sentence in Turkish (SOV word order) and this creates problems for the learners to internalize the language presented. Although numerous differences arise as a result of the syntactic variation, the ones below are focused on as an example: I. Inverted structures: Although the students were familiar with type 0 and type 1 conditionals, they might have difficulty in understanding the inverted form of these structures as in their native language the use of ‘inversion’ is not the same. In Turkish the verb in inverted form cannot used at the beginning of the sentence. This creates a challenge when internalizing the meaning and the form of the grammar structure. Example: Were he to be given some money, he would not cancel his trip for the spring break. › Onun biraz parası olsa, bahar tatili için olan geziyi iptal etmez. II. Modal forms (especially ‘shall’, ‘can’, ‘must’): in Turkish, the speaker/writer gives the meaning by adding suffixes after the verb, which is usually placed at the end of the sentences (nflectional morpheme,-meli). However, in English the same meaning is given through a separate word that is placed between the subject and the verb. Turkish students try to distinguish the meaning of each modal verb, but have difficulty as they are not familiar with their structural use in English. Because of this variation between the two languages, I predicted that the students would also be confused when they are expected to use type 2 conditional sentences involving modal verbs: I must be at home by 20:00. Saat 20:00 ‘de evde olmalıyım. If I went to Ireland, I could be rich. Irlandaya gitsem, şimdi zengindim. III. Hypothetical situations in the present: in this specific lesson, the students were introduced to the structure of type 2 conditionals and were expected to apply the structure in a sentence production activity. The students were confused to see that the past tense was used in such sentences should as they had been introduced to this tense just to express previous actions that were completed in the past. The analytical learners especially had difficulty understanding the purpose of this grammar structure. B. Lexical Features: Lexical competency, a basic element of any language, is necessary for learners to deliver their message to other parties. In other words, lexical differences between languages (in this case English and Turkish) pose threats to learners and have a huge effect on the learner and the learning process. Learners may have problems when transferring lexical items from one language to the other. For example, one form might have different uses in the target language, and synonyms or near synonyms could pose some challenges to the learners. To be more precise, if a Turkish learner chooses to use the English equivalent of ‘düşün-’ in English, then she is faced with the challenge of picking the right word from a wide range of items that could be used for the same verb in English: ‘think’, ‘suppose’, ‘consider’ etc. As an example, when it is searched for in the corpus, the verb ‘think’ is used in many different ways as follows (see table 1): The Challenge of grammar teaching 3 Eda Gözde Girgin Table 1 – corpus analysis of ‘think’ from the Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2003) • think :( N ) ( V)- Synonyms : • verb: consider, imagine, suppose, reckon, deem, meditate, conceive, guess, fancy, believe, ponder, see, reflect, contemplate, opine • noun: thought, idea, reflection ▫ An act of thinking: I went for a walk to have a think • think Verb ▫ Have a particular opinion, belief, or idea about someone or something: ▫ Used in questions to express anger or surprise: ▫ what would John think of her? What do you think you're doing? Used in speech to reduce the force of a statement or opinion, or to politely suggest or refuse something: ▫ I thought we could go out for a meal Direct one's mind toward someone or something; use one's mind actively to form connected ideas: ▫ Take into account or consideration when deciding on a possible action: ▫ think of being paid a salary to hunt big game! Expect: ▫ I hadn't thought to warn Rachel about him Imagine (an actual or possible situation): ▫ he thought like a general Call something to mind; remember: ▫ he was thinking of becoming a zoologist Have a particular mental attitude or approach: ▫ you can live how you like, but there's the children to think about Consider the possibility or advantages of (a course of action): ▫ Jack thought for a moment I never thought we'd raise so much money Concentrate on imagining what it would be like to be in (a position or role): she tried to think herself into the part of Peter's fiancée In contrast to this variety of use, in Turkish learners only use one word ‘düşün-’ to give the same message. It is a fact that language learning is a complex process which cannot be reduced to the two components of a language in the form of vocabulary and grammar. However, incorporated into language skills, these elements of language make up the backbone, the main frame, on which language skills are built. Various developments hav underlined the interface between lexical and grammatical features, such as the Lexical Approach (Lewis, 1997) and corpus linguistics (Stubbs, 2001), implying that a language teacher has to observe the variations of these features (Chomsky, 1986) between the mother tongue and the target language. The Challenge of grammar teaching 4 Eda Gözde Girgin Procedure: PRESENTATION: (set up - run - feedback) syntactic arrangements aimed at contextualizing the structure were presented. A list of sentences was projected that were related to my life (fig. 1), and I then elicited the meaning through concept check questions. After asking what they would do in these situations, there was feedback and oral error correction was given whenever a student used a sentence incorrectly. Figure 1 ( set up ) 1. I would travel around the world if I had two million dollars 2. I would be a singer if I was talented . 3. I would definitely run away if I saw a snake in my room. ( Run - Feedback ) In this part students did another activity in which they were given parts of sentences on paper slips (see table 2).. Students were asked to find partners with whom they could build up a meaningful sentence. The core aim was to present the meaning and then to give the form as the main challenge, distinguishing the meaning and the form of the structure. The learners were told that they should focus not only on the form of the target structures but also on the meaning. The stage ran smoothly and students were able to find their correct partners easily. After this stage the learners were asked for the ‘formula’ of the target structure and they differentiated the syntactic use of the verb with the previously learnt related grammar. Table 2 If I were Brazilian and beautiful... How would your life be different … … … … … … If our teacher was absent… … … … … … . I would be a super model like Gisele Bundchen If you spoke English perfectly we would not do this lesson PRACTICE: Doing controlled or semi-controlled practice activities provides opportunity for the learners to reach functional objectives of the target structure and they could see their errors clearly. For this reason preparing a gap filling activity that students were asked to The Challenge of grammar teaching 5 Eda Gözde Girgin write form of the verb given in the brackets. Then, whole class feedback was given to analyze the errors if there were any. PRODUCTION: In this stage posters with half sentences that could illustrate the target structures in correlation with the meaning were posted in advance. They were supposed to choose three of the posters and write the rest of the sentences. Giving flexibility to the students is always beneficial to enable them to make their personal choices. As stated by Hadley (2000:124), the techniques used should reduce the anxiety in the group to a minimum and promote the free expression of ideas and feelings. The examples had been chosen on purpose so that students were repeatedly reminded of the hypothetical meaning of the structure. The students were divided into groups of three and given board markers to walk around and write accurate clauses that could complete the other half of the sentence. The core aim was to have students go further than recognition and apply the rules that had been previously elicited. Figure 2: (sentence completion samples produced by students) The Challenge of grammar teaching 6 Eda Gözde Girgin Discussion and conclusion The outcome of this experimental lesson also proved the importance of the learners’ L1 in foreign and second language contexts. It seems entirely reasonable that learners use their own strategies when learning a newly introduced language point. The learners analyzed the structure in their own ways and compared it with parallels in Turkish. As Brown highlights, “While we all exhibit inherently human traits of learning, every individual approaches a problem or learns a set of facts or organizes a combination of feelings from a unique perspective”(2000:112). It is impossible to overestimate the value of L1 in the classroom context, and teachers can use this as an opportunity to exploit the contribution of one language to the learning of another. It is undeniable that learners need as much exposure as possible when they are in a language learning process; however, negotiating the meaning, having opportunities for authentic outcomes, and even taking risks in L2 can be listed among the major concerns. Teachers should be aware of the syntax and lexicon in L1 and teach accordingly. Moreover, every teacher should apply the principles of the CEFR to their unique classroom context (this may vary from language to language) taking into account the lexico-grammatical features of the mother tongue of the learners. References Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching, New York: Longman. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is published in English by Cambridge University Press - ISBN Hardback 0521803136 Paperback: 0521005310 - www.cambridge.org Celce-Murcia M. (1991). ‘Grammar pedagogy in second and foreign language teaching’, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3, pp.459-480. Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: Its nature, origins and use. Praeger, New York. Hadley, A. (2000). Teaching language in context. Boston: Thomson Heinle Harmer, J. (1991). How to teach English. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Hatch, E. (2004) Discourse and language education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, M. (1993). The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward. Hove: Language Teaching Publications. Nunan, D. (1989) Understanding language classrooms: A guide for teacher-initiated action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Oxford Collocations Dictionary (5th ed.). (2003). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parrott, M. (2005) Grammar for English language teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prodromou, L. (1994) ‘The good language teacher’, in Kral, T. (ed.) Teacher Development: Making the Right Moves: Selected Articles From the English Teaching Forum 1989-1993, Washington, DC: Information Agency. Stubbs, M. (2004). ‘Language corpora’ in Davies, A. and Elder, C. (ed.) The Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 106-133). Wiley-Blackwell. Thompson, L. (2003) ‘Turkish speakers’, in Swan, M. and Smith, B. (ed.) Learner English (pp. 214227). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Challenge of grammar teaching 7 Eda Gözde Girgin