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The role of grammar teaching: from communicative approaches to the common…

- - - - based on the thought that in order to make the learner use language in a communicative situation it is necessary first to learn the grammatical rules and then apply them in that communicative situation
    - - based on the belief that grammar is acquired unconsciously during the performance on those communicative situations, so it would be useless to teach grammar previously and explicitly
- - - - STRUCTURALISM
        
        Structuralist view of language, associated to observable behaviors, was based on the analysis of form (phonology, morphology and syntax) over meaning (semantics), to which it did not pay any attention.
      - GENERATIVISM
        
        Generativism considered that language should not be based on the classication of ‘surface/individual’ structures but rather, on the development of a system of innate and mental rules which would account for the structural possibilities of a language; however, it still considered syntax central.
  - - - Task Based Language Teaching
      - Focus on Form
      - Content-Based Instruction
      - Cooperative Language Learning (communication through cooperation)
- - - - syllabus designers, textbook authors and teachers are expected to measure the acquisition of these competences through a behavior: what has been termed descriptors or learning objectives, which explain what the learner can do. This is a performance based measure.
      - The adoption of a functional perspective implies measuring competence through performance, that is to say, assessing inner knowledge with actual behavior
    - - for example, which grammar ought to be considered? which grammar item should be attached to those specifc levels?
      - Although the CEF does provide a definition of grammar, it is not explicit in providing a explicit linguistic theory
    - - grammatical competence is one of the skills the learners have to master progressively
      - Methodology is explicitly and intentionally left to teachers and textbook designers to decide, a fact which has received some criticisms but also support, because methodology varies with pedagogic culture
    - - equally unaware of its classroom implications with regards to methodology, materials, student autonomy and assessment of communicative competence over and above such things as discrete item grammar testing
- - - - Task-Based Language Teaching (Communication through tasks)
        
        tasks should be fullled with any linguistic means that are already available for the learners, so that teachers should not bias the tasks in order to use a specic linguistic structure: this type of task is called unfocused task - improves learners’ communicative skills but might leave accuracy behind
        
        Tasks should not be so open that allow learners to fulll them with any linguistic means already available but rather, tasks should bias students so that they will have a need for fullling them with a specic linguistic structure that has been previously presented and practiced; in that way learners would both improve their communicative skills and their grammatical accuracy (focused tasks)
        
        basically, deals with grammar teaching in a way in which the learners’ communicative skills are not harmed but improved - a means towards communication and not as the end itself
        
        • focus on form after providing enough input
        • through enabling tasks
        • naturalistic repetition
      - Focus on Form (Communication through form)
        
        means paying attention to the form, but without going back to focus-on-forms or traditional teaching
        
        done by having a reactive (drawing the students’ attention to their errors in using grammatical structures that they are supposed to be able to manage correctly already) or a proactive focus on form (making the learners use problematic structures which do not dominate yet and check their own performance) and using a sequential (first explicit instruction and then making them be aware of the different meanings of the structure) or integrated sequence (paying attention both to form and function at the same time
        
        learners are expected to process forms, meaning and use simultaneously - techniques such as small group interaction tasks with information exchanges, expansions and reformulation are used within this methodology
        
        follows a constructivist framework, in which the focus is on the learner and how his/her regulation processes may be affected by the input modications
        
        • reactive/proactive focus-on-form
        • sequential/integrated sequence
        • unobtrusive activities
        • input modications
      - Traditional Grammar teaching
        
        Knowing about grammar: competence
        
        Presentation-practice-production cycle
        
        Continuous drilling for practice
        
        Deductive teaching
        
        grammatical structures are dressed up into communicative functions
        
        inductive way of teaching grammar
      - Content-Based Instruction (Commun. through content)
        
        the syllabus must be organized around a series of topics (a topic syllabus
        
        language teachers have freedom for including different types of activities and different language teaching philosophies
        
        • focus on form through activities which are related to the topic in question
        • grammar taught within context, inductively or deductively
        • learning by using