TEACHING GRAMMAR INDUCTIVELY
A Curriculum Development
on Teaching Tag Questions
PGDELT 2001 HUANG XIN
1.Introduction: Language Teaching Situation in My College
The college I am
teaching now is a normal college whose major task is to train future-teachers
in various subject fields for secondary schools or other institutions. Language
teaching and learning in such context may be strikingly different from other
universities or colleges of different type in that teaching training and
teacher education are much more complex and challenging as they usually require
more time-consuming and may involve more aspects of learning and teaching.
Two fields of English
language teaching are classified in my college. In one field, language teaching
is generally designed to improve language proficiency of those students who are
named as “non-English majors. English language learning is designated as one of
the modules, which is expected to fulfill the following two aims: firstly, to
complement the knowledge components of the students; secondly, to install the
students with basic communication skills in target language. However, in the
latter aim, students are usually required to focus on reading, resulting
limited improvement in the other language skills or competence. As is stated in
the syllabus for these non-English majors, they are “expected to be able to
read the current texts and materials published in English in the fields of
their majoring subjects.” In the other field, the students were strictly
selected as English majors when they were enrolled after the entrance
examination. These students are expected to attain an advanced level of
language competence involving all the four aspects as listening, speaking,
reading and writing. They are also expected to acquire relatively flexible and
practical strategies of language learning. Furthermore, they will be
familiarized with the latest concept of language teaching and learning in the
hope that they can be equipped with different methods and approaches in
language teaching. To put it short, the students of English majors in my
college are actually trainees who are expected to perform at certain levels
both in language learning and language teaching.
The general description
made above only provides a perspective from the point of view of language
learners. We can further observe the language teaching and learning reality in
my college from the stand of teachers and administrators. Such a view can
deepen the understanding of a typical model of English language teaching and
learning in China. Generally speaking, language teachers in my college are
energetic, obedient, loyal, industrious, kind-hearted, and devoted. However,
teachers of English majors and those of non-English majors may differ greatly
in many constraints on teaching, such as experience, language competence and performance,
professional performance, performance in language research and teaching
research etc., to mention casually and only a partial list of factors which can
help distinguish the two types of teachers described above. As a rule, any
candidate for the position of English major teaching should not be offered the
job before he/she proves to the Evaluation Board of Teaching that he/she has
reached the level of requirements specially designed for an English –major
teacher. Although a complete version of these requirements may not be presented
here for some understandable reasons, a brief summary of the main points should
be listed as in the following: no less than 3 years of experience in language
teaching at the college-level; high fluency in the target language; background
knowledge of language teaching methodology; academic achievements in the
research work, which are usually evaluated in terms of publications in the
field of language, language teaching, language acquisition or related issues.
According to theses
requirements, graduates from teachers college or other teaching training
programs are seriously evaluated to make sure whether the candidate is
appropriate for the teaching position he/she is applying. I myself have been in
the teaching position for English majors for 13 years, and the following
discussion on English language teaching will be defined to the field of English
majors.
2.Language Learning Background of My Students
My students are expected
to complete a four-year course study before they are entitled a B.A degree if
they can independently finish an academic research paper by the end of the
course. All the students had a long history of English learning for 6-8 years before
they were enrolled as English majors. And, they had been tested in language proficiency
by taking an entrance examination. The test is claimed to ensure about their
attainment of the target language at the expected level. At this level, the
students should have grasped a general knowledge of Basic English grammar, be
familiar with basic communication strategies in language interaction, have
acquired basic skills in reading and writing. However, with such a basic
knowledge background, the students seem to have a good mastery of the technical
terms used in the analysis of syntactic structure. This may well demonstrate
the Grammar/Translation approach of English language teaching, which has been a
deeply rooted tradition in secondary schools in China. This approach was very
popular in 1960s and 1970s, and is still to the favorites of teachers as well
as educators nowadays in China. Followers of this approach argue that
students/learners can learn a foreign language only when they have pooled
enough grammatical structures into their minds and have automated skills over
structural analysis. Thus, emphasis is made on the analysis of the internal
structures of the language. The learners are supposedly posited in a situation
under which structural information is the whole knowledge of grammar. Such an
attitude resulted in a technical comprehension of the syntactic structure and
an inappropriate use of grammatical rules.
Considering the case of
my own students, they have the typical background of grammar knowledge. They
had so long an experience of grammar learning that they would just react
negatively if they should be asked to refresh or reconstruct their grammar
knowledge in a systematic way. However, these students are destined to be
trained as would-be teachers, and systematic knowledge of grammar will not only
mean a personal process of restructuring of established concepts. It may be a
necessary stage for the students to enhance their abilities in using structures
correctly and appropriately as well. Only in such position can the students
solve problems in their own learning and help their future-students more
effectively.
With regards to language
learning needs of them, I don’t think the students of mine make a different
group of learners from those who are not majoring in English. However, the
reason why I would like to put a mastery of systematic grammar knowledge at the
highest rank among the needs of language learning of my students is that I
strongly suggest a solid basis should be laid for the students so that they may
be in better position to do an innovative work in their future teaching job.
Another reason is that the students frequently complain about their
inappropriateness in the practical application of grammatical rules. It is a fact
that errors in syntactic structures in the language products of the students
are even frequently found upon those who are claimed to have mastered related
grammatical rules in their secondary study. In the following section, I will
mainly put the attention on a genuine problem in my teaching practice.
3. Defining a Language Learning Problem: Tag Questions
My
teaching experience has acquainted me with the fact that, no matter how
proficient a learner might become, he will always use- when trying to get his
meaning across-those constructions of the foreign language that are closer to
the ones he makes use of in his mother tongue. Therefore, it is no wonder that
Chinese majors of English frequently ask questions confirming their assertions
with hybrids such as "That's an interesting book, no?"
The
English equivalent pattern to be used in such a case is a tag question, which
most grammars define as a type of question appended to a statement-an important
element of everyday conversation. ( Quirk 1982:37-53)
Yet
the existences of utterances like the following:
You've never been abroad, do you?
The consonantal sound /p/ belongs with
the occlusives, isn't it?
are proof of the
inefficacy of the approach proposed by their teachers in secondary schools to
the teaching of tag questions.
At their secondary
school learning, the students are usually introduced to typical pattern drills
of tag question, followed by the explanation of rules, which govern the
construction of this question type. The typical procedure of such a class may
be presented as in the following: (1) Demonstration of the examples of tag
questions; (2) Teacher’s explanation of the rules; (3) More examples to show
how they are used; (4) Students practice. Each step focuses on a separate
grammatical item and the students are not provided with a rich linguistic
repertoire, which can be applied by the students as prerequisite for their
language processing. So, it
may be that the students already know the basic English tenses, the inversion
of subject and verb for questions and the use of “do”
or “did”
for present and past simple respectively, it is also a fact that in the
process, we have overlooked the sound teaching principle of mingling tenses in
the above examples.
Note that the students
have gone up onto a new stage of learning. However, the problem described above
still exists and handicaps them from appropriate use of tag questions. The
problem may become more urgent and bring much anxiety to the students, as they
should be expected to teach the same grammatical item some day in the future.
Thus, in my opinion, there must be an appropriate and creative approach, which
can solve the problem of the students in their present learning and provide a
model of teaching for their future teaching task as well.
4. A Possible Solution: Teaching Grammar Inductively
Grammar teaching may be
practiced in an inductive way or a deductive one. I do not advocate using an exclusively
inductive approach for teaching grammar, and in fact use a combination of
inductive and deductive presentations. But teaching deductively is fairly
straightforward and more widely practiced than teaching inductively.
In my opinion, I think
teaching inductively:
·
addresses
learning-style needs of students who work better using an inductive approach;
·
serves
as a pre-test to identify what students already know and what they need to
practice;
·
gets
students more actively involved in the learning process;
·
adds
variety to the classroom routine;
· teaches students to be more
independent learners; demonstrates to them that they have knowledge, that they
don't need the teacher for all the answers;
· teaches students a new
learning strategy.
Developing students' analytical skills in class may encourage them to take more initiative when encountering English outside of the classroom. Experiencing success with some simple focused examples builds the students' confidence in their ability to be independent learners. Whenever possible and/or appropriate, teachers should bring in examples of real language (newspaper or magazine articles, songs, and advertisements) to be analyzed; they should encourage their students to apply what they've learned in the classroom to new information that they encounter outside.
5. A Curriculum Package
Keeping this principle
of teaching in mind, I think I can develop a curriculum package as in the
following, with inclusion of a specific description of a lesson plan as an
example.
5.1.Objective: Students will gain a better understanding of tag questions (this
lesson works as an introduction to or a review of tag questions). The students
will induce the rules for the structure, produce written examples, understand
the importance of intonation when using the structure, and listen for, and
orally produce the structure with two different intonation patterns. Students
will also learn a new strategy for learning grammar.
5.2.Teaching Strategy: Teaching grammar inductively. The approach may involve all the four
skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
5.3. Materials: a list of six simple sentences written on newsprint, an index
card with the same list of sentences, and four or six pieces of 3 in x 5 in
paper (copy machine/computer scraps are fine) for each student, six
"tags" made of 3 in x 5 in index cards and string. On one side of
each tag is a price; on the reverse is a tag question that corresponds to the
simple sentences on the newsprint.
5.4. Procedures:
5.4.1.Before the students enter the
classroom, tape the half-dozen tags to various objects in the room (e.g., the
window, a desk, the blackboard). Attach the tags so that they are dangling with
the price side showing.
5.4.2.When the students enter the
class and see the tags, they are naturally curious and initiate the
conversation. Thus the lesson starts with the concept of the tags. Guide the
conversation a bit to elicite the word "tag" or "price tag," its definition
and function. Even though the objects have an intrinsic worth of their own, the
price tags attached to them influence our opinion of their value. If a chair
has a price tag of $200, it certainly becomes more than just a chair in our
minds. Ask the students their opinions of the prices:
"Do you think this is expensive?
cheap?"
"How
much will you give me?"
"Oh, for you a special price,"
etc.
5.4.3. Now, the students have a
concrete concept of a tag. From here, move to the topic of tag questions. The students will acquire an
image of how the tag is attached to a sentence.
|
ON
NEWSPRINT |
ON
TAGS |
REVERSE
SIDE |
|
You're
form Quito,_________ |
aren't
you? |
$1.00
|
|
Jose
isn't here, ___________ |
is
he? |
$5.00
|
|
They
live in Karachi, _______ |
don’t
they? |
50C |
|
Jamil
didn't call you, ________ |
did
he? |
$25.00
|
|
We
can study together,_____ |
can't
we? |
$300.00
|
|
I
haven't met your sister,____ |
have
I? |
$10.00
|
5.4.4. Using the index card that has the list of sentences, read each
one aloud, pausing and then flipping over the appropriate price tag to reveal
the tag question. For example, "You're from Quito. . . . (flipping over
tag) aren't you?" By the third or fourth one, a student may be able to
orally produce the correct tag. Post the newsprint with the list of sentences
and tape the appropriate tag next to each one.
5.4.5. Let the students silently
read the examples. Model the sentences one more time. (I prefer to stand behind
the students and read the questions in a calm, gentle tone, letting the information
seep in.)
5.4.6.
Put the students in groups of three or four and tell them to analyze the
examples and write the rules for forming tag questions. One student in each
group writes down the information. When the students are ready
(10-20 minutes depending on their level and familiarity with this type of
activity) ask each group for the rules that they've identified and write them
on newsprint, making sure that the class agrees with each one.
5.5.Samples: If the sentence is
affirmative, the tag is negative. If there's an auxiliary in the sentence, then
the auxiliary/modal is in the tag. This newsprint is now a part of the class
decor. The technique of having students induce the rules from example sentences
takes a little practice and patience, especially in cultures where students are
accustomed to the teacher dispensing the rules. Guide the students as
necessary. Ask them to analyze the examples, "What's similar?"
"What's different in each?" Tell them to imagine that they are explaining
tag questions to a student from another class. With practice, most students do
very well inducing grammar rules. It helps them become less dependent on the
teacher.
5.6.Practice: Staying
in groups, each student receives six pieces of 3 in x 5 in paper. Tell them
that they are going to write three tag questions on the paper so that on one
piece the student writes a simple sentence, on another, s/he writes the
appropriate tag. Example:
5.8. Practice: Read each tag question from the newsprint, first with a rising
intonation and then with a falling. The students must listen for the intonation
and signal thumbs up or down accordingly. The students explain the meaning of
each question given the difference in intonation. Once again in groups, the
students use their own tag questions (ones from the game or new ones) to
practice. Students take turns saying their tag questions and their classmates
listen and do thumbs up or down accordingly. Ask for volunteers to model their
tag questions for the entire class.
5.9. Homework: Assign a page of controlled exercises. If possible find pictures
or cartoons where the students could write mini-dialogues using tag questions
with the proper intonation. The mini-dialogues can be performed during the next
class and discussed by the class.
6.Evaluation:
Evaluation
is very important a tool used to assess whether the approach succeeds in
fulfilling the objectives or whether the teaching curriculum is well developed
in the package. The following criteria may be useful:
6.1. Teaching Effect:
· Whether
learners’ outcomes appropriate
· Whether
tasks/activities appropriate for the students
· Whether
materials and resources appropriate
· Whether
anticipating potential difficulties with language used for explanation and
students tasks
6.2. Teaching Skills:
· Whether
establish rapport and develop motivation
· Whether
adjust the teaching language to meet the level and needs of the students
· Whether
the instructions clear and appropriate
· Whether
provide accurate and appropriate models of language
· Whether
focus on appropriate, specific skills
· Whether
students understand the forms
· Whether
correcting students’ errors sensitively
· Whether
monitor and revaluate students’ progress
While
these criteria are only the guidelines for the evaluation, I would propose to
choose questionnaire and interview as practical methods to check the effects of
my curriculum package.
REFERANCES:
1. Crystal,
D. (1989). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
2.
Larsen-Freeman, Diane. (1991). Teaching Grammar. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.)
Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. (2nd ed.). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
3.
Omaggio, Alice. (1986). Teaching Language in Context: Proficiency-oriented
Programs. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
4. Quirk,
R. (1982). International Communication and Concept of Nuclear
English. In Style and Communication in the English Language.
5.
Richards, J. C.
(2001). Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. New York:
Cambridge University Press.