Rosa Galindo

EDUC 462; R.J. entry #2

"Teaching Grammar"
I was always the person who hated grammar and vocabulary lists, and it was most likely
because I was taught in a traditional manner. Rules, examples, practice drills. I still don't enjoy
them, but now after reading about how to approach teaching grammar, I am not quite as
anxious about teaching it. It is stressed in the two readings that input and output are key to
acquiring vocabulary and grammar. Instead of having my students listen to me talk at them,
and then making them complete boring drills, I now realize that I can maximize their learning by
adopting Lopez-Burton's approach to comprehensible input, as well as the communicative
competence model.
I agree with Lopez-Burton's observation regarding students learning what you do, not
what you say. I find this to be extremely true, and I believe that I can take advantage of it by
stressing parts of speech, vocabulary, or grammar by manipulating my output. As she explained
in her chapter, I can introduce grammar and vocabulary by telling engaging stories, emphasizing
the target points that I want the students to learn. But, Ill have to do comprehension checks to
ensure that I am comprehensible. This allows students to grasp how the grammar and
vocabulary is used, and most importantly, it adds relevance to the instruction. I can stand in
front of class all day reciting the rules of grammar, or acting as a human dictionary, but it
wouldn't do my students any good. At the end of the day they wouldn't grasp how or why these
rules are relevant, but most importantly, they wouldn't care. By elaborating on a story, or
creating a fictitious double life, using the target units of course, I can show the class real-life
applications and make the target unit relevant to them. Even though I'll still have to provide
instruction, the input students are receiving doesn't have to solely be instructional or a
complete bore. For some reason it never occurred to me that teaching grammar or vocabulary
can be fun and interactive.
According to the Communicative Competence Model, I can further facilitate student
learning by having the students interact with each other, putting into practice what they have
learned about the target grammar unit. What stuck out the most to me from the "teaching
grammar" article, is that communicative drills are more affective than written exercises. I can
use this in my class by asking students to narrate an event to a partner, and then have the
partner write down the story. This enables the students to practice using the target unit both
orally as well as written, and further facilitates procedural knowledge. Not only does the
communicative competence model serve purpose in grammar, but it also helps with
vocabulary. It is easier for a student to understand the connotations and definitions of words
when they are used in context, versus having a vocabulary list with definitions. When I have my
first class, I hope to remember to use these instructional tools and not become the teachers
that once bored me to death.