Making a Lesson Plan

Chapter 1 presented numerous arguments as to why a teacher of ESL/EFL ought to spend some time learning how the English language is structured. Those points included the fact that ESL/EFL students will often perceive English in ways different than native speakers do, and if a teacher can perceive the language in the same way, he/she can explain it in ways that make sense. Even if one accepts these arguments for why a teacher of ESL/EFL ought to learn not only what is “right” (i.e., grammatical) but also why it is “right” (i.e., grammatical), the question of whether a teacher ought to teach syntax still remains, and the responses to that question typically suggest fuzzy logic: the answer depends on who the students are and changes over time as those students change in various ways. It may help to spend some time clarifying what is meant by “teaching grammar” first before moving on to discussions of the ways teachers can present grammatical forms to their students.

First, as was mentioned in the last chapter, teachers always present their students with syntax since syntax is, by definition, the ways sentences are structured in a language, and any time any individual puts together a sentence in English, that sentence has a structure and therefore, has syntax attached to it. The real questions, then, are whether the teacher calls attention to the structural forms or not, whether the teacher allows the students to spend any of their attention on those forms or not, and whether the teacher responds when the students focus attention on the forms. In short, the central questions are whether a teacher should teach syntax implicitly or explicitly, and whether a lesson should flow inductively or deductively. Yet another issue is how much time should be spent focusing on the form of the language in a language course.

Here we will briefly review the distinction between implicit and explicit instruction and the distinction between inductive and deductive presentations before moving on to the issues of how much focus to give to syntax and exactly how one might set up a lesson plan seeking to highlight grammatical forms

Review of Implicit and Explicit Instruction

It is possible to ignore language structure altogether in a language course, but to do so really creates a submersion environment for the learner. If the focus is always on something other than the forms of the language under study, it could well be that the language is not actually under study! This effectively results in the entire burden of language learning resting on the shoulders of the learner. The well-known fact that many individuals will “sink” rather than “swim” when submerged for long periods should be enough to prompt a teacher to consider some level of instruction in the forms of the language. If the thought of watching students “drown” isn’t strong enough to prompt a teacher to consider some focus on form, then perhaps it should be remembered that in the U.S. the Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court case declared submersion environments to be unconstitutional because they deny English Language Learners their civil rights in educational settings. The important distinction between submersion and immersion should be held in mind when working with ELLs. One can be “in” the water for quite a long time, wading perhaps, without any risk of drowning. One can’t remain “submerged,” however, without an ever-increasing risk of drowning. It is the ELL teacher’s job to make sure the ELL gets to come up for air, and one of the ways that teachers do this is through the consideration of language form in their lessons. Again, the questions a teacher faces in considering language form center on how much time to devote to it and which ways to go about presenting the information, not on whether to do it or not.

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