Introduction to Teaching Grammer

Lifeguards for the English Ocean:
Pedagogical Grammar for ESL/EFL Teachers
Linda Houts-Smith, Ph.D.
Joseph T. Allen, M.S.

Preface

Linda’s Preface
The majority of Americans hate the study of grammar.  I have not conducted a scientific survey in order to come to this conclusion but have simply developed a hypothesis over time.  My observational studies were made first as a participant observer in Language Arts and English classes in the k-12 schools, and by this I mean that when I was a student it seemed my classmates hated the stuff, and second as a participant observer in Latin classes, where again my classmates generally seemed to hate talking and thinking about things like declensions and conjugations.  My hypothesis has been strengthened of late as I have been teaching grammar as a foundational course in preparing teachers of ESL and teachers of mainstream secondary English.  When I’ve asked students to writing a reflective piece on their feelings about taking a class on English Grammar, many have acknowledged that they hated it, possibly still hate it, or have surprising come to realize through the writing of the reflection itself that they harbor a disdain for the topic.  Some students, of course, do not share this general American dislike or disdain, but many others do exhibit such feelings.
One problem, of course, has been the separation of form from meaning in class discussions and exercises, for few people will brook meaningless discussions for very long.  Another problem has been the fact that the majority of Americans are still native speakers of English, and they already know this stuff; they just don’t know how to explain why they know what they know.  In short, they don’t have ways of talking about the language because they lack the metalanguage to do so.  This results, however, in a sense that all grammar is is the attachment of fancy names on things that don’t really need weird labels.  What is wrong, after all, with just knowing something?  Why does one have to learn a technical name for it?  The answer, however, becomes a little more obvious when one is going to teach English to a speaker of another language: it needs a name so it can be talked about and explained, and a non-native speaker of English doesn’t know either the thing itself or how to talk about it.  In fact, the non-native speaker may well need to have something explained first in order to be able to talk about it and to be able to know it.  And this is why this book exists: native speakers of English who are going to teach non-native speakers of English need to be able to do more than just know a thing.  They need to know how to talk about it, explain it, give examples of it, and recognize it when it pops up all of a sudden.  This course is for those people, both native speakers and non-native speakers of English, who are preparing to teach English to non-native speakers of English, but it may especially be helpful to the native speakers of English, and I hope most helpful to those native speakers of English who hate grammar.
            As one may have surmised, I do not hate grammar and never have.  To the contrary, I enjoy it.  It holds my attention in much the same way as any puzzle does: I feel a sense of victory when I work through the analysis of a sentence or dream up an example that clearly displays form and meaning.  I assume, then, that another problem is that grammar haters have not been victorious in their puzzling.  The greatest developer of self-confidence is success, and the greatest destroyer of self-confidence is failure.  I suspect that the absence of success is the primary culprit in the hate of grammar by so many.
            A new grammar course must then take a different approach to the study of grammar if it hopes to avoid the result of failure.  This is certainly not the first grammar book with the intent of helping future teachers of ESL understand the structure of the English language, nor will it be the last, but I do hope it will be one of the good ones.  And I hope it will be different, too.  As individuals make their way through this course, they will notice a few deviations from the other courses or texts that exist.  First, this course is provided in an electronic, not print, format, and learners will work through interactive exercises that provide immediate feedback and explanation.  In this way, the exercises will be more fluid and knowledge will be constructed via a back and forth “discussion,” avoiding the once and done (or should I say once and dunce) feelings that traditional written exercises result in.  The technical aspects of the electronic format were developed by Joseph T. Allen, and since the entire course is electronic, Joe by all rights is a co-author of the course.
            Additionally, this course will present much of the material in an inductive approach, not the deductive approach that most other texts use.  Most texts present a description of a grammatical structure and then give examples that demonstrate that structure.  Subsequently, learners are asked to work through a series of exercises doing such things as determining whether the structure is included in the exercise, finding and labeling the structure, and so on.  This deductive approach assumes that the knowledge is absent in the learner and must be presented.  Only once it has been presented can the learner do anything with it.  This approach is at odds with the fact that native speakers of English already know English, and it is at odds with the fact that by this time in their training, even non-native speakers of English have probably had these same deductive explanations presented to them.  This course, then, asks learners to move in the opposite direction.  First they look at exercises and are asked to determine what they see in the exercises.  Next they are asked to label what it is they have found, and if they don’t have the technical name, they are presented it at this point.  Finally, they are asked to formulate the rule that the exercises lead to, and are given a technical description of the rule at the end.  Learners are thus asked to move from what they already know, how to say something in English, to what they don’t know, the technical names and the formal rules.  This approach creates more of a workbook type of text rather than the grammar reference type of text that the deductive approach produces.  In this course, it is expected that students will “work through” the text, not “read” or “refer back to” the text.
            Like other texts that prepare teachers, this course, too, will ask learners to consider what is hard about each structure for non-native speakers of English, why it is hard, and how one might teach a particular structure to non-native speakers.  It also asks learners to use their knowledge of English to assess proficiency and to diagnose areas of difficulty that could benefit from attention in the classroom.  The focus on teaching English is what makes this a pedagogical grammar rather than a theoretical grammar course.  Teachers must make determinations about the scope and sequence of grammatical topics in the classes that they teach.  Theoreticians are not encumbered by the practicalities of time constraints, standards for graduation, and the like, nor are they limited by the current proficiency levels of actual people sitting in front of them on a daily basis.  These are the very real issues teachers face, and while theoretical grammar remains the height of understanding one might hope to develop, it is not the goal of the current course.  It does play a role in the current course, however, in that a description of English that encompasses all of the ways native speakers structure and use the language is the ultimate goal.  One semester of college, though, is not enough time to achieve such a lofty goal, especially when a portion of that time must be given to discussions of proficiency, the selection of scope and sequence, the matching of approach to learner characteristics such as age and educational levels, and the like.  Therefore, the ultimate goal will remain a goal even at completion of this course, and this course has been designed with this understanding.
            Although theoretical grammar is not the goal of this course, whenever theory helps the actual goal of explaining what is hard, or why it is hard, or how a teacher might teach a certain structure, modern linguistic theories will be referenced.  In a similar vein, whenever pedagogy can provide an explanation of what is hard, why it is hard, or how a teacher might teach a certain structure, it will be referenced.
            Additionally, certain conventions of modern linguistics will be followed as will the conventions of APA reference citation.  Italics will be used to indicate when a word is the topic of discussion in a sentence as well as an integral part of the sentence.  Laypersons may be more accustomed to seeing quotation marks used in this circumstance, but in linguistics, italics is the preferred mode.  Quotation marks will be used to indicate an actual quotation from another source and to indicate metaphorical or proverbial uses.  Again following modern linguistic conventions, square brackets will be used to indicate phonetic representations of utterances and slashes will be used to set out phonemic representations.
            This course is built “on the shoulders of giants,” and in particular, the following texts have influenced the content of this course: The Grammar Book by Diane Larsen-Freeman and Marianne Celce-Murcia, The Teacher’s Grammar of English: A Course Book and Reference Guide by Ron Cowan, Tools for Analyzing the World’s Languages by J. Albert Bickford, English Grammar by Mark S. LeTourneau, and the Azar grammar series by Betty Schrampfer Azar.
            Acknowledgement must also be made to the students who have given input into the development of this course.  Many students have used the visuals and worksheets over the years in various classes, but I first received wide encouragement to put this course together as a “text” by the students in the spring 2009 Grammar in TESL course at Minnesota State University Moorhead, including Megan Wallis, Mary Sussenguth, Sarah Schoon, Saki Fujishima, Ashley Wangerin, and Amanda Heller.  Students who worked through the initial electronic modules include __________.  The insights, encouragement, and multiple perspectives these students offered have improved the course tremendously and are much appreciated.
            I’ve invented the title phrase for this course from looking at a common cliche in ESL/EFL.  Many ESL students have described their learning experience through the “swimming in the ocean” metaphor, and this cliche is ensconced on the cover of Jim Cummins’ 2000 book Language, Power, and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire.  It is clearly the same metaphor behind the “sink or swim” phrase we use to describe the lives of many ELLs in mainstream classes as well as the metaphor behind the distinctions made between “submersion” and “immersion” approaches.  Since the metaphor of swimming in an English ocean is so pervasive, it only seems natural to select it as the title of this course, except that the teachers should not be swimming at the same time as the students.  As a result, I used the metaphor for inspiration, but twisted it to focus on the role the teacher plays for the students who are swimming in the ocean, the role of lifeguard.  The twist arose during another of my grammar classes, my graduate level Pedagogical Grammar course in the summer of 2009, and I have to thank the students in that class, as well, including Patrick Cassidy, Trevor Cook, Amy Gartland, Carin Hinman, Kayla Killoran, Heidi Knudsen, Elizabeth Luhman, Aura Lee Mohror, Heather Jane Neis, Jane Peterson, Dylan Pforr, Mary Martin, Anneli Ryan, Sara Sundberg, and Amie Zadow.
The lifeguard/swimmer metaphor provides fun images and sounds that can be incorporated into the interactive exercises.  When an incorrect answer is given, a shark can come along and bite off the answer, or a rip tide can pull it away, or the song Wipeout can be played.  Correct answers can result in the discovery of sunken treasure.  Challenging exercises can be preceded by the Jaws theme, and helpful hints can float by stuffed into a bottle.
            The course begins with an overview of central issues in the teaching of syntax to non-native speakers, including a review of some essential terminology as well as important concepts. I haven’t decided yet how the rest of the course will be organized...That’ll come after it’s done.

Joe’s Preface