Asas

GRAMMAR WORKSHOP

TEACHER

How can the Bottom Up approach to grammar be more effective?

It has been 2 years now since I started using the inductive approach or Bottom up method to teachGrammar. At first, I thought it was a really innovative way to lead Ss find out how Grammar works. Shortly afterwards, however, I started perceiving that even though they follow the process to break downstructures, some simply could not understand. I then started the journey to find out the reasons why this occurred and came to some conclusions I would like you to argue with me.

The situationWhen teaching Grammar with the bottom up method I noticed some Ss simply felt disturbed because either they were unable to understand everything (e.g. the exact translation of the structure to theirnative language), or because through the process of breaking down one grammar structure they got lost. When teaching structures such as me too/neither, people would use it apparently well as in:S1: I live in a great neighborhood
S2: me too

Still, by the end of the class some would come by to ask if me too meant “lo mismo” and get really discouraged when they got an answer different tothe expected. Even though I would explain the important was not indeed the translation but understanding when to use it, such Ss would be the ones demanding structure translations in the next classes.Because of my frustration facing this situation (and dealing also with those unable to keep the pace when analyzing structures), I started analyzing who those Ss were as well the underlying causesfor those phenomena to happen.

In my pursuit, however, I first noticed that Ss who completely understood grammar (using the bottom up method) were engineers, doctors, journalists. Wondering whythis took place, I came across Gardner’s theory (1983) that claims there are 7 intelligences which explain why some are good at certain areas while others are not. Going through this theory I found...