Language

Grammar Matters
Teaching Grammar in Adult ESL Programs
K. Lynn Savage
with

Gretchen Bitterlin and Donna Price

Grammar Matters
Teaching Grammar in Adult ESL Programs
K. Lynn Savage
with

Gretchen Bitterlin and Donna Price

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press 32 Avenueof the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 2010 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2010 Printed in the United States of AmericaISBN-13

978-1-107-90730-0 paperback

Table of Contents
Introduction 1 2 5

1 2 3 4 5 6

The Role of Grammar in Adult ESL

An Eclectic Approach to Teaching Grammar Choosing Grammar to Teach 11 16 22

The Grammar Lesson: Presentation

The Grammar Lesson: Guided Practice

The Grammar Lesson: Communicative Practice Conclusion 38

31

References 40

Introduction
ESL students inadult education classes are very diverse in age, educational background, and employment history. They may be as young as 16 or as old as 90. Some may have had no education in their countries of origin and be unable to read or write in their first language; others may have multiple college degrees and speak several languages. Some are young adults who have never worked; others may have hadprofessional positions in their native countries. These students also have diverse goals: to survive in a new culture, to find a job, to help their children with their homework, to obtain additional education for themselves. The one characteristic that all these students have in common is the need and desire to learn English. However, even in this area they have very diverse experiences, especiallyrelated to the learning of English grammar. Here are examples of two students from the same class. Chao Yang had almost no formal education in his country, Laos; in fact, he has never studied his native Hmong language in written form. In the United States he has picked up basic conversational English at his job, but his writing skills are very weak. All grammar terminology is foreign to him. SoniaRachinsky is a nuclear scientist from Russia who studied English in her own country with the grammar-translation method. She has a good understanding of the verb tenses and loves grammar exercises, but she has trouble expressing herself in everyday conversation. She doesn’t feel she is learning English unless the teacher explains the rules of grammar. The goal of this booklet is to help teachersdevelop and deliver grammar lessons that are effective and relevant with a range of students: those with as little grammar background as Chao’s or as much as Sonia’s, as well as all those students who fall somewhere between these two extremes. The first three chapters explore the role of grammar in adult ESL and propose an eclectic approach to teaching grammar that encompasses selected elements from avariety of earlier approaches to language teaching. We look at factors that determine the grammar our adult learners need and at characteristics of language that affect the selection of grammar to teach. Chapters 4 to 6 describe three stages of a grammar lesson, with an emphasis on oral communication: presentation, guided practice, and communicative practice. In addition to defining the purpose ofeach stage and the teacher’s role, these chapters offer a sample of activities appropriate to the respective stages. Introduction 1

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The Role of Grammar in Adult ESL

Most practitioners in the field of adult ESL agree that it is important to teach grammar. But what is grammar? Do we all mean the same thing when we use this word? The answer, of course, is no. At different times during...