Core Practice #4 |
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link to original
Wow! It’s been a year since I last had time to write. I didn’t do much school work over the summer, but I did a lot of traveling and attending conferences. I can’t seem to learn enough!
In July I attended LILL 2016 in Skokie, Illinois with other participants from last year’s conference. I was good to meet up with friends and make some new ones! This year’s theme was centered on leadership and the next steps for LILL and the Core Practices. We’ll have to wait and see what ACTFL and the other organizations come up with. Some of you may be LILL participants in the future!
Yesterday I received this message from a colleague: “Ok - spill the beans. How can I teach the kids grammar without having to teach the kids gal darn grammar?????” What a timely message to me as I work on the Core Practice that is one of the biggest challenges to world language teachers.
So, on to Core Practice 4- Grammar. (I have to mention that I have the Core Practices numbered according to how they were presented to us last year at LILL 2015. I did notice this year that they’ve switched them up on several yet-to-be-released documents.) The Core Practice concerning grammar is this: “Teach grammar as concept and use in context. Understand the various approaches to grammar instruction and how to select one over the other.” (Glisan, 2015) In a soon-to-be-published ACTFL publication on the Core Practices for World Language Learning it’s defined as “Teach grammar as a concept and use in context. Students focus on meaning BEFORE form.”
Now, before I continue, I want to be clear. Grammar is one of those things that world language teachers are very attached to. Several teachers I talked with about this practice were very defensive about their practice. Everyone has an opinion...and they are all right! However, let me say that the Core Practice I am about to explain is best practice for language proficiency. It will prepare students to use the language, rather than just knowing about the language. It has taken me a long time to write this because, though I wasn’t completely stuck in my ways, I had a hard time putting this into practice and wrapping my head around it. I’m still no expert, but I have improved greatly!
Many teachers approach grammar in a similar way. Often there is a “grammar point of the day”, or a textbook-, teacher-based explanation of the grammar point that is presented first and then activities are done. This is the deductive approach. Wong and VanPatten have this to say about it: “ This approach seldom results in learners being able to USE the grammatical structures to convey meaning.” (2003) The grammar point isn’t always practiced in context and, as a result, students have a difficult time applying it as they use the language they have. This is also a bottom-up approach, starting with an explanation (mechanical), making meaning of the grammar point (meaningful), and then applying it, sometimes in a communicative manner (communicative). (Paulston, 1972)
So, how can we teach grammar without teaching grammar to compliment our students’ path to proficiency? Think back. When most of us think of grammar in English, we think of freshman English class, in which they read Romeo and Juliet and did a lot of grammar exercises. Grammar lessons and exercises are part of learning grammar. However, the best example of acquiring grammar in an effective way is to think about how a native English speaker acquired grammar.
The inductive approach to grammar mirrors how native speakers learn. The learner is exposed to the language over and over, and the learner finds patterns and determines their own understanding of the rule. They then use this new skill, not always correctly, to create meaningful communication in an engaging way. We have all the heard the little kid who tells his mother what he “ated” that day or where he “goed”. Yes? Same thing. The child is using the pattern incorrectly, but meaning is still there. He will learn! However, Adair-Hauck warns us that a “purely inductive approach does not guarantee that learners develop accurate understandings about language concepts”. (1993)
So, these approached are all good and nice.
BUT HOW DO I DO TEACH GRAMMAR!?
One of the ways that you can effectively teach grammar (without teaching the grammar point) is by using the PACE Model developed by Bonnie Adair-Hauck, Ph.D. and Richard Donato, Ph.D. (2016). This incorporates the best of the deductive and inductive approach. PACE stands for:
Presentation of Meaningful Language
Attention
Co-Construction
Extension Activities
1. Presentation of Meaningful Language: This first step is where your authentic resources come in! Based on your theme for that unit, you can use a video clip, story, commercial, article, etc. The idea is that it is authentic and it has sufficient representation of the grammar point for students to find a pattern. Once the resource is selected, students should make meaning from pre-, during, and post-reading/listening activities.
Example 1: Let’s say you are doing a unit on food waste and you find a 30 second commercial on youtube that uses the imperative verb form. Your activity might be set up like this:
8. Go over the details found and have students reflect on their comprehension and/or strategies used. (I usually ask students one thing that they were successful at and one the need to improve.) **Note that your involvement can be very limited here. The students are doing all the work until the end.
Example 2: For a text, I might use an infographic about laughing from a unit about health. The grammar point in this infographic is gerunds (while reading, while working, etc.). This takes some preparation for the teacher, too, but with practice it takes less time. I use the IPA Interpretive Task format for this as well.
2. Attention: During this step the teacher must call attention to the grammar points that are being taught. The teacher should pull out sentences from the text, video, etc that illustrate the grammar point, and the teacher will guide the students in finding the pattern. Initially, the students may focus on previously learned structures. It’s important to recognize these successes, but continue steering students toward the pattern you want them to find. For example, if the focus is past tense verbs, they may notice the endings. But before that, they might notice the pronouns, helping verb, articles, adjective agreement. You name it. Keep going! Let’s return to my examples to illustrate this.
Example 1: For this step, the teacher should pull out several sentences from the video to use to show the students examples of the grammar point. Because I want to teach the command form, I would pick out things like: Arrêtez!, Recyclez, Triez, etc. (Hopefully they will be in sentences, but for the sake of the example, I’m not going to limit the grammar point for our non-French speaker friends.) At first, some students might recognize this as the present tense. Oui! It is, but so much more! Then they may see the -ez at the ends of words. They may see that the pronoun “vous” is absent.
Example 2: For the infographic on laughing, I would pull out the following:
“en libérant l’enfant qui est en vous”
“en boostant son sens de l’humeur”
“en libérant la dopamine”
Initially I’ll ask students what they see and the results will vary. They might talk about how weird it is to see the word boost made into a French word, the use of other cognates, or something about a child. Eventually, someone will notice that they all begin with “en” followed by a verb with -ant at the end.
3. Co-Construction: During this step of the PACE Model, teachers should do two things: 1-help students make meaning of the structure and 2- help them construct a rule for how it’s formed. An example of giving meaning is: “The imperative form is used to give a command.” Now, I probably won’t explicitly say what it is used for. I might have students follow some TPR first, using lots of gestures and movement, and then have them figure out what the verbs mean. An example of helping students construct rules for formation is: The present tense of the verb is used for tu and vous, but like English, the tu and vous are dropped from the sentence. Again, I may not explicitly tell them this. Instead, I might have examples of the words I used in the TPR activity written on the board for them to make connections to the present tense. Let’s use the same examples to show what I might do.
Example 1: For the commercial on food waste, I would do exactly as I explained above. :)
Example 2: For the text and learning about gerunds, I would give a variety of examples and even have students act out those examples. And honestly? The sillier the better.
Lucien joue au tennis en jouant Pokémon Go.
Sanura mange un taco en chantant “Papaoutai”.
Thierry se lave les mains en se brossant les dents.
As the students begin to make meaning, their brains will naturally look for a pattern. (I always tell students that French is just like math. Sometimes there are patterns and orders of operation. It puts those who see themselves as the math-science types at ease a bit. Anyone can do language!) Based on the examples that were acted out in class, I would have students determine what the rule is for using gerunds. We might create some creative sentences together to practice.
**Side note: In order to really build proficiency, especially at the lower levels, it’s best not to explicitly teach grammar, rather use lots of examples and discussion to teach it. However, at the upper levels, grammar may be taught explicitly, as concepts can be quite abstract.
4. Extension Activities: This is the part of the PACE Model where students cement the concept into their brains! Students should be engaged in using the grammar point in a meaningful context. Avoid textbook communication activities and worksheets here. This is the perfect time, in my opinion, to implement an interpersonal task and then, like in an IPA, a presentational task. My favorite interpersonal task is the student-student interview. Once that is complete and the students record data about each other, I have them complete a presentation task in which they synthesize the information from the authentic resource, their own experiences, and the interview with their partner.
Example 1: For an interpersonal task based on the commercial, I would have students interview each other to determine if they do or do not do the things in the video. I would generally shoot for about 10-12 questions. Make sure the questions make the students stretch their language ability! And because you are asking them to stretch their ability, provide them with some sentence starters or phrases that can be use. Some sample questions might be:
Do you recycle? Why or why not?
Do you sort your recyclables? Why or why not?
Do you save your leftovers? Why or why not?
After completing the interview, students must do something with the information they gathered. So, ask students to write a note to their partner using the imperative. They should encourage their partner to not waste food and contribute to saving the environment. They should include some reasons for their commands as well. Example:
Sort your recycling! It’s good for the environment.
Don’t throw away leftovers! The food is still good.
Another silly, but fun example of an activity using the imperative is to have students create a chain-reaction using imperative commands. Each student creates a command and writes down the phrase:
When someone ___________, [command].
All the teacher has to do is check the imperative forms and create the chain. If student A wrote “sing the national anthem” and student B wrote “turn around three times”, the sheet will say:
When someone sings the national anthem, turn around three times.
The next command will start with the last command.
When someone turns around three times, [command].
The results are very fun and students enjoy mixing up the cards and doing it several times while trying to beat the time from a previous attempt.
Example 2: Going back to the health unit, I would put together another interview activity that asks students about healthy habits.
Do you eat while studying?
Do you use your phone while eating a meal?
After the interview, the next task would be to synthesize everything the student learned from the text, from their partner, and from their experiences and create a poster to promote healthy habits for their school during finals week. I would have them create 8-10 healthy habits and tell others what to do or not do while performing everyday activities.
Take-aways
Questions for self-reflection
References
Adair-Hauck, B. (1993). A descriptive analysis of whole language/guided participatory versus explicit teaching strategies in foreign language instruction (Doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
Adair-Hauck, B., & Donato, R. (2016), PACE: A story-based approach for dialogic inquiry about form and meaning, In Shrum & Glisan, Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction.
Glisan, E. (2015). Leadership Initiative for Language Learning [PowerPoint presentation]. Columbus, OH.
Paulston, C. B. (1972). Structural pattern drills: A classification. In H. Allen & R. Campbell (Eds.) Teaching English as a second language (pp. 129-138). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. 4th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Wong, W., & VanPatten, B. (2003). The evidence is IN: Drills are OUT. Foreign Language Annals, 36. 403-424.
http://www.bloghoptoys.fr/bienfaits-rire-gif
Wow! It’s been a year since I last had time to write. I didn’t do much school work over the summer, but I did a lot of traveling and attending conferences. I can’t seem to learn enough!
In July I attended LILL 2016 in Skokie, Illinois with other participants from last year’s conference. I was good to meet up with friends and make some new ones! This year’s theme was centered on leadership and the next steps for LILL and the Core Practices. We’ll have to wait and see what ACTFL and the other organizations come up with. Some of you may be LILL participants in the future!
Yesterday I received this message from a colleague: “Ok - spill the beans. How can I teach the kids grammar without having to teach the kids gal darn grammar?????” What a timely message to me as I work on the Core Practice that is one of the biggest challenges to world language teachers.
So, on to Core Practice 4- Grammar. (I have to mention that I have the Core Practices numbered according to how they were presented to us last year at LILL 2015. I did notice this year that they’ve switched them up on several yet-to-be-released documents.) The Core Practice concerning grammar is this: “Teach grammar as concept and use in context. Understand the various approaches to grammar instruction and how to select one over the other.” (Glisan, 2015) In a soon-to-be-published ACTFL publication on the Core Practices for World Language Learning it’s defined as “Teach grammar as a concept and use in context. Students focus on meaning BEFORE form.”
Now, before I continue, I want to be clear. Grammar is one of those things that world language teachers are very attached to. Several teachers I talked with about this practice were very defensive about their practice. Everyone has an opinion...and they are all right! However, let me say that the Core Practice I am about to explain is best practice for language proficiency. It will prepare students to use the language, rather than just knowing about the language. It has taken me a long time to write this because, though I wasn’t completely stuck in my ways, I had a hard time putting this into practice and wrapping my head around it. I’m still no expert, but I have improved greatly!
Many teachers approach grammar in a similar way. Often there is a “grammar point of the day”, or a textbook-, teacher-based explanation of the grammar point that is presented first and then activities are done. This is the deductive approach. Wong and VanPatten have this to say about it: “ This approach seldom results in learners being able to USE the grammatical structures to convey meaning.” (2003) The grammar point isn’t always practiced in context and, as a result, students have a difficult time applying it as they use the language they have. This is also a bottom-up approach, starting with an explanation (mechanical), making meaning of the grammar point (meaningful), and then applying it, sometimes in a communicative manner (communicative). (Paulston, 1972)
So, how can we teach grammar without teaching grammar to compliment our students’ path to proficiency? Think back. When most of us think of grammar in English, we think of freshman English class, in which they read Romeo and Juliet and did a lot of grammar exercises. Grammar lessons and exercises are part of learning grammar. However, the best example of acquiring grammar in an effective way is to think about how a native English speaker acquired grammar.
The inductive approach to grammar mirrors how native speakers learn. The learner is exposed to the language over and over, and the learner finds patterns and determines their own understanding of the rule. They then use this new skill, not always correctly, to create meaningful communication in an engaging way. We have all the heard the little kid who tells his mother what he “ated” that day or where he “goed”. Yes? Same thing. The child is using the pattern incorrectly, but meaning is still there. He will learn! However, Adair-Hauck warns us that a “purely inductive approach does not guarantee that learners develop accurate understandings about language concepts”. (1993)
So, these approached are all good and nice.
BUT HOW DO I DO TEACH GRAMMAR!?
One of the ways that you can effectively teach grammar (without teaching the grammar point) is by using the PACE Model developed by Bonnie Adair-Hauck, Ph.D. and Richard Donato, Ph.D. (2016). This incorporates the best of the deductive and inductive approach. PACE stands for:
Presentation of Meaningful Language
Attention
Co-Construction
Extension Activities
1. Presentation of Meaningful Language: This first step is where your authentic resources come in! Based on your theme for that unit, you can use a video clip, story, commercial, article, etc. The idea is that it is authentic and it has sufficient representation of the grammar point for students to find a pattern. Once the resource is selected, students should make meaning from pre-, during, and post-reading/listening activities.
Example 1: Let’s say you are doing a unit on food waste and you find a 30 second commercial on youtube that uses the imperative verb form. Your activity might be set up like this:
- First, students make a prediction about the subject of the video based on the title and initial picture.
- Next, the students listen to the video and write down words that they understood.
- Then, students share their list of words with a partner/small group, then write down their partner’s/small group members’ words.
- After sharing words, the students listen again and write down additional words. This time, the entire class shares words that they heard.
- Before watching the video, students go back to their prediction and make adjustments to it based on the words they heard.
- Students then watch the video and determine the main idea of the commercial with visual support.
- Finally, students should watch one more time, this time determining whether details are in the commercial and what those details are. (This requires more preparation on the teacher’s part. I use a format similar to the Supporting Details section of the IPA Interpretive Task.)
- Check the detail that is mentioned in the commercial.
- If the detail is mentioned, write the detail you hear.
8. Go over the details found and have students reflect on their comprehension and/or strategies used. (I usually ask students one thing that they were successful at and one the need to improve.) **Note that your involvement can be very limited here. The students are doing all the work until the end.
Example 2: For a text, I might use an infographic about laughing from a unit about health. The grammar point in this infographic is gerunds (while reading, while working, etc.). This takes some preparation for the teacher, too, but with practice it takes less time. I use the IPA Interpretive Task format for this as well.
- The first task is Key Word Recognition. Students will find the French term in the infographic for the English terms given. (For more proficient students, you might give them a French definition instead of an English word or phrase.)
- Then, students will determine the main idea based on the keywords and skimming the infographic.
- The next step is to determine if supporting details are in the text and then providing those details.
- Then students might determine the organizational features with justification from the text, determine meaning from context for words that are unfamiliar, make inferences from the text, identify author’s perspective, compare cultural perspectives, and give their personal reaction to the text.
2. Attention: During this step the teacher must call attention to the grammar points that are being taught. The teacher should pull out sentences from the text, video, etc that illustrate the grammar point, and the teacher will guide the students in finding the pattern. Initially, the students may focus on previously learned structures. It’s important to recognize these successes, but continue steering students toward the pattern you want them to find. For example, if the focus is past tense verbs, they may notice the endings. But before that, they might notice the pronouns, helping verb, articles, adjective agreement. You name it. Keep going! Let’s return to my examples to illustrate this.
Example 1: For this step, the teacher should pull out several sentences from the video to use to show the students examples of the grammar point. Because I want to teach the command form, I would pick out things like: Arrêtez!, Recyclez, Triez, etc. (Hopefully they will be in sentences, but for the sake of the example, I’m not going to limit the grammar point for our non-French speaker friends.) At first, some students might recognize this as the present tense. Oui! It is, but so much more! Then they may see the -ez at the ends of words. They may see that the pronoun “vous” is absent.
Example 2: For the infographic on laughing, I would pull out the following:
“en libérant l’enfant qui est en vous”
“en boostant son sens de l’humeur”
“en libérant la dopamine”
Initially I’ll ask students what they see and the results will vary. They might talk about how weird it is to see the word boost made into a French word, the use of other cognates, or something about a child. Eventually, someone will notice that they all begin with “en” followed by a verb with -ant at the end.
3. Co-Construction: During this step of the PACE Model, teachers should do two things: 1-help students make meaning of the structure and 2- help them construct a rule for how it’s formed. An example of giving meaning is: “The imperative form is used to give a command.” Now, I probably won’t explicitly say what it is used for. I might have students follow some TPR first, using lots of gestures and movement, and then have them figure out what the verbs mean. An example of helping students construct rules for formation is: The present tense of the verb is used for tu and vous, but like English, the tu and vous are dropped from the sentence. Again, I may not explicitly tell them this. Instead, I might have examples of the words I used in the TPR activity written on the board for them to make connections to the present tense. Let’s use the same examples to show what I might do.
Example 1: For the commercial on food waste, I would do exactly as I explained above. :)
Example 2: For the text and learning about gerunds, I would give a variety of examples and even have students act out those examples. And honestly? The sillier the better.
Lucien joue au tennis en jouant Pokémon Go.
Sanura mange un taco en chantant “Papaoutai”.
Thierry se lave les mains en se brossant les dents.
As the students begin to make meaning, their brains will naturally look for a pattern. (I always tell students that French is just like math. Sometimes there are patterns and orders of operation. It puts those who see themselves as the math-science types at ease a bit. Anyone can do language!) Based on the examples that were acted out in class, I would have students determine what the rule is for using gerunds. We might create some creative sentences together to practice.
**Side note: In order to really build proficiency, especially at the lower levels, it’s best not to explicitly teach grammar, rather use lots of examples and discussion to teach it. However, at the upper levels, grammar may be taught explicitly, as concepts can be quite abstract.
4. Extension Activities: This is the part of the PACE Model where students cement the concept into their brains! Students should be engaged in using the grammar point in a meaningful context. Avoid textbook communication activities and worksheets here. This is the perfect time, in my opinion, to implement an interpersonal task and then, like in an IPA, a presentational task. My favorite interpersonal task is the student-student interview. Once that is complete and the students record data about each other, I have them complete a presentation task in which they synthesize the information from the authentic resource, their own experiences, and the interview with their partner.
Example 1: For an interpersonal task based on the commercial, I would have students interview each other to determine if they do or do not do the things in the video. I would generally shoot for about 10-12 questions. Make sure the questions make the students stretch their language ability! And because you are asking them to stretch their ability, provide them with some sentence starters or phrases that can be use. Some sample questions might be:
Do you recycle? Why or why not?
Do you sort your recyclables? Why or why not?
Do you save your leftovers? Why or why not?
After completing the interview, students must do something with the information they gathered. So, ask students to write a note to their partner using the imperative. They should encourage their partner to not waste food and contribute to saving the environment. They should include some reasons for their commands as well. Example:
Sort your recycling! It’s good for the environment.
Don’t throw away leftovers! The food is still good.
Another silly, but fun example of an activity using the imperative is to have students create a chain-reaction using imperative commands. Each student creates a command and writes down the phrase:
When someone ___________, [command].
All the teacher has to do is check the imperative forms and create the chain. If student A wrote “sing the national anthem” and student B wrote “turn around three times”, the sheet will say:
When someone sings the national anthem, turn around three times.
The next command will start with the last command.
When someone turns around three times, [command].
The results are very fun and students enjoy mixing up the cards and doing it several times while trying to beat the time from a previous attempt.
Example 2: Going back to the health unit, I would put together another interview activity that asks students about healthy habits.
Do you eat while studying?
Do you use your phone while eating a meal?
After the interview, the next task would be to synthesize everything the student learned from the text, from their partner, and from their experiences and create a poster to promote healthy habits for their school during finals week. I would have them create 8-10 healthy habits and tell others what to do or not do while performing everyday activities.
Take-aways
- No matter how you teach grammar, you are not doing it wrong. BUT to increase proficiency, students need to first experience the grammar and then learn about it.
- Using the PACE Model will change the way you teach grammar by incorporating more authentic resources for the theme you are teaching.
- Though it requires a lot of preparation up-front, the students are doing all the work! You are able to be their language guide. How cool!
- The PACE Model is similar to how students learned their native language and naturally scaffolds students’ learning of grammar.
- Ideally the grammar point should be in story form and presented to the students by the teacher orally. However, any authentic resource that relates to the theme and has enough examples of the grammar point will do.
- The teacher must call attention to the grammar structure by using examples from the authentic resource.
- The teacher must help the students create meaning for the examples and then work with the students to create a “rule” for the grammar point.
- The teacher must provide meaningful and engaging extension activities to reinforce the grammar point.
- The IPA format works very well for this with some adaptations.
Questions for self-reflection
- How do you teach grammar? Why?
- Are you married to your method for teaching grammar? Can you consider a separation for a while?
- What are some of your favorite authentic resources? What grammar structures do they include?
- What steps can you take to include that resource in a thematic unit and create a PACE lesson to teach that structure?
- Which part of the PACE Model seems most challenging? Why?
- Which part do you think you would have the most success with? Why?
- What are some grammar structures that you teach? What sort of authentic resource could you find that structure in for use with students?
References
Adair-Hauck, B. (1993). A descriptive analysis of whole language/guided participatory versus explicit teaching strategies in foreign language instruction (Doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
Adair-Hauck, B., & Donato, R. (2016), PACE: A story-based approach for dialogic inquiry about form and meaning, In Shrum & Glisan, Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction.
Glisan, E. (2015). Leadership Initiative for Language Learning [PowerPoint presentation]. Columbus, OH.
Paulston, C. B. (1972). Structural pattern drills: A classification. In H. Allen & R. Campbell (Eds.) Teaching English as a second language (pp. 129-138). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. 4th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Wong, W., & VanPatten, B. (2003). The evidence is IN: Drills are OUT. Foreign Language Annals, 36. 403-424.
http://www.bloghoptoys.fr/bienfaits-rire-gif