How To Teach Grammar To ESL Students Effectively

How to teach grammar? Here is the short answer:

 Grammar can be taught implicitly (i.e., without overt explanations) or explicitly (i.e., using deductive or inductive reasoning). Teachers can plan their grammar lessons using the PPP (i.e., Present, Practice, Produce) procedure, the TBI (i.e., Task-Based Instruction), or the DL (i.e., Discovery Learning) approach.

Introduction

This article deals with how to teach grammar effectively. We will start with a definition of grammar and its importance in language teaching. Secondly, we will present five key principles for teaching grammar. Next, we will describe three approaches to grammar teaching, namely, the PPP, the Task-based Instruction (TBI) procedure, and the Discovery Learning (DL) approach.

• PPP – This procedure is grounded on the belief that fluency comes after accuracy. The teacher starts with the presentation of the target language and assigns practice activities. Then, the students are invited to use the learned items in specific situations (i.e., production.)
• DL – This is grounded on the belief that learning occurs through consciousness-raising. That is drawing the students’ attention to recurrent patterns, providing guided activities for them to reflect on, and experimenting with the target language.
• TBI – This is grounded on the belief that by accomplishing a task (i.e. starting with the production stage), the students will encounter opportunities for incidental learning. Working on accuracy comes after the students attempt to do the task.

What is grammar?

Before dealing with how to teach grammar, let us first define what grammar is.

Grammar is a component of language teaching. Larsen-Freeman defines grammar as follows:

“Grammar is a system of meaningful structures and patterns that are governed by particular pragmatic constraints.”

(Larsen-Freeman, 2001)

Teaching grammatical structures does not involve dealing with only the form of the target structures but also their use. It is important to show the link between the structure and its raison d’etre – its purpose. A good language user has knowledge of how to say what to whom and why. The circumstances under which language is used are essential to effective communication. This is a huge leap from the way grammar has been viewed during the pre-Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) period.

This is what led Scott Thornbury to insist that grammar is:

“… a description of the rules for forming sentences, including an account of the meanings that these forms convey”

(Thornbury, 1999, p.13)

Is grammar important?

Some teachers suggest that grammar is not as important as the ability to communicate fluently. They contend that it is not important for students to use correct grammar when they are talking or writing, as long as they are getting their message across. After all, the ultimate aim of language teaching is communication.

Although the above view has some legitimacy (meaning is essential in the flow of communication), I think that explicit grammar teaching is important in developing the ability to communicate effectively. Both fluency and accuracy are equally important.

The ability to get a message across is important. Nevertheless, inaccuracy, even if it may not sometimes affect meaning critically,

• Disappoints the interlocutor and may be discourteous.
• May lower the language user’s self-confidence and self-respect.
• May sometimes cause unclear/confusing discourse.

For these reasons, both fluency and accuracy are equally important in language teaching. The form and the meaning go hand in hand and there is no way to deal with them separately.

Why teach grammar?

Before describing how to teach grammar, it would be interesting to see why we should teach grammar in the first place.

Grammar is crucial to improving meaningful language use. With grammar knowledge, learners construct better sentences when speaking or writing.

Here are four reasons why we should teach grammar:

1. Generative nature of rules.
   With a finite set of rules, students may generate an infinite number of sentences.
2. The meaning fine-tuning potential of grammar.
   Grammar fine-tunes the intended meaning. Compare “I am writing books” with, “I write books“
3. Fossilization risk.
   Inaccurate production may become fossilized if we do not adjust it.
4. Learners’ expectations.
   Learners, especially adults, expect to get instructed using some grammar analysis.

5 key principles of grammar teaching

Teaching grammar is grounded on solid principles of language teaching. In this section, we will present five principles underlying grammar teaching. We will describe these principles based on the following dichotomies:

1. Grammar vs. vocabulary.
2. Grammar vs. context.
3. Fluency vs. accuracy.
4. Implicit vs. explicit grammar teaching.
5. Inductive vs. deductive grammar teaching.

1. Grammar vs. vocabulary

Can we communicate with only vocabulary?

Yes! Let us look at a couple of examples from Scott Thornbury’s book “How To Teach Grammar” (1999).

Example #1

Imagine you are on a train and you hear the ticket inspector shout: “Tickets!”

Do the passengers understand what he wants to say?

Yes, the ticket inspector wants to make sure that all passengers are in possession of the relevant tickets.

It is just a word: tickets! But it makes perfect sense.

Example #2

Here is a conversation between two buddies. They are at home:

A: Coffee?
B: Please.
A; Milk?
A: Just a drop.

As you can see, the conversation is meaningful without much grammar. The context provides clues for understanding the message.

The interlocutors are not using complete sentences. The context offers clues to construct meaning.

It seems that vocabulary knowledge combined with sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence contribute to meaning construction. The more contextual clues are provided, the better we construct meaning with less reliance on grammar.

“…without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed”

– Wilkins (1972)

Principle N° 1:
Vocabulary contributes to meaning. The more context is provided, the clearer the message, and the less grammar is needed.

2. Grammar vs. context

Notice the following utterance:

“It’s cold in here. “

It is just a declarative statement, but imagine it was uttered by, let’s say, a duke and addressed to his butler while the room window is open. The utterance would then have a different meaning. It would be more than a declarative statement. It would function as an order for the servant to close the window.

“When we process language, we are not only trying to make sense of the words and the grammar; we are also trying to infer the speakers’ (or the writer’s) intention, or, to put it another way, the functions of what they are saying and writing.”

Scott Thornbury (1999, p. 6)

Let us illustrate this:

Similar structures may have different functions/meanings.

Utterances	Functions
If you do that, I’ll kill you.	Warning
If you take your pills, you’ll get better.	Advice
If I get the visa, I’ll fly as soon as possible.	Planning
If you finish the job today, I’ll give you two days off.	Promise

As can be seen, the same structure (i.e., conditional type 1) may serve different purposes.

“Grammar is a system of meaningful structures and patterns that are governed by particular pragmatic constraints.”

– Larsen-Freeman, 2001

The use of language is influenced by the context in which it is used. This means that understanding the intended meaning of a single word or phrase in the absence of context is extremely difficult (Thornbury, 1999, p.69.)

Principle N° 2:
To teach grammar effectively, it is important to contextualize the target structures.

3. Fluency vs. accuracy

Accuracy refers to the precision at applying the system while fluency is the automatization of the system.

Which activities should come first in a grammar lesson, accuracy or fluency activities?

Both procedures are possible:

1. The lessons that start with accuracy activities and end up with the fluency tasks follow the PPP (Present, Practice, Produce) procedure. The teacher presents the target structure, devises practice activities, and invites the students to use the structure in the production stage of the lesson. This procedure is traditional.
2. However, the alternative procedure consists of starting with a fluency-oriented task and ending with accuracy-oriented activities. In this type of lesson, the teacher invites the students to use their own linguistic resources to do a task. It is only after the task completion that accuracy activities are introduced. This is like the PPP procedure put upside down (starting with the production stage and ending with the presentation and practice stages). This procedure is also called the deep-end strategy. It is adopted by approaches such as TBI and Dogme.

Principle N° 3
Accuracy and fluency are both equally important in grammar teaching.

4. Implicit vs. explicit grammar teaching

Should grammar teaching be explicit or implicit?

According to Krashen, only comprehensible input is needed for language acquisition. By comprehensible input, he means language that is slightly above the level of the students – what he calls L + 1.

No overt teaching of grammar is necessary according to Krashen.

This view is now discredited and research suggests that the students who are taught grammar explicitly do better than those who are provided only with comprehensible input.

“Acquiring the language through comprehensible input is not enough, teachers should provide activities that promote awareness of grammar.”

Scott Thornbury (1999, p. 24)

By awareness-raising, Scott Thornbury means providing guided discovery activities for students to notice recurrent patterns, make hypotheses about them, and experiment to reach some understanding.

Furthermore, Larsen-Freeman (1991) raises some questions about the claim that says that it is useless to teach grammar structures, that learners will acquire them on their own, or that if the structures are taught explicitly, this will result in boring lessons. She shows that learners who acquire language naturally, without explicit instruction, may achieve a degree of proficiency, but their English is far from accurate.

Principle N° 4
Teach grammar explicitly by guiding SS through awareness-raising activities.

5. Inductive vs. deductive teaching

Both inductive and deductive teaching are used to teach grammar explicitly.

• Deductive grammar teaching starts by providing the rule and then asking the students to apply it and come up with examples that illustrate that rule.
• The inductive teaching procedure, by contrast, starts by providing examples for the students and asking them to draw the rule by themselves.

Both procedures have shown to be effective depending on the profile of the learners. Adults favor deductive teaching because of the analytical skills they have developed. Young learners, however, are less analytical and are less comfortable with grammar rules and abstract concepts.

Principle N° 5
Grammar may be presented using either inductive or deductive reasoning depending on the profile of the learners.

How to teach grammar (3 approaches)

The answer to how to teach grammar involves understanding how people learn.

People learn by being told, by being guided, or by being involved.

Being told: If you want to teach someone how to play tennis, you may explain everything to him concerning tennis: the rules and the techniques. Then, they practice until they gain enough skills to become independent or autonomous players.

The learners in this approach are not active in their learnings. The teacher is the know-all and the role of learners is to do their best to practice and do as they are told.

Being guided: Following the same analogy, the coach may try to guide someone to observe how competent tennis players perform, asking them to notice all the techniques and strategies they use, and taking notes of the different types of shots, the moves, and the serves. They then try to apply this knowledge so that they can appropriate it and use it eventually to become autonomous.

Being involved: another way of teaching someone how to play tennis is just to let them try to play it from the start, adjusting, later, all the inaccuracies in his performance.

Similarly, you can teach grammar using one of these three approaches:

1. Being told: PPP (Present, Practice, Produce)
2. Being guided: DL (Discovery Learning)
3. Being involved: TBI (Task-based Instruction)

PPP (Present, Practice, Produce)

How to teach grammar using the PPP model?

The PPP procedure is the most traditional way of teaching grammar. The lesson starts with the presentation of the target structure and proceeds to the practice stage. This practice stage starts with controlled exercises (e.g., drills, matching, gap filling, etc) and ends up with less controlled tasks such as sentence completion. The last part of the lesson is fluency-based. The students are required to use the target structure in specific situations.

Tips to implement the PPP procedure

Preparation

The preparation starts with a warm-up (especially, at the beginning of the session). This consists of a very short activity that puts the learners into the mood of learning English. This doesn’t have to be related to the grammar point to be taught. For example, you may start with a riddle, a quote, a tong-twister game, etc.

After the warm-up, the lead-in phase prepares the students for the target structure. For example, if the target structure is the present perfect, it will be helpful to review the past participle forms of regular and irregular verbs. This can be done in the form of a matching exercise, a chart filling activity, etc.

Timing: maximum 5 min

Presentation

In the presentation stage, the target structure should be presented within a specific context (e.g., text, conversation, video, an audio file, a situation, etc.) This stage should not take too much time. Present only the necessary aspects of the target language without going into too many details (e.g., don’t elaborate too much on exceptions.)

For example to teach the structure “used to”, you may provide the students with a text or a short video describing what an old retired person used to do when he was young. Then, you may ask them to underline examples of the target structure (i.e., used to + verbs.)

Then you may either:

• Explain the form and use of the structure,
• or let them complete the rules about the use and form of that structure.

Timing: Maximum 15 min

Practice

The Practice stage is meant to familiarize the students with target structures. In this stage, the teacher assigns activities that allow them to practice and get familiarized with the new aspect of the language so that they can automatize its use while receiving minimal and appropriate assistance from the teacher.

Timing: Maximum 15 min

The practice exercises should normally be sequenced from easy to more challenging, from controlled to less controlled. For example, the teacher may start with drills, matching exercises, and gap-filling and end up with more challenging activities such as sentence completion, sentence transformation, etc.

Production

In the production stage, the learners are provided with a context with a well-designed situation in which they will use the target language. Support from the teacher is minimal and TTT (Teacher Talk Time) is reduced to the maximum.

This is stage is focused on fluency-based activities such as:

• Making a hotel reservation.
• Agreeing on the best holiday destination.
• Describing a room.
• Writing an advice letter

Timing: Maximum 15 min

Pros and cons of the PPP model

The advantages of the PPP model

• A PPP lesson is easy to prepare.
• It has a logic that is appealing to both the teacher and learner.
• Knowledge becomes a skill through successive stages of practice.
• PPP helps new teachers build confidence and manage unpredictability more efficiently

The disadvantages of the PPP model

• It assumes that language is learned in an incremental manner (i.e. one bit of grammar at a time)
• It assumes that fluency comes only after mastering accuracy.
• Few opportunities for incidental learning
• Delayed communication may be counterproductive (language develops through communication.)

Discovery Learning

How to teach grammar using discovery learning?

Discovery learning focuses on raising students’ awareness of the target language. Teachers provide a context with examples of a specific grammar point. Next, they draw the students’ attention to notice the recurrent grammar patterns. The students are, then, guided to discover the rules of form and use them by themselves using well-devised guiding activities.

Like the PPP, a Discovery Learning lesson starts with accuracy activities. A context is provided at the beginning which is meant to identify and analyze the target language. It is only after the rules have been discovered that the students do a fluency-based activity.

For example, to teach the difference between since and for (when used with the present perfect), you may provide the students with a table containing information about the year employees joined a specific company:

Name	Date joined	Period
Mrs. Miriam C. Principato	1980	42 years
Mr. Scott A. Chaney	1990	32 years
Mr. Gary M. Broyles	2021 (Aug)	9 months
Mrs. Rosa W. Samuel	2022 (April, 20)	7 days

The teacher, then, provides a text or sentences about these people:

1. Mrs. Miriam C. Principato has been working for her company for most of her life.
2. Mr. Scott A. Chaney has been working for his company since 1990.
3. Mrs. Gary M. Broyles has been working for her company for 9 months.
4. Mr. Rosa W. Samuel has been working for his company since the 20th of April.

Then, the teacher asks the students to complete the following rule:

• For + … (Period)
• Since + … (Time)

After that, the teacher the students do some activities (matching, gap-filling, etc) to practice the target language before inviting them to use it in a less controlled activity (e.g. a class survey about the period of time spent learning English.)

Tips to teach grammar using Discovery learning

Here are some tips to teach grammar using a Discovery Learning approach.

Preparation

Like the PPP procedure, the teacher may start the lesson with a warm-up and a lead-in (see above.)

Timing: Maximum 5 min

Awareness-raising

The aim of awareness-raising is to draw the students’ attention to notice the target structure, make hypotheses about them, and discover the rules by themselves (ideally working in pairs or small groups.)

1. First, the teacher provides a clear context where the structure is used. For example, to teach the past continuous, you may provide a text describing what the members of a family are doing at the time a picture was taken.
2. The teacher invites the students to do a quick comprehension task.
3. The teacher then encourages them to notice the structure (by underlining or circling the target structure)
4. Then, they are given tasks to complete the rules of:
   • Form by completing the rule (e.g., for the simple past of regular verbs: VERB + ….)
   • Use by giving them statements about the use of the structure and asking them to decide on the best statement(s) that describe that structure.

Timing: Maximum 15 min

Appropriation (practice)

Similar to the practice stage in the PP procedure, the appropriation stage in the Discovery Learning approach consists of doing practice exercises (e.g., matching, gap-filling, sentence completion, etc.) to get familiarized with the target structure and automatize its use.

Timing: Maximum 15 min

Production (free use)

The production stage allows students to use the language learned with minimal assistance from the teacher. This is achieved by inviting the students to do a communicative activity that has a specific purpose.

Timing: Maximum 15 min

Pros and cons of Discovery Learning

The advantages of Discovery Learning

• It is an approach that promotes active learning.
• Rules discovered by the students themselves easily fit their mental structures and hence become more memorable because of the effort deployed.
• It is an experiential and natural approach that promotes problem-solving

The disadvantages of Discovery Learning

• The preparation is time and effort-consuming.
• The organization of the data is not an easy task for new teachers.
• Not all grammar rules are easily inferable.
• Discovery learning and inductive reasoning may frustrate the learners who prefer simply to be told the rule.

Task-based Instruction

How to teach grammar using task-based Instruction?

In Task-based Instruction, learners are invited to do a fluency-oriented activity from the onset of the lesson using their own linguistic resources. It is only after the learners have tried to accomplish the task that the teacher introduces accuracy-based activities to adjust learners’ production, focusing on the language they need to work on. What happens as the students complete their task determines the language learned.

When the learners complete the task, the teacher may give them a version of the task done by a native speaker (or a more proficient language user) for the sake of comparison. It is believed that when learners compare their production with that of a proficient speaker, learning opportunities may arise. Some kind of incidental learning may also occur.

Tips to teach grammar using TBI

Here are some tips to teach grammar using the TBI:

(The timing of the different stages depends on the task)

Pre-task

Before starting the task, the teacher introduces the topic and provides clear directions on what the students must accomplish during the task stage.

For Example, the teacher may ask the students to write a blog post to compare iPhone 10 to Samsung Note.

The teacher may also assist the students in reviewing some language that will be necessary for the task (e.g., adjectives that describe mobile phones: big screen, beautiful design, fast phone, high resolution, long battery life, expensive, etc.)

Playing a video of people performing the same task (or providing a similar text by proficient language users) is frequently included in the pre-task stage. This provides learners with a clear picture of what is expected of them.

In this stage, the students may take notes and spend some time preparing for the task.

Task

Some planning may be required before performing the task.

While the teacher supervises and encourages the students, they accomplish the task in pairs or groups using the linguistic resources available to them.

Post task

In the post-task stage, the teacher may show the students how the same task was performed by other proficient language users. They compare their performances and notice the gap between their performance and the one provided to them.

The teacher then encourages the students to highlight and analyze the language that they have to work on (e.g., form and use of comparatives.)

Some practice follows and similar tasks may be assigned again.

As you may have noticed, unlike, the PPP and the DL approach, the accuracy activities are introduced at the end of the lesson. The students are invited to fluency-oriented tasks from the start.

Pros and cons of TBI

Advantages of TBI:

• It is more engaging and motivating.
• It helps the learners to notice the gap between their current knowledge and the desired target language proficiency.
• It increases the chances of incidental learning.
• It offers the learners the opportunity to make meaning for themselves and develop accuracy out of fluency.

Disadvantages of TBI

• It requires a lot of management demands on the part of the teacher.
• There is a lot of unpredictability that might arise from language use.
• The TBI is particularly appropriate for learners who have a basic grounding in grammar and vocabulary.

Conclusion

This article dealt with how to teach grammar. We defined grammar and described 5 principles that underly the major approaches to language teaching.

Grammar is not only about the rules that distinguish correct from incorrect sentences. It is also about how meaningful structures are governed by context. If we want to teach grammar effectively, we must then contextualize the target language. Sometimes, vocabulary can convey meaning without much reliance on grammar, provided that there are enough contextual clues.

Grammar can be taught implicitly (i.e. without overt explanations) or explicitly (i.e. using deductive or inductive reasoning).

Teachers may base their grammar teaching on the PPP model, TBI, or a DL approach. The PPP is grounded on the belief that fluency comes after accuracy. Discovery Learning is grounded, however, on the belief that learning occurs through consciousness-raising (i.e. drawing the students’ attention to recurrent patterns, reflecting on them, and experimenting.) Finally, TBI is grounded on the belief that by accomplishing a task (i.e. starting with the production stage), the SS will encounter opportunities for incidental learning.

References

• Anderson, J. (2005). Mechanically Inclined. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.
• Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching (4th edition.). Longman. Chicago Style Citation. Harmer, Jeremy.
• Krashen, Stephen D. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Prentice-Hall International, 1987.
• Krashen, Stephen D. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Prentice-Hall International, 1988.
• Larsen-Freeman, D., & Long, M. (1991). “An introduction to second language acquisition and research.” London: Longman. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1995). On the teaching and learning of grammar: Challenging the myths. In F. Eckman et al. (Eds.), “Second language acquisition theory and pedagogy.” Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Scrivener, J. (2013). Learning Teaching, Macmillan, Third edition
• Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. Harlow, England: Pearson Education. 282 holdings in WorldCat