Grammar for advanced learnersGrammar for advanced learners

ByJulio Vangel Pérez

Advanced studentsThe American Council on the Teaching of Foreign languages (1986) provides us with

a list of abilities advanced students might be expected to do in speaking:

• Able to satisfy the requirements of everyday situations and routine school and work requirements.

• Can handle with confidence, but not with facility, complicated tasks and social situations, such as elaborating, complaining and apologizing.

• Can narrate and describe with some detail, linking sentences together smoothly.

• Can communicate facts and talk casually about topics of current public and personal interest, using general vocabulary.

• Can be understood without difficulty by native interlocutors.

Advanced syllabusAdvanced students rightly feel that they are now fairly high-level learners of

English and are ready to push on to become very proficient users of the language.

Advanced students need: ● to review their knowledge of main grammatical structures.

● to learn more sophisticated grammatical structures.

● opportunities to use their instinct.

When extending students’ knowledge of grammar, it is important to build on what they already know. Grammar presentations often should begin with a review, so that they can check what they know, with this students who are having trouble grammar rules can be provided with exercises for further practice.

Advanced syllabus

• Present Perfect Continuous

• Modals-Obligation(Must/Have to/Should)

• Third Conditional

• Phrasal Verbs

• Past Perfect Continuous

• Adverbial Clauses

Advanced syllabusGrammar Structure/form Meaning Function Sample

Present Perfect Continuous

has/have + been +verb+ing.

Present Perfect Continuous is used for Actions that started in the past and continue in the present, as well for actions that have recently stopped.

Retelling past actions, emphasizing time.

He has been painting the house for 5 hours.

Look at her eyes! I'm sure she has been crying.

Modals Must/Have to/Should These type of modals demonstrate necessity, obligation and even prohibition

Express Obligation.

Show Necessity

Mike has to make up the assignments he missed.

I must call my parents tonight.

I should renew my driver’s license.

Third Conditional(If+past perfect,)[would have+past participle]

Use the third conditional to talk about an Impossible past situation that did not happen.

Hypothesizing. If I had bought a lottery ticket, I would have won it.

If it had rained yesterday, what would you have done?

Phrasal Verbs Made up

Calm down

Check out

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition or adverb which creates a meaning different from the original verb.

Provide Detail. I made up that story.Calm down your making me nervous!Check out on line 4 please.

Advanced syllabus

Grammar Structure/form Meaning Function Sample

Past Perfect Continuous

Had+been+verb+ing

* The past Perfect is the same for all persons.

The past perfect continuous tense is like the past perfect tense, but it expresses longer actions in the past before another action in the past.

Relating past events to other past events.

John was very tired. He had been running.

I could smell cigarettes. Somebody had been smoking.

Adverbial Clauses When, Before, After, Until, etc.

An adverbial clause is a clause that has an adverb-like function in modifying another clause.

Providing additional/qualifying information.

I was driving when I had an accident on the highway.

After you finish running, take a short break.

From start to finishGrammar Items ExamplesArticles

Nouns and Compounds The tiny kitchen of our friendly neighbors.

Organizing Information There is-was/There are-were.

Tenses: I do, I am doing, I have done, I have been doing. I did, I was doing, I had done, I had been doing.

Tenses: I will do, I’m going to do, I will be doing, I will have been doing.

Linking Verbs Be, get, seems, become.

Quantifiers:

Relative Clauses My brother, who is only six, can speak 4 languages. I don’t like the table that stands on the kitchen.

Modals

Adverbs and Conjunctions

Prepositions Up, down ,next to, in between, along from, thought, during, except.

Passives: It was done, it has been done, it had been done, It will be done.

From start to finishGrammar Items ExamplesArticles An Important Meeting, A useful career, The Faculty of Languages.

Nouns and Compounds The tiny kitchen of our friendly neighbors.

Organizing Information There is-was/There are-were.

Tenses: Present Simple, Continuous, Present perfect and continuous. Past Simple, Continuous, Past perfect and continuous.

I do, I am doing, I have done, I have been doing. I did, I was doing, I had done, I had been doing.

Tenses: Future-will, going to, future continuous, future perfect continuous.

I will do, I’m going to do, I will be doing, I will have been doing.

Linking Verbs Be, get, seems, become.

Quantifiers: Some, any, much, many. Some people are missing , I don’t have any food left. She has many friends. I didn’t have much money left

Relative Clauses My brother, who is only six, can speak 4 languages. I don’t like the table that stands on the kitchen.

Modals Should vs ought to, will and would, may and might, can, could, be able to, must, have to.

Adverbs and Conjunctions Yesterday, slowly, here, there, but, although, in spite of.

Prepositions Up, down ,next to, in between, along from, thought, during, except.

Passives: Past, Perfect and future It was done, it has been done, it had been done, It will be done.

Principles for teaching grammar to advanced learners

• 1. Identify relationships between grammar and discourse.

• 2.Explore differences between spoken and written English.

• 3. Systematic exposure to authentic language data.

Tasks and materials

• Projects

• Values Clarification

• Sentence Sequencing

Assessing Advanced learnersLevel Grammatical

AccuracyFluency

Beginning Can use simple structures correctly, but still systematically makes some mistakes.

Can keep going comprehensibly, even though pausing for grammatical and lexical planning repair is very evident, especially in longer stretches of free production.

Intermediate Does not make mistakes that lead to misunderstanding; errors occur, but it is clear what he/she is trying to express

Can produce stretches of language with a fairly even tempo, although he/she can be hesitant as he or she searches for patterns and expressions. There are few noticeable long pauses.

Advanced Good grammatical control; occasional slips or non-systematic errors and minor flaws in sentence structure may still occur, but they are rare and can often be corrected in retrospect.

Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly, although a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a smooth flow of language.

Skehan, 1998, A cognitive approach to Language Teaching.