unit 5: grammar and vocabulary unit 5 - · pdf fileunit 5 grammar and vocabulary practice...

UNIT 5: GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

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Unit 5

Grammar and vocabulary

Have a look at the cartoon. Recapitulate how grammar and vocabulary were taught in your own school days. Discuss the place the teaching of grammar and vocabulary should have in the foreign language classroom and how it should be taught.

STUDY QUESTION: BOOK PAGE 90

Sample Student Answers

Grammar and vocabulary were taught in many different ways

Vocabulary: learning lists from a text book, word-searches (given a word in English, finding the German word in the word-search and vice versa), underlining unknown words in texts and finding the translation at home, etc.

Grammar was mostly learnt from teachers' explanations and textbooks, but also from activities and exercises to do at home

In foreign language learning, vocabulary should be of more importance than grammar - with vocabulary, one can mostly be understood, even with bad grammar, but it doesn’t work with grammar only and no vocabulary

Certain grammatical features should of course be taught from the start to provide clarity to the learner, but more complicated and less often used grammatical structures can be left until later


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Unit 5


Recapitulate and reflect on what has been stated in this section about (1) processability and teachability, (2) Interlanguage theory, and (3) learner errors.



Teachability:

Teachability is constrained by processability

Processability:

A developmental path with predictable stages of acquisition

Six stages (1 = beginner, 6 = advanced) 1. Word/lemma 2. Category procedure 3. Phrasal procedure 4. Verb phrase procedure 5. Sentence procedure 6. Subordinate clause procedure

No stage can be skipped

Must master one stage before moving to next

Each stage is more difficult

Cannot be altered or sped up by classroom instruction

Interlanguage Theory:

Result from five cognitive processes:

1. Language transfer 2. Transfer-of-training 3. Strategies of L2 learning 4. Strategies of L2 communication 5. Overgeneralization of FL linguistic material

Learner errors:

A natural part of SLA

Errors indicate the developmental stage

Learners will benefit from instruction and material that

exposes them to “structures from ‘the next stage’”

Variational mistakes are less relevant


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Unit 5


Look at current textbooks and discuss how grammar is presented in them.



(Green Line 2) In this book, whole pages are allocated to grammar and grammatical constructions

Grammar is presented clearly and step by step with multiple types of exercises, such as gap-filling, identifying word groups, finding or using the correct forms, etc.

A lot of space is dedicated to grammar, but there are still more opportunities to build vocabulary with lists, word clouds, puzzles, etc.; new vocabulary is also used in the grammar sections

Grammar sections are re-capped in the ‘check-out’ section of the book, where there are, again, numerous different activities and questions for further practice

UNIT 2: CHALLENGES OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION

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Unit 5


Discuss possible advantages and disadvantages of these three approaches to grammar teaching. Consider, for example, (1) the relation between meaning and form, (2) the explicitness/implicitness of the approach, (3) the time and material needed.



Focus on form Form is of the first importance because it shapes meaning

This approach moves from implicit to explicit teaching, helping students to notice grammatical features through implicit recasts or explicit feedback

Proactive FonF uses material that repeats or enhances the required form, reactive FonF deals with grammar after communication: time is always devoted to learning form

Task-based Language Teaching

Meaning is more important than form

Tasks and materials should refer to the real world and require problem solution skills

Group tasks tend to take a little longer than pair/individual tasks

Useful forms may be introduced in the pre-task or reviewed in the post-task phase – but only if need be in order to have time for tasks

Acquisition-based method

The form is introduced in meaningful context

Proceeding moves from implicit presentation to explicit reflection

The discovery of grammatical rules on the part of the students may take more time than the teacher's explanation


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Unit 5


With your knowledge about word retrieval, the organization of the mental lexicon, and the relation between the L1 and L2 lexicons, explain what went wrong in the following utterances: 1. ‘He hit me so hardly that it gave me a black eye.’ 2. ‘I love to color eggs for Christmas.’ 3. ‘The accident I witnessed yesterday was torrible.’



1. 'He hit me so hardly that it gave me a black eye': the adverb ‘hardly’ has been mistakenly used in place of the correct adjective ‘hard’

2. 'I love to color eggs for Christmas': the festivities of Christmas and Easter have been mixed up. Though both are to celebrate the same personality, they celebrate different events

'The accident I witnessed yesterday was horrible': the organization of the mental lexicon according to similar sounds and meanings has led to mixing the words ‘terrible’ and ‘horrible’


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Unit 5


Have a look at the vocabulary file in a current textbook and assess according to which principle(s) lexical selection has been made. Discuss your findings.



The vocabulary file has been chosen according to the ‘selection of key words and phrases in thematic areas required for the achievement of communicative tasks relevant to learner needs’

Relevant to the topic of each chapter, the vocabulary lists reflect the important aspects of that topic, words which can be of good use when discussing said topic

From time to time, a selection of ‘authentic’ texts is used to teach a selection of words important to the topic

Occasionally, with topics such as Australia, key words and phrases used in that culture are also included, demonstrating cultural differences in values and beliefs


Unit 5


Practice presentation. How would you introduce and explain the following words/word fields: 1. to shout (verb) 2. tall (adjective) 3. handy (adjective) 4. vegetables (word field) 5. hobbies (word field) 6. hurricane (noun) 7. global warming (noun)



To shout: speak loudly or shout to demonstrate the verb

Tall: choose tall and short learners in the class to stand up and compare, or teacher and students

Handy: explain the false friend, but use it as an example - ‘Ein Handy ist praktisch’ 'handy' means ‘praktisch’

Vegetables: bring in a few vegetables to show, compare to the familiar ‘Gemüse’

Hobbies: talk about own hobbies, ask students about their hobbies

Hurricane: use examples of famous hurricanes (Hurricane Katrina)

Global Warming: talk about temperatures rising around the world and the consequences


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Unit 5


From the activities listed above (pp. 109-111), choose three that you like most and three you do not like. Discuss the choices made and your reasons. Collect more activities for motivating vocabulary lessons.



Like:

False-friends can be very entertaining, and with the added humor, are easily memorable

Word cards: a traditional and successful method of learning, can be used at home and at school, alone or in groups, simply learning or integrated into a game

Extensive reading of FL texts: one of the better ways to subconsciously acquire vocab and constructions in context, whilst being immersed in a good read

Dislike:

Structuring vocabulary: sometimes useful, but often becomes very tiring and boring when trying to further extend the connections

Guessing the category: can be useful for more advanced learners, but can become frustrating for beginners who struggle to understand many of the words on the list

Word clouds: a fun activity for many students, especially if they are allowed to produce one on the computer themselves, but more focus on the construction of the word cloud, i.e. which word should go in which place, rather than the meaning of words

unit 5: grammar and vocabulary unit 5 - · pdf fileunit 5 grammar and vocabulary practice...

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