11/11/2014

Teach Grammar Through Texts

Language is context-sensitive.
What are advantages and problems of using certain type of texts to teach grammar? Analyze and evaluate at least three text-based Grammar Teaching to discuss the issue.

40 comments:

Sonja Li said...

Using certain type of texts to teach grammar always results in different advantages and problems; accordingly, I analyze and evaluate three text-based presentations to discuss this issue, including stories, songs, and dialogues. These three have been used in my class because the traditional teaching methods cannot promise to attract junior high school students’ attention all the time. The new generations are exposed to lots of science and technology.

The first text-based presentation is story. The advantage is that the structure of the plot is always designed well from exposition to climax, and then to denouement. Therefore, they are fond of hearing all of the stories, from which I can ask them some questions based on my grammar focuses. In other word, we can interact very well by the technique of question and answer or dictation. However, the challenge is that if the texts are too long or too difficult, I will spend too much time in explaining the words and phrases. Moreover, if the genre of the story is categorized as a fiction, it fails to represent real language in reality. In short, it is essential to choose the suitable stories for them to learn.

The second text-based presentation is song. The advantage is that the melodies and tunes are easy to be remembered. Therefore, we can all sing the lyrics or only the refrains with joy and merry. Moreover, I can replay it many times to avoid overusing my vocal cords. Then, when the leave the classroom, they still remember what they have learned from this class. The disadvantage is that the lyrics of songs are too colloquial with slang. In other way, there are not many examples can be used from it when I teaching them certain grammar rules.

The third text-based presentation is dialogue. The texts of a dialogue are shorter than those of a story. Then, they can role play in groups, and then I can assist them and correct their mistakes on grammar or pronunciation. By using the technique of substitution, they can make different sentences to practice the grammar they have learned. At the same time, I can double check whether they use it correctly or not. The problem is that it takes me too much time to create a real situation just like in our daily life. Remember not to repeat the same sentences because this method makes them feel bored and want to nod off in class.

Sonja Li said...

Getting the examples from the lecture, studying the textbook, and then reflecting the experience in class trigger off my ideas. The paper above is shared with everyone.

Sonja

Unknown said...

This is Gary Hsu.
Following the title, using text to teach grammar could also be a way to figured out how a grammar made from. It because a formal text from the foreign will seldom makes grammar mistake, and it will gave some simple example in it when you are looking for some grammar rules. So I think for some certain grammar you would like to figured out, you can find out in magazines or books.

林羽喬Austina yu-ciao Lin said...

Here is Austina,
I think we can learn grammar in everywhere. such as our textbook, magazine and some lyrics.
I think the grammar rules is complected, we can find some intresting books or songs to improve our grammar ability.

Unknown said...

Teaching grammar through texts is an effective and accurate way because you can find many different kind of texts in the market which mean texts are still the primary source of grammar teaching and language teaching.

張伊瑤Elly 598201097 said...

I think there are many ways to learn English grammar, each book or essay you read are with grammar.

Unknown said...

Kimi 598201281
Language is context-sensitive. this means that, in the absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase. this is true of words taken out of the context of sentences. it is also true of sentences taken out of the context of texts. the following sentences are almost meaningless out of contest:
1. The ones that don's, seem to think so.
2. It's a drink

Elsa Nien-yun Kao said...

Grammar is partly the study of what forms or structures are possible in a language. We can find many way to learn grammar such as from textbook or some essay, article. Grammar also description of the rules that how a language's sentences are formed.

Cher Liu said...

We can use different text-based Grammar Teaching to make our teaching more interesting. First, I suggest Dialogues, an easy conversation and close to our life can be used to let our student to understand easier. Second, News can let students to know the things happened recently and truly. Third, the Internet Resource is very convenient and plentiful for us to use any sources from it, but we should use it discreet.

Nancy Hsieh said...

Nancy Hsieh 598202211
In my opinion, teaching grammar through corpus is suitable for inductive learning because students can inferred the grammatical rules from many examples and derives an understanding of the rules. Additionally students can think about relevant grammatical rules actively through the text. The problem of using corpus as teaching material is that teacher should make sure the examples of corpus are accurate and matching with the grammar rules. Selecting novel as text of teaching grammar can enlighten students’ interests on learning grammar particularly the plot of novel is interesting. The difficulty is selection of appropriate novel because teacher should consider the students’ comprehension including reading ability and comprehension of vocabularies. Besides, some of teachers use magazine as text-based grammar teaching. I think that it is good for students because some of articles include many annotations including explanation of grammar structure and vocabularies as notes. Students can learn from annotations and variety of articles but students may feel confused about annotations due to its unclear explanation. In order to solve the problem, teachers should guide student to read the annotations and give clear explanations.

Jill said...

When teaching grammar from text, it is a good idea to engage learners as much as possible by getting them to discover the language and think about what it means, how it is used and how it is formed. Teacher explanations can often be ineffective at doing this because the teacher talks too much and the learners switch off.
It is important that students understand the context of the target grammar because this will help them understand the meaning. It is better to study the meaning of the grammar before looking at the form because examining how something is made without understanding what it means can be frustrating.
Whenever possible, it is worth considering providing a student-centred task to clarify key aspects of grammar: meaning and form. These tasks should guide students to an understanding of the target grammar and should mean the teacher does not need to use long-winded explanation.

Unknown said...

This is Kelly Tsai
I think teacher should teach grammar because some words or some using of special are stable. If we don’t know how to use it with correct, maybe some people don’t know what are you talking about. Writing and oral are very different in sometimes and just like Chinese. Chinese word “的,得”, their pronunciation are some, but they use in different. So I think teacher should teacher grammar. I like the teaching by face to face and teacher can lead us to read or explain contain for us or with us. I think this way is good for us. I think this class is difficult because most of the children are habit to learn alone. Therefore, when I or they teach the class, we don’t know how to teach and make them know all contains. But I think this is a good experience for me because let me know I have to practice and how to teach.

Unknown said...

It's Micky.After watching the whole class preseting context-based grammar teaching, I would like share my opnions with others based on the advantages and problems of context-based teaching.

1. context: story
Our group use a story to teach past tense.
advantage:
a.It's easy to arise students' motivation at the beginning in the class, because everyone likes stories.
b. If the teacher picks the words from the story, the Ss will also be able to remember the verbs in the story easily through acting out or reading aloud.
problems" Due to time constraints, T may not be able to focus the comprehension of the story, because T emphasizes teaching grammar instead of story context.

2. context: Song
advantage: Songs are always a catchy way to learn English, music helps learning.
problem: T should insturct students more clearly and explicitly to apply grammar rules to other usages, or make the learning relevant to other contexts.

I think it's interesting to see everyone teaching grammar through various kinds of contexts. There are pros but cons as well. However, if students drill the grammar rules after learning, that will enhance their understanding in applying the grammar rules.

Unknown said...

This is Zia Lin,
There are good examples for students and the rules they can follow. But using text books is a little bit boring for the students in younger age.

Unknown said...

This is Sharine Wu.
In my opinion, most of the languages share the similarities in grammar teaching systems. That is to say, we all can use at least one language--our mother tongue--we know how to read the text. However, the writing system and the word orders are quite different; that's where the problems cause. So through the texts, we can see how do our students read them and we can help them.

Unknown said...

This is Carrie Cheng. I think the best way for me to learn grammar is through the conversation. For children, I think teach them through pictures, comics, etc. are great ideas. IT is better than just read texts on the textbooks.

Unknown said...

If we use songs, little stories or even news to teach student English, it will be more attractive than using just the teaching to teach English. Using these materials for teaching is more approach to their daily life.

Unknown said...

Grammar it can connect with the word meaning. You can learn in everywhere. For example in the book, movie, and the music. In speaking English, you can express what you want to say but in the writing, you must follow the rules.

Unknown said...

I think teaching grammar through texts is a good way. The first reason is because you can realize what kind of problem your students have. Second, it is the most easy way to know your students English grammar ability.

Unknown said...

I think teaching grammar through texts is a good way. The first reason is because you can realize what kind of problem your students have. Second, it is the most easy way to know your students English grammar ability.

Unknown said...

This is Yoyo.
I think that we have lots of ways to learning English grammar, including textbook, magazine, even newspaper. First, textbook is the easy way to learning English, because it is convenience and it is cheap. Secondly, I think that magazine also is a good way for learning, and you also can get more and more information from other centuries. It can not only help your English but also idea. Thirdly, Newspaper is good material for beginner, because it is more close to our daily life, and we can learn something new on it. English learner can choose which one they want to use.

Unknown said...

One approach to teaching language that has attracted a lot of attention over the past twenty-five years is a task based approach to learning and teaching. In task-based approaches, the focus of classroom activities is on the task, and ultimately on meaning (for more on Task Based Teaching and Learning, see the Methodology section).

Unknown said...

the grammar teaching through many different way to teach students is a good way to improve them learning. Like the TPR could have the activities to teach studnets and make them memorize it. therefore using teaching methods to teach students is good.

Unknown said...

It's Connie. After all the presentation. I think that it is difficult to teach grammar to different ages. And teaching grammar through test is really a necessary way to know whether we know how to use grammar to expert our mind or not.

Unknown said...

1 Poem :Use poem to teach grammar is very easy for beginner student 2. Movie: If you use movie to teach grammar, it is easy to catch people attention. 3.song : Follow the melody you can learn grammar more easily.

Unknown said...

I think it's interesting to see several type of texts to teach grammar. For example, poems, songs, and movies etc. we can learn from the poem from video to express the idea and easily to get understand . The grammar rules can shows in different ways to let us to practice the grammar.

Unknown said...

Hi, I'm Serena.
In my perspective, teaching Grammar through texts is an effective method for English learners. Through Grammar teaching, students are able to understand the rules of grammar which help in avoiding unnecessary confusions . For example, reading news articles is an excellent way to learn grammar and to expand vocabulary capacity. Teachers can select some interesting articles and ask the students to find out the information, which is quite interesting. On the other hand,music is another great tool to learn English, students can sing and learn the vocabulary and grammar simultaneously.

Unknown said...

This is Dara Hanfman
We have a lot of ways to teach English grammer,but if we use more attractive ways to teach ,like songs or movies to teach English,it will be more attract to the studends.

Unknown said...

Every type of text is helpful. After all groups present, I prefer the context about songs to teach grammar. They teach grammar by lyrics of songs. I think it is helpful for me to memorize by rhyme. If teachers choose the popular songs for teaching, it can attract student's attention. Learning grammar by movies is also a good way. Both of these two text are related to our daily life. There are much conversation in movies. We can learn not only grammars but also some idioms.

Unknown said...

Miho (501061410)
I think the ways to teach English grammar are interesting such as using poems, songs, movies, etc.

Unknown said...

i think the advantages of using texts is there are have many rules of grammar and it's clear for learner to understand and follow it, on the other hand, the problem is that usually the rule is complacted and abstracted, sometime learner will easy misundertand, for example, the past tense and perfect past tense. If we using another way such as picture, story etc. To shows the timeline,that will be effeicent than grammar text.

Vita Li said...

This is Vita Li

1. Context: picture stories. This is a good idea to teaching students how to use the grammar correctly. When teacher tells the story, students not only can get attention on what the teacher say, but also feel comfortable to learn. The way to teach can make class’s environment more comfortable. Students can train the ability of listening and reading.
2. Context: Song and lyrics. It’s a little bit like a desuggestopedia, because it’s a way to use the music to teach students. The lyric can makes students feels comfortable and easy to learn the grammar and some of phrases, so I think that’s a great idea to teach elementary school students.
3. Context: dialogue. It’s like in a conversation class and teacher would have design some activities to improve students speaking and conversation ability.

Unknown said...

This is Tiffany Huang.
From last week we learn from every group about how to teach grammar, we can use many different materials to teach student. Such as we can use poem, song, lyrics, stories, books etc. And we can use information gap activity to teach students grammar. In my opinion, I prefer to use Desuggestopedia to teach students.

Summer said...

here is Summer. i think use certain type to teach grammar did not work sometimes. For my opinion, i think using story can be impressive. all the people like story. if we teach some grammar or vocabulary from stories, they can memories through the intersting story.

Unknown said...

I think the advantages of using certain type of texts to teach grammar, that would be more easy and interesting for students to learn grammar not only by the boring grammar rules also from some interesting text, and the problem of using certain type of texts to teach grammar, it's will be more complicated for students to understand the whole complete grammar rule.
1.Dictogloss-A form of dictation activity in class, then students hear and take notes, collaboratively reconstructing the text. Easy to set up, good use of time and work collaboratively on language production tasks. More creative to students to capture the meaning of the text and reconstructing the meaning of the text, then students can discuss together and practice their communication.
2.Using student language to review ways-The teacher has not explained the grammar yet. The teacher’s creativity and careful thinking and planning.
3.Genre analysis- it determined by the context, included structure, grammatical and lexical features.

Unknown said...

I am Yvette.
I think the using certain type of texts is a good way to teach grammar. The text includes very kind of grammar, and we can learn not only those grammar but also the content of text.
I think the Community Language Learning is a useful and simple way to learn grammar.

Unknown said...

I'm Bobo. From these weeks we learned lots of inductive and detective ways to learn the grammar. And i think each method had different way to do it. However, I prefer to use the dictogloss method because it just need to write down the main idea. So that you can easily understand what the text talking about.

Unknown said...

This is Sylvia.
I am not sure if using certain type of texts to teach grammar is a good way. Some people think that texts can help students to analyze the grammar, but I don't think so. Some pointed that poems, songs, movies,... and so on can help us learn grammar. However, what kinds of grammar we can learn form them, are they correct? The answer is no. For example, "poem", the meaning of the words are changed sometimes and we won't see the complete sentences in most poems. If TEXTS can really help teaching grammar, I think it works through reading the unabridged article.

Unknown said...

This is Sylvia.
I am not sure if using certain type of texts to teach grammar is a good way. Some people think that texts can help students to analyze the grammar, but I don't think so. Some pointed that poems, songs, movies,... and so on can help us learn grammar. However, what kinds of grammar we can learn form them, are they correct? The answer is no. For example, "poem", the meaning of the words are changed sometimes and we won't see the complete sentences in most poems. If TEXTS can really help teaching grammar, I think it works through reading the unabridged article.

Unknown said...

This is Jeff:
i think that to teach grammar through texts may be a good way.
teachers can choose which type of texts can they use.
i think the advantage is that teachers can choose some interesting texts to teach grammar. Sometimes we can use fiction or comics to teach. Due to the interesting contents, student may be concentrated on the teaching materials. But sometimes teachers may take a lot of time to find out the text materials. That may be the difficulty.
we can figure out and evaluate three text-based materials from our class.