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FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xi Introduction General Aims of Basic English Grammar Basic English Grammar is a beginning-level ESL/EFL developmental skills text. In the experience of many classroom teachers, adult language learners like to spend at least some time on grammar with a teacher to help them. The process of looking at and practicing grammar becomes a springboard for expanding the learners’ abilities in speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Most students find it helpful to have special time set aside in their English curriculum to focus on grammar. Students generally have many questions about English grammar and appreciate the opportunity to work with a text and a teacher to make some sense out of the bewildering array of forms and usages in this strange language. These understandings provide the basis for advances in usage ability in a relaxed, accepting classroom that encourages risk-taking as students experiment, both in speaking and writing, with ways to communicate their ideas in a new language. Teaching grammar does not mean lecturing on grammatical patterns and terminology. It does not mean bestowing knowledge and being an arbiter of correctness. Teaching grammar is the art of helping students make sense, little by little, of a huge, puzzling construct, and of engaging them in various activities that enhance usage abilities in all skill areas and promote easy, confident communication. The text depends upon a partnership with a teacher; it is the teacher who animates and directs the students’ language-learning experiences. In practical terms, the aim of the text is to support you, the teacher, by providing a wealth and variety of material for you to adapt to your individual teaching situation. Using grammar as a base to promote overall English usage ability, teacher and text can engage students in interesting discourse, challenge their minds and skills, and intrigue them with the power of language as well as the need for accuracy to create understanding among people. Suggestions for the Classroom • Presenting the Grammar Charts Each chart contains a concise visual presentation of the structures to be learned. Presentation techniques often depend upon the content of the chart, the level of the class, and students’ learning styles. Not all students react to the charts in the same way. Some students need the security of thoroughly understanding a chart before trying to use the structure. Others like to experiment more freely with using new structures; they refer to the charts only incidentally, if at all. Given these different learning strategies, you should vary your presentation techniques and not expect students to “learn” or memorize the charts. The charts are simply a starting point (and a point of reference) for class activities. Some charts may require particular methods of presentation, but generally any of the following techniques are viable. xi FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xii Technique #1: Present the examples in the chart, perhaps highlighting them on the board. Add your own examples, relating them to your students’ experience as much as possible. For example, when presenting simple present tense, talk about what students do every day: come to school, study English, and so on. Elicit other examples of the target structure from your students. Then proceed to the exercises. Technique #2: Elicit target structures from students before they look at the chart in the Student Book. Ask leading questions that are designed so the answers will include the target structure. (For example, with present progressive, ask: “What are you doing right now?”) You may want to write students’ answers on the board and relate them to selected examples in the chart. Then proceed to the exercises. Technique #3: Instead of beginning with a chart, begin with the first exercise after the chart. As you work through it with your students, present the information in the chart or refer to examples in the chart. Technique #4: Assign a chart for homework; students bring questions to class. (You may even want to include an accompanying exercise.) With advanced students, you might not need to deal with every chart and exercise thoroughly in class. With intermediate students, it is generally advisable to clarify charts and do most of the exercises in each section. Technique #5: Some charts have a preview exercise or pretest. Begin with these, and use them as a guide to decide what areas to focus on. When working through the chart, you can refer to the examples in these exercises. With all of the above, the explanations on the right side of the chart are most effective when recast by the teacher, not read word for word. Keep the discussion focus on the examples. Students by and large learn from examples and lots of practice, not from explanations. In the charts, the explanations focus attention on what students should be noticing in the examples and the exercises. • Additional Suggestions for Using the Charts The Here-and-Now Classroom Context For every chart, try to relate the target structure to an immediate classroom or real-life context. Make up or elicit examples that use the students’ names, activities, and interests. For example, when introducing possessive adjectives (Chart 2-5) use yourself and your students to present all the sentences in the chart. Then have students refer to the chart. The here-and-now classroom context is, of course, one of the grammar teacher’s best aids. Demonstration Techniques Demonstration can be very helpful to explain the meaning of a structure. You and your students can act out situations that demonstrate the target structure. For example, the present progressive can easily be demonstrated (e.g., “I am writing on the board right now”). Of course, not all grammar lends itself to this technique. Using the Board In discussing the target structure of a chart, use the classroom board whenever possible. Not all students have adequate listening skills for teacher talk, and not all students can visualize and understand the various relationships within, between, and among structures. Draw boxes, circles, and arrows to illustrate connections between the elements of a structure. A visual presentation helps many students. xii INTRODUCTION FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xiii Oral Exercises with Chart Presentations Oral exercises usually follow a chart, but sometimes they precede it so that you can elicit student-generated examples of the target structure as a springboard to the discussion of the grammar. If you prefer to introduce a particular structure to your students orally, you can always use an oral exercise prior to the presentation of a chart and its written exercises, no matter what the given order in the text. The Role of Terminology Students need to understand the terminology, but don’t require or expect detailed definitions of terms, either in class discussion or on tests. Terminology is just a tool, a useful label for the moment, so that you and your students can talk to each other about English grammar. • Balancing Teacher and Student Talk The goal of all language learning is to understand and communicate. The teacher’s main task is to direct and facilitate that process. The learner is an active participant, not merely a passive receiver of rules to be memorized. Therefore, many of the exercises in the text are designed to promote interaction between learners as a bridge to real communication. The teacher has a crucial leadership role, with teacher talk a valuable and necessary part of a grammar classroom. Sometimes you will need to spend time clarifying the information in a chart, leading an exercise, answering questions about exercise items, or explaining an assignment. These periods of teacher talk should, however, be balanced by longer periods of productive learning activity when the students are doing most of the talking. It is important for the teacher to know when to step back and let students lead. Interactive group and pairwork play an important role in the language classroom. • Exercise Types Preview Exercises (SEE Exercise 2, p. 2 and Exercise 1, p. 179.) The purpose of these exercises is to let students discover what they know and don’t know about the target structure in order to get them interested in a chart. Essentially, preview exercises illustrate a possible teaching technique: quiz students first as a springboard for presenting the grammar in a chart. Any exercise can be used as a preview. You do not need to follow the order of material in the text. Adapt the material to your own needs and techniques. First Exercise after a Chart (SEE Exercise 14, p. 33 and Exercise 16, p. 63.) In most cases, this exercise includes an example of each item shown in the chart. Students can do the exercise together as a class, and the teacher can refer to chart examples where necessary. More advanced classes can complete it as homework. The teacher can use this exercise as a guide to see how well students understand the basics of the target structure(s). Written Exercises: General Techniques The written exercises range from those that are tightly controlled and manipulative to those that encourage free responses and require creative, independent language use. Following are some general techniques for the written exercises. Technique A: A student can be asked to read an item aloud. You can say whether the student’s answer is correct or not, or you can open up discussion by asking the rest of the class if the answer is correct. For example: TEACHER: Juan, would you please read item 3? Ali speaks Arabic. TEACHER (to the class): Do the rest of you agree with Juan’s answer? STUDENT: INTRODUCTION xiii FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xiv The slow-moving pace of this method is beneficial for discussion not only of grammar items, but also of vocabulary and content. Students have time to digest information and ask questions. You have the opportunity to judge how well they understand the grammar. However, this time-consuming technique doesn’t always, or even usually, need to be used, especially with more advanced classes. Technique B: The teacher reads the first part of the item, then pauses for students to call out the answer in unison. For example: ITEM entry: “Ali (speak) _____ Arabic.” TEACHER (with the students looking at their texts): STUDENTS (in unison): Ali . . . . speaks (with possibly a few incorrect responses scattered about) TEACHER: . . . speaks Arabic. Speaks. Do you have any questions? This technique saves a lot of time in class, but is also slow-paced enough to allow for questions and discussion of grammar, vocabulary, and content. It is essential that students have prepared the exercise by writing in their books, so it must be assigned ahead of time as homework. Technique C: Students complete the exercise for homework, and you go over the answers with them. Students can take turns giving the answers, or you can supply them. Depending on the importance and length of the sentence, you may want to include the entire sentence or just the answer. Answers can be given one at a time while you take questions, or you can give the answers to the whole exercise before opening it up for questions. When a student supplies the answers, the other students can ask him/her questions if they disagree. Technique D: Divide the class into groups (or pairs) and have each group prepare one set of answers that they all agree is correct prior to class discussion. The leader of each group can present its answers. Another option is to have the groups (or pairs) hand in their sets of answers for correction and possibly a grade. It’s also possible to turn these exercises into games wherein the group with the best set of answers gets some sort of reward (perhaps applause from the rest of the class). One option for correction of group work is to circle or mark the errors on one paper the group turns in, make photocopies of that paper for each member of the group, and then hand back the papers for students to rewrite individually. At that point, you can assign a grade if desired. Of course, you can always mix Techniques A, B, C, and D — with students reading some aloud, with you prompting unison responses for some, with you simply giving the answers for others, or with students collaborating on the answers. Much depends on the level of the class, their familiarity and skill with the grammar at hand, their oral-aural skills in general, and the flexibility or limitations of class time. Technique E: When an exercise item has a dialogue between two speakers, A and B (e.g., Exercise 32, p. 78), ask one student to be A and another B and have them read the entry aloud. Then, occasionally, say to A and B: “Without looking at your text, what did you just say to each other?” (If necessary, let them glance briefly at their texts before they repeat what they’ve just said in the exercise item.) Students may be pleasantly surprised by their own fluency. xiv INTRODUCTION FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xv Technique F: Some exercises ask students to change the form but not the substance, or to combine two sentences or ideas. Generally, these exercises are intended for class discussion of the form and meaning of a structure. The initial stages of such exercises are a good opportunity to use the board to draw circles and arrows to illustrate the characteristics and relationships of a structure. Students can read their answers aloud to initiate class discussion, and you can write on the board as problems arise. Or, students can write their sentences on the board themselves. Another option is to have them work in small groups to agree upon their answers prior to class discussion. • OPEN-ENDED EXERCISES The term “open-ended” refers to those exercises in which students use their own words to complete the sentences, either orally or in writing. Technique A: Exercises where students must supply their own words to complete a sentence (e.g., Exercise 23, p. 341) should usually be assigned for out-ofclass preparation. Then in class, one, two, or several students can read their sentences aloud; the class can discuss the correctness and appropriateness of the completions. Perhaps you can suggest possible ways of rephrasing to make a sentence more idiomatic. Students who don’t read their sentences aloud can revise their own completions based on what is being discussed in class. At the end of the exercise discussion, you can tell students to hand in their sentences for you to look at, or simply ask if anybody has questions about the exercise and not have them submit anything to you. Technique B: If you wish to use a completion exercise in class without having previously assigned it, you can turn the exercise into a brainstorming session in which students try out several completions to see if they work. As another possibility, you may wish to divide the class into small groups and have each group come up with completions that they all agree are correct and appropriate. Then use only those completions for class discussion or as written work to be handed in. Technique C: Some completion exercises are done on another piece of paper because not enough space has been left in the Student Book (e.g., Exercise 45, p. 155). It is often beneficial to use the following progression: (1) assign the exercise for out-of-class preparation; (2) discuss it in class the next day, having students make corrections on their own papers based on what they are learning from discussing other students’ completions; (3) then ask students to submit their papers to you, either as a requirement or on a volunteer basis. • PARAGRAPH PRACTICE (SEE Exercise 36, p. 82.) Some writing exercises are designed to produce short, informal paragraphs. Generally, the topics concern aspects of the students’ lives to encourage free and relatively effortless communication as they practice their writing skills. While a course in English rhetoric is beyond the scope of this text, many of the basic elements are included and may be developed and emphasized according to your needs. For best results, whenever you give a writing assignment, let your students know what you expect: “This is what I suggest as content. This is how you might organize it. This is how long I expect it to be.” If at all possible, give your students composition models, INTRODUCTION xv FM_ppi_xxii.qxd 6/14/06 1:19 PM Page xvi perhaps taken from good compositions written by previous classes, perhaps written by you, perhaps composed as a group activity by the class as a whole (e.g., you write on the board what students tell you to write, and then you and your students revise it together). In general, writing exercises should be done outside of class. All of us need time to consider and revise when we write. And if we get a little help here and there, that’s not unusual. The topics in the exercises are structured so that plagiarism should not be a problem. Use in-class writing if you want to appraise the students’ unaided, spontaneous writing skills. Tell your students that these writing exercises are simply for practice and that — even though they should always try to do their best — mistakes that occur should be viewed simply as tools for learning. Encourage students to use a basic dictionary whenever they write. Point out that you yourself never write seriously without a dictionary at hand. Discuss the use of margins, indentation of paragraphs, and other aspects of the format of a well-written paper. • ERROR-ANALYSIS EXERCISES For the most part, the sentences in this type of exercise have been adapted from actual student writing and contain typical errors. Error-analysis exercises focus on the target structures of a chapter but may also contain miscellaneous errors that are common in student writing at this level (e.g., final -s on plural nouns or capitalization of proper nouns). The purpose of including them is to sharpen the students’ self-monitoring skills. Error-analysis exercises are challenging, fun, and a good way to summarize the grammar in a unit. If you wish, tell students they are either newspaper editors or English teachers; their task is to locate all the mistakes and then write corrections. Point out that even native speakers — including you yourself — have to scrutinize, correct, and revise their own writing. This is a natural part of the writing process. The recommended technique is to assign an error-analysis exercise for in-class discussion the next day. Students benefit most from having the opportunity to find the errors themselves prior to class discussion. These exercises can, of course, be handled in other ways: seatwork, written homework, group work, or pairwork. “Let’s Talk” Exercises The third edition of Basic English Grammar has many more exercises explicitly set up for interactive work than the last edition had. Students work in pairs, in groups, or as a class. Interactive exercises may take more class time than they would if teacher-led, but it is time well spent, for there are many advantages to student-student practice. When students are working in groups or pairs, their opportunities to use what they are learning are greatly increased. In interactive work, the time students have for using English is many times greater than in a teacher-centered activity. Obviously, students working in groups or pairs are often much more active and involved than in teacher-led exercises. Groups and pairwork also expand student opportunities to practice many communication skills at the same time that they are practicing target structures. In peer interaction in the classroom, students have to agree, disagree, continue a conversation, make suggestions, promote cooperation, make requests, and be sensitive to each other’s needs and personalities — the kinds of exchanges that are characteristic of any group communication, whether in the classroom or elsewhere. Students will often help and explain things to each other during pairwork, in which case both students benefit greatly. Ideally, students in interactive activities are “partners in exploration.” Together they go into new areas and discover things about English usage, supporting each other as they proceed. Groups and pairwork help to produce a comfortable learning environment. In teachercentered activities, students may sometimes feel shy and inhibited or may experience stress. xvi INTRODUCTION