What Works in Grammar Instruction

Dean Deborah

Description

A friendly and practical guide for teaching English grammar in the context of real, lived language.

As most teachers of English now know, research shows that teaching grammar in the traditional way—through worksheets, memorizing definitions, and diagramming sentences—doesn’t work, and that teaching grammar in the context of reading and writing is a better approach.

People who understand language can make things happen. That is the point of grammar/language teaching. Not definitions. Not terminology. Language.

Veteran teacher educator Deborah Dean addresses the realities and challenges of grammar instruction with practical examples and experiences, including:

• Vignettes of classroom conversations to show what teaching in context can look like in action
• Classroom practices to help teachers try out the ideas with their own students 
• Issues such as helping English language learners and native speakers navigate formal, academic English, especially in the context of testing

Dean’s straightforward approach uncomplicates the task of teaching grammar in context, allowing her—and us—to share the excitement and wonder to be found in the study of language.

Sujets

• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Subjects
• Teaching
• EDUCATION
• Lettres et linguistique
• Language Experience Approach
• Level
• Secondary
• English as a foreign or second language
• Subject
• School
• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Electronic Sports League

Informations

• Publié par: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• Date de parution: 14 février 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780814100172
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NCTE Editorial Board
Steven Bickmore Catherine Compton-Lilly Antero Garcia Bruce McComiskey Jennifer Ochoa Staci M. Perryman-Clark Anne Elrod Whitney Vivian Yenika-Agbaw Kurt Austin, chair, ex officio Emily Kirkpatrick, ex officio

Staff Editor: Bonny Graham
Manuscript Editor: The Charlesworth Group
Interior Design: Jenny Jensen Greenleaf
Cover Design: Pat Mayer
Cover Image: iStock.com/Creative-Touch
NCTE Stock Number: 56834; eStock Number: 56841 ISBN 978-0-8141-5683-4; elSBN 978-0-8141-5684-1
© 2022 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. First edition 2010. Second edition 2022.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America.
It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.
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Every effort has been made to provide current URLs and email addresses, but, because of the rapidly changing nature of the web, some sites and addresses may no longer be accessible.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dean, Deborah, 1952- author.
Title: What works in grammar instruction / Deborah Dean.
Description: | Champaign, Illinois : National Council of Teachers of English, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Addresses the challenges of teaching grammar in the context of reading and writing, providing vignettes of classroom conversations that exemplify what that practice can look like in action”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021049835 (print) | LCCN 2021049836 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814156834 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780814156841 (adobe pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: English language—Grammar—Study and teaching (Elementary) | English language— Grammar—Study and teaching (Secondary)
Classification: LCC LB1576 .D2827 2022 (print) | LCC LB1576 (ebook) | DDC 372.6/1—dc23/eng/ 20211116
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021049835
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021049836
Contents

PREFACE
AUTHOR'S NOTE
CHAPTER 1    What Is Grammar?
CHAPTER 2    Writing and Language
CHAPTER 3    Reading and Language
CHAPTER 4    English Language Learners and Testing
CHAPTER 5    Putting It All Together: Building a Language-Rich Classroom
APPENDIX A: ANNOTATED RESOURCES
APPENDIX B: A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT FOUNDATIONAL GRAMMAR KNOWLEDGE
WORKS CITED
INDEX
AUTHOR
Preface

When we engage with grammar as art, we allow ourselves to wonder, surrender, be tempted and overcome.
— Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton
“Mrs. Dean?”
I didn't recognize the young man who stopped me next to the giant bags of flour and sugar in Costco. Well, maybe his smile tugged at my memory … but, no, I didn't know him.
“You are Mrs. Dean, aren't you?
“Yes. I'm sorry …”
When he said his name, I remembered. Trevor had been one of two students I had taught all three years of his junior high English. But that had been more than ten years ago and in another state; he'd grown a lot from that slender, shorter-than-average junior high student I had known. He was just finishing college and had gotten married—to an English major, he informed me.
“Are you majoring in English?” I asked.
He laughed. Hard. “No way! But, thanks to you, I know grammar better than she does.”
I don't know if that was a compliment or not. I had taught Trevor in the beginning of my teaching career, poor guy. In those years, the school district required traditional grammar instruction, despite the fact that publications for the previous decades had endorsed integrating grammar instruction and moving away from traditional approaches. I did what I was expected to do: I taught parts of speech and diagramming, although I modified our text's exercises because I wanted my students to be writers, not grammarians. When the district revised its expectations, asking teachers to teach grammar in context, I was happy to be able to give the time I'd devoted to grammar instruction to writing. But what I found was that I didn't know what “grammar in context” really meant. What was I supposed to do? How was it different?
I know that many of my fellow teachers just dropped grammar altogether. They were happy not to have to teach what they didn't like and what they thought students didn't enjoy. I had liked teaching grammar. I'd had fun—and I think my students had fun, too. We wrote clues for treasure hunts and stories, both consisting of only prepositional phrases, and news stories of absurd events full of adverbs. But teaching grammar in context? That was something I wasn't sure how to do—and no one I talked to seemed to know either.
I read what I could in professional journals and turned to mini-lessons connected to students’ writing as my first try. But I think my mini-lessons were a lot like my traditional grammar instruction: using definitions of parts of speech to instruct and then giving students sample sentences from the textbook so they could practice the principles. I just assumed students would transfer such lessons to their writing. When they didn't, I started making more direct connections. That helped some. But I still didn't think this was what it meant to teach grammar in context. Shouldn't it be more integrated with the rest of the course, not just limited to revision days during a writing unit? And how was I to make those mini-lessons more applicable to students’ writing?
I've learned a few things since those days. Mostly from trying and revising and trying again. But I've read more and practice more of the ideas I read about in my classes. My teaching didn't change overnight. It evolved—and I think it's still evolving. So now in my position as a teacher educator I think I do a better job when I try to help preservice teachers understand the importance of teaching grammar integrated with the whole language arts. That is, I think I do better—until I observe them teach. They tend to teach grammar the way they were taught—either not at all or pretty traditionally. Then I realize that what I've explained doesn't make sense to them. They can't visualize integration. They, too, can't enact “grammar in context.”
When I talk with practicing teachers in workshops about integrating grammar into the rest of their course content, I say they should find language in all that their students read and write: “Grammar is all around us.” I'm not the first to say it; in Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers (Haussamen), teachers are told, “You can use the literature the students are reading, as well as newspapers and other texts, to demonstrate or teach almost any grammar lesson” (17). But the practice is harder to implement than that exhortation (or mine) implies. Teachers still look at me, puzzled: “What does it really mean?” “What does it look like to do that?”
Because of their questions, I have included in this book several snapshots into classroom conversations to show what it can look like to teach grammar in context. The students’ names and characters are a composite of students I have taught over the years. The words, obviously, are not actually what students said in one single class. Rather, they are a compilation of classes and comments, very like parts of what happened in several classes. I hope that “seeing” my class in action makes what it means to teach grammar in context more accessible for all teachers.
I hope that my examples show that teaching grammar in context does not mean:
• waiting for students to raise language issues
• teaching grammar without any preparation
• teaching grammar only with writing (and only during editing)
• teaching grammar only on Mondays (or Fridays or any other designated day)
• teaching grammar just for a test
• teaching grammar with worksheets
Instead, I hope that my examples show that teaching grammar in context means:
• using grammar as an essential component of meaning-making during reading and writing
• relating language to student experience in a variety of situations
• planning an occasional mini-lesson on a grammar principle
• encouraging regular talk about language as part of class conversation
Chapter 1 sets the stage for teaching an integrated approach to language by briefly exploring the history of grammar instruction and clarifying what we as educators mean when we say we're “teaching grammar.” It ends with my explanation of the five aspects of language I use throughout the book to address what I consider to be a comprehensive view of language instruction. Chapter 2 explains what it means to teach language with writing, the most commonly experienced way of integrating grammar. It shows a snapshot into a classroom experience and ends with specific examples that apply to each of the five aspects introduced in the first chapter. Chapter 3 mirrors the previous chapter, except that it deals with integrating language with reading—again ending with specific teaching applications for e