Thank you Heide for the great explanation of why correction does not 
always help and for pointing out the need for language awareness.  This 
is a topic I address often from two perspectives.  The first is that of 
the non-literate learner-- who has little understanding of the 
structure of language and for whom grammar is a mystery.  I have 
observed very low level ESOL classes of non- or preliterate learners 
where teachers were attempting to explain grammar or mistakes by  using 
grammar and the learners were completely mystified.

One teacher with whom I was discussing this problem recently expressed 
frustration because the structure she was trying to explain in English 
exists in Spanish and the learner in question just couldn't seem to get 
that.  But the teacher herself finally had the insight that since that 
learner had almost no education in Spanish either, just the fact of 
translating the structure or referring to it in the native language 
doesn't mean the learner will understand it.  (and then of course for 
many teachers there is the issue that learners with unwritten languages 
will not have any access to the notions of grammar nor the words for it 
in their language---they do not exist. )

The second perspective is of auditory attention to grammar-- a teacher 
recently gave me an example of a learner who had "fossilized" grammar 
and never had subject verb agreement in the simple present tense ( He 
say, she talk, etc. )  One day recently the teacher automatically 
corrected this student when she said "he look" and the student was 
stunned.  She asked, " What did you just say?  Did you say LOOKS???" 
and the teacher said yes,  The student asked, " Do you mean you have 
always been saying LOOKS with a final /s/ and I never heard it??"   And 
the teacher said, of course, YES!

This is a small illustration of the need to bring many adult learners' 
attention to the auditory details they do not know they should hear.  
Since we know that literacy skills and language skills transfer at the 
level at which they are developed in first language, if a learner does 
not know HOW verbs agree in his or her own language or how plurals are 
made or how present past and future are indicated, why would that 
learner be listening for how it is in English.  My research tells me 
that accurate auditory input is required for the brain to build up a 
store of sounds, words, strings of words ( such as idioms) and grammar 
strings--but if the auditory input is not accurate, the stored up 
information is not accurate.  Hence we need to help learners pay 
attention auditorily to details they are not hearing.

But, as Heide points out, this will only be useful if the learner is at 
the language learning stage where she or he can make sense of it.
Language acquisition stages are yet another piece of the picture which 
is not well known in adult ESOL.

Robin Lovrien Schwarz

-----Original Message-----
From: heide at literacywork.com
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Sent: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:41 PM
Subject: [SpecialTopics 282] Re: (no subject) teaching grammar in the 
GED class

   Hi, Cheryl



  I’m sorry it took me awhile to get to the grammar question. I just got 
back from D.C. and am off to Austin in the morning, but here it goes.



  First of all, it is indeed very difficult to help students write with 
expression and help them develop their language skills so that they are 
able to write sentences that are grammatical. It is quite a challenge, 
especially once students are able to communicate quite well orally and 
aren’t particularly keen on working on their grammar skills.



  Complicating the enterprise is the fact that at this level the 
difficulties that students have may differ from learner to learner so 
anything you teach to the entire class will probably bore some students 
(since it’s not their problem) and frustrate others (cause they are not 
ready - given where they are in their language development – to absorb 
whatever rules you are presenting). So any time there is a presentation 
to the entire class on grammar at this level you may only have a few 
students who are with you. (Cheryl, correct me if I’m wrong in your 
case, since I am speaking in general terms and obviously don’t know 
your students).



  One thing that doesn’t work very well, is to have students write their 
paragraphs on the board and have everyone else point out the grammar 
mistakes. Students generally are not particularly engaged in what other 
students have written, particularly if asked to focus on form. And 
again, some students may be able to detect errors and correct them (and 
what are they learning?) while others are nowhere near ready and the 
explanations make no sense to them – again, if some of you have had 
great success with this strategy, let us know.



 Ok, here then are some strategies that you might try:



   * There is a hypothesis in second language acquisition that emphasize 
the notion of “noticing” and holds that students won’t be able to 
acquire accurate linguistic forms and structures, unless they first 
notice them, that is unless they pay attention to their own language 
and the language of others and say to themselves “oh, that’s how it’s 
said (or not said); this is how you write it; this is what people do” 
And once student pay attention to these forms, it becomes easier for 
them to use correct forms or edit their own writing. So one suggestion 
I would make to build in your students a curiosity about language, an 
eagerness (well, may-be not eagerness, but an interest) in seeing how 
language works. This notion is also known as “language awareness” and 
it goes a long way in helping students pay attention to how the 
language they use in expressing their ideas is similar or different 
from the way other people say or write things.
   * One way to help students build language awareness and look at their 
own language output is to ask students to circle the kinds of phrases 
or words that appear in their writing that they are not sure about. 
Sometimes students a way to self-correct, but you can also work with 
them to find better ways of expressing their ideas (sometimes that 
means fixing up the grammar and other times that means rephrasing a 
sentence and using a different structure altogether, one that the 
student is more familiar and comfortable with).  After you help 
students use fix-up strategies, you can then ask them to pay attention 
in their reading to see if they can identify the structure in question 
in other people’s writing.
  * Another way is to have students read their writings into a tape 
recorder and then listen to it again to see if it sounds right. I first 
saw this technique used when I was up in Vancouver at the Invergarry 
Learning Centre where Janet Isserlis taught for awhile. It was amazing 
to see how students would read their essays and then self-correct as 
they noticed that the language they used was awkward or ungrammatical. 
The tape recorder acted as a tool for editing and revision that was fun 
for students to use (many students I’ve known just hate rewriting – in 
their mind it was hard enough to put pen to paper and get their 
thoughts in writing, they don’t want to prolong the agony). So the tape 
recorder adds a new dimension (students can just take turns using the 
machine as they finish their writings).


  Of course, building language awareness and helping students 
self-monitor their writing is only one strategy to help students gain 
greater accuracy in their writing. And self-monitoring is not a great 
deal of help if students don’t have much experience with the standard 
ways of writing. So you may want to see if there are some common areas 
of difficulties that your students share (subject-verb agreement; 
passive constructions; irregular past verbs) and then teach 
mini-lessons that zero in on those areas. While some students respond 
well to rules because they are good at deductive thinking, others do 
much better when you present patterns of language and then draw their 
attention to the commonalities within these patterns – so that you help 
your students abstract the grammar rules from the sentences they see – 
helping them to get to the aha! moment. This approach is also known as 
“discovery grammar”.



  If particular grammar forms are new to students and they need to know 
them because there are no simpler work-arounds, they will need some 
guided practice in using these forms in different ways so that they 
become internalized. I would then include these structures in a grammar 
editing check-list that students can use when they look over their own 
writing – once again, building language awareness in the process.



  Another insight that might help you: Just correcting students each 
time you see a mistake in their writing and giving them a quick 
explanation generally doesn’t work unless the student made a careless 
mistake. This sort of “drive-by” grammar lesson usually doesn’t stick. 
It is much better, generally, to set some time aside, either with an 
individual student or with the group and ask the student(s) to focus on 
a linguistic form when they are not in the middle of writing or reading 
their writing to others.



  Finally – and you will notice a theme here – a lesson that I learned 
as an adult second language learner:  Quite a few of the mistakes that 
I made in writing English disappeared when I spent more time thinking 
about and discussing what it is I wanted to say and write.



  Quite often, at the intermediate levels, the language that learners 
use is muddled and the sentences awkward or ungrammatical, because the 
thinking is still fuzzy. Once a writer is clear on what it is exactly 
(s)he wants to say, it is easier to construct sentences that are clear 
and concise.



  I used this model of talking things through to discover what it is you 
want to write with my students when I taught Developmental Writing and 
for many students it did make a quite a difference.



  Others did need some structured lessons on the grammar they had missed 
along the way.



  So no silver bullet here (ha! another cultural reference to mess with 
the uninitiated).



 Good night all!



 Heide



   --------

  From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov 
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of cheryl gentry
 Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 9:01 PM
 To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
 Subject: [SpecialTopics 261] (no subject)




   I teach GED at CRC...a prison in Norco, Calif. I have many students 
who grew up speaking Spanish in the home and have difficulty with 
English grammar. Are there any special tricks?




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