Language Sensei

A Language Teacher's Journey

Best of 2015! Top 5 Posts of the Year: Number 2! (No Grammar Words!)

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Source: Morguefile.com

It was a major move last year – eliminating the grammar ‘words’ from my teaching. This year my students, who were the first classes under this new approach, are also using words in class like “describing word” or “~ly word” when referring to using the language…This post seemed to resound with a lot of others too.

What’s a ‘Verb’? Eliminating the “Grammar Words” in My Teaching

I actually heard a world language teacher say this last year “If he doesn’t know the parts of speech he can’t pass my class”. And I was stunned…really…if you don’t know what an “adverb” is you can’t communicate?

Now I know that there are lots of views out there. There are those who subscribe to all kinds of theories  and techniques to teach. First up – I still care about grammar. I care that my students construct their communication (written/oral) correctly so that they are understandable to anyone they might interact with.

I used to ‘teach grammar’ and now I teach with ‘pop-up’ and ‘less explicit’ embedded grammar. As this change has set in so has my view on how I even ‘talk’ about it when I do talk ‘grammar’. So, what I don’t want to do  – what I experimented with this year- is any teaching with/using ‘grammar’ words.

And besides – I have kids who can tell me a part of speech – and talk the ‘grammar talk’ but in reality not use it correctly at all. You know – the student who tells me that ‘hamburger’ is the object of the verb but when I ask what an ‘object’ is they can’t tell me  – or use it correctly when they speak/write.

So this year I changed my wording…basically going with the ‘explanation’ instead of the grammar word itself. That meant that instead of traditional terms I substituted – using things like:

  • Verb – What You Are Doing
  • Adjective – Describing Word
  • Adverb – How we are doing something or the ‘~ly’ word
  • Noun – People/ Places/ Things
  • Subject – Who/What We’re Talking About
  • Object – What Specifically We are Doing, Eating, Wearing etc
  • Grammar Use – How You Say What You Want To Say or How You Put It Together

How did it go? Well – I can say that it don’t go any worse than when I was using the ‘grammar’ words themselves. Perhaps it was just a ‘moral victory’ on my part. But  I like this trend. I like the focus away from the ‘parts’ of the language and on to the idea of communicating.

I’ll continue to tweak this …but I think I’m sticking with it!

Colleen

 

 

 

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