Teachers’ aspects about Language and Classroom Practice in Teaching Grammar
Dave
Development of KAL
English had always been Dave’s favorite subject at school (“I was obsessed with English”), yet he recalls that his English language education at secondary school involved considerable attention to grammar, something he did not feel was very interesting:
Something that stands out is for example parsing....we went through the book from the first page to page wherever, z, parsing each and every sentence....Grammar analysis, adverbial clause of lime, adverbial clause of this and that... the lesson was absolutely boring....was all very dry grammatical stuff, and as soon as you left the class, you would say ‘to hell with it’.
In contrast with these negative memories, Dave had very positive recollections of his literature lessons at secondary school, and recalled the lack of focus on grammar which the study of English at sixth-form involved:
...what 1 did at sixth form. I was lucky....I liked the teachers, there was very little formal grammar, partly I assumed because ... all the people who took English were really very good at it, so there was no need for so much language work. We did a lot of criticism and we did a lot of literature.
Dave enrolled at a teacher training college in the late 1970s. The program consisted of general pedagogical courses and ones more specifically related to English and the teaching of English, but he did not recall any work which was geared towards the development of his KAL, neither as a learner nor as a prospective teacher. Language issues were dealt with mainly from a linguistic point of view and he did remember (not with much pleasure) studying the work of individuals such as Chomsky and Pit Corder.
Dave’s earliest teaching experiences (in primary and secondary schools) were characterized by what he calls a ‘traditional grammar-based’ approach to English. However, in 1986 he underwent what emerged as the most influential professional experience in his career - a Diploma in TESOL which he did in the UK. The deep impression this had on Dave is clearly captured in his recollections in the next extract:
I think it was all positive in every sense of the word. The tutors were good, the work we were doing was satisfying, the issues raised were very relevant, I found that I was experiencing a lot of changes in my own thinking ... I think I had to change quite a lot of ideas which I had had already and thought were immutable...there were certain things which I thought ‘this is definitely the way it is or the way it should be’, and then after a year over there, I found I had moved away from that position, and sometimes...I was diametrically opposed to the starting position.
One issue his views changed on was the teaching of grammar:
I used to subscribe to the idea that the teacher presents the grammar (rules, uses, paradigms, the lot) and then the learners work through exercises. Later on I came to accept and adopt the technique that the learners can move from a text/situation where the intended grammar to be taught is embedded, and explore the use and perhaps formulate a tentative rule from there.
In fact, as a result of this program, Dave developed strong communicative views about the need to ‘mask’ grammar and to ‘sugar the pill’ for the students. These views were in line with views opposing explicit grammar teaching promoted in English language teaching in the 1980s. In this climate, it is perhaps not surprising that there was scant formal attention in the Diploma to developing Dave’s own KAL:
we didn’t have so much grammar there, so maybe you can say subconsciously it made me go off grammar, because we didn’t have so much grammar ourselves. We did have a little bit in the first term, but it was more tied in with linguistics.
Dave was encouraged by this course to make grammar teaching as implicit, or at least palatable, as possible. Together with the educational background of studying English and the lack of emphasis on developing his KAL he experienced when he first trained as a teacher, the Diploma clearly contributed to the low incidence of grammar work observed in Dave’s classes.
In our discussions of his work, Dave did actually acknowledge that he was not particularly keen on teaching grammar and pointed to a specific episode in his career which may have triggered off this attitude. Here he is speaking of what he thinks is a weakness of his as a teacher:
Dave: Weaknesses. I don’t think I’m really all that keen when I have to do grammar.
Simon: When you say it’s a weakness what exactly do you mean?
Dave: It’s a weakness cause I don’t feel very comfortable with it. That is, I always have the feeling that I might be
asked something that at that moment will catch me unawares and I won’t be able to answer at that time.
Simon: So a weakness in terms of your confidence in own your knowledge of grammar?
Dave: Yes, perhaps it comes from the time when I was asked a question which I couldn’t answer, because it was a
Latin word which I didn’t know.
Simon: A Latin word?
Dave: It was a word in Latin which later I found was also used in English but at the time I didn’t know and I couldn’t answer it because I didn’t know the word, and it’s always at the back of my mind, just in case....it was right at the very beginning when I started, somebody asked me something about preterit verbs, and that stumped me. Later when I looked it up, damn, it’s something I knew, but at that moment, I literally didn’t know.
This extract provides clear evidence for the claim that teachers’ perceptions of their own KAL may have a major impact on the manner in which they approach explicit language work in the classroom. In Dave’s case, his uncertainty had clearly hindered the development of his KAL and, and as I discuss below, of his instructional repertoire for grammar teaching. I should stress I am referring specifically to grammar here; his KAL and teaching repertoire vis-à-vis vocabulary were, in contrast, extensive and well-developed (and his vocabulary knowledge was something he was confident about).
Intertwined with Dave’s feelings about his KAL was also a particular notion of his role as a teacher. His view was that
if it’s something in grammar and the teacher doesn’t know the answer, I think the student will automatically say ‘what a horrible teacher’. I mean you’re expected to know all the grammar...I might not come up with all the exceptions which they might come up with at that moment, somebody might come up with an example and which at that particular moment I might not be able to explain or even think about....I might not be able to do it at that moment. I’m always a little bit wary of that situation.
This combination then of feeling responsible to answer students’ questions while at the same time being fearful of not knowing the answer was another factor which contributed to the minimal role which explicit grammar work played in his teaching.
