CATESOL Roundup, Part 3

Learning Grammar While Learning about Real Life

The author of Grammar in Context, Sandy Elbaum, insists that successful students learn language holistically, that, to communicate, we need to communicate about something, and that other than grammar teachers, few people are interested in "naked" grammar. Her grammar teaching approach seems to be based on the principle that context promotes collateral learning. That is, students are interested in knowing about the world around them while they learn grammar in an authentic way. Teachers can thus embed grammar teaching in real-life settings and topics such as culture/customs, inspirational people/successful immigrants, personal stories/people's names, history, YouTube videos/Web pages, etc. For example, to teach and practice location prepositions and have some real fun, teachers can use the cute pictures found at http://cuteoverload.com/.

Sandy offers many more examples to personalize or customize context in grammar teaching.

To teach comparatives and superlatives, one can try comparing cities using http://www.bestplaces.net/, comparing cars using http://www.kbb.com/ and http://www.nada.com/, comparing fuel economy using http://www.fueleconomy.gov/, or comparing grocery prices on a local supermarket site.

To teach possessive forms and pronouns, one can try having students tell about their names.

To teach modals such as "must" and "can," one can try looking for tenants' rights in the local city or on a government website like this one: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/discrimination.shtml.

To teach  imperatives, one can try having students fill out a citizenship form.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook found at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ is not only a good resource to find careers that interest you, it is also a good resource for teaching future tense, etc.

To teach "used to," have everyone bring in old photos.

To teach telling time, use http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/.

Sandy is very enthusiastic and jokes about how addicted she is to her computer. She says for everyone to feel free to email her with any request. So if you want her email address, let me know.

(To be continued.)