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Writer's pictureElena

Child-friendly grammar teaching

Updated: Aug 13, 2022

Young learners are meaning bound. They focus on ‘what language says, not how it works’ (Littlejohn 2016: 31). As Puchta points out, the focus of young learners’ attention is the sounds of the L2, its rhythm, the process of interacting with their teacher and classmates, the fun they have when playing games, the fascination with stories, songs and chants and their growing wish to express themselves meaningfully in the L2 (2019: 203). In other words, they do not perceive language as a system to be learnt and are not engaged in intentional learning. They “take a more holistic interest in the meaning and function of language – in order to play a game, sing a song, or act out a story” (Pinter 2017: 98).


As children are not capable of abstract thinking and do not learn grammar as a formal system, they respond better to more indirect teaching. This means that teachers are required:

  1. to provide lots of meaningful and comprehensible input,

  2. to give the opportunity to highlight meaningful chunks,

  3. to give the opportunity to notice grammatical forms,

  4. to frequently expose the learners to the forms,

  5. to provide plenty of opportunities to practise the forms.


1) Input

Using meaningful and comprehensible input with young learners has an affective advantage because it does not create a potentially stressful situation for learners. Besides, it is efficient because all the learners can understand the input at the same time.


For example,

  • Stories. Using the stories helps develop positive attitudes about English and employ implicit teaching of grammar.

  • Songs, chants and rhymes provide meaningful exposure and provide many opportunities to memorise words and phrases. They are also useful in providing the children with chunks of useful language and in helping teachers to set up routines (Mourão and Ellis, 2020:72).


2) Chunks

In general, young learners learn language in chunks (Hughes 2014: 330), which Richards (2015: 732) defines as units of language that consist of several words that are stored and used as a whole.


As Cameron (2001: 102) points out, “rote-learnt chunks of language will make up a substantial part of early learning”. Chunks help learners not only develop their speaking fluency and aid the listener, but they also play a part in grammar acquisition. As chunks can be broken down and reconstituted, they provide a valuable resource for developing grammar.

Setting up routines with young learners helps to feed in chunks and encourages repetition, which is vital in YL context. This way, students get pre-exposed to a new structure several times before it is formally introduced.


For example,

  • Taking the register (Where’s…? She is (at school). He is (at home). How many children are here today? Let’s count! 1, 2, 3… There are … children here today).

  • Asking about the weather (What’s the weather like today? It’s (sunny)).


3) Noticing

Exposing learners to input, however meaningful it may be, is not enough. According to the noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990), for learners to acquire new forms from input, they need to notice such forms in the input. Teachers play an important role in helping children to notice features of the language through repeating words or structures, writing them on the board, and using noticing activities which aim “to make a certain form salient to the learner, and is intended to do no more than that" (Batstone, 1994: 54).


For example,

  • Children listen to a story or text and say Stop! every time they hear the target grammar point you want them to notice, e.g. past tense verbs.


4) Frequent exposure

It is known that task-repetition leads to greater participation of children. Besides, task familiarity makes meaning negotiation easier (Shintani, 2012: 266).


Games:

  • Listen! Clap once when you hear a regular verb. Clap twice for an irregular verb.

  • Listen to the story. Stand up when you hear an irregular verb.

  • Say the opposite, e.g. I went to school yesterday  I didn’t go to school yesterday. Practice: whole-class > In groups > In pairs. Invite the children to make their own sentences and test their classmates.

  • At the airport

Pin up the labels around the classroom, e.g. Gate A, Gate B, Sweet shop, Cafe, Toilet, Book shop. Explain to learners that they are at an airport. Go through the words on the labels to ensure that learners understand them (use the visuals to support their understanding).

Explain that they have to listen carefully to announcements at an airport and follow the instructions.

Give the instructions, e.g. If you were at the playground yesterday, go to Gate B.

Learners have to move to the different parts of the room, as instructed.

In pairs, children write their own instructions. Visual support: have a language box on the board “If you _____, go to _____”.



5) Practice

It is important to provide a number of opportunities for children to practise the grammar in relevant activities. Pinter claims that it is “important that learners have the chance to use new language (both vocabulary and grammar) in meaning-focused output in situations where they have control over the choice of language” (2017: 99). Although young learners may lack the linguistic resources in the L2 and may find it difficult to engage in meaning-focused language use, they will benefit from focused comprehension-based tasks, e.g. listen-and-do tasks with a focus on specific, predetermined linguistic features (Shintani, 2012: 255).

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