This document discusses approaches to teaching grammar. It defines grammar as the system of rules governing word arrangement and relationships in sentences. Whether and how to teach grammar depends on factors like age, language level, education, skills, and language needs. For adults, some explicit grammar instruction can aid learning if contextualized and not overwhelming. Children benefit more from indirect instruction through structured input and error correction. Beginning learners should not focus too much on grammar to avoid hindering fluency development. The document also outlines different approaches to teaching grammar, including text-based, context-built, and test-teach-test methods.

1. Teaching Grammar
By Ihsan Ibadurrahman

2. What is grammar?
Grammar is the system of rules governing the conventional
arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence.

3. To teach or not to teach grammar
• Celce-Mucria(1991) identified variables that determine the
importance of grammar:
Age Children Adolescents Adult
Level Beginning Intermediate Advanced
Educational Preliterate Semi-literate Literate
Skill Listening,
Reading
Speaking Writing
Register Informal Consultative Formal
Need / use Survival Vocational Professional

4. Teaching adults
• A judicious attention to grammatical form is both helpful and
essential to a speedy learning process. The question is not
so much on whether to teach grammar but how to provide
optimal conditions for overt grammar teaching.
Appropriate grammar-focusing techniques:
• are embedded in meaningful, communicate contexts,
• contribute positively to communicative goals,
• promote accuracy within fluent, communicative language,
• do not overwhelm students with linguistic terminology,
• are as lively and intrinsically motivating as possible.

5. Teaching children
• Adults have abstract intellectual
capabilities in using grammar to advance
their communicative abilities, but children
do not.
• For this reason, children profit most from
an a structured input and an incidental and
indirect error treatment.
• Older children may benefit as well from
simple generalizations and concrete
illustrations.

6. • Beginning students should not focus too much on
grammar because we might block their
acquisition of fluency skills. At this level, grammar
is used only to zero in some aspects of language
but not as the major focus of class work.
• For Advanced students, grammar might or might
not be taught exclusively depending on the
accuracy already achieved by learners.
Other variables
Levels

7. • Students who are non-literate or have no
formal education might find it understand to
understand the grammatical concepts taught
by the teacher.
• Highly educated students, on the other
hand, are cognitively more receptive and
may want their errors to be corrected by the
teacher.
Other variables
Education

8. • Due to the permanence of writing and its
demand for perfection in grammatical form in
written English, grammar focus might be more
effective in improving written English than
speaking, reading, and listening.
Style / Register:
Other variables
Skills:
• The more formal a context is, the more there is a
demand on learner’s grammatical accuracy. In
casual, informal contexts such as a peer
conversation, minor errors are more acceptable
than formal contexts such as a speech.
• Similarly in writing, tolerance of errors is higher in a
quick e-mail message than a formal essay.

9. • Those striving for professional goals may encounter
formal settings in which grammatical accuracy is a
prime criterion.
• On the other hand, those who need English only for
survival may only need simple forms of grammar
with lots of ready-made chunks in order to deal with
daily basic communicative needs.
Other variables
Needs for English
NOTE: The variables should only be looked as a guideline, rather than
an absolute rule. There are numerous situations where, for instance,
beginners are taught grammars because of the immediate need for
passing university entrance.

10. Different approaches to teaching
grammar
• Text-based approach
• Uses reading as a tool to identify and analyze
the language
• Context-build
– Uses visual interest to build a context from
which the language is generated and taught
• Test-teach-test
– Uses free speaking activity as a starting point,
from which students’ grammatical mistakes are
collected, taught, and later re-tested