This document outlines a seminar presentation on approaches to teaching grammar. It discusses both arguments for and against directly teaching grammar. It presents three common approaches: deductive, inductive, and guided discovery. The inductive approach is examined in more detail, outlining its benefits such as better retention, student-centered learning, and engagement. Its drawbacks include being time-consuming and requiring more teacher preparation. The objectives are to discuss whether grammar should be taught, approaches to teaching it, and pros and cons of the inductive approach specifically.

1. University of Salahaddin
College of Basic Education/ English department
MA in TESOL
To Teach or Not To Teach Grammar
Zana M. Abbas
Sarok_85@yahoo.com

2. Seminar Outline
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Antagonists to teaching grammar
Protagonists to teaching grammar
Approaches to teaching grammar
Advantages of using inductive approach
Disadvantages of using inductive approach

3. Objectives
• Why should we teach grammar
• Why should not we teach grammar
• Be familiar with approaches to teaching
grammar
• Be familiar with the positive and negative
sides of inductive approach.

5. Antagonists to teaching grammar
• grammatical features are acquired
unconsciously as it contributes a little to SLA
(Ellis, 1997).
• grammatical competence is only acquired if
learners are exposed to comprehensible and
meaningful input (Sugiharto,2005).

7. Protagonists to teaching grammar
• grammar facilitates the acquisition process
and it is not acquired by exposing learners to a
comprehensible input (Celce- Murcia,1991).
• grammar is significant as it helps learners to
communicate accurately and meaningfully
(Widodo, 2006).
• Learners expectations

8. Approaches to teaching grammar

9. 1. Deductive approach: is rule-based and students
are given grammatical rules.
2. Inductive approach: students are not taught
grammatical rules directly but are left to
discover rules themselves.
3. Seductive or Guided discovery approach: lies
between the inductive and deductive
approaches, which mingles the best from each.
It is a modified pure-inductive approach.

10. Benefits of inductive approach
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Retain the language better
student-centered or STT
active learners
engages students’ pattern-recognition
opportunities to practise the language.

11. Drawbacks of inductive approach
1. Time-consuming
2. Requires teachers to work hard and plan
appropriate activities.
3. frustrate the students with their own
learning styles

13. References
Baker, J. & Westrup, H. (2000) The English
Language Teacher’s
Handbook. How to teach large classes with few resources.
London: Continuum.
Brown, H. D. (2007) Principles of Language
Teaching. Pearson Education, Inc.
Learning
and
Carter, R. & Nunan D. (2001) The Cambridge Guide to Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Scott, V.M. (1990) ‘Explicit and Implicit Grammar
Teaching
Strategies: New Empirical Data’. The
French Review. 63 (5),
pp. 779-789.

14. Celce-Murcia, M. (1991) ‘Grammar pedagogy in second and foreign
language Teaching’. TESOL Quarterly. 25, pp. 459-480.
Ellis, R. (2006) ‘Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA
Perspective’. TESOL Quarterly. 40(1), pp. 83-107.
Sugiharto, S. (2005) ‘Why We Should Teach Grammar: Insights for EFL
Classroom Teachers’. Indonesian Journal of English Language
Teaching. 1(1), pp. 22-32.
Widodo, H.P. (2006) ‘Approaches and procedures for teaching
grammar’. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. 5(1), pp.122-141.

15. Thanks for your attendance