Page 10 - ELG2402 Feb Issue 488

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RESEARCH FEATURE

The grammar discovery approach

In this article, teacher Joanna Buckle delves into the grammar discovery
approach. But what is it and does it work?

ne nineties development in
English language teaching was the
‘grammar discovery’ approach. It’s
Onow been around long enough to
have been incorporated into a number of
textbooks. In this method, students are given
a set of examples of a particular grammar
point, such as the present simple tense, and
asked to extrapolate the rules for its use
from the context. But how much theoretical
backing does this approach have?
The grammar discovery approach appears
to be inspired by the popular vocabulary
teaching method of guessing the meaning
of new vocabulary in context. However,
it is difficult to see the necessity of such a
time-consuming process where grammar
is concerned. It may be an attempt to
compensate for the very old-fashioned
perspective that language teaching is basically
the teaching of grammar in the form of
tables of conjugations and so on, sometimes
known as focus on form or forms. From this,
often unstated, and uninformed, point of
view, teaching anything else is seen as a sign
that the teacher doesn’t really understand
grammar well enough to teach it.
On the other hand, modern language
teachers tend to rely on the findings of the
field of second language acquisition, and the
lexical approach, to inform their teaching.
Language is seen as a collection of set phrases,
acquired from infancy onwards, and deployed
by a speaker or writer to construct meaning.
These collocations can be learnt as ‘chunks’ of
language, as naturally occurs in first language
acquisition, and deployed for the purpose of
communication. This is seen as potentially
a more successful route to second language
acquisition than a focus on grammar.
But in terms of the rationale behind the
grammar discovery approach, while structured,
planned, and manageable ‘guessing meaning
in context’ activities are frequently used for
vocabulary, they are only a small part of an
extensive reading course that focuses mainly
on reading for gist, or scanning and skimming.
This approach would of course be combined While dictionary work is valuable in a or phrase, to find a viewpoint that will back
with explicit vocabulary teaching, whether as piece of writing that must be studied in up or refute our ideas.
self-study or classwork. depth, or for some self-study, taking this The same does not apply to the teaching
The reason for teaching this strategy is to approach will slow a reader down to the of grammar, which is not something that first
discourage teachers and learners from reading point where they give up. Praising a learner language learners consciously extrapolate
everything carefully, because this is not what for locating the one piece of information from context. Therefore, an inductive
readers do in academia, or as they learn to they can understand in a difficult text is approach is not necessary. As the field of
read in their first language. Academic readers, far more helpful. After all, think of the way second language acquisition demonstrates,
and all proficient readers, have to deal with students read and reference works in higher young children take a few years to practice
vast quantities of reading material, without education; we choose the books and articles forming sentences before they automatically
feeling that they must look up every unfamiliar that we think will be helpful, and simply skim rule out incorrect grammar options. We
word, or even read more than a chapter, or a read for the main topic, using the title and do not teach much grammar in English
paragraph, of a book they have selected. topic sentences, and scan for a specific word language classes in UK schools, beyond
10 February 2024