Here’s a list of 10 common grammar and vocabulary mistakes that novice teachers sometimes make. If you have any other suggestions, write them under “comments” and, who knows, there might be a sequel to this post one day. Remember: We’re focusing on examples of classroom language here.

1. Open your books on page 20.
Use to instead: Open your books to page 20. At is also possible in British English.

2. OK! Time’s over!
At the end of a game or timed activity, say Time’s up.

3. Do you want me to explain you the rule again?
You explain something to someone: Do you want me to explain the rule to you again? Or simply: Do you want me to explain the rule again? Remember: Explain me / him / her etc. is wrong.

4. Pay attention in the example.
You should say Pay attention to the example. You can also say Pay attention in class (=pay attention when you’re in class). 

5. Ask question four to Raul, please.
Most verbs followed by two objects can take either to (She gave me a present = She gave a present to me) or for (She bought me flowers = She bought flowers for me). Ask is different. With ask, don’t use to or for: Ask Raul question four, please.

6. Today we’re going to discuss about politics.
You discuss something, not about something: Today we’re going to discuss politics.

7. These are slangs.
Slang is uncountable. Say These are examples of slang. Remember: a slang is wrong. Say a slang word / term. By the way, evidence is uncountable too: Please find the evidence / a piece of evidence in the text.

8. I gave you a homework last class, didn’t I?
Homework is uncountable. Say I gave you some homework. You can also say a piece of homework / two homework assignments. By the way, you can also assign homework. 

9. Are you with your students’ book?
This one’s probably due to Portuguese interference (“Vocês estão com o livro?”). It’s far more natural to ask Do you have your student’s book? By the way, different publishers call their coursebooks student’s book, student book or students’ book. 

10. Does anyone have any doubts?
If you want to know whether students understood the new rules, for example, it’s more natural to ask Does anyone have any questions? In English, doubt usually implies a lack of belief or certainty rather than a lack of understanding: I have my doubts that the plan will work. More details here.

Special thanks to Natália Guerreiro, Higor Cavalcante, Jimmy Astley, Danilo Pereira, Cecilia Nobre and Adriel Ramos for the input.

Thanks for reading.

1. OK, guys, let’s work on the pronunciation of the TH sound now.
Maybe you’re saying /prəˌnɑʊnsiˈeɪʃən/, with the “nun” sounding like “noun.”  
You should say /prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən/. The nun is pronounced like sun. The verb is to pronounce /prəˈnɑʊns/.
Listen to the noun here and to the verb here. (Tip: right-click and choose “open in a new tab”. That way, you won’t leave this page.)

2. This course will help you get ready for the most important Cambridge exam.
Maybe you’re saying /kæmbrɪdʒ/ -  /kæ/ as in “cat.”
You should say /ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ/ – /keɪm/as in “same.”  The same applies to “dangerous” /ˈdeɪndʒərəs/, for example.
Listen here.

3. You learned this in basic 2, remember?
Maybe you’re saying /ˈbeɪzɪk/, with a z sound. 
You should say /ˈbeɪsɪk/ with an s sound. By the way, “disappear” and “disagree” are also pronounced /s/.
Listen here.

4. This will help you increase your vocabulary!
Same thing: /s/ NOT /z/. When “increase” is a verb, the stress usually falls on the second syllable. When it’s a noun, the first syllable is usually stressed.
Listen here.

5. Can we check use of English, exercise 2, now?
When “use” is a noun, the s is pronounced s: /juːs/
Listen here.

6. Now let’s try this communicative activity.
Maybe you’re saying /kəmjuː’nɪ.kə.tɪv/, with the stress on the third syllable (ni).
You should say /kəˈmjuː.nɪ.kə.tɪv/ in British English OR /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪtɪv/ in American English. In both cases, the stress falls on the second syllable (mu).
Listen here (AmE) and here (BrE).

7. Is this a noun or an adjective?
Maybe you’re saying “adjective”, with the stress on “jec.”
You should say/’ædʒektɪv/, with the stress on the first syllable (ad), NOT on the second one. The same applies to adverb.
Listen here.

8. What kind of pronoun is this?
Maybe you’re saying “pronoun“, with the stress on the second syllable.
You should say/ˈproʊnaʊn/ or /ˈprəʊnaʊn/, with the stress on the first syllable.
Listen here (AmE) and here (BrE).

9. Now fill in the blanks using the correct possessive pronouns.
Maybe you’re saying: /’pɒsesɪv/, with an /s/ sound and the stress on the first syllable.
You should say/pəˈzesɪv/, with a /z/ sound and the stress on the second syllable.
Listen here.

10. What color is that?
Maybe you’re saying: /ˈkɒlə(r)/ or /ˈkɑːlər/. If so, what you’re saying is “collar.” 
You should say /ˈkʌlə(r)/. The /ʌ/ is the vowel sound in “sun”, “bus”, and “mother.”
Listen here (AmE) and here (BrE).

11. Can I have another volunteer, please?
Same thing: Say /əˈnʌðə(r)/ rather than /əˈnɒðər/. Remember: The /ʌ/ is the vowel sound in “color.” Practice saying “another color” fast, without changing the vowel sound.   
Listen here (AmE) and here (BrE).

12. Use the code on the last page to access the website.
Maybe you’re saying “access“, with the stress on the second syllable.
You should say /’ækses/, with the stress on the first syllable, for both the verb and the noun.
Listen here.

Bonus words to be added based on readers’ suggestions:
13. Accuracy – The stress falls on the first syllable, NOT on the second one: /ˈækjərəsi/. Listen here.
14. Certificate – Careful with the pronunciation of the last syllable. It does NOT sound like the verb “ate”: /sərˈtɪfɪkət/. Listen here.
15. Iron – This one may surprise you: /ˈaɪə(r)n/, NOT /ˈaɪrən/. So if you spent most of the 80s/90s saying “Iron Maiden” like most of your friends did, you were saying it wrong. Still baffled? Say “I earn” out loud. Said it? Now, say it again, stressing the “I” rather than the “earn.” That’s it. (Tony, thanks for the tip!) Listen here (AmE) and here (BrE).

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for “12 things you might be saying wrong”, coming up soon.

So here are 70 sentences extracted and adapted from the original compilation, which ran for almost 10 pages. This list is organized around keywords (rather than functions / discourse categories) so I can explore each word’s ecosystem better, highlight common collocations and so on.

Before you start:
1. Pay close attention to the words in bold, which are often used in conjunction with the main word.
2. [   ] means “insert a suitable word here”, while (   ) means “this word is optional.”
3. Bear in mind that, within each group, some examples are slightly more formal / less frequent than others.
4. I am not claiming, by any stretch of the imagination, that these are the most common ways to use each word. These are just examples of academic discourse that I collected randomly in the late 90s.

Argue
a. Along similar lines, [X] argues that ___.
b. There seems to be no compelling reason to argue that ___.
c. As a rebuttal to this point, it might be (convincingly) argued that ___.
d. There are [three] main arguments that can be advanced to support ___.
e. The underlying argument in favor of / against [X] is that ___.
f. [X]‘s argument in favor of / against [Y] runs as follows: ___.

Claim
a. In this [paper], I put forward the claim that ___.
b. [X] develops the claim that ___.
c. There is ample / growing support for the claim that ___.
d. [X]‘s findings lend support to the claim that ___.
e. Taking a middle-ground position, [X] claims that ___.

Data
a. The data gathered in the [pilot study] suggests / suggest that ___.
b. The data appears / appear to suggest that ___.
c. The data yielded by this [study] provides strong / convincing evidence that ___. (yielded = generated)
d. A closer look at the data indicates that ___.
e. The data generated by [X] is / are reported in [table 1].
f. The aim of this [section] is to generalize beyond the data and ___.

In modern usage, data can also be treated as a mass / uncountable noun, like information. Before you submit your work, check whether the institution you’re writing for / on behalf of prefers data + plural verb.

Debate
a. [X] has fostered debate on ___. (fostered = encouraged)
b. There has been an inconclusive debate about whether ___.
c. The question of whether ___ has caused much debate in [our profession] [over the years].
d. (Much of) the current debate revolves around ___.

Discussion
a. In this section / chapter, the discussion will point to ___.
b. The foregoing discussion implies that ___. (foregoing = that came before)
c. For the sake of discussion, I would like to argue that ___.
d. In this study, the question under discussion is ___.
e. In this paper, the discussion centers on ___.
f. [X] lies at the heart of the discussion on ___.

Evidence (Remember: Evidence is uncountable.)
a. The available evidence seems to suggest that ___ / point to ___.
b. On the basis of the evidence currently available, it seems fair to suggest that ___.
c. There is overwhelming evidence corroborating the notion that ___. (corroborating = confirming)
d. Further evidence supporting / against [X] may lie in the findings of [Y], who ___.
e. These results provide confirmatory evidence that ___.

Ground
a. I will now summarize the ground covered in this [chapter] by ___.
b. On logical grounds, there is no compelling reason to argue that ___.
c. [X] takes a middle-ground position on [Y] and argues that ___.
d. On these grounds, we can argue that ___.
e. [X]‘s views are grounded on the assumption that ___.

Issue
a. This study is an attempt to address the issue of ___.
b. In the present study, the issue under scrutiny is ___. 
c. The issue of whether ___ is clouded by the fact that ___. (clouded = made less clear)
d. To portray the issue in [X]‘s terms, ___.
e. Given the centrality of this issue to [my claim], I will now ___.
f. This [chapter] is concerned with the issue of [how/whether/what] ___.

Literature
a. [X] is prominent in the literature on [Y].
b. There is a rapidly growing literature on [X], which indicates that ___.
c. The literature shows no consensus on [X], which means that ___.
d. The (current) literature on [X] abounds with examples of ___.

Premise
a. The main theoretical premise behind [X] is that ___.
b. [X] and [Y] share an important premise: ___.
c. [X] is premised on the assumption that ___.
d. The basic premises of [X]‘s theory / argument are ___.
e. The arguments against [X]‘s premise rest on [four] assumptions: ___.

Research
a.This study draws on research conducted by ___.
b. Although there has been relatively little research on / into [X], ___.
c. In the last [X] years, [educational] research has provided ample support for the assertion that ___.
d. Current research appears / seems to validate the view that ___.
e. Research on / into ___ does not support the view that ___.
f. Further research in this area may include ___ and ___.
g. Evidence for [X] is borne out by research that shows ___.
h. There is insufficient research on / into ___ to draw any firm conclusions about / on ___.

View
a. The consensus view seems to be that ___.
b. [X] propounds the view that ___. (propound = put forward for consideration)
c. Current research (does not) appear(s) to validate such a view.
d. There have been dissenters to the view that ___. (dissenter = someone who disagrees) 
e. The answer to [X] / The difference between [X] and [Y] is not as clear-cut as popular views might suggest.
f. The view that _____ is (very much) in line with [common sense].
g. I am not alone in my view that ___.
h. [X] puts forward the view that ___.
i. [X]‘s views rest on the assumption that ___.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

It’s a grammatical rule that states that the verb must agree in number with its subject. In English, present tense verbs change to show agreement in the third person singular form by adding an S (or ES). Seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? So how could it be that students of all levels, nationalities and age groups seem to get this wrong far more often than would seem reasonable? It’s just another letter at the end of the verb, for heaven’s sake!

Today, 23 years after my very first lesson, hard as it still is to hear an intermediate student say “he don’t likes” without wincing internally, I think I am finally beginning to come to terms with students’ subject / verb agreement mistakes and learning to accept them as a natural part of their language development. This post is meant to help you take a slightly broader view of
subject / verb agreement mistakes rather than automatically dismiss them as “things students shouldn’t be saying at that level.”

The thing that strikes me most about subject / verb agreement mistakes is how ubiquitous they seem to be. To many teachers’ despair, a sentence like “My brother study English”, which we would expect – and welcome – from an A1 student, typically persists way beyond that, into A2, B1 and possibly B2+, depending on the learner and on the circumstances. Why does that happen? A number of studies have shown that students acquire L2 morphemes in a fairly predictable fashion, regardless of language background, age and – here’s the bombshell – what they learn in class. It so happens that the third person S is internalized relatively late – after ing, auxiliary be, articles and irregular past forms. No amount of awareness raising, drilling and correcting seems to significantly alter this sequence. So where do we stand on this? It is our job, after all, to help students speak more accurately, isn’t it? Bear with me for a few more lines.

1. There will be instances, of course, where your students will get subject / verb agreement right, too, although still inconsistently. Typically, most students up until B1ish will shift back and forth between accurate use and omission of the third person S, rather than produce a steady stream of either deviant or correct forms. What’s rarely discussed, unfortunately, is how
accuracy also seems to depend on the verb at hand. Have you ever noticed, for example, how students seem to get certain verbs right more often than others? “He likes”, “She plays” and “Bob lives” are – at least in my experience – much more likely to be conjugated correctly than, say, “He sees”, “She goes” or “Lucy watches.”

True, this sort of backsliding is inherent to language acquisition – it’s evidence that students are mapping out their own internal grammars, as it were. In this particular case, though, I suspect students are also operating lexically / intuitively. Maybe – and I say maybe – certain verbs create a phonetic environment that makes them sound more “third person-friendly” than others. This means that if you want to assess the extent to which your students have truly internalized subject / verb agreement rules, you must test how consistently they’re getting the third person S right in spontaneous communication, across a range of verbs. Isolated instances probably won’t tell you much.

2. If what I said above makes any sense, then I believe we ought to help students gradually move from lexical, intuitive and often erratic use of the third person S towards a more
conscious and systematic sort of mapping and deployment of the underlying systems. Here’s a rule of thumb: If your student makes a subject / verb agreement mistake, don’t automatically
assume that it’s simply a performance breakdown at the surface level – a slip, if you will. True, “He like soccer”, “She have a car” are probably performance slips beyond A1. But there might – and I say might – be more than meets the eye to (a) “My friends likes”, (b) “Everybody know” and (c) “She always play.” Let me talk about each case in turn.

3. 
When clarifying or eliciting subject / verb agreement rules, we tend to emphasize the use of the third person S after the pronouns he, she, it. Trouble is, subject-verb agreement usually causes more problems when the subject of the verb is a noun. Yet, for some reason, we tend to assume that during spontaneous communication, most students will
operate grammatically and automatically connect all the dots (Tom = he, Tom and Jerry = they) as they go along. What if they don’t? What if we actually need to spell things out, even at B1ish?

4. Also, if the noun ends with S (whether or not it’s a plural form), it might end up being even more troublesome partly because of the issues I addressed in item 1. For example, if I close my eyes now, I can hear far more students saying “My parents lives” rather than “They lives” and maybe more students saying “My boss knows” rather than “My supervisor knows.” My tentative hypothesis here is that maybe the first S somehow attracts a second one, which might make processing harder, even if the student knows the relevant morphology.

5. Quantifiers, indefinite pronouns and irregular plural forms are tricky, too, and mistakes in those areas are more likely to be misrepresentations of the rule than simply performance breakdowns. Chances are that in the past month or so you’ve had to remind students
that “everybody” needs a verb in the third person singular, while “people”, for example, doesn’t. I for one lost count of the number of times I’ve repeated that rule, often to little or no avail. In hindsight, though, I wish I hadn’t used the terms “third person singular” and “plural”, which might have confused students even more. After all, from their perspective, to all intents and purposes:

Singular = no S
Plural = add an S

Student: Everybody in my family like him.
Me: Third person singular, remember?
Maybe student will think: That’s what I said. Like! No S.

Or even worse:

Student: People likes him.
Me: Remember – people is plural.
Maybe student will think: That’s what I said – likeS.

So here’s my advice: Steer clear of “singular” and “plural:”

Student: People likes him.
You: People = they.
Student: Oh, ok. People like him.

6. When there’s an adverb between the subject and the verb, some students seem to think that the adverb somehow alters the rules: He never go. / My mom really like chocolate. Again, it’s hard to tell whether or not they’re operating intuitively (“He always goes sounds odd!”), so the most sensible thing to do might be to explain / remind them that the adverb makes no difference.  In the same way, I don’t think we can automatically assume that subject / verb agreement rules will cross over into other structures naturally. For example, when presenting and practicing the so-called first conditional, it’s probably a good idea to remind students that we should say “If he goes…” rather than “if he go…”. Simply telling them to use the simple present in the if clause just won’t cut it. At least not in my experience.

7. For better and for worse, subject / verb agreement mistakes hardly ever impede
communication. This means that if you’re a teacher who tends to prioritize mistakes that hinder comprehension, you’ll tend to overlook subject / verb agreement mistakes in speaking because, after all, the student was able to convey the message. I personally take the view, however, that we ought to provide more rather than less corrective feedback in this case, especially after A2.

The key, perhaps, is to understand what correction can and cannot do. Corrective feedback will rarely take care of subject / verb agreement mistakes that students aren’t developmentally ready to eliminate. It will, however:
a. Help to clarify a rule that perhaps was misunderstood or only partially learned. Remember: We can’t assume that most subject / verb agreement mistakes are merely performance slips.
b. Make students more sensitive to subject / verb agreement in the input that surrounds them. The more they notice and re-notice the third person S outside the classroom, the more likely they are to restructure their interlanguage.
c. Encourage students to monitor their speech, which might contribute to long-term overall
accuracy.

Thanks for reading.

After some thorough research (by which I mean watching loads of TV series), I realized that people use inversions in speaking all the time. You might argue that TV series are scripted and therefore the inversions did originate in writing, but they are quite common on reality shows as well. The more I paid attention, the more I would come across inversions, in podcasts and on the radio besides the ones I was seeing on TV. Here are three examples from TV shows you’ll probably be familiar with:

It is my belief, then, that students should be exposed to inversions in both written and spoken discourse. This can happen as early as Upper intermediate/CEFR B2. Like any chunk of language or grammatical structure, students will only be able to use inversions naturally if it is presented (and practiced) many times during the course of a semester or even multiple semesters.

The simplest way of using a snippet from a TV series to introduce or practice inversions is to approach it as you would with a regular listening activity followed by some sort of language work. Some snippets lend themselves to great personalized pre-viewing questions. Take, for example, this episode from The Big Bang Theory, in which Leonard and his friends are building a phone app.

1. Listening and speaking

You could begin by asking students lead-in questions such as:

Does your mobile have apps? Which is your favourite?
If you could create an app for your mobile, what would it do?

After students have discussed these questions and you have got some feedback from them, set some while-viewing questions, such as:

What kind of app are they trying to create?
Why is Sheldon banned from the group?
How does Penny propose he gets back in?

Check answers and then ask an after-viewing question to wrap up this part of the lesson:

Would you be interested in buying their app if it cost US$ 0,99? Why (not)?

2. Noticing and analysis

After you’ve made sure students have understood the story, you can then draw students’ attention to Leonard’s inversion:

“Not only can you store your favourite equations, but you can forward them to your friends.” (towards the end of the video)

Elicit from students how different this sentence is in terms of word order and emphasis. After that, you can introduce other adverbs / adverbials that are used to make this type of inversion, possibly using your coursebook.

3. Practice

A simple but effective way of practicing inversions is to write five sentences that are meaningful to your group of students. Ask students to rephrase the sentences using inversions that start with the words in brackets.

I have never been to England. (never)
I can speak English and Spanish. (not only)
I rarely send emails to my friends. (rarely)
I will only move out of my parents’ house when I go to university. (only when)
I don’t go to the beach very often. (seldom)

The key here is that the sentences need to be meaningful. Students are often able to do this type of activity without even reading the full sentences. By making them meaningful you can ask students to discuss in pairs/trios whether these are true of false for them, which will force them to actually read the sentences and think about them. In addition, when getting feedback, don’t let students say things like “number two is true for me”. Rather, ask them to say the sentence using an inversion.

Another way to practice inversions more freely is to give them a topic to talk about, such as their favourite city. Give them some time to prepare what they are going to say by asking them to think of the different reasons they like that particular place, how many times they have been there, what people can do there and so on. Now ask students to come up with two inversions to talk about that city:

Never before had I seen such great sights.
Not only are there great shops in London but also some of the best museums in the world.

In pairs, students take turns telling each other about their city. While doing so, they must use their two inversions. It’s important to give each student a time limit, say, 3 minutes. If students stop speaking before their time is up, their partner must ask him/her questions to keep the conversation going. When the pairs are done, rearrange students in different pairs and ask them to retell their stories (now with a little less time). You can finish it off by having students tell their story to a third person, with even less time and without looking at the paper where the inversions are written down.

In this type of activity the planning helps students focus on fluency and on using more sophisticated language. Repeating their stories in less time will help them gain confidence as well as allowing them to streamline their discourse.

Ricardo Barros is a teacher and teacher trainer in Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil. You can reach him at ricbarros at gmail dot com.

Elsewhere on this blog I have argued that pronunciation does matter and deserves far more attention than it’s been getting from mainstream ELT. I have tried to go beyond the old “what matters is intelligibility” paradigm and argued that we can’t ignore, for example, how annoyance potential might impact communication. I have also made a distinction between teaching pronunciation for production (i.e., enabling students to sound better) and teaching pronunciation for comprehension (i.e., highlighting features of linking, weak forms, sound discrimination etc.) and argued that perhaps we should place increased emphasis on the latter.

As I was feeling particularly musical last week (!), I decided to put together a short, self-contained video with five song excerpts, as well as on-screen questions, to help you raise students’ (B1 and above) awareness of sound linking in English. Before you click play, bear with me for a few more seconds:

1. I originally intended to devise a comprehension-based activity (identifying sounds, filling in the blanks etc), but the songs are so well-known that most students would probably recognize the words and maybe even feel like humming / singing along anyway. This means that I wound up creating something a little more output-oriented than the original plan.
2. As I wrote the activity, I kept going back to Michael Swan’s six criteria for good rules (truth, demarcation, clarity, simplicity, conceptual parsimony and relevance) and I must confess that, in hindsight, I fear I ended up sacrificing truth and demarcation for the sake of simplicity and conceptual parsimony. But they’re probably good enough for the average student, I think.
3. The pink rectangles on the video are meant to show students how the highlighted sounds blend. I’ve focused on the last letter of each word, rather than on the syllable itself. For example: all eyes o n us. Otherwise, “all eyes”, for example, would be boxed together, which students would probably find confusing.

If you do decide to use this video – or part of it – in class, let me know how it goes. I’ve never used it with real students, so any sort of feedback is welcome.

Thanks for reading. And watching.

This article is based on four broad assumptions:

a. By “planning a grammar lesson”, I mean planning a balanced lesson with an overt focus on form at some point, rather than grammar in isolation, of course. So, it could be reading or listening followed by grammar and then by speaking, for example.
b. This is not an article about emergent language and how it can provide the basis for an organic, student-driven, books-closed grammar lesson, in the best Dogme tradition. In this article, I am specifically referring to those everyday grammar lessons based on the sequence pre-determined by whichever coursebook you may be using.
c. I have finally made peace with PPP and I’m not ashamed to say it. After spending most of the 1990s criticizing the presentation – practice – production “straight jacket”, flirting with task-based learning and eventually coming up with an alternative framework myself, one day I realized that I’d been waging an unnecessary war. As it turned out, all the non-PPP alternatives I’d considered had “presentation”, “practice”and “production” elements, regardless of how they were labeled (e.g.: “enabling task” rather than controlled practice) and sequenced. In hindsight, Jim Scrivener’s ARC model seems timeless and uncannily prophetic.
d. Focus on form or focus on forms? Error or mistake? Use or usage? Learning or acquisition? Honestly, I don’t care. At least not as much as I used to. I have grown somewhat tired of semantic hairsplitting and, in this post, I will use these terms interchangeably.

So, with a-d out of the way, here are four questions I would encourage you to ask yourself when planning your next grammar lesson.

Question 1: How much do students already know?
A few years ago, it was relatively easy to assume that what hadn’t been formally covered in class was bound to be “new” and should, therefore, be taught from scratch. Not anymore. In ELT, the line between “old” and “new” seems to be getting hazier by the hour and I’m not sure we’ve all caught up to this new reality. Students are exposed to so much English outside the classroom that it’s probably safe to assume, for example, that on “present perfect day”, at least some of them will have a rough idea of what it is, what it means and how it’s formed. Some might even be able to use a few formulaic chunks (e.g.: “Have you ever…”) spontaneously in communication. This means that when you plan your next grammar lesson, before the actual “presentation phase”, you might need to use some sort of quick diagnostic task to check how much students already know. Seems straightforward enough, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not.

Here’s your first dilemma: Should you try to assess how much students already know (“I ___ [live] in London for 5 years”) or how well they can use the new grammar? (“Oh, Mario, so you study French? Where? How long? Tell me more!”), which might be harder to do but ultimately more revealing in terms of students’ actual stage of development? And whichever your choice, what if you find out that, say, 30% of your students can use the “new” grammar, 30% can recognize it and 40% don’t have a clue? Surely you need to help ALL students make sense of the structure of the day (to borrow Scott Thornbury’s term), which begs the question: What was the point of the diagnostic task in the first place, then? Mostly to make the “new” grammar more salient, I believe. Let me explain.

By setting up diagnostic tasks designed to “trap” the new grammar, we can help students notice certain gaps in their repertoire: “Gee, I didn’t know how to express that idea – wonder what I should’ve said” or “Would have went or would have gone? Let me pay attention to the listening.” This will, in turn, create the need for the “new” grammar and, therefore, make it more immediately noticeable in whatever texts or dialogs we use during the presentation phase. Read this summary of Merill Swain’s Output Hypothesis to learn more.

Question 2: How much noticing and self-discovery will students really do?
As far as grammar “presentation” goes, the orthodoxy of the past 25 years, since the first edition of Headway came along, has been remarkably consistent:
 First, students read / listen to a text or dialog and answer comprehension questions.
 Next, they’re encouraged to notice three three or four examples of the “new” grammar.
 Finally, they answer “discovery” questions to help them understand the new rules. This is a sound, dependable model, I think. But in the messy world of the classroom, things are nowhere near as simple and there are times when your best bet is probably to tweak the text – noticing – analysis paradigm. Or to ignore it altogether. Here are three things to keep in mind:

(a) Sentences illustrating the “new” grammar must be short, clear and memorable. If you don’t like the text / example sentences in your coursebook, and you don’t have enough time to google up better alternatives, remember you can always go unplugged. Use students’ anecdotes, talk about something interesting that happened to you, tell a story – you name it. Talk to them! Then either present – yes, nothing wrong with this verb – the new patterns or highlight them more inductively via dictogloss, for example. At the end, go back to the coursebook for practice.
(b) If you use the examples and grammar discovery questions in the book (e.g.: “Is sentence A about the present or the past?”), be sure to give students enough time to answer them individually first, and then, check in pairs. If you read the questions out loud straight away yourself, your intonation might reveal the correct answers too soon, especially in yes/no questions.
(c) Be on the lookout for discovery questions that are too obvious. Here’s an example:

Sentences from the text: “I’m afraid of flying.” “I’m interested in learning languages.”

Grammar discovery question: “After prepositions, we use [ING / infinitive].”
When you plan your next grammar lesson, look at the discovery questions in your coursebook carefully – especially those tackling form – and ask yourself if they’re challenging enough. If not, either change the questions or explain / elicit the rule yourself. Again, nothing wrong with a quick, clear and memorable teacher-led explanation.

Question 3: What is my students’ first language?

I think it would be fair to say that most adult students – especially field-independent, analytical learners – will try to make sense of the “new” grammar by comparing it to a similar structure in their L1 or in another foreign language they might know. Most of them will attempt to map out some of the main similarities and differences between the two languages, whether or not we try to stop them. This is a long and unnecessarily contentious discussion and it goes way beyond the scope of this article, I know.

But one thing is hard to dispute: If you and your students speak the same language, you’re much better equipped to anticipate most of their difficulties and decide how much emphasis to place on meaning and form depending on the structure at hand. For example, if you’re teaching the so-called first conditional to a group of Portuguese speakers, you won’t need to spend more than a minute or two helping students grasp its meaning – even if your coursebook (which is probably targeted at students of ALL language backgrounds, anyway) suggests otherwise. The “first conditional” in English and Portuguese is fairly similar. So, in this particular case, it’s probably form – not meaning – that deserves more attention: If he goes or If he will go? If he go or If he goes? Pronunciation might prove tricky for Brazilians, too: If he (weak h) rather than “Ifee” he.


So when you plan your next grammar lesson, look at the grammar discovery questions in your coursebook, think about your students’ L1 and consider the extent to which the meaning / form / pronunciation balance seems right. If it doesn’t, shift the focus yourself.

Question 4: How much grammar information can I expect my students to tackle in one go?
If you’re planning your next grammar lesson using a coursebook, you’ll find that it’s virtually impossible to get away from the paradigm I described in question 2: text – comprehension – noticing – analysis. The amount / depth of grammar analysis, though, still varies considerably form title to title. If you feel that your coursebook tends to go overboard and tackle far too many rules, shades of gray and subtleties at the same time, consider breaking your presentation down into two parts. Here’s how.

 First ask yourself:

“What exactly do I want my students to be able to do with the “new” grammar at the end of this lesson or series of lessons?”
Think of some sort of less controlled, “real life” activity, involving interaction, negotiation of meaning and the use of a variety of language items rather than only the “new” grammar – maybe the one proposed in the lesson itself. For example, if you’re teaching present continuous for temporary actions, maybe the final activity could involve some sort of role play in which students tell each other what they’re up to and so on. 

Then, ask yourself:

“What examples of the new grammar can I realistically expect them to use during this less controlled activity?”
This will help you determine how many details and subtleties students really need to learn before they embark on the final speaking activity. So, in the present continuous example, consider delaying the teaching of stative verbs, for instance. Why overwhelm students with rules and exceptions when you can deal with the difference between I think vs. I’m thinking at the end of the activity, possibly on a remedial basis? The same applies to complicated spelling rules – students don’t need to learn them before the final speaking task.

I hope these questions give you some food for thought when you plan your next grammar lesson. By the way, the tree is meant to remind you that, despite this article, I have not forgotten that language learning is essentially unpredictable, non-linear and chaotic. I just don’t think that it’s always possible to teach a pre-defined grammar syllabus in an organic, emergent, laissez-faire sort of fashion.

And trust me – I’ve tried.

Thanks for reading.

Last week I saw what was possibly the funniest Big Bang Theory episode ever and, to my delight, there was also a short extract that screamed “second conditional.”
So, guess what, here’s a little something for you: a 2-minute (well, two minutes and twenty seconds)  video presentation you can use with your A2/early B1 students.

It’ll probably work equally well with young and older students.
Remember, though, that this is simply the beginning of the process. Students will need lots of practice, further exposure and opportunities for real(istic) use.

Check out these other resources:
1. Another, slightly more advanced “second conditional” video.
2. Excerpts from “second conditional” songs.
3. Funny text full of “second conditional” examples.

If you’re wondering why I’m using “second conditional” between quotes, check out this must-read article.

Thanks for reading.

The lesson begins here:

A. Watch each TV prank in turn (video 1 below) and when your teacher pauses the video, in small groups, say how you feel about each one.

Video 1:

B. Focus on the last prank and discuss 1-5 in pairs. Any surprising answers?

1. Did most students in your class find the ghost prank funny or over the top?
2. How do you think you would have reacted if you’d been in that elevator? What about your parents?
3. If you were the girl’s mother / father, would you have allowed her to take part in the prank? Why (not)?
4. Do you think American television could have ever created something like this?
5. Why do you think this particular prank went viral (=became very popular) so quickly?

C. Watch a talk show panel discuss this particular prank (video 2 below). In general, how did they feel about it?

[  ] They found it boring.
[  ] They loved it.
[  ] They thought it crossed the line.

 Video 2

D. Watch it again (video 3 below) and decide who made the points below. Write M (man), W (woman) or N (neither) next to each statement.

1. “This kind of prank would never appear on American TV.” ___
2. “I would’ve had a heart attack in that kind of situation.” ___
3. “In the US, the little girl’s parents would be in trouble.” ___
4. “Hidden camera shows in America are much more innocent.” ___
5. “Brazil is one of the world’s most violent countries.” ___

 Video 3

E. Choose 2 statements (1-5) from exercise D and, in small groups, say if you agree / disagree. What’s the most controversial statement?

F. Choose the correct words to complete sentences 1-6 (from the video). Then watch video 4 (below) and check.

1. You know, this thing [ got / took ] 14 million [ hits / assess ]. People love it! (when referring to the video)
2. You’re laughing [ of / at ] other people’s [ misfortunes / misdemeanors ]. (hostess teasing panel)
3. That’s why everybody [ perceives / consider ] us [ like / as ] weak. (man being sarcastic about US)
4. Look! The kitten [ snuck / scared ] up on the baby! Boo!” (man being sarcastic about US hidden camera shows)

5. Brazil is probably in the top when it [ comes to / regards about ] murders throughout the world.
6. It’s [scary enough / enough scared ] to get [ to / through ] the streets without getting shot, now you’ve got to deal with the ghost on the elevator? (when referring to Brazil)

 Video 4

G. How do you feel about statement 6 above? If you disagree, remember you can always tweet the man on the panel (@RichVos) and speak your mind. By the way, the show is called “Say Anything” and this episode aired on November 29, 2012.

Answers:

C. They thought it crossed the line.

D. 1W / 2N / 3W / 4M / 5M

F. Answers on the video.

Ask any teacher what the whole point of teaching English as a foreign/second language is and, eleven times out of ten, you’ll get a full-throated, unequivocal answer:
“To enable students to communicate.”
The degree to which teachers actually subscribe to classroom processes that do promote communication is another story, of course. But I digress.

Now ask any teacher educator (I have mixed feelings about the term “teacher trainer”) about the ultimate goal of “training” talks / workshops and you will probably get a wider variety of answers, with anything ranging from “demonstrate”, “inform” to “promote reflection” and, why not, “entertain.”

But these, I believe, are not terminal goals. They’re subsidiary aims. I take the view that the ultimate aim of any input session (whether it’s a talk or a workshop) should be to promote concrete, long-term changes in the teacher’s classroom behavior.
Trouble is, experience has shown me again and again that it’s ongoing classroom observation and feedback which taps into teachers’ belief systems that will ultimately bring about concrete, observable change in the classroom. Talks and workshops, useful and enlightening as they may be, seem to operate at the periphery of the whole process.

So where does that leave us?

1. Snapshots from two input sessions

Perhaps the very nature of input sessions makes them relatively ineffective agents of classroom change. But relatively is the key word here. The way we plan and deliver our sessions can make them far more likely to start the sort of ripple effect that will generate long-term, durable classroom change.

Below are two snapshots from input sessions I’ve given recently. Read them carefully and, as far possible, try to put yourself in the participants’ shoes.

Session 1
a. I began this session by asking teachers to try a simple experiment.
“Work in pairs and take it in turns to say your telephone numbers out loud in four different ways:
- In your native language
- In English
- Back to front
- In the 99.999.999 format.”
(Before you read on, you might want to say your number out loud, too.)
b. Then I invited teachers to describe the experience, how they felt etc.
c. Finally we discussed how easy it had been to retrieve and say the telephone number in each case. Why was the processing speed so dramatically different each time if the number itself was the same? This laid the groundwork for the concept of chunking and, eventually, teaching lexical chunks.

Session 2
I started this session by proposing another simple experiment – the classic Bransford and Johnson balloons text (1972).
a. I split the group into two teams, A and B, and played the following text twice:

If the balloons popped, the sound wouldn’t be able to carry since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. A closed window would also prevent the sound from carrying, since most buildings tend to be well insulated. Since the whole operation depends on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of the wire would also cause problems. Of course, the fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that a string could break on the instrument. Then there could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear that the best situation would involve less distance. Then there would be fewer potential problems. With face to face contact, the least number of things could go wrong.

Team A looked at the accompanying picture while team B had their eyes shut throughout.

Taken from scienceblogs.com

b. Then A and B teachers paired up and took turns reconstructing the text and describing the experience. Needless to say, team A teachers understood much more and were, therefore, better able to remember the text, which, not surprisingly, didn’t make much sense without the picture.
c. Teachers were then invited to discuss why the text proved so hard despite the lack of unfamiliar words, how the picture enhanced comprehension and so on. The ensuing discussion led us straight into the so-called schema theory + top-down processing and its impact on teaching the so-called receptive skills.

2. What’s behind these examples

The color scheme I used in section 2 reveals that the two examples follow essentially the same pattern:
a. First, teachers experience something first hand.
b. Then, they describe the experience.
c. Next, they draw abstractions from the experience and are introduced to the underlying theoretical framework.

This model is based on John Dewey’s (1859-1952) views on the experiential nature of education, whereby students (teachers for present purposes) should be asked to deal with abstractions after rather than before going through relevant concrete experiences. Dewey’s ideas remain relatively popular to this day and have often been translated into a number of “experiential learning cycles”, made up of three or four stages each. Yes, there’s more than one cycle (!), but they’re essentially the same.

Pick your favorite:

Taken from reviewing.co.uk

Mine’s the simplest one: What / So what / Now what – not least because it’s very concrete and easy to remember. Whatever your choice, though, notice that this sort of experiential learning framework stands in stark contrast with more traditional input sessions whereby teachers are first introduced to new concepts (“Let me tell you about task-based learning”, “Let’s talk about drilling”) and then shown real examples of those concepts. “Training” sessions based on experiential learning strive to make processes mirror content as much as realistically possible.

3. So what’s in it for teachers?

I’ve always been wary of establishing cause-effect relationships in education, but allow me to go out on an intellectual limb here and argue that input sessions based on experiential learning are perhaps more likely to bring about the sort of long-term classroom change I described in section 1. Maybe – and I say maybe – teachers who can not only observe and understand but also experience new concepts – right at the outset of the learning process – will be better equipped to notice and interpret the same phenomena in their own lessons and to make better sense of peer / tutor feedback, if and when it comes. In other words, input which is experienced and not only talked about is perhaps more likely to set in motion the sort of ripple effect teacher educators strive for. The last quadrants of the cycles in section 3, if you will.

4. Having said that

Not all input sessions lend themselves to the sort of experiential learning I’m advocating, of course. Not all theoretical constructs can be translated into useful, memorable, doable or easily replicable concrete experiences. And that’s fine, really. ELT has had enough of one-size-fits-all solutions, I believe. But as a general sort of guiding principle, the what / so what / now what framework makes an awful lot of sense to me.

So much so that in this article I chose to describe the two training sessions before discussing the theoretical model they were based on. I believe the article might have been harder to digest otherwise.

Thanks for reading.