What to avoid!
This course is based on the principles of teaching English grammar in context. Based on these, here are some issue with examples that we would recommend avoiding. All of these issues and examples are taken from the lesson in the previous step.
| Issue | Example |
|---|---|
| Front-loading grammatical terminology | Lesson Aim: Verbs |
| Feature spotting | Circle all the verbs |
| Irrelevant grammatical items | Find all the nouns too! |
| Proxy definitions | A verb is a doing word |
| Grammar as rules and constraints | Make sure the verb is in the right tense! |
| Inauthentic, made-up examples | The man walked to the park. |
| Front-loading grammar in writing | Write three sentences using verbs |
This isn’t to say that there is one ‘good’ approach, and all the above examples are necessarily ‘bad’. In fact, they will be perfectly useful in certain settings and contexts, including when initially teaching grammatical concepts when teaching English as a second language. However, to achieve more higher order thinking about grammar and meaning, we ultimately want to move beyond these approaches.
The rest of the course will expand on the principles for teaching English grammar in context, and show you how to apply them in your practice.
