How we should teach
This is the business end of things. This is where we put away the theory and address the practice. This is where students enter our classrooms and expect to learn.
So how do we do it?
Gramatica has a process that builds upon the two units you have just read: The Mighty Mr Bloom and How Students Learn, as well as about a quarter of a century of classroom practice with students from 60 different countries, all ages from 16 to 70, all ability levels, both General and Academic English, and many different attitudes to learning. It is built on extensive teaching, trial and error, some failures, research, more teaching, refinement, testing and more teaching. It is an ongoing process, one that is continuing to this very day.
And here it is, in two parts, Classroom Culture (general) and Teaching Process (specific.)
Classroom culture
The first change is in what we might call classroom culture. Classroom culture can be defined as what you and the students believe about what and how you teach, and what and how they learn. It is quite an enormous subject, but let’s make this brief.
Let’s look at your teaching aspect of your classroom culture first because this is something that you can control.
Gramatica should be intentional. You can introduce it with an announcement, or just change your teaching style without telling your students. That choice is up to you. I recommend the intentional style, and here is a way you might use.
This has three parts.
Announcement
In your first lesson with a new class, or as soon as you can, tell them something like this,
“Let’s start a new way of learning. Let’s make a deal. You want to learn English to help you live your daily life. I will give you the tools you need to do that. I will show you how to use these tools correctly and confidently. I will give you time to practise using these tools. Do you want to learn this way?”
I should point out here that I have not had a single student in nearly 25 years of teaching decline this offer. Instead, there is a noticeable shift in the classroom: students smile, nod, give their affirmation and express readiness to start. At the very least, they express cautious optimism.
The second step of your announcement is to write the letters IWT on the board with spaces between the letters, and ask the students to tell you what they represent. Don’t leave it too long before filling the gaps so that the words read I Want To.
Ask them what they think this means. Allow discussion before telling them that it means that you will frame as much of your teaching points as possible to be relevant to the students’ lives. You will teach them things that I Want To learn.
Tools
Show a picture of a hammer, either by drawing one or showing an image on your classroom screen. Add the word tool to this image. Discuss why we use tools. and elicit the answer to do jobs. Also elicit the idea of the process: that we need to do the job, and then we choose the best tool for the job. The job is first and the tool is second.
Gramatica works in the same way. We think first of the job we need to achieve in our daily lives. What do I want to say? We then choose the best grammar tool for it. Life first, Grammar second. Native speakers do this instinctively. Your students need to develop this mental process. More on this later.
Decision
The third part of this process is to bring students into the learning conversation. We can be brilliant teachers, but unless we have engaged students, it is for nothing. So we need to have students make the conscious and intentional decision to do several things when they enter the room each day.
Firstly, they need to switch off the passive learner mode that they have used in classrooms for most of their lives, possibly quite without realising. For example, they might say to themselves each lesson, In this class, I am not a vessel into which the teacher pours the content for the day. Having switched off this mode, they then need to consciously switch on the active creator part of their brains and deliberately lean into the learning. I am an active participant, thinking How can I use this in my daily life?
Secondly, they need to decide to mentally connect the teaching point of the day to their lives. We will go into detail on this point in the Teaching Process section next. They need to think, I want to learn English really well so I can use it in my daily life. I want to add the grammar and vocabulary tools to my toolbox so I can firstly practise them safely in the classroom, and secondly use them in daily life.
Thirdly, it is very important that you are part of this, that you acknowledge when students are actively engaging in the process, and that you reward them for doing so. You need to choose your own rewards based on your school policies and your own teaching style.
Then, with these three letters IWT in place in your students’ minds and the clear understanding that they will be affirmed or rewarded for their efforts, they will realise that the classroom is not a place to memorise material in order to pass a test in order to go up to the next level. Instead, it is a safe and enjoyable place where they can practise English in preparation for living their daily lives.
With that in place, each lesson might look like this.
So how do we do it?
Gramatica has a process that builds upon the two units you have just read: The Mighty Mr Bloom and How Students Learn, as well as about a quarter of a century of classroom practice with students from 60 different countries, all ages from 16 to 70, all ability levels, both General and Academic English, and many different attitudes to learning. It is built on extensive teaching, trial and error, some failures, research, more teaching, refinement, testing and more teaching. It is an ongoing process, one that is continuing to this very day.
And here it is, in two parts, Classroom Culture (general) and Teaching Process (specific.)
Classroom culture
The first change is in what we might call classroom culture. Classroom culture can be defined as what you and the students believe about what and how you teach, and what and how they learn. It is quite an enormous subject, but let’s make this brief.
Let’s look at your teaching aspect of your classroom culture first because this is something that you can control.
Gramatica should be intentional. You can introduce it with an announcement, or just change your teaching style without telling your students. That choice is up to you. I recommend the intentional style, and here is a way you might use.
This has three parts.
Announcement
In your first lesson with a new class, or as soon as you can, tell them something like this,
“Let’s start a new way of learning. Let’s make a deal. You want to learn English to help you live your daily life. I will give you the tools you need to do that. I will show you how to use these tools correctly and confidently. I will give you time to practise using these tools. Do you want to learn this way?”
I should point out here that I have not had a single student in nearly 25 years of teaching decline this offer. Instead, there is a noticeable shift in the classroom: students smile, nod, give their affirmation and express readiness to start. At the very least, they express cautious optimism.
The second step of your announcement is to write the letters IWT on the board with spaces between the letters, and ask the students to tell you what they represent. Don’t leave it too long before filling the gaps so that the words read I Want To.
Ask them what they think this means. Allow discussion before telling them that it means that you will frame as much of your teaching points as possible to be relevant to the students’ lives. You will teach them things that I Want To learn.
Tools
Show a picture of a hammer, either by drawing one or showing an image on your classroom screen. Add the word tool to this image. Discuss why we use tools. and elicit the answer to do jobs. Also elicit the idea of the process: that we need to do the job, and then we choose the best tool for the job. The job is first and the tool is second.
Gramatica works in the same way. We think first of the job we need to achieve in our daily lives. What do I want to say? We then choose the best grammar tool for it. Life first, Grammar second. Native speakers do this instinctively. Your students need to develop this mental process. More on this later.
Decision
The third part of this process is to bring students into the learning conversation. We can be brilliant teachers, but unless we have engaged students, it is for nothing. So we need to have students make the conscious and intentional decision to do several things when they enter the room each day.
Firstly, they need to switch off the passive learner mode that they have used in classrooms for most of their lives, possibly quite without realising. For example, they might say to themselves each lesson, In this class, I am not a vessel into which the teacher pours the content for the day. Having switched off this mode, they then need to consciously switch on the active creator part of their brains and deliberately lean into the learning. I am an active participant, thinking How can I use this in my daily life?
Secondly, they need to decide to mentally connect the teaching point of the day to their lives. We will go into detail on this point in the Teaching Process section next. They need to think, I want to learn English really well so I can use it in my daily life. I want to add the grammar and vocabulary tools to my toolbox so I can firstly practise them safely in the classroom, and secondly use them in daily life.
Thirdly, it is very important that you are part of this, that you acknowledge when students are actively engaging in the process, and that you reward them for doing so. You need to choose your own rewards based on your school policies and your own teaching style.
Then, with these three letters IWT in place in your students’ minds and the clear understanding that they will be affirmed or rewarded for their efforts, they will realise that the classroom is not a place to memorise material in order to pass a test in order to go up to the next level. Instead, it is a safe and enjoyable place where they can practise English in preparation for living their daily lives.
With that in place, each lesson might look like this.
Teaching process
Before we start, please note that all of the steps in the Gramatica process are on the Gramatica site. Click through them all in advance to make sure you know the material before you show it to your students.
The following set of steps also assumes an Elementary class, although I have used the material in these examples quite successfully with students as high as Cambridge level.
Also, let me give you a metaphor for this process, one that includes tools. We all think like this, so let’s introduce this same life process into your classroom.
Before we start, please note that all of the steps in the Gramatica process are on the Gramatica site. Click through them all in advance to make sure you know the material before you show it to your students.
The following set of steps also assumes an Elementary class, although I have used the material in these examples quite successfully with students as high as Cambridge level.
Also, let me give you a metaphor for this process, one that includes tools. We all think like this, so let’s introduce this same life process into your classroom.
Ken is a student who has just moved out of the family home and into his own house. He realises quickly that he needs to learn to cook. He remembers that his parents used a variety of kitchen utensils and tools, so he goes to the kitchen store and asks the expert there what these tools are and how to use them. Ken has a very enlightening discussion with the expert, who actually has a cooking class running at that very moment. The expert invites Ken to join in with the cooking class, where Ken picks up some of the kitchen tools and examines them. The expert realises that Ken is a novice and explains all the different tools and what they do. He shows Ken how to make a basic dish, and then explains how to improve it by adding different ingredients. After some failed attempts, Ken succeeds and the expert congratulates him. He then goes home and uses the tools and recipes to cook for himself. |
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One
Think This is the Think step, where students think about what they want to achieve, just like Ken. Of course, they don’t yet know what their goal is. That’s our job. We do this by presenting the teaching point (also called a grammar tool) specifically aimed at students’ lives. For example, a traditional class teacher might introduce a lesson like this: “Today, we are going to study the Past Simple.” A Gramatica teacher would say, “Today, let’s think about telling your favourite Life STORY.” We could then expand on this idea of Story with Movie stories, Book stories, Family stories, Weekend stories or any other kind of Story you like. Students here could choose a story, and even tell it to their partners in their home language. It doesn’t matter here at all that there is no English. The important thing is that students are excited and engaged with a clear goal, something that they are already familiar with and want to be able to do. |
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Two
Tools In Step One, Think, your students learn what their goal us, what it is they want to write or say in their lives. In this second step, Tools, they learn what grammar tool they need to achieve this goal. Here, you introduce the grammar tool they need. Following on with our STORY example, it is the Past Simple tense. You show it to them on Gramatica with its Question, Positive and Negative forms. It is also important to explain the different components of these three sentences, with the important metalanguage of Noun, Verb, Auxiliary and other terms. Up to this point, the students know what their goal is - Tell a STORY - and they know what grammar tool they need to do so - Past Simple. They also realise that they may not have it in full, and they may not be expert at its use, but they will know what the tool looks like. They know its name and how it works. This step requires that we know the grammar point/tool very well indeed. We need to anticipate the students’ questions and how to answer them. My students have told me that teachers who do not understand the grammar very well just give the blanket answer, “Because English.” and leave it at that. You, as the Gramatica teacher, on the other hand, almost never answer in this way. Instead, you make several judgements when a student asks a question: What level is the student? Does the student need to know this now or can it wait? Is this a good teaching point for the whole class? Do I have enough time? Based on these decisions, you can then answer appropriately. |
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Three
Write In Step One, Think, your students learn what their goal us, what it is they want to write or say in their lives. In Step Two, Tools, they learn what grammar tool they need to achieve this goal. Here, the students Write Question, Positive and Negative sentences. Here, they also learn how to conjugate the verbs. Here, they encounter the different endings for both regular and irregular. Here, they don’t necessarily need to learn how to pronounce the different endings - that’s the next Step - but they need to know the spelling. To extend the idea of Story, here they actually write their Stories with pen on paper. At this stage, the most important part of their learning is the use of the Question, Positive and Negative forms. Time, reason, method, place and person phrases are not important yet. We introduce those in Step Five: Connect. |
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Four
Say In Step One, Think, your students learn what their goal us, what it is they want to write or say in their lives. In Step Two, Tools, they learn what grammar tool they need to achieve this goal. In Step Three, they learn how to Write and spell the words, particularly the verbs. Here, they learn how to Say the words. In Past Simple, for example, they learn the three different sounds for the ed verb ending: d, t, and əd. They also learn word stress and intonation. As practice, they now speak their stories, concentrating on pronunciation, word stress and intonation. |
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Five
Connect In Step One, Think, your students learn what their goal us, what it is they want to write or say in their lives. In Step Two, Tools, they learn what grammar tool they need to achieve this goal. In Step Three, they learn how to Write and spell the words, particularly the verbs, and in Step Four, they learn how to Say the words. In this step, they learn how to Connect different phrases to their basic Past Simple clauses. These require considerable teaching, and all the material is on Gramatica, so don’t worry! These phrases include Time phrases with the relevant prepositions of time; Place phrases, again with the prepositions of place; Reason phrases, Person phrases and Method phrases. They also learn the skill of deciding which phrase goes first. Again, there is a considerable requirement for you, the teacher, to know the content very well indeed, and to anticipate the students’ questions and how to answer them. |
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Six
Extend In Step One, Think, your students learn what their goal us, what it is they want to write or say in their lives, and in Step Two, they learn what grammar Tool they need to achieve this goal. In Step Three, they learn how to Write and Say the words, particularly the verbs, and in Step Four, they learn how to speak the words. Step Five shows them how to Connect phrases to their basic sentences to show Time, Place, Reason, Person and Method. Step Six takes lower level students to higher levels. It Extends their English by adding nuances and higher level content to their existing knowledge. However, this Step is optional. As teacher, you need to judge if your students are ready for this. If there aren’t, you can skip this Step entirely and go to Practise. |
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Seven
Practise Here, students have completed all their learning for this grammar tool. Therefore, Step Seven Practise is the transition stage where they practise inside the classroom in readiness for daily life outside the classroom. Please note that this Practice MUST NOT be an artificial, teacher-controlled exercise or in response to a set task. Instead, it must be as close to a real life setting as possible. For example, people of all ages find themselves in situations where they tell Stories, at work, at home, in leisure situations, during travel, in school and in many other places. Gramatica works best when you get your students to imagine that they are in one of these settings and then tell their story. In this Step, consider either bringing the outside world in to the classroom, or taking the students out into the real world for them to practise in real unrehearsed settings. For example, I once took some students out onto a busy city street where they used the Question form of Past Simple, and asked complete strangers to tell them a Story. They then filmed the answers, went back to class, played the videos and analysed what people had said. This was as unrehearsed as is humanly possible. For higher level students, I challenged them quite a lot and played a well-known movie on the screen in class. In pairs, students then had to narrate the action as it happened on the screen for one minute. Depending on your school’s assessment schedules, this Step is also where you might assess the students. You might prepare a checklist which contains all your teaching points. That concludes the Teaching Process for Gramatica. Please note that this process applies very well for all the major clause-based grammar such as main clauses, supporting clauses, tenses, conditionals, passive and causative sentences and reported speech. For vocabulary, parts of speech (articles, modals, auxiliaries and others,) phrasal verbs, you can either weave them into full Teaching Process lessons, or just shorten the Teaching Process. Go well! |
