September 24, 2025 • 36 mins
The proper role of grammar in proficiency-oriented instruction requires a mindset shift from traditional approaches to one that aligns with what research tells us about language acquisition.
Watch the episode on youtube here: https://youtu.be/zo1ys4aCh5A
• Grammar isn't driving your language program—it has the snacks while you decide the direction based on student proficiency levels and goals
• Understanding grammar does not lead to acquisition, but helps make existing language more accurate
• Pop-up grammar offers quick, contextual explanations when students notice patterns without extensive practice or assessment
• Inductive grammar engages students in discovering patterns themselves, which improves retention and understanding
• A three-week grammar bootcamp provides a transition strategy for teachers in grammar-heavy departments
• Treating grammar as functional chunks (like teaching "je voudrais" instead of the entire conditional tense) works well until intermediate levels
• Accuracy becomes more important in years 3-4 when students have enough language to refine
• Canadian research shows input-only programs still need some accuracy focus at the right time
Submit your questions about proficiency, grammar, or creating communicative classroom environments through this link: https://airtable.com/appOp9IY7Ah77oYup/pagpRzuEqAVZgBnrk/form
and I'll answer them on the show!
Check out the ACTFL Levels Series episodes here:
Novice Low: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318898/episodes/15045273
Novice Mid: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318898/episodes/15045294
Novice High: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318898/episodes/15152805
Intermediate Low: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318898/episodes/15827515
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up?
Que lo que Et salut worldlanguage teachers.
Welcome to the PracticalProficiency Podcast, where we
make the transition toproficiency-oriented instruction
in your world language class ina way that works for you, your
unique context and teachingstyle, and doesn't sacrifice
(00:21):
your well-being along the way.
I'm your host, devon Gunning,the teacher author, conference
host, curriculum creator andconsultant behind La Libre
Language Learning.
This podcast is for thecreative world language teacher
like you who's ready to ditchthe overwhelming pressure of
switching to acquisition-driveninstruction and CI overnight.
(00:42):
You're ready to discover howusing more target language in
class can actually bring you andyour students more joy instead
of adding to your plate.
With practical, authentic anddown-to-earth strategies that
don't require reinventing thewheel or more training, we'll
work together towards the magicof a community-based, target
(01:05):
language-rich classroom rootedin the power of community and
comprehensible input.
Let's go.
I'm so excited to hang out withyou today because we're
starting to answer some of yourreally great learner listener
(01:29):
questions.
So this is a series where folkshave been submitting questions
who are listening to the podcastand looking for some help on
proficiency oriented instruction, just like you, and many of the
questions came to be around theentire subject of grammar and
(01:49):
what is the role of grammar in amore proficiency-oriented model
for your students, when usingmore target language in class
Like, where does this fit in?
Because there is a lot ofconflicting opinions, I would
say, rather than information.
So today let's talk about yourgrammar options, what it can
look like in your program andwhat the transition and the
(02:11):
practical approach is, ratherthan the all or nothing approach
.
So I will preface this bysaying that this is actually the
most common topic that I gethired to teach in school
districts.
So if you are struggling withthe role of grammar in your own
program, or if you know yourdistrict could use some love on
this topic, this is somethingthat I teach about a lot and
(02:34):
would love to come visit yourschool about.
But let's get into threeoptions that you have for your
instructional strategy whenworking with grammar and making
it fit in its right place inyour proficiency-oriented
program.
This what we're going to belooking at today.
If you're watching via video forthe video version of the
(02:56):
podcast, you're going to see asampling of some slides for a
workshop that we did togetherfor my PD program, the Practical
Proficiency Network, because,again, this is a really
important part of understandinghow to make proficiency-oriented
instruction work for youinstead of working so hard for
proficiency.
So this is a whole modulewithin the Practical Proficiency
(03:19):
Network and you're going to seea little bit of some examples
here.
So in this module ofinstructional strategy, we were
talking with members about whatis the role of grammar.
That's one of the lessons here,and you can see some of the
other sections that we talkabout as well, including reading
and things like that.
So let's talk about gettingpractical here, and there's this
(03:41):
great article that's honestlykind of old now it's like over a
decade from Alyssa Villarreal.
All about it's not reallyeither, or when talking about
grammar.
And, as a reminder, the role ofgrammar has now been
established in the main guidingACTFL principles as well, and
(04:02):
one of the things that ACTFLsays I think it's number nine in
their guiding principles istalking about the role of
grammar as well, and the role ofgrammar is presented in ACTFL
as well.
Grammar is a concept in contextand it talks about more in depth
the role of grammar in yourprogram and how it's less about
(04:26):
grammar being your program andmore about grammar being a
stepping stool or even just apiece of the toolkit that your
students have access to, tocreate more original and
hopefully more accurate language, although that's not the focus
of most of the proficiencylevels we're working with.
So here's what this articlesays, going back to that even
before those guidelines gotupdated I think it's from like
(04:48):
2012 or 2013.
So this is not a new idea.
But Alyssa says here in thisarticle published in the
Language Educator that quote itdoes not mean that we abandoned
grammar or accuracy unquote forcontext.
We're talking about aproficiency program Back to the
quote but rather that we alignit to the proficiency guidelines
(05:10):
.
So that's what we're going forhere.
What does that really mean forus?
In the Practical ProficiencyNetwork and on this podcast, you
will hear me talk a lot aboutthe role of grammar, and this is
the way I like to envision.
It is that in the past, if thejourney that we're going on with
our students is a vehicle andyou're going on a fun road trip,
(05:31):
it has been perceived in thepast that grammar was the one
driving the car, that it wasgoing to direct you on where you
should go next.
And, as clarification, weshould talk about the fact that
what I mean by grammar in thissense is the you know the lay
person traditional view ofgrammar, which is the rules of
(05:52):
language and how it'sconstructed and how it works and
interacts with each other,mostly based on form.
But the SLA version of grammaris actually different.
In SLA, in second languageacquisition, grammar refers to
all of the elements of form,feature and function of a
language.
So it's far more complex thanwe could boil down into what's
(06:13):
in a textbook.
There's that famous saying fromBVP Bill Van Patten that what's
on page whatever of the textbookwhat page 42, is not what ends
up in your head.
So we need to reprioritizegrammar and make sure that
grammar is in its proper placein your program.
So grammar is not actually theone who's driving this car.
(06:35):
You're the one driving.
You decide where things aregoing in your program and the
things that are your roadmap arethings like what level are your
students, what kind of input dothey need in order to progress
and what are your proficiencygoals for that particular unit.
So grammar has got the snacks.
(06:57):
It's not the one driving.
Grammar will support your goals, but it's not the goal.
Understanding more about grammardoes not lead.
We have found in research, inover 50 years of research, that
grammar does not lead to beingable to use it in context in
communicative situations.
(07:18):
To further expand on that,we're really saying the idea
here that in the world oflanguage instruction, language
acquisition, all of that thatunderstanding and studying more
about different form andfeatures and linguistic
structures does not actuallyhelp us access them when it's
time to talk or read or write.
(07:40):
It helps us make those thingsmore accurate, but it doesn't
actually put those things in ourheads.
So we need to make sure thatwe're using grammar in its
proper place.
Now, many of you already knowthat.
Some of you it might be a newidea to you.
So let's talk about thepractical side of this, which is
well, what do you do then?
How does this work?
(08:00):
Because obviously, this isstill an important part of many
programs, or so many peoplewould it be trying to get away
from it, away from grammar,being in the driver's seat?
So I have for you some ideasthat help to put this whole
thing into a transition modeinstead of an all or nothing
piece, because that's really notgoing to help.
(08:21):
He's going to create a lot ofstress for you and your students
.
Here we go no matter what levelyour students are, they will
benefit from these threestrategies I'm going to show you
today, which is number onepop-up grammar.
Number two inductive grammar.
(08:42):
Number three a three-weekbootcamp, which is a really
great transition method,especially if you're working in
a department where not everybodyis on the same page about
whether grammar is driving orwhether grammar has the snacks.
So if you're in a program likethat, this particular one will
really help you a lot.
And I'm going to also give youa bonus one here call it like
number four which is that formany proficiency-oriented
(09:04):
teachers, what this really lookslike is that the most crucial
grammar structures that, insteadof trying to deconstruct them,
we just show students what theyare in living, breathing
language and make sure that theyknow that these are the most
important functional chunks thatyou need to be able to
communicate with other people.
So that's going to be more of amindset shift overall rather
(09:27):
than a specific tactic.
So let's talk about our firstone.
Number one pop-up grammar.
Who doesn't love a good pop-up?
Now for pop-up grammar.
This is a common method usedinside of the proficiency
community, especially in the CIcommunity, because they're the
ones who popularize this.
But the idea of pop-up grammaris this it's when you're using a
(09:51):
specific construction in classand it's happening a lot, let's
say we'll go with something easylike the past tense.
So let's say you're using thepast tense a lot to tell your
students a fun story aboutsomething that happened to you
last weekend and you're using alot of those context heavy words
like yesterday or last nightand things like that.
(10:13):
But your students are.
They're following your story.
When you say things like I wentto the store but I forgot my
grocery list.
So you're saying I went, Iforgot, I went back to my house
those things.
I went, I forgot and I returnedback to my house, those three
(10:34):
verbs are going to have somesort of simple past tense
construction.
If you're in romance language,it's going to be like the
preterite.
So with that in mind, if yourstudents are saying wow, that
really looks like I mean Iremember that word go, but it
looks really different InSpanish, it looks really
different In French, it looksexactly the same, but it's got a
(10:54):
bunch of funky words in frontof it.
So if you're saying somethinglike je suis allée in French,
your students might be like hey,I understand where you're going
.
I see that you said like I gosomewhere and yesterday must
mean like I went, but like whydoes it have that weird accent?
Why is it looking different?
So if your students arestarting to ask about it, then
they're probably ready for youto explain just a quick thing
(11:17):
about like.
Oh well, when you use the pasttense in French, if you're
talking about like simple,immediate, one-time actions,
what you're going to do isusually you're going to use a
past participle with the verbêtre in front of it or the verb
avoir in front of it, andthey'll be like oh okay, and
then you can just move on.
(11:38):
Or if you want to go into like aknockdown, drag out thing about
it, you could keep it like 10minutes or less, and what it
looks like is in the moment, incontext, you are quickly
explaining relevant features.
You're not really doing anypractice with it and you don't
have any assessment attached toit.
You are literally explaininghow this past tense structure
works in French, because yourstudents asked about it or
(11:59):
because it is the way thatyou're presenting this grammar
structure, which is how I usedto do it.
So what this does is thepurpose of it is for them to
understand and put together someof those functional elements of
ooh cool.
Look at the structure that Ialready know, which is this verb
aller, and look how it formsdifferently depending on whether
(12:22):
it's in a different time frameor not, comes differently
depending on whether it's in adifferent time frame or not.
So it really helps enrich thatcommunicative ability in that
specific moment with just thatspecific phrase, with pop-up
grammar.
Something to keep in mind isthat this doesn't mean that
you're going to expand to likethe full breadth of what past
tense looks like, which, by theway bonus tip I would say is the
number one problem that we havein programs is when the
(12:45):
textbook that you're followingor the program or the curriculum
that you're following says, hey, we're doing past tense now.
Often teachers think, well, Igot it, they have to know
everything about the past tense.
And that's not true, because ina communicative context, when
people are picking up an L2,context, when people are picking
up an L2, they don't learn theentire structure all at once.
(13:07):
They pick up little pieces ofthe structure at a time and
usually they actually pick upthe irregulars first, because in
language those are the highfrequency terms that are more
common.
So you can apply this exactsame concept when you are doing
a past tense unit, like it'svery common in Spanish too, to
spend a lot of time on thepreterite and then do we do the
(13:31):
what's the word I'm looking for?
We use regular preterite for awhile and then we go into
irregular mode and then ourstudents are just drowning in
all these flashcards of like ohmy God, there's so many
irregular forms of this.
But dial it back a little bitand think of it this way instead
of well, I could show them withpop-up grammar some of the
really common irregulars thatthey need to know.
(13:52):
Like you'll fui, which I like,you have to have that to talk
about anything in the past tense.
Right, but it doesn't mean thatyou need to also teach the
other 1,600,000,.
Thank you Spanish.
Irregular preterite forms atthe time.
Why don't you just focus on,like the sweet 16 or even
smaller, the super sevens ofwhat those high-frequency past
(14:14):
tense forms are?
Because you know as well as Ido that that, like, teaching all
of the irregulars at once it'stoo much for you.
It's too much for them.
Like who's?
Please raise your hand and letme know if you've ever had like
oh, wow, amazing success.
All my students felt greatabout doing this very lengthy
and in-depth unit about everysingle irregular preterite form.
Have you, I don't know, asingle teacher who's had success
(14:37):
with that?
So we should try a differentapproach.
And just as another example isthat something that I used to do
with students when we weretalking about these verbs like
gustar often in Spanish class,especially in Spanish too, we
use this verb quedar a lot tomake this comparison, because
it's an important grammarstructure that's different from
(14:59):
the L1 that most students have,which is English.
So I would use te queda versuste quedan, that whole concept of
like it fits me well, or it, or, in this case, it fits you well
, or like they fit me well, whenyou're talking about like a
pair of pants or something inthis case, it fits you well or
like they fit me well, whenyou're talking about like a pair
of pants or something.
We would do this just bylooking at a catalog of clothing
(15:20):
and then we would talk aboutand use the individual items of
like.
For pants, you always useKayvan and for this item, like
you know, a scarf or something,or a hat that fits you well, and
it's going to be singular.
So it's the whole idea of likelet's keep it in context and
don't worry about assessmentuntil you really feel like
(15:43):
students have a grasp on maybemore breadth of the subject.
But assessment isn't thepurpose here.
It's actually to help themnavigate the communicative
situation they're in.
The other really great methodthat I love to use is inductive
grammar.
There's been a good amount ofresearch actually done on this
and it really helps students tocement this into their brains
(16:04):
and into the more long-termmemory side of their brains and
it helps them make sense ofthings.
Inductive grammar overall isjust the simple idea that,
instead of presenting the ruleto students whatever that
commonality, that pattern orthat rule might be with a
specific form or feature of yourtarget language is that you ask
(16:26):
students to figure out thepatterns themselves.
So it's a lot more interactive,it's a lot more
comprehension-based and it's alot more like you guys figuring
it out together, and so it staysin their memories a lot longer
and it helps them make sense ofthings.
Here's how it works Present avery simple text, really really
(16:46):
simple text, with whatever yourtargeted structure is.
So you could say something likein Spanish you could do like voy
al cine de nuevo or fui al cineayer and you're going to ask
for students to figure out whatis the meaning.
That's step three here.
Step four is you're going tohypothesize as a class, while
(17:08):
guiding the students by givingthem gentle hints about like, oh
, you're onto something, or likeI see where you're thinking is
that?
But it's going to be a littlebit different.
Keep trying, so see if you canhypothesize as a class what the
feature means and what thepattern might be.
So if you're looking atsomething like I went to the
movies yesterday, you're goingto really highlight the word
yesterday, talk about fui, andsee, like, if they can figure
(17:30):
out what do you think this mightmean, based on the context.
So, as that's happening, thisis step five the teacher is
facilitating discussion.
Students will come up with thecorrect rule or formation on
their own and how this works too, and you can see this in a lot
of modern teacher manuals.
If you're currently in acollege class, or if you take in
a college class and you're likeme and you kept most of your
(17:52):
textbooks, then you can lookback and see that inductive
grammar is a very common,well-researched way to, in a
proficiency-oriented manner,include grammar in your program
in a way that helps students byhopefully producing that feature
later on, because theyunderstand it in a much deeper
(18:12):
way than just the surface-levelmemorization of oh, here are the
endings, oh, here's theirregular form.
Now the next thing that you'regoing to do after this is, once
students have the correct rule,once they've got the pattern
down and they've come to thecorrect conclusion, then you're
going to give them some amplepractice and even more input to
(18:34):
really solidify that structurein their heads.
This works really well withlet's go back to the French
example when you have somethingthat is easy to figure out on
its own, like if it's got somefamiliar elements that they've
already seen before, like theverb aller in the past tense in
French looks really similar tothe infinitive that they've seen
all year in French 1.
(18:55):
So if you're in French 2 andyou're working with aller, like,
this is a really nice inductivegrammar.
So, in summary, this optionnumber two, inductive grammar,
is just asking students tofigure out the pattern on their
own and gently guiding thediscussion so that they get to
the right conclusion.
It really helps them tomemorize it.
Now, if you are like me and youare team, the less grammar the
(19:18):
better, not because grammar isbad, but just because it doesn't
actually lead to acquisition.
It just helps to transform andmake the acquisition that's
already in your students' headsmore accurate.
And since accuracy is not reallya focus of my classroom and
never has been, that can be likea whole nother episode that we
talk about is that when you'rejust hoping to have students
(19:42):
have more fluency, more words touse and more context and
communicative situations inwhich they actually feel
comfortable producing things,grammar is not really going to
help you get there.
So I eliminated it from myprogram as much as possible,
because the time you have withstudents is very little and very
precious, so it just wasn'thigh on the priority list for me
(20:04):
.
So what I would do because Ididn't know where my students
were going to go after they werehanging out with me in French 2
, they could go to a French 3program that was very grammar
heavy.
They could go to a French threeprogram that was very grammar
heavy.
They could go to a collegeprogram, because I was working
with a lot of high schoolseniors at that time and they
could potentially do a collegeexam where they're trying to get
(20:27):
out of French 101 and just jumpright into French 102, which
would save them a lot of timeand money.
So I want them to be reallyhappy with those results, and a
lot of programs are still prettygrammar-based.
So something that I would do istip number three, which is a
three-week grammar bootcamp.
When I get this question frompractical proficiency members of
like oh my God, I have otherpeople in my department who
(20:51):
teach a lot of grammar and Idon't want my students to drown
in that class because theirabilities to communicate won't
shine as well just because theydon't.
They might not know the rule,even though they can use it,
which we all know is better.
But with this idea, we wantyour students to be successful
in every environment thatthey're in without it taking up
too much of that quality juicyinput time in your class.
(21:13):
So I would suggest this simplething, which is a three-week
grammar bootcamp.
It's exactly what it soundslike.
You know all of those simplepractice and presentation models
and like simple, boring-assworksheets that you're used to
and that you have maybe inabundance somewhere in an old
filing cabinet or an old GoogleDrive.
Well, this is a great time todo that, especially if you've
(21:37):
got something like nationalexams coming up that you don't
really have control over what'sin the actual test or not.
Maybe there's a state examthat's going to be testing on a
specific grammar feature, ormaybe you know that the next
teacher that they go into forChinese 3 is really going to hit
them hard with some grammarrules and you want them to feel
successful.
(21:57):
So all this means is as simpleas it sounds pick a section of
the year and go over all thethings you avoided with grammar
during the year and let studentsgo wild with that very
comfortable form of class thatthey know well, which is teacher
gives information, studentsabsorb information, memorize and
then can write that informationdown later on a test Like
(22:19):
that's easy.
You guys can do that all daylong.
As long as you have some funways and some fun games to do
that, it's not nearly asdifficult as creating
communicative situations.
Right, that could be an easyplanning period for you.
You just got to watch outbecause it's really boring.
It's really really, really,really, really boring.
(22:41):
So you're going to need a lotof games and a lot of fun prizes
and things to make this work.
But it also can make studentsfeel very secure and very happy
because you can give them thingslike hey, here's a two-week
packet of study guides and infoand burp charts, and like easy
stuff for students to memorizethat doesn't require a lot of
cognitive thought which, by theway, is probably why grammar is
(23:06):
monopolizing a lot of the time.
That we do in class is that whenyou have a difficult class or
when you don't have anymaterials like this is something
that students are really goodat and can experience a lot of
success in, even though itdoesn't.
Those skills don't transferover into any type of
communicative situation unlessthey're already at intermediate
low in the amount of languagethat they have in their heads,
(23:28):
and so you're just helping topolish and shape up the language
that's already there, but again, it doesn't create new language
.
So this is a really nice way toshape and polish things up
before an important test orbefore moving to a new class
that you know there's going tobe a lot of conjugation
flashcards in there.
Now, overall, here is one thingthat I think helps a lot of
(23:51):
teachers who are in a prettygrammar heavy program transition
over into this new world ofproficiency without feeling like
you have to completely changeeverything that you already have
, because we just spend a lot oftime talking about like well,
grammar is fine, but it's notthe best use of your time in
(24:12):
class if it's really taking overand you know like more than
like 20% of your instructionaltime.
So here is something to helpyou understand that there is
another, really simple way thatyou already have access to.
It doesn't require any newtraining, any new materials or
any of that junk.
And it's this Pretend that allof the grammar structures that
(24:35):
you're teaching are justvocabulary and keep them in
functional chunks.
Functional chunks is the newfavorite phrase of ACTFL.
You know since about like.
I don't know when it started,but I know that around like 2016
, 2017, it really started to geta lot of steam in the
proficiency world.
Thinking about like let's keeplanguage in context together.
(24:55):
Steam in the proficiency worldthinking about like let's keep
language in context together.
So, instead of presenting theconditional in a first-year
class, remember all thoserestaurant units that we have in
textbooks that are talkingabout like I would like.
When it's time for you to order, and so you teach some things
like in Spanish, you teach likeme gustaría un vaso de agua when
(25:16):
they're ordering, like I wouldlike a glass of water.
Or in French you're teaching jevoudrais un limonade or
something like that.
So je voudrais is theconditional form of vouloir and
it's all about I would likerather than I want, and when you
put it in that context it's anatural piece of your vocab list
(25:37):
and students might be if theynotice like, oh wow, so it's I
would like.
Is it related to I want?
Most students won't make thatconnection, but remember how we
always used to teach this.
You know, before proficiencywas cool and a lot of people
were talking about it Likeconditional was always part of
restaurant units in level one,always whenever we were talking
about food, and we neverbothered in level one to expand
(26:02):
the entire concept ofconditional and say, hey, here
are all these other forms ofconditional and other ways that
you can make polite requests.
We just taught the onefunctional chunk in that one
phrase when students needed toaccess it to talk about what
they needed and to get acommunicative thing done, which
is to order in a restaurantpolitely.
So we can do that withliterally any other structure
(26:26):
that you can imagine.
The best example is conditionalhere, when you're talking about
level one, but you can reallytreat any grammar or any
language feature as just anatural part of your vocab list,
and errors quote-unquote errorsthey can just be spelling
mistakes.
For now this works really welluntil level three or four, when
(26:47):
your students are starting toreach in their intermediate low
and they actually crave a littlebit more grammar instruction
because they have language intheir heads and they want to be
able to use it more accurately.
But in the first two to threeyears of language most of your
students are, they're not reallygoing to care that much about
how the language works.
They just don't.
They don't even have enoughlanguage to realize that there's
(27:08):
a structure.
They or to have enough brainspace to pay attention to the
structure because they're just,they feel like they're, you know
, clinging for anything to floaton in a sea of language for a
long time.
So you can just give themlittle chunks of already
constructed pieces of languageand let them use that whenever
(27:30):
it makes sense for them in asimple context like oh, you want
to be polite in a restaurant,you're going to use this phrase.
It's conditional, but you don'tneed to worry about that right
now.
Just say je vous trais insteadof je veux, and you can do that
for the entire year any way thatyou want to.
It works in so many differentsituations.
(27:52):
This was one of the main waysthat I moved more towards
proficiency in my programwithout changing anything about
the current program that myschool was following, because it
wouldn't make sense for me tochange the program right.
It just made sense to change alittle bit about how I presented
it and taught it.
If you're doing this, I wouldsay too, it also makes sense
that you're not going to assesswhether students can produce or,
(28:15):
you know, break down the verbwohlwil and put it back into
conditional right, like thatdoesn't make any sense.
What does make sense is ifyou're going to give them two
different verbs that they couldpossibly use, for I want and I
would like, and make sure thatthey circle the one that says I
would like to be more polite ina restaurant situation.
That's a way you can assessthat we're at a wrap here y'all.
(28:38):
Those are the three plus oneimportant mindset shift for all
of your grammaticalconstructions, for all of your
grammatical constructions.
I hope these are really helpfulto you for things that you can
do to make your program moreproficiency friendly without
having to actually make a lot oftweaks if you're working in an
already pretty grammar heavysyllabus, but remember, at the
end of the day, there really areno purists.
(29:00):
So do what works for yourcurriculum, do what works for
your students and make sure thatgrammar has its rightful place,
slowly over time, withoutmaking a ton of changes that are
really going to stress you out,because you and I both know
that the most important thingfor proficiency to happen is for
you to be ready to interactwith students in communicative
(29:21):
situations and provide input forthem, which is a pretty energy
draining activity.
It's really rewarding, but it'sthe most important use of your
class time, so you need to saveand prioritize all of that
energy for that activity.
Also, I'd like to address avery common misconception about
this, which is that we don'tabandon accuracy.
(29:41):
We're just abandoning the falsenotion that grammar will lead
to acquisition.
So studying a grammar structuredoesn't help cement that
structure more in your students'heads or allow them to access
it in communicative situations.
So I would say, too, that one ofthe things that we need to keep
in mind is that accuracy isstill an important part of your
(30:02):
overall five-level program,whether you're starting in
elementary, middle or highschool.
That students don't actually dowell with accuracy if you are
completely in a comprehensible,input-focused program, which
means that your students arejust doing input, input, input
all day long and responding backto you spontaneously when they
(30:24):
have the ability and it comes tothem, but without a lot of
pressure for output.
So in those situations what wefound is in like multi-year
programs that those studentsactually really struggled with
accuracy.
There was a lot of studies donein a Canadian program that was
driven by input alone andaccuracy is an important part of
our program we need to address,but at the right time.
(30:46):
So we're looking more at whenstudents have language in their
heads around the end of leveltwo, around level or year three,
when you know that they'restarting to reach and create
their own.
I would say like there's a wholeseries on this if you'd like to
dive deeper into levels.
If I'm saying intermediate, lowand you're like what does that
mean?
There's a whole series on this.
(31:11):
But I'll leave those podcastepisodes for you to check out in
the show notes and in the linkbelow here.
But just know that yourstudents need to have a certain
amount of language in theirheads before they can start
sharpening it and making itaccurate and all of that, but
that phase is still important.
We just need to move it alittle bit back.
You know we're not doing a lotof accuracy in level one, barely
if at all.
In level two we're starting totalk about accuracy with really
(31:33):
familiar forms and then in levelthree we can roll out a little
bit more accuracy, focus withsome pop-up grammar or method
number two, inductive grammar ormethod number three, doing a
two to three week grammar bootcamp.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I hope that this helps you withyour role of grammar in your
(31:53):
program and having somepractical ways that you can move
forward with grammar in a waythat makes you feel like your
students are getting what theyneed but they're also not
spending too much time on thingsthat won't lead them to
acquisition.
So let me know what are somethings that you want to know
about grammar.
You can submit questions to thepodcast anytime now.
(32:13):
I'm really excited to answermore questions like this.
You can check the show notesbelow or the YouTube description
below for a link to where youcan submit questions.
I would love to answer anythingabout proficiency, grammar, ci,
all that stuff.
Anything to do with a healthy,safe and communicative classroom
environment where language isthe focus.
(32:34):
Put it in the questions, andI'd love to answer that question
over the air.
But in the meantime, thanks somuch for spending some of your
valuable time with me, and Ican't wait to see you in the
next episode, where we're gonnatalk a little bit more in depth
about the role of grammar inyour program.
All right, ciao, bye for now.
What's up?
Que lo que Et salut worldlanguage teachers.
Welcome to the PracticalProficiency Podcast, where we
make the transition toproficiency-oriented instruction
in your world language class ina way that works for you, your
unique context and teachingstyle, and doesn't sacrifice
(00:21):
your well-being along the way.
I'm your host, devon Gunning,the teacher author, conference
host, curriculum creator andconsultant behind La Libre
Language Learning.
This podcast is for thecreative world language teacher
like you who's ready to ditchthe overwhelming pressure of
switching to acquisition-driveninstruction and CI overnight.
(00:42):
You're ready to discover howusing more target language in
class can actually bring you andyour students more joy instead
of adding to your plate.
With practical, authentic anddown-to-earth strategies that
don't require reinventing thewheel or more training, we'll
work together towards the magicof a community-based, target
(01:05):
language-rich classroom rootedin the power of community and
comprehensible input.
Let's go.
I'm so excited to hang out withyou today because we're
starting to answer some of yourreally great learner listener
(01:29):
questions.
So this is a series where folkshave been submitting questions
who are listening to the podcastand looking for some help on
proficiency oriented instruction, just like you, and many of the
questions came to be around theentire subject of grammar and
(01:49):
what is the role of grammar in amore proficiency-oriented model
for your students, when usingmore target language in class
Like, where does this fit in?
Because there is a lot ofconflicting opinions, I would
say, rather than information.
So today let's talk about yourgrammar options, what it can
look like in your program andwhat the transition and the
(02:11):
practical approach is, ratherthan the all or nothing approach
.
So I will preface this bysaying that this is actually the
most common topic that I gethired to teach in school
districts.
So if you are struggling withthe role of grammar in your own
program, or if you know yourdistrict could use some love on
this topic, this is somethingthat I teach about a lot and
(02:34):
would love to come visit yourschool about.
But let's get into threeoptions that you have for your
instructional strategy whenworking with grammar and making
it fit in its right place inyour proficiency-oriented
program.
This what we're going to belooking at today.
If you're watching via video forthe video version of the
(02:56):
podcast, you're going to see asampling of some slides for a
workshop that we did togetherfor my PD program, the Practical
Proficiency Network, because,again, this is a really
important part of understandinghow to make proficiency-oriented
instruction work for youinstead of working so hard for
proficiency.
So this is a whole modulewithin the Practical Proficiency
(03:19):
Network and you're going to seea little bit of some examples
here.
So in this module ofinstructional strategy, we were
talking with members about whatis the role of grammar.
That's one of the lessons here,and you can see some of the
other sections that we talkabout as well, including reading
and things like that.
So let's talk about gettingpractical here, and there's this
(03:41):
great article that's honestlykind of old now it's like over a
decade from Alyssa Villarreal.
All about it's not reallyeither, or when talking about
grammar.
And, as a reminder, the role ofgrammar has now been
established in the main guidingACTFL principles as well, and
(04:02):
one of the things that ACTFLsays I think it's number nine in
their guiding principles istalking about the role of
grammar as well, and the role ofgrammar is presented in ACTFL
as well.
Grammar is a concept in contextand it talks about more in depth
the role of grammar in yourprogram and how it's less about
(04:26):
grammar being your program andmore about grammar being a
stepping stool or even just apiece of the toolkit that your
students have access to, tocreate more original and
hopefully more accurate language, although that's not the focus
of most of the proficiencylevels we're working with.
So here's what this articlesays, going back to that even
before those guidelines gotupdated I think it's from like
(04:48):
2012 or 2013.
So this is not a new idea.
But Alyssa says here in thisarticle published in the
Language Educator that quote itdoes not mean that we abandoned
grammar or accuracy unquote forcontext.
We're talking about aproficiency program Back to the
quote but rather that we alignit to the proficiency guidelines
(05:10):
.
So that's what we're going forhere.
What does that really mean forus?
In the Practical ProficiencyNetwork and on this podcast, you
will hear me talk a lot aboutthe role of grammar, and this is
the way I like to envision.
It is that in the past, if thejourney that we're going on with
our students is a vehicle andyou're going on a fun road trip,
(05:31):
it has been perceived in thepast that grammar was the one
driving the car, that it wasgoing to direct you on where you
should go next.
And, as clarification, weshould talk about the fact that
what I mean by grammar in thissense is the you know the lay
person traditional view ofgrammar, which is the rules of
(05:52):
language and how it'sconstructed and how it works and
interacts with each other,mostly based on form.
But the SLA version of grammaris actually different.
In SLA, in second languageacquisition, grammar refers to
all of the elements of form,feature and function of a
language.
So it's far more complex thanwe could boil down into what's
(06:13):
in a textbook.
There's that famous saying fromBVP Bill Van Patten that what's
on page whatever of the textbookwhat page 42, is not what ends
up in your head.
So we need to reprioritizegrammar and make sure that
grammar is in its proper placein your program.
So grammar is not actually theone who's driving this car.
(06:35):
You're the one driving.
You decide where things aregoing in your program and the
things that are your roadmap arethings like what level are your
students, what kind of input dothey need in order to progress
and what are your proficiencygoals for that particular unit.
So grammar has got the snacks.
(06:57):
It's not the one driving.
Grammar will support your goals, but it's not the goal.
Understanding more about grammardoes not lead.
We have found in research, inover 50 years of research, that
grammar does not lead to beingable to use it in context in
communicative situations.
(07:18):
To further expand on that,we're really saying the idea
here that in the world oflanguage instruction, language
acquisition, all of that thatunderstanding and studying more
about different form andfeatures and linguistic
structures does not actuallyhelp us access them when it's
time to talk or read or write.
(07:40):
It helps us make those thingsmore accurate, but it doesn't
actually put those things in ourheads.
So we need to make sure thatwe're using grammar in its
proper place.
Now, many of you already knowthat.
Some of you it might be a newidea to you.
So let's talk about thepractical side of this, which is
well, what do you do then?
How does this work?
(08:00):
Because obviously, this isstill an important part of many
programs, or so many peoplewould it be trying to get away
from it, away from grammar,being in the driver's seat?
So I have for you some ideasthat help to put this whole
thing into a transition modeinstead of an all or nothing
piece, because that's really notgoing to help.
(08:21):
He's going to create a lot ofstress for you and your students
.
Here we go no matter what levelyour students are, they will
benefit from these threestrategies I'm going to show you
today, which is number onepop-up grammar.
Number two inductive grammar.
(08:42):
Number three a three-weekbootcamp, which is a really
great transition method,especially if you're working in
a department where not everybodyis on the same page about
whether grammar is driving orwhether grammar has the snacks.
So if you're in a program likethat, this particular one will
really help you a lot.
And I'm going to also give youa bonus one here call it like
number four which is that formany proficiency-oriented
(09:04):
teachers, what this really lookslike is that the most crucial
grammar structures that, insteadof trying to deconstruct them,
we just show students what theyare in living, breathing
language and make sure that theyknow that these are the most
important functional chunks thatyou need to be able to
communicate with other people.
So that's going to be more of amindset shift overall rather
(09:27):
than a specific tactic.
So let's talk about our firstone.
Number one pop-up grammar.
Who doesn't love a good pop-up?
Now for pop-up grammar.
This is a common method usedinside of the proficiency
community, especially in the CIcommunity, because they're the
ones who popularize this.
But the idea of pop-up grammaris this it's when you're using a
(09:51):
specific construction in classand it's happening a lot, let's
say we'll go with something easylike the past tense.
So let's say you're using thepast tense a lot to tell your
students a fun story aboutsomething that happened to you
last weekend and you're using alot of those context heavy words
like yesterday or last nightand things like that.
(10:13):
But your students are.
They're following your story.
When you say things like I wentto the store but I forgot my
grocery list.
So you're saying I went, Iforgot, I went back to my house
those things.
I went, I forgot and I returnedback to my house, those three
(10:34):
verbs are going to have somesort of simple past tense
construction.
If you're in romance language,it's going to be like the
preterite.
So with that in mind, if yourstudents are saying wow, that
really looks like I mean Iremember that word go, but it
looks really different InSpanish, it looks really
different In French, it looksexactly the same, but it's got a
(10:54):
bunch of funky words in frontof it.
So if you're saying somethinglike je suis allée in French,
your students might be like hey,I understand where you're going
.
I see that you said like I gosomewhere and yesterday must
mean like I went, but like whydoes it have that weird accent?
Why is it looking different?
So if your students arestarting to ask about it, then
they're probably ready for youto explain just a quick thing
(11:17):
about like.
Oh well, when you use the pasttense in French, if you're
talking about like simple,immediate, one-time actions,
what you're going to do isusually you're going to use a
past participle with the verbêtre in front of it or the verb
avoir in front of it, andthey'll be like oh okay, and
then you can just move on.
(11:38):
Or if you want to go into like aknockdown, drag out thing about
it, you could keep it like 10minutes or less, and what it
looks like is in the moment, incontext, you are quickly
explaining relevant features.
You're not really doing anypractice with it and you don't
have any assessment attached toit.
You are literally explaininghow this past tense structure
works in French, because yourstudents asked about it or
(11:59):
because it is the way thatyou're presenting this grammar
structure, which is how I usedto do it.
So what this does is thepurpose of it is for them to
understand and put together someof those functional elements of
ooh cool.
Look at the structure that Ialready know, which is this verb
aller, and look how it formsdifferently depending on whether
(12:22):
it's in a different time frameor not, comes differently
depending on whether it's in adifferent time frame or not.
So it really helps enrich thatcommunicative ability in that
specific moment with just thatspecific phrase, with pop-up
grammar.
Something to keep in mind isthat this doesn't mean that
you're going to expand to likethe full breadth of what past
tense looks like, which, by theway bonus tip I would say is the
number one problem that we havein programs is when the
(12:45):
textbook that you're followingor the program or the curriculum
that you're following says, hey, we're doing past tense now.
Often teachers think, well, Igot it, they have to know
everything about the past tense.
And that's not true, because ina communicative context, when
people are picking up an L2,context, when people are picking
up an L2, they don't learn theentire structure all at once.
(13:07):
They pick up little pieces ofthe structure at a time and
usually they actually pick upthe irregulars first, because in
language those are the highfrequency terms that are more
common.
So you can apply this exactsame concept when you are doing
a past tense unit, like it'svery common in Spanish too, to
spend a lot of time on thepreterite and then do we do the
(13:31):
what's the word I'm looking for?
We use regular preterite for awhile and then we go into
irregular mode and then ourstudents are just drowning in
all these flashcards of like ohmy God, there's so many
irregular forms of this.
But dial it back a little bitand think of it this way instead
of well, I could show them withpop-up grammar some of the
really common irregulars thatthey need to know.
(13:52):
Like you'll fui, which I like,you have to have that to talk
about anything in the past tense.
Right, but it doesn't mean thatyou need to also teach the
other 1,600,000,.
Thank you Spanish.
Irregular preterite forms atthe time.
Why don't you just focus on,like the sweet 16 or even
smaller, the super sevens ofwhat those high-frequency past
(14:14):
tense forms are?
Because you know as well as Ido that that, like, teaching all
of the irregulars at once it'stoo much for you.
It's too much for them.
Like who's?
Please raise your hand and letme know if you've ever had like
oh, wow, amazing success.
All my students felt greatabout doing this very lengthy
and in-depth unit about everysingle irregular preterite form.
Have you, I don't know, asingle teacher who's had success
(14:37):
with that?
So we should try a differentapproach.
And just as another example isthat something that I used to do
with students when we weretalking about these verbs like
gustar often in Spanish class,especially in Spanish too, we
use this verb quedar a lot tomake this comparison, because
it's an important grammarstructure that's different from
(14:59):
the L1 that most students have,which is English.
So I would use te queda versuste quedan, that whole concept of
like it fits me well, or it, or, in this case, it fits you well
, or like they fit me well, whenyou're talking about like a
pair of pants or something inthis case, it fits you well or
like they fit me well, whenyou're talking about like a pair
of pants or something.
We would do this just bylooking at a catalog of clothing
(15:20):
and then we would talk aboutand use the individual items of
like.
For pants, you always useKayvan and for this item, like
you know, a scarf or something,or a hat that fits you well, and
it's going to be singular.
So it's the whole idea of likelet's keep it in context and
don't worry about assessmentuntil you really feel like
(15:43):
students have a grasp on maybemore breadth of the subject.
But assessment isn't thepurpose here.
It's actually to help themnavigate the communicative
situation they're in.
The other really great methodthat I love to use is inductive
grammar.
There's been a good amount ofresearch actually done on this
and it really helps students tocement this into their brains
(16:04):
and into the more long-termmemory side of their brains and
it helps them make sense ofthings.
Inductive grammar overall isjust the simple idea that,
instead of presenting the ruleto students whatever that
commonality, that pattern orthat rule might be with a
specific form or feature of yourtarget language is that you ask
(16:26):
students to figure out thepatterns themselves.
So it's a lot more interactive,it's a lot more
comprehension-based and it's alot more like you guys figuring
it out together, and so it staysin their memories a lot longer
and it helps them make sense ofthings.
Here's how it works Present avery simple text, really really
(16:46):
simple text, with whatever yourtargeted structure is.
So you could say something likein Spanish you could do like voy
al cine de nuevo or fui al cineayer and you're going to ask
for students to figure out whatis the meaning.
That's step three here.
Step four is you're going tohypothesize as a class, while
(17:08):
guiding the students by givingthem gentle hints about like, oh
, you're onto something, or likeI see where you're thinking is
that?
But it's going to be a littlebit different.
Keep trying, so see if you canhypothesize as a class what the
feature means and what thepattern might be.
So if you're looking atsomething like I went to the
movies yesterday, you're goingto really highlight the word
yesterday, talk about fui, andsee, like, if they can figure
(17:30):
out what do you think this mightmean, based on the context.
So, as that's happening, thisis step five the teacher is
facilitating discussion.
Students will come up with thecorrect rule or formation on
their own and how this works too, and you can see this in a lot
of modern teacher manuals.
If you're currently in acollege class, or if you take in
a college class and you're likeme and you kept most of your
(17:52):
textbooks, then you can lookback and see that inductive
grammar is a very common,well-researched way to, in a
proficiency-oriented manner,include grammar in your program
in a way that helps students byhopefully producing that feature
later on, because theyunderstand it in a much deeper
(18:12):
way than just the surface-levelmemorization of oh, here are the
endings, oh, here's theirregular form.
Now the next thing that you'regoing to do after this is, once
students have the correct rule,once they've got the pattern
down and they've come to thecorrect conclusion, then you're
going to give them some amplepractice and even more input to
(18:34):
really solidify that structurein their heads.
This works really well withlet's go back to the French
example when you have somethingthat is easy to figure out on
its own, like if it's got somefamiliar elements that they've
already seen before, like theverb aller in the past tense in
French looks really similar tothe infinitive that they've seen
all year in French 1.
(18:55):
So if you're in French 2 andyou're working with aller, like,
this is a really nice inductivegrammar.
So, in summary, this optionnumber two, inductive grammar,
is just asking students tofigure out the pattern on their
own and gently guiding thediscussion so that they get to
the right conclusion.
It really helps them tomemorize it.
Now, if you are like me and youare team, the less grammar the
(19:18):
better, not because grammar isbad, but just because it doesn't
actually lead to acquisition.
It just helps to transform andmake the acquisition that's
already in your students' headsmore accurate.
And since accuracy is not reallya focus of my classroom and
never has been, that can be likea whole nother episode that we
talk about is that when you'rejust hoping to have students
(19:42):
have more fluency, more words touse and more context and
communicative situations inwhich they actually feel
comfortable producing things,grammar is not really going to
help you get there.
So I eliminated it from myprogram as much as possible,
because the time you have withstudents is very little and very
precious, so it just wasn'thigh on the priority list for me
(20:04):
.
So what I would do because Ididn't know where my students
were going to go after they werehanging out with me in French 2
, they could go to a French 3program that was very grammar
heavy.
They could go to a French threeprogram that was very grammar
heavy.
They could go to a collegeprogram, because I was working
with a lot of high schoolseniors at that time and they
could potentially do a collegeexam where they're trying to get
(20:27):
out of French 101 and just jumpright into French 102, which
would save them a lot of timeand money.
So I want them to be reallyhappy with those results, and a
lot of programs are still prettygrammar-based.
So something that I would do istip number three, which is a
three-week grammar bootcamp.
When I get this question frompractical proficiency members of
like oh my God, I have otherpeople in my department who
(20:51):
teach a lot of grammar and Idon't want my students to drown
in that class because theirabilities to communicate won't
shine as well just because theydon't.
They might not know the rule,even though they can use it,
which we all know is better.
But with this idea, we wantyour students to be successful
in every environment thatthey're in without it taking up
too much of that quality juicyinput time in your class.
(21:13):
So I would suggest this simplething, which is a three-week
grammar bootcamp.
It's exactly what it soundslike.
You know all of those simplepractice and presentation models
and like simple, boring-assworksheets that you're used to
and that you have maybe inabundance somewhere in an old
filing cabinet or an old GoogleDrive.
Well, this is a great time todo that, especially if you've
(21:37):
got something like nationalexams coming up that you don't
really have control over what'sin the actual test or not.
Maybe there's a state examthat's going to be testing on a
specific grammar feature, ormaybe you know that the next
teacher that they go into forChinese 3 is really going to hit
them hard with some grammarrules and you want them to feel
successful.
(21:57):
So all this means is as simpleas it sounds pick a section of
the year and go over all thethings you avoided with grammar
during the year and let studentsgo wild with that very
comfortable form of class thatthey know well, which is teacher
gives information, studentsabsorb information, memorize and
then can write that informationdown later on a test Like
(22:19):
that's easy.
You guys can do that all daylong.
As long as you have some funways and some fun games to do
that, it's not nearly asdifficult as creating
communicative situations.
Right, that could be an easyplanning period for you.
You just got to watch outbecause it's really boring.
It's really really, really,really, really boring.
(22:41):
So you're going to need a lotof games and a lot of fun prizes
and things to make this work.
But it also can make studentsfeel very secure and very happy
because you can give them thingslike hey, here's a two-week
packet of study guides and infoand burp charts, and like easy
stuff for students to memorizethat doesn't require a lot of
cognitive thought which, by theway, is probably why grammar is
(23:06):
monopolizing a lot of the time.
That we do in class is that whenyou have a difficult class or
when you don't have anymaterials like this is something
that students are really goodat and can experience a lot of
success in, even though itdoesn't.
Those skills don't transferover into any type of
communicative situation unlessthey're already at intermediate
low in the amount of languagethat they have in their heads,
(23:28):
and so you're just helping topolish and shape up the language
that's already there, but again, it doesn't create new language
.
So this is a really nice way toshape and polish things up
before an important test orbefore moving to a new class
that you know there's going tobe a lot of conjugation
flashcards in there.
Now, overall, here is one thingthat I think helps a lot of
(23:51):
teachers who are in a prettygrammar heavy program transition
over into this new world ofproficiency without feeling like
you have to completely changeeverything that you already have
, because we just spend a lot oftime talking about like well,
grammar is fine, but it's notthe best use of your time in
(24:12):
class if it's really taking overand you know like more than
like 20% of your instructionaltime.
So here is something to helpyou understand that there is
another, really simple way thatyou already have access to.
It doesn't require any newtraining, any new materials or
any of that junk.
And it's this Pretend that allof the grammar structures that
(24:35):
you're teaching are justvocabulary and keep them in
functional chunks.
Functional chunks is the newfavorite phrase of ACTFL.
You know since about like.
I don't know when it started,but I know that around like 2016
, 2017, it really started to geta lot of steam in the
proficiency world.
Thinking about like let's keeplanguage in context together.
(24:55):
Steam in the proficiency worldthinking about like let's keep
language in context together.
So, instead of presenting theconditional in a first-year
class, remember all thoserestaurant units that we have in
textbooks that are talkingabout like I would like.
When it's time for you to order, and so you teach some things
like in Spanish, you teach likeme gustaría un vaso de agua when
(25:16):
they're ordering, like I wouldlike a glass of water.
Or in French you're teaching jevoudrais un limonade or
something like that.
So je voudrais is theconditional form of vouloir and
it's all about I would likerather than I want, and when you
put it in that context it's anatural piece of your vocab list
(25:37):
and students might be if theynotice like, oh wow, so it's I
would like.
Is it related to I want?
Most students won't make thatconnection, but remember how we
always used to teach this.
You know, before proficiencywas cool and a lot of people
were talking about it Likeconditional was always part of
restaurant units in level one,always whenever we were talking
about food, and we neverbothered in level one to expand
(26:02):
the entire concept ofconditional and say, hey, here
are all these other forms ofconditional and other ways that
you can make polite requests.
We just taught the onefunctional chunk in that one
phrase when students needed toaccess it to talk about what
they needed and to get acommunicative thing done, which
is to order in a restaurantpolitely.
So we can do that withliterally any other structure
(26:26):
that you can imagine.
The best example is conditionalhere, when you're talking about
level one, but you can reallytreat any grammar or any
language feature as just anatural part of your vocab list,
and errors quote-unquote errorsthey can just be spelling
mistakes.
For now this works really welluntil level three or four, when
(26:47):
your students are starting toreach in their intermediate low
and they actually crave a littlebit more grammar instruction
because they have language intheir heads and they want to be
able to use it more accurately.
But in the first two to threeyears of language most of your
students are, they're not reallygoing to care that much about
how the language works.
They just don't.
They don't even have enoughlanguage to realize that there's
(27:08):
a structure.
They or to have enough brainspace to pay attention to the
structure because they're just,they feel like they're, you know
, clinging for anything to floaton in a sea of language for a
long time.
So you can just give themlittle chunks of already
constructed pieces of languageand let them use that whenever
(27:30):
it makes sense for them in asimple context like oh, you want
to be polite in a restaurant,you're going to use this phrase.
It's conditional, but you don'tneed to worry about that right
now.
Just say je vous trais insteadof je veux, and you can do that
for the entire year any way thatyou want to.
It works in so many differentsituations.
(27:52):
This was one of the main waysthat I moved more towards
proficiency in my programwithout changing anything about
the current program that myschool was following, because it
wouldn't make sense for me tochange the program right.
It just made sense to change alittle bit about how I presented
it and taught it.
If you're doing this, I wouldsay too, it also makes sense
that you're not going to assesswhether students can produce or,
(28:15):
you know, break down the verbwohlwil and put it back into
conditional right, like thatdoesn't make any sense.
What does make sense is ifyou're going to give them two
different verbs that they couldpossibly use, for I want and I
would like, and make sure thatthey circle the one that says I
would like to be more polite ina restaurant situation.
That's a way you can assessthat we're at a wrap here y'all.
(28:38):
Those are the three plus oneimportant mindset shift for all
of your grammaticalconstructions, for all of your
grammatical constructions.
I hope these are really helpfulto you for things that you can
do to make your program moreproficiency friendly without
having to actually make a lot oftweaks if you're working in an
already pretty grammar heavysyllabus, but remember, at the
end of the day, there really areno purists.
(29:00):
So do what works for yourcurriculum, do what works for
your students and make sure thatgrammar has its rightful place,
slowly over time, withoutmaking a ton of changes that are
really going to stress you out,because you and I both know
that the most important thingfor proficiency to happen is for
you to be ready to interactwith students in communicative
(29:21):
situations and provide input forthem, which is a pretty energy
draining activity.
It's really rewarding, but it'sthe most important use of your
class time, so you need to saveand prioritize all of that
energy for that activity.
Also, I'd like to address avery common misconception about
this, which is that we don'tabandon accuracy.
(29:41):
We're just abandoning the falsenotion that grammar will lead
to acquisition.
So studying a grammar structuredoesn't help cement that
structure more in your students'heads or allow them to access
it in communicative situations.
So I would say, too, that one ofthe things that we need to keep
in mind is that accuracy isstill an important part of your
(30:02):
overall five-level program,whether you're starting in
elementary, middle or highschool.
That students don't actually dowell with accuracy if you are
completely in a comprehensible,input-focused program, which
means that your students arejust doing input, input, input
all day long and responding backto you spontaneously when they
(30:24):
have the ability and it comes tothem, but without a lot of
pressure for output.
So in those situations what wefound is in like multi-year
programs that those studentsactually really struggled with
accuracy.
There was a lot of studies donein a Canadian program that was
driven by input alone andaccuracy is an important part of
our program we need to address,but at the right time.
(30:46):
So we're looking more at whenstudents have language in their
heads around the end of leveltwo, around level or year three,
when you know that they'restarting to reach and create
their own.
I would say like there's a wholeseries on this if you'd like to
dive deeper into levels.
If I'm saying intermediate, lowand you're like what does that
mean?
There's a whole series on this.
(31:11):
But I'll leave those podcastepisodes for you to check out in
the show notes and in the linkbelow here.
But just know that yourstudents need to have a certain
amount of language in theirheads before they can start
sharpening it and making itaccurate and all of that, but
that phase is still important.
We just need to move it alittle bit back.
You know we're not doing a lotof accuracy in level one, barely
if at all.
In level two we're starting totalk about accuracy with really
(31:33):
familiar forms and then in levelthree we can roll out a little
bit more accuracy, focus withsome pop-up grammar or method
number two, inductive grammar ormethod number three, doing a
two to three week grammar bootcamp.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I hope that this helps you withyour role of grammar in your
(31:53):
program and having somepractical ways that you can move
forward with grammar in a waythat makes you feel like your
students are getting what theyneed but they're also not
spending too much time on thingsthat won't lead them to
acquisition.
So let me know what are somethings that you want to know
about grammar.
You can submit questions to thepodcast anytime now.
(32:13):
I'm really excited to answermore questions like this.
You can check the show notesbelow or the YouTube description
below for a link to where youcan submit questions.
I would love to answer anythingabout proficiency, grammar, ci,
all that stuff.
Anything to do with a healthy,safe and communicative classroom
environment where language isthe focus.
(32:34):
Put it in the questions, andI'd love to answer that question
over the air.
But in the meantime, thanks somuch for spending some of your
valuable time with me, and Ican't wait to see you in the
next episode, where we're gonnatalk a little bit more in depth
about the role of grammar inyour program.
All right, ciao, bye for now.
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