Teaching grammar at low levels through chunks

We could be teaching more grammar at low levels through grammaticalized chunks. We already do it sometimes, but we do it very inconsistently. Ironically, that’s because the syllabus at low levels is defined by teaching grammar, rather than being guided by what students need and want to say.

Would you like some more chunks?

The best example of a grammaticalized chunk is frequently taught is Would you like …? Students are told it’s a ‘polite’ form of want, but no comment is made on the nature of would as a modal verb. It’s possible that you may also see Can I help you? presented in a ‘functional’ service lesson and you may also see the passive (though, quite naturally, nobody teaches it as such) covered via I was born in . . . .

It seems that teachers are happy with this and as some coursebooks have got away with it, the patterns have become established as part of ‘the’ syllabus for teaching grammar at low levels. It does, however, force you to ask that if we can teach Would you like (a X/to go?) as a phrase, why on earth can’t we also teach the following chunks before they are ‘studied’ grammatically?

I don’t know

Have you (ever) been to …?

Where are you going?

I’ll meet you …

What’s the best …?

Exchanges without a chunk. Exchanges with a chunk!

No doubt there are many others we could think of. I should make clear here that I am not suggesting entirely abandoning previous ways of teaching grammar at low levels: teaching chunks is not a simple replacement of the grammar syllabus I criticised in this previous post. Instead, chunks like this should be seen as additions or seen as a parallel syllabus that enable a wider variety of more natural conversations at low levels. So in Beginner units 1, 2, 3 and 4, rather than having an endless series of misunderstandings and pointless misidentifying of things, like this

A: Is she Jane?

B: No she’s not, She’s Paula.

A: Is she from Mexico?

B: No she’s Italian.

A: Is this a pen?

B: No, it’s a mobile phone….

… we could instead go straight to the point and say I don’t know!

A: What’s her name?

B: I don’t know.

A: Where’s she from?

B: I don’t know.

A: What’s this in English?

B: I don’t know.

A radical suggestion?

Obviously, one issue teachers have is that dealing with one chunk in conversation may then require teaching grammar that is also unknown. However, sometimes this relates to the obsession with getting learners at low levels to use short answers or provide ‘full’ grammatical answers, when in reality we frequently don’t need to add anything extra. For example:

A: Have you been to Birmingham?

B: Yes.

A: When?

B: Last year.

A: Is it nice?

B: Yes. I like it.

And what if the things students try to say DO require you to teach new grammar to these low level learners? Well, I guess you could just teach them what they want to say – or just let them say it ‘incorrectly’ without the grammar. A radical suggestion I know!

Teaching Grammar at low levels in practice!

I’ll finish by saying that we do use more of these grammaticalized chunks quite consciously to teach grammar at low levels in Outcomes Beginner: publishing can change sometimes! However, you don’t have to wait for a coursebook or use ours. You can add this parallel syllabus as a teacher quite easily. It’s the kind of thing we do in our Basic Spanish classes where we don’t use a coursebook. And you can find out more about how to do this in our course Teaching languages at low levels and our in real life summer course in London.