Rod Ellis (2006): “Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective”, in TESOL Quarterly,

vol. 40, Num 1, online

04/08/2011, 12h05 GMT
Eight questions relating to the teaching of Grammar in the light of findings from SLA.
A summary by Siéwoué Martin Bolivar

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 1. DEFINING GRAMMAR TEACHING 1. Teach those forms that differ from the learners’ first language
Traditionally, grammar teaching is viewed as the presentation and (L1): a contrastive analysis approach. Focus is on known common
practice of discrete grammatical structures. Why is this overly narrow learner errors.
definition? Grammar teaching can 2. Teach marked rather than unmarked formsiii. The general idea is
(1) Consist of presentation without practice and reversely; that we should teach the marked features and leave the students to learn
(2) Involve learners in discovering grammatical rules for themselves – the unmarked forms naturally by themselves.
neither presentation nor practice –
(3) be conducted simply by exposing learners to input contrived to 4. WHEN SHOULD WE TEACH GRAMMAR?
provide multiple exemplars of the target structure.
(4) Be conducted by means of corrective feedback on learner errors when Two competing answers to this question:
these arise in the context of performing some communicative task. 1. Emphasise the teaching of grammar in the early stages of SLA.
- “error like sin needs to be avoided at all costs” (Brooks,
Definition 1960; behaviourist theory). This premise holds that once learners have
Grammar teaching involves any instructional technique that draws formed incorrect habits, they will have difficulty eradicating them and
learners’ attention to some specific grammatical form in such a way that replacing them with correct habits. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that
it helps them either to understand it metalinguistically and/or process it learners develop correct habits in the first place.
in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize it. - Many teachers believe that beginning-level learners cannot
engage in meaning-centred activities because they lack the necessary
2. SHOULD WE TEACH GRAMMAR? knowledge of the L2 to perform tasks. Thus, a form-focused
(Or should we simply create the conditions by which learners learn approach is needed initially to construct a basis of knowledge that
naturally?) learners can then use and extend in a meaning-focused approach.
- Before implementing implicit learning processes based on
Early research into L2 acquisition showed: massive exposure to the target language (immersion programmes), N.
(1) that learners appear to follow a natural order and sequence of Ellis (2005)iv has suggested that learning necessarily commences with an
acquisition (i.e., they mastered different grammatical structures in a explicit representation of linguistic forms, which are then developed
relatively fixed and universal order and they passed through a through implicit learning. He for developing true competence. suggests
sequence of stages of acquisition on route to mastering each grammatical that teaching grammar early is valuable because it provides a basis for
structure) the real learning that follows. The idea here is that understanding how
[[[Communicative ability is dependent on acquisition]]] grammatical features work facilitates the kind of processing required
(2) However, instructed learners generally achieved higher
levels of grammatical competence and more rapidly than naturalistic 2. Emphasise meaning-focused instruction to begin with and introduce
grammar teaching later, when learners have already begun to form their
learners but instruction was no guarantee that learners would acquire interlanguagesv.
what they had been taught. - Research on immersion programmes shows that learners in
(3) Teaching grammar is beneficial but that to be effective, such programmes are able to develop the proficiency needed for fluent
grammar had to be taught in a way that was compatible with the communication without any formal instruction in the L2. Why then
natural processes of acquisition. bother to teach what can be learned naturally?
- Early interlanguage is typically agrammatical (e.g.: Me no; Me
[[[Many studies measure learning in terms of constrained constructed Milkman; Dinner time you out) which rely on context and the use of
responses (e.g., fill in the blanks, sentence joining, or sentence communication strategies. embedded communication. this lexicalised
transformation), which can be expected to favour grammar teaching. knowledge provides the basis for the subsequent development of the
There is only mixed evidence that instruction results in learning grammatical competence needed for context-free communication.
when it is measured by means of free constructed responses (e.g., This, then, is a strong argument for delaying the teaching of
communicative tasks)]]] grammar until learners have developed a basic communicative ability.
Grammar teaching can contribute to interlanguage development. Ellis favours the second position in that:
Task-based language teaching is possible with complete beginners if
3. WHAT GRAMMAR SHOULD WE TEACH? the first tasks emphasise listening (and perhaps reading) [reception
tasks] and allow for nonverbal responses. However, it is possible that
In general, syllabus designers and teachers have not found such such an approach can be usefully complemented with one that draws
models useful and have preferred to rely on modern descriptive beginners’ attention to some useful grammatical features (e.g. Past
grammars, such as Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman’s (1999) tense –ed in English) that they might otherwise miss.
Grammar Book. This resource is especially valuable because it not only
provides a comprehensive, clear, and pedagogically exploitable
description of English grammar but also identifies the kinds of errors that 5. SHOULD GRAMMAR TEACHING BE MASSED OR
L2 learners are known to make with different grammatical structures. DISTRIBUTED?
As Van Patten, Williams, and Rotti (2004) emphasise, establishing
Collins and colleagues (1999) report their own study of three intensive ESL
connections between form and meaning is a fundamental aspect of
programmes in Canada, one (the distributed programme) taught over the full 10
language acquisition. Thus, any reference grammar that fails to months of one school year, one (the massed programme) concentrated into 5
describe the form-meaning connections of the target language must months but taught only to above average students, and the third (the massed plus
necessarily be inadequate. programme) concentrated into 5 months, supplemented with out of class
opportunities to use English and taught to students of mixed ability levels. The
Which grammatical structures should we teach? main finding was that the massed and especially the massed-plus students
Two opposed opinions: outperformed the distributed programme students on most of the measures of
-On the One pole: Krashen (1982) advocates for simple rules like learning, including some measures of grammatical ability, although this
finding might in part be explained by the fact that the massed programmes
the 3rd person –s or past form –ed; complicated rules being not learnable
provided more overall instructional timevi.
or beyond students’ ability to apply through monitoring. However, this
position is not warranted.
6. SHOULD GRAMMAR TEACHING BE INTENSIVE OR
-On the other pole: teach the whole of the grammar of the target
EXTENSIVE
language.ii Nevertheless, most teaching contexts have limited time for
teaching grammar, so some selection is needed. The selection should be
- Difference between intensive and extensive grammar teaching
based on the inherent learning difficulty of different grammatical
Intensive grammar teaching refers to instruction over a sustained period
structures but how can these difficulties be determined? – (a)
of time (which could be a lesson or a series of lessons covering days or
understanding a grammatical feature or (b) internalising a grammatical
weeks) concerning a single grammatical structure or, perhaps, a pair of
structure so as to be able to use it accurately in communication.
contrasted structures (e.g., English past continuous vs. past simple).
Ellis suggests two approaches to delineate cognitive difficulties:
Extensive grammar teaching refers to instruction concerning a whole
range of structures within a short period of time (e.g., a lesson) so

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that each structure receives only minimal attention in any one lesson. - explicit knowledge becomes implicit knowledge if learners have the
It is the difference between shooting a pistol repeatedly at the same target opportunity for plentiful communicative practice.
and firing a shotgun to spray pellets at a variety of targets. Instruction can
be intensive or extensive irrespective of whether it is massed or Is explicit knowledge best taught deductively or inductively?
distributed. In deductive teaching, a grammatical structure is presented initially
- Difference between massed/distributed and intensive/extensive and then practised in one way or another; this is the first P in the present-
“The massed-distributed distinction refers to how a whole grammar practise-produce sequence. In inductive teaching, learners are first
course is staged, while the intensive-extensive distinction refers to exposed to exemplars of the grammatical structure and are asked to
whether each single lesson addresses a single or multiple grammatical arrive at a metalinguistic generalisation on their own; there may or may
feature(s).” not be a final explicit statement of the rule. A number of studies (see
Erlam, 2003, for a review) have examined the relative effectiveness of
The intensive approach these two approaches to teaching explicit knowledge. The results have
Grammar teaching is typically viewed as entailing intensive instruction. been mixed but simple rules may best taught deductively, while more
The present-practise-produce (PPP) model of grammar teaching assumes complex rules may best be taught inductively. Learners skilled in
an intensive focus on specific grammatical structures. Thus the idea that grammatical analysis are likely to fare better with an inductive approach
practice makes perfect is the primary justification of the intensive than those less skilled.
approach. Practise, however, must involve both drillsvii and tasks (i.e.,
opportunities to practice the target structure in a communicative context). 8. IS THERE A BEST WAY TO TEACH GRAMMAR FOR
IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE?
Teaching a marked structure intensively can help learners learn
associated, less marked structures even if it does not result in To answer this question it is necessary to identify the
acquisition of the marked structure. instructional options for teaching grammar. Ellis will consider just
--- two: the difference between input-based and production-based
Intensive instruction also helps learners to use structures they instruction and between different types of corrective feedback.
have already partially acquired more accurately. - The input-based option (Ellis, 2002b) or input processing
instruction (Van Pattern, 2003) is based on a computational model of
L2 acquisition, according to which acquisition takes place as a product
Intensive grammar teaching Extensive grammar teaching of learners comprehending and processing input. Such approaches,
Time-consuming: thus, time (and Affords the opportunity to attend to when directed at grammar, seek to draw learners’ attention to the
learner’s stickiness) will constrain the large numbers of grammatical targeted structure(s) in one or more ways: simply by contriving for
number of structures to be addressed structures. numerous exemplars of the structure(s) to be present in the input
The present-practise-produce materials, by highlighting the target structure(s) in some way (e.g., by
(PPP) model of grammar Many of the structures will be
addressed repeatedly over a period of using bold or italics in written texts), or by means of interpretation tasks
teaching assumes an intensive time (involving a response to the directed at drawing learners’ attention to form-meaning mappings.
focus on specific grammatical errors each learner makes) - The output-based option or production option can be seen in both
structures. skill-building theory or a sociocultural theory of L2 learning according to
Practise, however, must involve It is not possible to attend to which learning arises out of social interaction which scaffolds learners’
both drillsviii and tasks (i.e., those structures that learners do not attempts to produce new grammatical structures.
opportunities to practice the attempt to use (i.e., extensive
target structure in a instruction cannot deal effectively
communicative context). with avoidance).
It does not provide the in-depth
It does provide the in-depth practise
practise that some structures may
that some structures may require
require before they can be fully
before they can be fully acquired.
acquired.
7. IS THERE ANY VALUE IN TEACHING EXPLICIT
GRAMMATICAL KNOWLEDGE? Corrective feedback (i.e., teacher responses to learner errors)

Explicit vs implicit grammatical knowledge - Implicit feedback occurs when the corrective force of the response to
learner error is masked, for example, a recast, which reformulates a
Explicit knowledge Implicit knowledge deviant utterance correcting it while keeping the same meaning:
Consists of the facts that speakers of NNS: Why he is very unhappy?
a language have learned. They NS: Why is he very unhappy?
Is procedural NNS: Yeah why is very unhappy? (Philp, 2003)
concern different aspects of language
including grammar. Or, as in this contrived example, a request for clarification:
NNS: Why he is very unhappy?
Is held consciously, is learnable and Is held unconsciously, and can only NS: Sorry?
verbalisable, be verbalized if it is made explicit. NNS: Why is he very unhappy?
is typically accessed through
controlled processing when learners
It is accessed rapidly and easily - Explicit feedback takes a number of forms, such as direct
and thus is available for use in rapid, correction or metalinguistic explanation. There is some evidence that
experience some kind of linguistic
fluent communication. explicit feedback is more effective in both eliciting the learner’s
difficulty in using the L2.
NB: A distinction needs to be drawn between explicit knowledge as analysed immediate correct use of the structure and in eliciting subsequent correct
knowledge and as metalinguistic explanation. Analysed knowledge entails a use, for example, in a post-test.
conscious awareness of how a structural feature works, while metalinguistic
explanation consists of knowledge of grammatical metalanguage and the 9. SHOULD GRAMMAR BE TAUGHT IN SEPARATE
ability to understand explanations of rules. LESSONS OR INTEGRATED INTO COMMUNICATIVE
ACTIVITIES?
Most SLA researchers agree that competence in an L2 is primarily
a matter of implicit knowledge. Ellis stance is that grammar should be taught in separate classes

- Krashen argues that learners can only use explicit knowledge when Instruction needs to ensure that learners are able to connect
they monitor, which requires that they are focused on form (as opposed grammatical forms to the meanings they realise in communication
to meaning) and have sufficient time to access the knowledge.
- teaching explicit knowledge by itself (i.e., without any opportunities Grammar has held and continues to hold a central place in language
for practising the target feature) is not effective. teaching.

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ROD ELLIS answers the above questions: CONCLUSION
1. What grammar should we teach? The grammar taught should be one
that emphasises not just form but also the meanings and uses of different
grammatical structures.

2. Which grammatical structures should we teach? Teachers should

endeavour to focus on those grammatical structures that are known to be
problmatic to learners rather than try to teach the whole of grammar.

3. When should we teach grammar: Grammar is best taught to learners

who have already acquired some ability to use the language (i.e.,
intermediate level) rather than to complete beginners. However,
grammar can be taught through corrective feedback as soon as
learners begin to use the language productively.

4. A focus-on-forms approach is valid as long as it includes an

opportunity for learners to practise behaviour in communicative tasks.

5. Should grammar teaching be massed or distributed? Consideration

should be given to experimenting with a massed rather than distributed
approach to teaching grammar.

6. Is there a best way of teaching grammar for implicit knowledge?

Use should be made of both input-based and output-based instructional
options.

7. Is explicit knowledge best taught deductively or inductively? A

case exists for teaching explicit grammatical knowledge as a means of
assisting subsequent acquisition of implicit knowledge. Teaching explicit
knowledge can be incorporated into both a focus-on-forms and a focus-
on-form approach. In the case of a focus-on-forms approach, a
differentiated approach involving sometimes deductive and sometimes
inductive instruction may work best.

8. An incidental focus-on-form approach is of special value because it

affords an opportunity for extensive treatment of grammatical
problems (in contrast to the intensive treatment afforded by a focus-on-
forms approach).

9. Corrective feedback is important for learning grammar. It is best

conducted using a mixture of implicit and explicit feedback types that are
both input based and output based.

10. Should grammar be taught in separate lessons or integrated into

communicative activities? In accordance with these beliefs, grammar
instruction should take the form of separate grammar lessons (a focus-
on-forms approach) and should also be integrated into communicative
activities (a focus-on-form approach).

One of the greatest needs is for research that addresses to what extent
and in what ways grammar instruction results in implicit knowledge.

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i
VanPatten, B., Williams, J., & Rott, S. (2004). Form- Meaning connections in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
ii
It is not possible to specify the whole grammar of a language. Quirk and colleagues'(1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English ran to 1081 pages, excluding index and
bibliography
iii
Markedness has been defined in terms of whether a grammatical structure is in some sense frequent, natural, and basic or infrequent, unnatural, and deviant from a
regular pattern.
iv
Ellis, N. C. (2005): “At the interface: How explicit knowledge affects implicit language learning.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition, vol. 27, 305–352.
v
Crystal (2003) defines “interlanguage” as the linguistic system created by someone in the course of learning a foreign language, different from either the speaker’s L1 or
the L2 being acquired. It reflects the influence of those languages (rules) on each other.
vi
Collins, L., Halter, R., Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (1999). “Time and distribution of time in L2 instruction”. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 655–680.
vii
A drill is an activity which practises a particular skill and often involves repeating the same thing several times. ** What is the drill for sth? INFORMAL used to ask what
is the usual, correct way of doing sth
viii