ECI 523 Assignment 9

Jing He 07/20/2016
The focus of my research is on teaching students grammar in context.
Grammar is boring but still important for my students who have to meet the
requirements of standard English tests since most of them aim to study
abroad. Traditional ways of teaching grammar in China require students to
memorize the rules and do a large number of drills. Not so many students
can achieve a lot from this kind of teaching. I believe it will be more
engaging and efficient if we teach students grammar in various contexts.
With this focus in mind, I found and read the following articles.
1.
Mart, . T. (2013). Teaching grammar in context: Why and how? Theory and
Practice in Language Studies, 3(1), 124-129. Retrieved from
http://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php?
url=http://search.proquest.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/docview/1346774369?
accountid=12725
As the title tells, the author elaborates his claims regarding why and how
the grammar should be taught in context. Before getting to the point, the
author emphasizes the importance of teaching grammar itself. He claims
that understanding the grammar is the key to understanding a foreign
language. By teaching students grammatical structures, we show students
how a language works and allow them to do effective communication. Then
the author begins to elaborate why we should teach grammar in context. He
criticizes the traditional way of teaching grammar and claims that the

biggest disadvantage is that students fail to apply the grammar they learn.
On the contrary, teaching grammar in context will show students directly
how the grammar works in real communication. Based on this argument, the
author then elaborates how we teach grammar in context. Dialogue is
claimed to be an effective way. The main method is to guide students to read
the dialogue and work out the grammatical rules by induction and then apply
them by themselves. The key point is to use high-frequency instances to help
students see the usage of grammar. The author concludes that teaching
grammar through context will help learners perceive the structures of the
language effectively and students will master the language better.
This source is useful in terms of its strong argument for the importance
of teaching grammar in context, that is, why we should teach students
grammar in context. However, it kind of fails to show how exactly we can
teach in context. Though the author gives two examples, he doesnt discuss
this part in a comprehensive and profound way.
My research aims to explore how we can teach grammar in context. This
source is helpful to support my rationale, but not so helpful in terms of
teaching and researching methods.
2.
Smoot, W. S. (2001). An experiment in teaching grammar in context. Voices from
the Middle, 8(3), 34-42. Retrieved from
http://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php?

url=http://search.proquest.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/docview/213932444?
accountid=12725
This article discusses the authors experiment of teaching grammar in
context. The author first explains why he was motivated to carry out this
experiment. He talked about the traditional way of teaching grammar
through memorization and drills in his school, and the fact that students
usually failed to apply grammar in real writing when they were taught in this
way. He aimed to teach students both little grammar (sentence structure,
parts of speech, etc.) and big grammar (essay structure, points of an
argument, etc.) through reading meaningful texts drawn from history class.
The main approach is to encourage students to discover grammatical rules in
the texts and then they can remember them and use them. The attempts
showed early success. However, as the experiment moved on, students
began to complain that they were falling behind in learning grammar
compared with other classes. The author received negative comments
regarding the effectiveness of the method. Whats worse, his students failed
in the assessments, which were taken by other classes. The author analyzes
the reasons behind the failure. He admits that a failure of communication
with his students about the new method and also his failure to collaborate
with the colleagues led to the failure of the experiment. He believes that he
should have considered the larger context of the teaching, that is the school
environment. He also claims that using traditional way of assessments to

test the effectiveness of his teaching is not correct. As he states, the

measure of success must change as strategies change.
I believe this source is valid and useful, even though the experiment
failed. The author elaborates explicitly and honestly the process of his
experiment, which sets an example of action research. The failure itself is a
valuable lesson, which enables the author to think thoroughly about his
motivation and practice. What can be suggested is that he should have
collected more data to show the progress of students learning.
This source is helpful to my research because it shows me the process of
an experiment, and also the challenges I should expect. It also brings me
more thoughts about the meaning of contextthe texts and the teaching
environment. After reading this source, I will consider more profoundly what
contexts I should use to teach students grammar, and what assessments I
should use the measure the progress.
3.
Zuidema, L. (2012). The Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study in
Reading and Writing Contexts. The English Journal, 101(5), 63-71. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/stable/23269531
This excerpt of book describes the authors inquire-base practice of a
grammar workshop, which aims to teach grammar systematically in reading
and writing contexts. The author first talks about the limit of traditional
grammar instructions and claims that the contexts for grammar study should
be reframed. He introduces the tools for designing the grammar workshop,

which is based on the concept of notice-name-apply. The author then gives a

detailed description of the practice of the workshop. He first gives students
the Field Notebook assignment, for which students need to works as
grammar researches. Students are required to read various texts to notice
and name how grammar works in the texts. They need to work together
throughout the semester to label and analyze their selected authors
grammatical choices. The students also work individually to write about
grammar-related issues and apply their Field Notebook knowledge by
experimenting with the same kinds of grammatical skills that they notice in
the texts. The author concludes that the workshop is a success according to
the progress the students make, and also the positive feedbacks from both
his students and the department chair.
This source is useful because it discusses both the theoretical foundation
and the practice. I believe the information is reliable since a detailed
description of the process is elaborated. One thing that can be added is the
data to be collected to show the students progress.
I find this source is helpful to my research because it sets an example of
teaching grammar in reading, which is always my interest to explore. I also
plan to help students discover grammar in texts and then apply by writing.
As stated above, I still believe more data should be provided regarding
students practice. I think I will add that part in my own research.
4.

Abdel Rhim, A. M. (2013). Enhancing Secondary Stage Students' Writing: Effects

of Context of Songs in Teaching Grammar Implicitly. Online Submission,
This article reports a study that investigated the effect of context of
songs in teaching grammar implicitly on students writing. The study was
conducted on an experimental group of students who were taught grammar
implicitly with the help of selected songs and a control group of students who
were taught explicitly grammatical rules. A pre-test and post-test of writing
were carried out to test the students learning outcomes. By comparing the
learning results of the experimental group and the control group, the authors
claim that using context of songs in teaching grammar has effects on
improving the students learning outcomes.
The source is rather scholarly with a systematic discussion of the
rationale, the theoretical foundation, the design of the plan, and the data
collected. The information is reliable with all the data provided. I believe its
a good example of action research. However, the part about teaching
grammar using songs is not described in details, and I am not very clear
about how the students learn about grammar by writing about the songs.
As I stated, this source is quite useful as an example of action plan. It
also expands my understanding of context and reminds me that I can use
various forms of texts to engage students in learning. Its not so helpful in
terms of showing me the exact process of teaching grammar by using songs,
which needs me to explore more by myself.
5.

Celce-Murcia, M. (2007). Towards More Context and Discourse in Grammar

Instruction. Tesl-Ej, 11(2),
This article discusses why the traditional way of teaching grammar
through sentence-level drills have not been successful and explores an
innovation approach of using context to help students learn grammar more
efficiently. The author first shows several samples of grammatical drills that
are still used in many of the ESL/EFL textbooks and makes his point that they
are neither meaningful nor authentic. The author then discusses some of the
characteristics of grammar exercise that would better serve the needs of
English language learners, which leads to his claim that the context should
be meaningful and related to real life.
The strongest point of this source is that its rationale is convincing
because the author has provided an in-depth analysis about why the
traditional drills are meaningless. It is also useful as it provides several
examples of teaching grammar in meaningful context. The disadvantage is
that the research is not systematic enough: it doesnt show an actual process
of practice and related data to show the real outcome of the practice.
The source is helpful in providing me with more ideas about teaching
grammar in context, however it doesnt provide me with practical research
methods.