Topic: Teaching ESL grammar: Breaking the rules
Guest speaker: Dr Graham Lock
Date & Time: Monday, 14 April at 1-3 pm
Venue: B101
Language: English

Abstract:

Despite the many new ideas and shifts in fashion that have characterized the Teaching of English as a Second Language over the past few decades, in many places the preferred procedure for teaching English grammar remains presentation of rules followed by mechanical sentence level practice (sometimes referred to as ‘drilling’). In this presentation, I will first look at some of the ‘rules’ commonly found in ESL course books and grammar revision books and consider how accurate they are and how useful are the kinds of practice exercises that follow them. I will then argue for a shift to grammar teaching procedures that can help students to notice for themselves how grammar is used in particular contexts, to explore how grammatical choices are meaningful choices and to practice using grammatical resources to make meaning. I will present some examples of such grammar teaching activities for participants to evaluate and comment on.

About the Guest Speaker:

Dr Graham Lock has taught English and courses in English language teacher education in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. He was an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong from 1990 until his retirement in 2007. He is currently an adjunct associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Functional English Grammar: An Introduction for Second Language Teachers (CUP 1996) and, with Rodney H. Jones, Functional Grammar in the ESL Classroom: Noticing, Exploring and Practising (Palgrave-Macmillan 2011).