Teaching Grammar with Digital Video Clips

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Teaching Grammar with Digital Video Clips

• John Liang
• Biola University

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Grammar Pedagogy
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Problems in the Traditional Grammar Classroom

• Emphasis on grammar as knowledge
• Explanations of rules abstract
• Practices not motivating, nor meaningful, i.e.
  form-focused, out of context, limited learner
  choice, etc.
• Lack of self-expressions and self-discovery
• Lack of skill integration, i.e. reading,
  listening, speaking, etc.

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Possibilities in the Humanistic Grammar Classroom

• Emphasis on grammar as skill
• Integration of product and process
• raising learner awareness through guided
  self-discovery
• engaging students in form-focused practice with
  attention to both context and function

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Possibilities in the Humanistic Grammar Classroom

• Emphasis on grammar as skill
• Integration of structure, context, and choice
• providing scaffoldings to foster spontaneous
  language use
• giving students time to plan and prepare

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Possibilities in the Humanistic Grammar Classroom

• Emphasis on grammar as skill
• Integration of practices and reflection
• evaluating rules through self-discovery
• evaluating language use
• evaluating learning effectiveness

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Possibilities in the Humanistic Grammar Classroom

• Emphasis on grammar as skill
• Integration of product and process
• Integration of structure, context, and choice
• Integration of practices and reflection

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How can digital technology help?

• Toward a Pedagogy of Using Digital Videos

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The A.C.T.I.V.E. Principles

• A use authentic material
• C raise consciousness of both form and use
• T teach with scaffoldings
• I increase fluency
• V verify rules generated through discovery
  learning
• E evaluate ones own learning

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Noticing
Pedagogical Model
Reflection Evaluation
Structuring
Communication
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Sample Lesson

• To be going to

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Step 1 Awareness-Raising

• Have students watch entertaining video clips.
• Implicitly introduce the form by using it in
  questions.
• Provide vocabulary to aid students interaction
  with the material.
• Have students reflect on the rules using the
  contextual cues.
• Present explicit grammar rules to strengthen
  self-discovered rules.

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Whats going to happen?
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• Hes fed up with the homework, and will get up
  and walk away.
• Hes going to shout since hes tired of the
  homework.
• Hes going to sneeze.

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Whats going to happen?
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• Shes attracted to young man and will ask him his
  phone number.
• The young man is also attracted to the young lady
  and will ask her for her phone number.
• Shes going to stop to ask the young man his
  phone number.

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Whats going to happen?
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• The husband just got up. Hes thirsty and is
  looking for something to drink.
• The husband found some milk, and hes going to
  drink it.
• Does the milk taste good? Yes! Hes going to
  say, yum yum.

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Question
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• Whats the difference between will and be going
  to? Work with your partner and come up with an
  explanation.

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Rule
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• Will expresses a future event at an indefinite
  time.
• be going to expresses the immediate future based
  on signs.
• Compare
• She will stop

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Compare
Task 1 Awareness Raising

• She will stop to ask him if he can give her his
  phone number.
• She is going to stop to ask him if he can give
  her his phone number.

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Step 2 Guided Practice

• Have students watch a set of video clips.
• Have them work in groups making predictions about
  the immediate future. Be sure to ask them to
  justify their answers. Allow them to use their
  bilingual dictionary if they struggle with an
  expression.
• Have students type up their answers on the screen
  and read them out loud.

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Whats going to happen?
Task 2 Guided Practice
Possible verbs shout at the prisoners fire on
the crowds fire tear gas call for help throw
rocks at the guards
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Whats going to happen?
Task 2 Guided Practice
Possible verbs be crushed by the bus give
up swing back and forth under the bus cling
tight to the string
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Whats going to happen?
Task 2 Guided Practice
Possible verbs park beside the truck knock down
the man who was gloating give up shout at the
workers
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Task 3 Communicative Practice
Pair up students. Have one student narrate what
is going on to another student. Require them to
constantly make a prediction.
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Task 3 Communicative Practice

• Pair up students. Have one student narrate what
  is going on to another student. Require them to
  constantly make a prediction.

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Task 4 Extended Communicative Practice

• Have students write up a short paragraph
  imaginatively narrating what is going to happen
  next.

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Task 5 Self-Directed Practice and Reflection

• As a homework assignment, have students look for
  video clips that they can use to create a story
  using to be going to. Bring the video clips to
  class and share. Also, in their journals record
  their struggle with the new form.