Grammar

I wish to share some interesting and intricate features of the structures that I came to know of during my teaching and learning of ESL. I will also be posting the following:

• Some difficult to answer grammar questions that we as teachers can expect from our students
• Suggestions to teach grammar
• Interesting activities

As you know there are two approaches to teaching grammar. They are inductive and deductive approaches.

Deductive Approach

First the grammar rules are outlined. Teacher defines the grammar structure before getting the students to practice it. I believe this approach is good if the proficiency level of the students is low. For example, if students don't know what conditional clauses are, it's better to show the structure first and analyze it before talking about examples.

Inductive Approach

In this approach the analysis of the grammar rule comes last. First examples of the intended structure is given/ practiced. Then students are expected to discover the elements of rules. When I teach conditional clauses most often I use the inductive approach. (Please see below)

I find inductive approach more interesting than deductive approach. Most often I try to use inductive approach even when teaching lower levels and resort to deductive approach only when the first doesn't yield intended results. Inductive teaching a great way to keep the students actively engaged in the learning process. It also helps the teacher to find out how much prior knowledge students have and to figure out how much of scaffolding is needed.

Indirect / reported Speech -1


According to my experience teaching indirect/ reported speech is not an easy task.

Let's start from easy to difficult.

In reported speech we have to pay attention to the time factor.

Example 1: If we are reporting something immediately after it's spoken and while the effect still pervades, we use present time.

At 1.00 p.m.
A says to B :      "I'm tired." At 1.01 p.m.
B reports to C:   A said that he is tired. (It's more correct to think A is still tired.)

Example 2.
A said he was tired. (If you are reporting much later in the day you could expect that A is not tired anymore)

Example 3.
A to B : "I will visit you tomorrow afternoon." The following day morning B to C: A said he will visit me this afternoon. The following day evening B to C : A said he would visit me this afternoon.

When reporting speech verbs change in the following manner.

Present tense He said, “I'm tired.”	Past tense He said he was tired.
Present continuous He said, “I'm planning to buy a house.”	Past continuous He said he was planning to buy a house.
Present perfect He said, “I have watched that movie.”	Past perfect He said he had watched that movie.
Present perfect continuous He said, “I have been working hard.”	Past perfect continuous He said he had been working hard.
Simple past tense He said, “I forgot to lock the door.”	Past perfect He said he had forgotten to lock the door.
Past continuous He said, “I was watching a movie at that time.”	Past perfect continuous He said he had been watching a movie at that time.
Past perfect NO  CHANGE He said, “I had already posted the letter.”	Past perfect   NO  CHANGE He said he had already posted the letter.
Past perfect continuousNO  CHANGE He said, “I had been answering the phone at that moment.”	Past perfect continuousNO  CHANGE He said he had been answering the phone at that moment.