About the webinar
Increasingly, grammar is considered an important skill that helps learners to fully master English (Peng, 2017). Consequently, teachers of English as a foreign language tend to focus on grammar, which is associated with the mastery of 'the rules of a language' (Larsen-Freeman, 2015). This emphasis on rules, which entails rote memorization with little or no communicative practice, is partly due to teachers’ training and the structure of the national curriculum and/or English Language Paper in national certification examinations in some contexts - wherein learners are given mechanical exercises or asked to produce/write random sentences. Although there has been a shift to communicative language teaching recently, language teachers still struggle with building learners’ communicative competence when teaching grammar. The biggest question is: How can teachers make grammar instruction less challenging and more engaging for learners?
In this session, participants discussed teachers’ perception of grammar instruction and brainstorm on why learners face difficulties with grammar lessons. Next, they got exposed to teaching ideas related to the situational approach and ways of building context for grammar structures.
By the end of the webinar, participants:
- learned different techniques of building contexts for grammar lessons;
- discussed applicability of context building techniques for sample grammar lessons;
- were exposed to examples from my personal teaching;
- discussed the benefits of the situational approach in the teaching of grammar.
Overall, the session offered guidance on the use of the situational approach in the teaching of grammar, provides practical strategies to foster it in the EFL classroom taking into consideration meaning, form and use, and provides illustrations from personal teaching.
About the speaker
Anestin Lum Chi is a multiple award-winning language educator and teacher trainer from Cameroon. She is passionate about innovative teaching methodologies and teachers' continuous professional development. Her research interests include pre and in-service teacher training.
Date recorded
Saturday 4 May 2024