This is a continuation of my January 2018 article onteaching practical interactive grammar.

L2 learning goes beyond acquisition of linguistic features. The process includes communication, cultural awareness, the ability to compare and contrast L1 and L2, and the use of language skills with academic disciplines.

As I mentioned in the previous article on this subject, grammar instruction is vital, but the methodology is continuing to shift to a more student-centered approach that actively involves the learners.

Students learn to function in various practical settings using all the skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They are culturally aware and understand how culture relates to language.

They also relate English culture to their own home cultures and contrast language concepts and ideas, and they make connections to other disciplines, science for example, as a practical application of the target language. Beyond the classroom, they communicate with other English speakers at their school, in the community and even in other countries using the tools available on the internet (Patrick, 2007).

For example, you know your way around the local mall. Did you spend hours studying blue prints and plans and studying store names and locations? Or did you "acquire" the knowledge by using the mall and making it part of your life? (Krashen, 1992)

Language teaching is not history

The learning process for languages is different from the process of learning an academic subject. For example, there is no prior knowledge requirement for academic subjects unless they are part of a sequence of courses. Also, academic subjects are learned through intensive study including memorizing facts, formulas, and geographic locations and so on.

"Teaching ESL is not the act of throwing information at students and then handing them a test. Perhaps this is what occurs in Econ 101 where information is important, and teaching is not. At an intensive English program (IEP), which is designed to ready students for the rigors of university study in a language other than their own, the Econ 101 method is not applicable. … Econ 101 does not require the students to memorize the book. ESL/EFL does. Everything, every vocabulary term, every grammar rule, syntax, has to go into the long-term memory. It is not enough to understand a concept and apply it since the application requires not only analysis, but long-term memory recall. EFL language skills include parsing, analysis, memorization, and practice — not just processing data." (Jacoby, January 5, 2016)

Learners process meaning before they process form. In addition, they may not completely understand all of the linguistic forms in the input (Henry, N.; Jackson, C.; and Dimidio, J., summer, 2017).

"Stemming from these principles, the Input processing model describes a set of processing strategies that learners use to understand sentences, but which often lead learners to overlook grammatical forms in the input." (295)

Systematic grammar instruction is making a comeback. It is even part of the SAT as noted in the following:

"But grammar, once the meat and potatoes of any child’s education, is back on the table.University administrators, fed up with the poor writing of incoming students, have pressed the College Board, a Manhattan-based, national nonprofit group, to include a section on writing a grammar on the SAT college admission test." (Moses, P. June 3, 2003)

Research in second language acquisition has focused on L2 proficiency and development.

One major component is accuracy, in other words grammar.

"This research has identified linguistic complexity, alongside accuracy and fluency, as a key component of linguistic proficiency, an indicator of language development and a descriptor of linguistic performance." (De Clercq, B. and Housen, A. Summer, 2017)

As learners develop their L2 skills, learners use more elaborate and diverse language, for example embedding, a greater range of vocabulary and morphology (315).

Application

The main thrust of the "methods revolution" is a desire to recreate the natural conditions of first language acquisition in the second language classroom. Drills and pattern practice, and dialogue memorization and grammar explanations have given way to various natural approaches that attempt to induce the target language through providing meaningful input in a larger context.

The teaching of points of grammar in a spiral approach has been replaced by the introduction of larger chunks of language in both simulated and real situations. The Proficiency Movement, based on the Oral Proficiency Interview, has changed the way communicative competence is evaluated.

Methodology has moved to the teaching of languages in a topical-interactive approach where the emphasis is on meaningful communication and learning English by using English. So, structures should be introduced and practiced in realistic situations as students master speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Another helpful strategy is recasting where the instructor repeats the learner’s speech without the errors:

"However, in general, recasts can be defined as a more target like reformulation of the learner’s erroneous utterance in the course of interaction." (Nassaji, H., Summer, 2017)

The findings confirmed that recasts had a facilitative effect and that recasts were effective on both oral and written language (364). Grammar is presented in a more natural way rather than as a set of rules and drills.

However, instructors need to be aware that rules of grammar may change or be lost altogether. For example, there was a rule in English that "like" is followed by a noun phrase and "as" is followed by a verb phrase as in "Do as I say." "Drive like a racer." Now that rule has changed. “He acts like he never rode a horse before.”

"But the grammar of many speakers of English has changed, so that like is now a conjunction..." (Fromkin & Rodman, 1978)

Another change happening now is the relative pronoun, whom, gradually being replaced by who. Negation has changed from earlier forms.

"As late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, one could merely add not at the end of an affirmative sentence to negate it." (303)