INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: INTRODUCTION PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT The role of grammar in communicative language Some approaches used to integrate grammar into communicative language 2.1 Design a lesson plan that focuses on meaningful tasks 2.2 Use grammar games for teaching communicative language 2.2.1 Examples of using games for teaching English Activity 1: Playing with phrasal verbs Activity 2: Who’s won the lottery: The question quiz Integrate communicative activities into grammar teaching 3.1 The benefits of using communicative activities in teaching grammar 3.2 Example of using communicative activities for teaching English grammar Activity 1: Using modals for polite requests Activity 2: Accepting and declining invitations: Using contracted forms PART THREE: CONCLUSION REFERENCES PART I – INTRODUCTION INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE In recent years, teaching and learning English has shifted from teacher-dominated classroom to student – centered and communicative approach Students now are expected not only to know how the language forms but also know how to use it effectively in different situations in their lives Many researches have proved that to help students master the required language, teaching and learning language should place their focus on what students can with language, not on what they know about the language (Lee and Van, 1995; Terell, 1991) However, there is also widespread agreement that grammar structures are extremely important for learners to master a language since they form the framework of a language These two viewpoints create an increasing demand of changing the way grammar is taught for students In Vietnam, grammar used to be taught through structures and forms This pedagogy focused mainly on the drills of forming sentences and memorizing the structures, which prevents students from using English in contextualized situations However, teaching English language is now changing to meet the demand of learners The objective of teaching and learning a language currently focus on helping students to express their feelings, thought, and ideas in certain contexts Therefore, to achieve this learning outcome, it is necessary for teachers to integrate grammar into communicative language Aiming to help teachers of English to be flexible in teaching grammar according to communicative approach, this paper will present some specific methodologies to integrate grammar into teaching communicative English effectively in classroom PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE THE ROLE OF GRAMMAR IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE Grammar plays an essential role in language learning It is defined by linguistics that grammar is a set of different linguistic components including phonetics (the production and perception of sounds), phonology (how sounds are combined), morphology (the study of forms, or how elements are combined to create words), syntax (how words are strung together into sentences), and semantics or meaning It can be seen that these components are an integral part in language frame In other words, without grammar, language does not exist While communicative language is regarded as an approach of teaching whose primary function of language use is communication (Richards and Rodgers, 2014) In other words, its main goal of Communicative Language is to help students make use of real-life situations While grammar focuses on grammatical competences, communicative language emphasizes on communicative functions of language “The role of grammar in communicative language” refers to the relationship between grammar and communication As the development of English language learning and teaching, students now learn English language not to get academic success but also to build better social interactions workplace relationships In other words, communicative English teaching now has more emphasis on the role that semantics plays in the language English learning currently fundamentally concerned with meaningful tasks such as interpreting someone else's message, expressing one's own, or negotiating the ideas This trend helps students to make effective use of grammar in English communication SOME APPROACHES USED TO INTEGRATE COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE GRAMMAR INTO 2.1 Design a lesson plan that focuses on meaningful tasks Terry (1996) has pointed out that if teacher designs a lesson plan that emphasizes on meaning-based language acquisition, grammar can be integrated naturally into communicative language The lesson plan that he suggested is designed mainly on the theme or topic developed Some questions that teachers can ask themselves during the process of making such lesson plan are: a In this lesson, what is major theme or topic (e.g, family, daily routines) will be developed b What kinds of thematically related tasks (e.g., interviews, picture descriptions) I want my students to be able to carry out? INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE c In order to perform these tasks, with what vocabulary, grammar, and cultural information my students need to be familiar? By constructing the lesson in this way, teachers can naturally integrate grammar into meaningful communicative tasks All the things that students learn including grammar will be linked together thematically When students keep practicing repeated meaningful tasks, they will be able to use English more naturally and fluently More importantly, introducing grammatical structures in a specific meaningful situation will enable students to learn better and help them memories more easily The lesson plan can be designed through different stage: Setting the Scene in which teacher will focus students on topic and raise their interest about the topic; Providing Input is the stage where learners are introduced about target language of vocabulary, grammar, and cultural information; Guided Practice is the stage where students are practice specific meaningful situation with the support from teacher; Extension Practice is the step where students practise all the content of lesson without the guide of teacher The last stage is testing - Assess students’ skills and understanding 2.2 Use grammar games for teaching communicative language Games in learning are undeniable to be one of preferable activities that motivate students to learn Arif Saricoban and Esen Metin, who wrote the book "Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar" has argued that games not simply motivate students to learn grammar knowledge but also enable them to internalize grammar, structure and vocabulary extensively While games are used to motivate students to learn, they also strengthen the bonds between students and students, and between teachers and students By using games in teaching grammar, students can develop their grammar skills in an interesting way, which surely motivate students learning The following examples are some meaningful games retrieved from the website http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/3-grammar-games-fun These activities can be used in teaching different grammatical points 2.2.1 Examples for using games in teaching grammar Activity 1: Playing with phrasal verbs This activity should help students practise the use of phrasal verbs It is a pairing game Students are divided into two groups called Verbs and Prepositions, and then have to find partners to form phrasal verbs The game ends with the partners making sentences with the phrasal verbs To prepare for the activity, on page-sized placards, write down, in large letters, the verbs and prepositions from the lists below: Verbs: go, get, bring, give, look, turn, pick, put, let, take, fill, break, clear, speak, show, try, cut, keep, cross INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE Prepositions: in, out, up, down, on, off, back, around, away, along, through, about, for, after Announce to the students that they will play a game called Phrasal Partners The objective of the game is to team the verbs with the appropriate prepositions to form phrasal verbs, and then to use them in sentences First, the students should divide themselves into the two groups — Verbs and Prepositions Then a member of each group quickly collects the words representing their group (Verbs or Prepositions) Next, each Verb has to find a matching Preposition The pair then runs to the board and write their pair name there (e.g., look for, go through, and bring up) If two Verbs want the same partner (e.g., off for put off/show off), the pair that can think of a grammatical sentence with that Preposition first gets to keep the partner Each group then has to make and say aloud a sentence to illustrate their partnership (e.g., My grandfather looked after me when my parents went on a holiday/My friends did not turn up for my birthday party because they had exams) (See Resource for phrasal verbs from the list used in sentences in a passage.) If time permits, the groups can now swap round and play again The Verb and Preposition with the most sentences win the game Activity 2: Who’s won the lottery: The question quiz In this activity students have an opportunity to practise using polarity-type questions to seek information, using several tense forms This is a guessing game in which students have to guess the name of one of their classmates who has “won a lottery.” The game involves students asking polarity questions (i.e., questions that get the response Yes/No) to discover information about the lottery winner The challenge is to find the answer by only asking the Yes/No questions The activity will help students practise interrogative structures in a real-life context First, announce to the class that one of them has just won a lottery They will have to guess the name of the person by asking questions about him or her Divide the class into groups of five or six Tell one member of each group (you can call him or her the Group Leader) the name of the classmate who is supposed to have won a lottery The rules of the game are: • Only the Group Leader knows the name of the “winner.” Each group member has to ask the Group Leader a question to find out who the person is, and the Group Leader can only answer by saying Yes or No • The questions should be about the person’s appearance • The questions should be in the format Does he…/Is she (e.g., Does she have curly hair?/Is he tall?) • Each group member takes a turn to ask one question and try to guess the name If they guess wrongly, the next group member asks another question, and so on until the group has guessed the correct name • INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE Because this is only a game, and the whole class has to be involved, even the person whose name is being guessed should not know that he or she is the “winner.” Only the Group Leaders will know, and they should not share the name with their group mates beforehand • • The game ends when one of the groups guesses the name correctly A tip: When you choose your group leaders, be careful to choose students who are good observers and quick to take decisions, because when their group mates ask probing questions, they will have to quickly decide whether to answer Yes or No, and to resist the temptation to look at the person being described Otherwise the game will soon be spoiled, and many students will not have the opportunity to practise the structures Integrate communicative activities into grammar teaching 3.1 The benefits of using communicative activities in teaching grammar Communicative activities are defined as the activities that help students to develop their communication Researches on language acquisition have pointed out that learning takes place when students take part in meaningful tasks within dynamic learning environment (Moss & Ross-Feldman, 2003) Integrating communicative tasks while teaching English grammar help learners to be more familiar with different grammar structures In addition, using communicative activities in teaching and learning English will prepare students with skills to deal with changeable communicative circumstances in life 3.2 Example of using communicative activities for teaching English grammar The activities below are three examples that help learners to learn English grammatical points effectively in the light of communicative approach These activities are retrieved from the website http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/2-grammar-social-skills Activity 1: Using modals for polite requests This activity is designed to make students aware that English requests can be made more (or less) polite by using different modal verbs, or changing the tense of a modal verb Because the students will practise functional grammar (the structures necessary to perform language functions) in this activity, they need to use these structures themselves The first step is to test their existing knowledge about requests in English On slips of paper, write a situation where a request would be required (asking for a glass of water, borrowing a pen, running an errand, etc.) Put the students into groups of four or five, ask them to pick a slip of paper and have them use the phrase on it to write a request In the feedback session, use their responses to collect a sample of different structures (Please give me a glass of water/Can I borrow your pen? etc.) Put these on the board (correcting any grammatical mistakes) INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE Next, show the students these structures in appropriate contexts For this, distribute the exercise in Resource 1a to each group and tell them to complete the dialogue using expressions from the list on the board Each group can then a role play with their dialogue Once the students have practised using some expressions for polite requests, they can learn to differentiate sentences according to the degree of politeness Give them the requests in the short exchanges listed in Resource 1b and ask them, in their groups, to grade them according to which request they think is more polite Point out that requests can be made by using the polite form of modal verbs For example: Could you bring me a pen, please? Would you mind closing the door, please? are more polite than Can you bring me a pen, please?/Please bring me a pen Can you close the door, please?/Please close the door Activity 2: Accepting and declining invitations: Using contracted forms The language used in the classroom is usually restricted to questions, answers and discussions related to the lesson — the story, poem, play or essay — that students are expected to read As a result, students end up learning to speak in a formal way In fact, we actually discourage students from replying in half sentences or with a simple Yes/No and instruct them to “speak in full sentences.” As students will need to use English in “real life” after they leave school, we need to help them learn and use the grammatical forms of oral communication One such grammatical form is contracted forms (of modal verbs and not), such as isn’t, can’t, wouldn’t, I’ll and so on, which we frequently use in oral communication situations A real-life situation in which these structures are used is accepting and declining invitations This activity is therefore intended to give students practice in using contracted forms appropriately when dealing with invitations First, you should find out how familiar your students are with informal/ oral language expressions For this you will need to provide them with samples of language used for different functions such as invitations, requests, and apologies and so on Divide the students into small groups and ask them to match a set of situations (below) with their corresponding spoken invitations played out on audio/video (see Resource for samples) This will test their existing knowledge of language functions, and motivate them as they embark on their task Remember not to give them the answers as they listen/watch! Situations: Agreeing, congratulating, apologising, disagreeing, requesting To extend the task one step further, you can give the students a jigsaw puzzle task on invitations Prepare a set of expressions (or use the samples given in Resource 3) that include comments from different exchanges on invitations The students’ task is to rearrange the pieces to make meaningful conversation exchanges After they have finished, play the video/audio in Resource 3a and let them check if they put the sentences in the correct sequence To add some complexity to the task, you could add some formal expressions (that contain full sentences instead of utterances with contracted INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE forms) so that they have to two tasks: select the appropriate expressions and rearrange them After the students have finished the task, play the audio/video version in Resource 3b and allow them to correct their versions if necessary To make the students focus on the grammar point, give them conversation cards on which the exchanges have been written in two formats: one with the contracted forms and the other with the more formal sentences Pick out one sentence from each comparable conversation exchange and put them on the board For example: 1a I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend 1b I am not sure I will be able to attend Draw their attention to the structural differences: ask them what is different, and have them notice that both (1a and 1b) are correct, but that 1a is more appropriate as it sounds more natural Highlight the fact that in natural conversations people use short cuts such as contracted forms, not repeat entire questions when responding, and add expressions such as thank you, I’m sorry, I’m afraid and so on to sound more polite Now that the students have had some practice with these structures, ask for volunteers to role plays based on the exchanges They can watch the videos or listen to the audios of the same conversations for rehearsal, and then act out the situations Make sure that they use the contracted forms they encountered in the tasks The role play will not only give them confidence, it will also help them practise using the grammatical forms in a natural context PART THREE: CONCLUSION Teaching and learning English has changed for over the past few year It is now shifting from “grammatical competences” to “communicative competences” To enable students to achieve communicative competences, English teachers nationwide has been changing INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE their methodologies in language teaching, which has resulted some improvements for English teaching and learning Communicative language teaching is widely defined as the teaching approach that focuses on functions of language through communicative tasks However, the communicative tasks are still mostly used in teaching four English skills including Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing The challenge raised among the teachers of English is how to integrate grammar into communicative language It appears an uneasy task for many people in the profession Addressing this challenge requires much time and efforts Due to limited time frame and resources, this paper can only present brief understanding about this issue It also suggests some approaches that can be useful to help English teachers and learners in learning grammar with communicative approaches The main focus of these activities is to motivate students to use grammar in meaningful tasks The integration between grammar and communicative language, therefore, can enable students’ communicative skills and make them more proficient in using English REFERENCES Moss, D., & Ross-Feldman, L (2003) Second language acquisition in adults: From research to practice Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics Retrieved June, 16, 2006 Lee, J F., & Bill, V (1995) Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen New York: McGraw-Hill Terrell, T D (1991) The role of grammar instruction in a communicative approach The Modern Language Journal, 75(1), 52-63 Richards, J C., & Rodgers, T S (2014) Approaches and methods in language teaching Cambridge University Press INTEGRATING GRAMMAR INTO COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE Saricoban, A., & Metin, E (2000) Songs, verse and games for teaching grammar The Internet TESL Journal, 6(10), 1-7