"teaching grammar without rules"

 

OMG! This time was more challenge than the previous ones because I taught Grammar. “I read about how to teach grammar without showing rules”, I decided to apply some of the activities I read about but I was wondering if they would work well, if my tutor would notice that I would be teaching grammar and not developing another part of the lesson plan because I would not be teaching at the front, writing at the board and giving patterns. But I started with the warm up, I used two dice. One big with some categories on it and one little dice with numbers, the students passed the two dice at the same time and when I said stop the person who had the categories dice, rolled it and got one category and the person who got the number dice rolled it and got a number so the person with the category dice had to say things about it and according to the number the other student got.

The presentation was about showing a picture of a man at the supermarket; I asked what he is doing there, what he is going to buy, etc. Then I gave them a piece of paper containing a reading about a man who spent 60 dollars at the supermarket; I followed the traditional steps for the reading.

Here comes the part that I liked the most. Since we are accustomed to teach grammar at the front and writing on the board, I felt estrange teaching without following the traditional way to teach grammar. I read that we can include activities, even TPR activities, to teach grammar including sentences about what is going to be taught, instead of including grammar rules and patterns. Also, it is too important to avoid telling the students what they are studying or going to study at the moment of the activity, the students notice it by themselves; I could prove it today with the first activity I did for teaching “countable and uncountable nouns”. I found out that students really like listening to “true” stories that contain common names from their country so I did not write about the topic on the board, instead I started telling them that I would tell them something that happened to one of my friends, Mary, she is married with Juan. Once, she asked her husband to go shopping to the supermarket and she gave him the shopping list… (I brought the shopping list on a chart and pasted it on the wall, I asked one student to read what Mary wanted Juan brings from the supermarket. Then, I continued with the story; Juan went to the supermarket and bought everything, he came back home and told to Mary, my sweetheart I am back with all groceries can you check them, please? Mary checked the groceries by saying aloud what Jun bought… (I brought on a chart the list of things Juan bought and pasted it on the wall, I asked the students to read together the list. Then, I asked them if Juan did everything ok, the students told me that Juan made a lot of mistakes and they mentioned the mistakes. (At that moment I realized that the students were paying attention to what would be the grammar and that make me feel confidence because I was like practicing a new technique, at least for me, to teach grammar).Then, I continue with the story. I asked them to think about what Mary did and said when she looked that Juan bought just one right thing. I asked to one girl to act as Mary with her own reaction and a boy to be Juan; they improved the little dialogue at the moment. While they were talking they repeated the shopping list (the grammar structure). Then, I told them that Juan did not copy the shopping list, he just read it that is why when he was at the super market he did not remember what to buy, finally I told the end of the story by telling them that Mary asked Juan to take the shopping list with him and go back to the supermarket and not to come back home until he buy everything ok!

In another chart I brought some sentences with some spaces, and without taking out  the previous charts from the wall so they could check the answers, I gave them some pieces of paper with the missing words, which were the key words from grammar part, and they pasted them on the correct sentences.

I felt everything went good since the students identify what they were studying; I listened to some of them telling “ah! They are countable and uncountable nouns”, they also were taking notes and that mean they identified that those structures were part of the grammar. But I think we cannot do a radical change from one day to another and I felt really important to emphasize those structures by writing at the board. (I really was trying to avoid this step because I thought If I write at the board or explain the grammar structure, the previous activities would be a wasted of time or would be some more activities that could go on the “less controlled practice” since I would be turning back to the traditional way of teaching grammar)

But I had to teach another grammar structure “used to / would” I brought some pictures about when I was a child, a teenager and when I was at high school. I read students pay more attention and look more interested at the class when listening about teacher´s personal life and it was so! I showed to them the pictures, in order from childhood until the high school, while telling some sentences per each one, they looked really interested and surprised about it (and I thought “eh! Look how I have them! Hahaha). After, I wrote at the board some sentences I said and between parenthesis I wrote the name of a color since I brought some paper balls with the color between parenthesis) I had them repeat the sentences and shall the color. After, some time of repeating I erased the sentences and asked them to stand up and pass the 5 color paper balls and when I said stop the persons who get the balls had to tell me a sentence, according to the color between parenthesis, he/she remember from the board. It worked ok because they had already noticed that they had to use “used to” but there were something missing, they didn´t know when use it, and I was going to explain it at the board, again but time was not enough! :(

In my feedback I realized that my tutor liked my activities to teach grammar however at the beginning he did not understand why I was doing that. He thought it was like a presentation for the topic. I explained to him that I was afraid that way to teach grammar would not work well; he told me that it is nice to improve the ways to teach but it was necessary to explain grammar like the traditional form. :( immediately I thought about my grade, I thought it would go down just for my invents however I said to myself : do not worry myself! (Hahaha) what you have to do is try to improve and continue trying to teach in different ways!

My tutor helped me to see that the seating arrangement did not work well, this time. Also he told me he liked the activities about teaching grammar. And he gave me some more good pieces of advices. I´m worried about my grade because I do not know it since I forgot the evaluation sheet :´(

If I teach grammar with these techniques again I would try to avoid writing at the board and giving rules. But I would really like to have some pieces of advices from you in order to polish these techniques and not to explain with rules. What can I do?