[Teach-grammar] Terminology

[Graham Paterson]

I am an Australia, but have been an ESL teacher in China and Indonesia
where the emphasis is on getting the students to use the English they have
already been taught by their native teachers. That teaching is very much
focused on passing written exams, hence the oral aspects have been given
relatively little attention.
What also seems to be missing from their teaching is an emphasis on the
differences between their native language and the English language.
In both countries there is a common problem in three main areas - the use
of "the little words" of the English language - the understanding of tenses
- and the difference between singular and plurals.
There is also another problem with the general lack of coordination between
the classes taught by the student's native teacher and that "taught" - the
better term should be "coaching" - by the foreign teacher.
As most foreign teachers are not given the opportunity to become familiar
with what the native teachers teach, a foreigner has to be careful to avoid
contradicting what might be well an essential grammar issue needed to pass
the written exam.
My way of avoiding this risk was not to use grammar terms at all. For
example, I spoke of "doing" words, "describing" words, of "naming" words,
and "joining words etc. In terms of tenses, I used the question of whether
something was "happening", whether it "will happen" or if it "has
happened".
This approach seemed to strike a chord with many of the students as I often
got comments that these aspects of grammar "suddenly" made sense to them.
Figures of speech were another issue we often addressed by completely
avoiding the conventional terminology.
This is a whole new world for conventional teaching, but it has to be
geared to the level of the students. Most University students have 8  or so
years of English instruction under their belt, but little actual practice
in using the language for conversation.
Graham
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