Teaching and learning English grammar

Comparing the English Grammar Profile to typical grammar coverage in English Language Teaching materials: rationale for a research project Graham Burton (PhD student: Mary Immaculate College)

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Structure 1. 2. 3. 4.

basic outline rationale design of project: three steps pilot study: problems and insights

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The project 1. What is the ELT grammar canon? • What grammar is taught? • At what level is it taught?

2. Where do the EGP and ELT canon converge and where do they diverge?

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Rationale: why compare? ELT grammar canon is strongly established: • perpetuated by ELT publishing industry • individual coursebooks sell 100,000s a year (Gray, 2002) • coursebooks series very often act as a course syllabus How valid is the content of ‘canon informed’ coursebooks etc.?

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Rationale: Why compare? ELT publishing responds to commercial demands, not academic findings: • Littlejohn (1992): ELT materials need to be “conservative rather than radical, and minimally evolutionary rather than revolutionary” • O’Keeffe & Mark (in press): “The success of any textbook […] which does not cover all of the established canon is likely to be questioned.” • Burton (2012): over a third of coursebook authors have never used corpus data

EGP data needs to be accessible. 5

Step 1: establish the ELT grammar canon Identify an appropriate data set: • coursebooks: • which publishers and titles? • just General English?

• teaching materials from large language school chains: • accessibility? • which schools?

• exam syllabuses and national curricula: • accessibility? • which exams/curricula? • level of detail?

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Step 2: develop a methodology Establish criteria for inclusion of an item in the canon • 50% of data sources? more? • spread across data sources? • what if an item doesn’t satisfy the selection criteria?

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Step 3: compare canon to EGP Identify where there is agreement Identify where there is disagreement • are there patterns? • what could it explain it? • does it matter?

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Pilot study: design, problems and insights Design: • all levels of four popular General English coursebook series • five areas of grammar: • • • • •

present perfect comparative and superlative forms, as … as can could if clauses (conditionals)

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Problem 1: alignment of CEFR and coursebooks Both have six levels, but … CEFR

coursebook levels

A1

Starter (Beginner)

A2

Elementary

B1

Pre-Intermediate Intermediate

B2

Upper Intermediate

C1

Advanced

C2

– 10


coursebook levels

A1

Starter (Beginner)

A2

Elementary

B1


B2

Upper Intermediate

C1

Advanced

C2

– 11


coursebook levels

A1

Starter (Beginner)

A2

Elementary

B1


B2

Upper Intermediate

C1

Advanced

C2

– 12

Problem 1: alignment of CEFR and coursebooks

Empower (CUP)

SpeakOut (Pearson)

face2face (CUP) 13


Empower (CUP)

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SpeakOut (Pearson)

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face2face (CUP) 16

Problem 2: identifying inclusion Coursebooks typically have: • main lesson pages • grammar practice activities (at the back) • grammar explanations (at the back) 1. Where does a grammar item need to appear? 2. What if a grammar point is covered at multiple levels?

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Pilot study: insight 1 Very preliminary findings: • disagreement not common (i.e. grammar item is A2 in one coursebook, B1 in another) • lack of agreement more common (i.e. grammar item is in one coursebook series, but not another) • ELT grammar canon as ‘list of ingredients’ used to make ‘recipes’

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‘recipe’ metaphor canon = list of ingredients grammar point = recipe using all or just some of those ingredients Present perfect: life experiences, combination with ever/never, recent past, past to present (with for/since), newsworthy past, combination with superlatives

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‘recipe’ metaphor A2 Present perfect: life experiences, combination with ever/never, recent past, past to present (with for/since), newsworthy past, combination with superlatives

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‘recipe’ metaphor B1 Present perfect: life experiences, combination with ever/never, recent past, past to present (with for/since), newsworthy past, combination with superlatives

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‘recipe’ metaphor B1+ Present perfect: life experiences, combination with ever/never, recent past, past to present (with for/since), newsworthy past, combination with superlatives

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‘recipe’ metaphor grammar canon: • perhaps not a list of ‘must teach’ grammar items • a list of forms, uses, etc. that coursebooks choose from • not all coursebooks combine things in the same way • there are likely to be omissions

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Pilot study: insight 2 Advanced levels of coursebooks (i.e. C1) showed: • greatest lack of agreement among themselves • least correspondence with EGP McCarthy (2015): little consensus in coursebooks at advanced levels. • McCarthy: NS corpora can inform content at C levels • could EGP also be a useful source for this?

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Summary 1. 2. 3. 4.

basic outline rationale for the research project design of project pilot study: design, problems and insights

Next steps: • finalise list of data sources • carry out another pilot + finalise methodology 27

References Burton, G. (2012). Corpora and Coursebooks: destined to be strangers forever? Corpora 7(1) Gray, J. (2002). The global coursebook in English Language Teaching in D. Block and D. Cameron (eds) Globalization and Language Teaching, pp. 151–67. London: Routledge. Littlejohn, A. (1992). Why Are ELT Coursebooks the Way They Are? Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Lancaster University. McCarthy, M. J. (2015). The role of corpus research in the design of advanced level grammar instruction. In M. A. Christison, D. Christian, P. A. Duff, & N. Spada (Eds.). (2015). Teaching and learning English grammar: Research findings and future directions, pp. 87102. New York, NY: Routledge. O’Keeffe, A. and Mark, G. (In press). The English Grammar Profile – describing a criteriabased empirical methodology for calibrating learner grammar competencies using the Cambridge Learner Corpus. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 20(4)

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