Creative E-Pedagogy in Massive Grammar E-Tutoring via the Simultaneous Use of Social Media Platforms

With the new wave of young-minded, digitally-fluent, and tech-tethered instructors comes new creative e-pathways that build up novel e-pedagogies. More than ever before, innovative e-teaching modalities are needed to navigate the intricate socially-networked abyss where students and teachers alike have chosen to function in this pandemic period. That is why frameworks, however nascent they might be, are required to steer the learning ship, on more than one social media platform, to meet specific educational ends. In this light, this chapter presents a descriptive unobtrusive study which was conducted to map out an innovative e-mode of grammar instruction of a secondary e-tutor who was able to tutor a massive number of e-tutees simultaneously on Instagram and YouTube in the first phase, adding on, subsequently, Facebook to the e-instructional process. The findings unveil a framework of how to leverage or educationalize certain features of these cloud-based outlets concurrently and reach a more optimized e-method of multi-platform tutoring.

Nauczanie gramatyki języka obcego a podejście zadaniowe

While there is a consensus that teaching grammar is now indispensable in most educational contexts, there still exist numerous controversies as to how this should most beneficially be done. They concern, among others, such issues as the choice of instructional options to be used in order to introduce and practice grammar structures or to provide corrective feedback on errors made in the use of such structures (cf. Loewen, 2020; Nassaji, 2017; Pawlak, 2014, 2020a). On a more general level, a question arises as to the optimal way of organizing the material to be taught, with consequences for the overall approach to grammar instruction. One influential alternative to a structural syllabus, in which case grammar structures are carefully preselected and sequenced, is task-based language teaching, which can be conceptualized and implemented in various ways (cf. Ellis, 2017, 2018). The paper discusses the role of grammar in the task-based approach, also taking into account techniques and procedures that can be employed for this purpose. An overview of existing empirical evidence will be presented and an attempt will be made to highlight the way in which communicative tasks can be used to assist grammar teaching in the Polish educational context.

The Use of Modal Auxiliary Verbs among Selected Pre-Service Students at A South African Rural University

This study was conducted at a university based in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The purpose of the study was to determine if the explicit instruction of selected grammar aspect, modal auxiliary verbs, improved students’ ability to write English. The study was qualitative in nature and a case study design was adopted. The focus was in relation to a sample of 80 student teachers who were randomly selected in 2016 in the Faculty of Education. 40 participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. For the experimental group, training lasted six weeks. Both groups were made to write similar essays and those essays were marked focusing on the students’ ability to use modal auxiliary verbs. The study’s findings revealed that the experimental group performed better than those in the control group in the use of modal auxiliary verbs. Based on the findings, the study recommended explicit grammar instruction in all the students’ level of study in order to overcome the challenges they have in writing English. Thus, time should be created to ascertain that adequate explicit grammar lessons are offered to all pre-service teachers at the university.

A Case for Pedagogic Writing Instruction for Pre-Service Teachers to Learn Applied Grammar in the Context of Their Own Writing

Revived interest in grammar as a tool to teach writing is a phenomenon of the 21st century since inquiry in the 50s determined it to have “no positive impact on” writing instruction (Locke, 2005; Qtd. in McCormack-Colbert, Ware, & Jones, 2018, p. 165). Yet in the past two and a half decades, the concepts of Contextualized Grammar and Pedagogic Grammar have earned recognition in English and Language Education as a new kind of instruction shown to enhance writing when providing learners strategic mini lessons in grammar. This article also proposes the converse: in a college grammar course, strategic writing instruction assists students to learn grammar and usage in an applied setting of creating, revising, and editing their own texts. This article first reviews the premises and bases for the reappearance of grammar to teach writing and then describes the writer’s parallel approach to grammar instruction through the strategic use of writing assignments referred to here as Pedagogic Writing. The article closes with an account of the performances and perceptions of pre-service teachers sent to English by the School of Education to take ENG G 207, Grammar and Usage, showing preliminarily their successful application across three semesters, from spring 2020 through spring 2021.

The Effect of Different Planning Conditions versus Explicit Grammar Instruction on Teenage EFL Learners’ Oral Production of a Picture Promoted Task and Grammar Gain

This study examined the effects of three task conditions on teenage EFL learners’ oral performance of a picture prompted task and their grammatical knowledge gain. To this end, 34 EFL learners were randomly assigned into three experimental groups, namely online planning, pre-planning, and explicit instruction, and one control group. Pictures were employed as prompts to implement the tasks in all groups. A Grammatical Judgment Test was used to compare students’ knowledge of simple present passive structure before and after the treatment. Learners’ oral task performance was measured in terms of Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF). The findings demonstrated significant differences among groups as for CAF measures. However, no significant differences were spotted in GJT posttest scores. The paper calls for the incorporation of diverse prompt-based planning conditions in task-oriented teaching practices in order to target learners' higher levels of oral competence.

Patterns of Teacher Trainee Grammar Talk in Second Language Classrooms

Literature in Language Teacher Education (LTE) has highlighted that teaching of grammar should be included as a foundational framework for all language teaching. This indicates that teacher trainees need to be trained with a firm foundation for grammar teaching in language classrooms. Thus, an investigation on how teacher trainees taught grammar and the pattern of their grammar instruction can provide insights to teacher trainees and teacher educators on grammar teaching methodology practised in language classrooms. By understanding how teacher trainees present grammar in their classrooms and what patterns emerged from their grammar instruction can lead to ongoing process of searching for better grammar teaching in language classrooms. This article shares the findings on an investigation conducted on how and what was practised by teacher trainees in their grammar instruction. Two prevalent patterns were discovered. Transmission technique which is teacher fronted and interaction technique which is teacher-student-teacher fronted were commonly practised by the trainees. However, the teacher-fronted technique dominates the interaction technique. This signals that teacher educators need to promote more interactive techniques in the LTE programme so that trainees are trained to teach grammar by utilising more interactive techniques such as questioning (to use more convergent and divergent questions instead of literal questions) and giving corrective feedback (to elicit and recast instead of repeating) which promote two-way grammar teaching.