Teaching/learning grammar has always been something that I avoid due to the way I was

taught in the dreadful grammar translation method. But this weeks reading has brought me
plenty new insights into this issue.
Just like the Chinese proverb, Tell me and Ill forget. Show me and Ill remember.
Involve me and Ill learn, I strongly agree with that We must connect any information we teach
to meaningful, repetitive usage, or to something memorable, or else the student will forget
(Lpez-Burton, P.23). I prefer to engage students in the exploration and discovery process of
grammar points so that it promotes their language acquisition and intelligence performance. This
also corroborates the Schema Theory, which suggests teaching language in a meaningful context
that learners can make connection the real world. To teach grammar implicitly, instructors first
need to set the climate of the classroom to give a meaningful topic to immerse learners in the
authentic context. Then, provide various communicative activities for learners to practice the
target grammar points and there should be alternative sources (texts, pictures, etc.) to enhance
what learners have retained. Grammatical rules can then be introduced explicitly to the learners
with the top-down manner so that they can get a better understanding of the knowledge easily
and apply them more appropriately.
The other thing I found it interesting in the reading materials is limit the time you devote
to grammar explanations to 10 minutes (Teaching Grammar, P. 2). It is very important to be
economic when it comes to grammar teaching, one of the hardest mission in language teaching.
Explanations should be clear, concise, and timely. Spending too much time and energy would
only lead to a consequence of low enthusiasm of language learning and confusion. Like what we
discussed during the class, language acquisition is like learning how to drive a car, redundant
theoretic explanations will not do much help but the actual practice is what makes the learners
better at their skills.
Lpez-Burton also mentioned repetition for input has to be used correctly (P. 25) and
YOU are the main source of comprehensible input (P. 26) several times and similar notion
could be found in the Teaching Grammar guidance be sure the examples are accurate and
appropriate use the examples as teaching tools (P. 2). This reminds me of one of the English
classes I observed in college in China. The professor had a terrible accent and she seemed to
have no idea about it, hence once she said to her class You need to pay attention to your
pronunciation. Now repeat after me, Swaayyytaarrrrr! and I later found out she was referring to
the word sweater Instructors are the only and the easiest resource to look for in a classroom,
it is natural and absolute that the learners will repeat what the instructors say or do. They should
not only know how and why they are teaching what they are teaching, but most importantly,
instructors should know the grammar pinots by their hearts before teaching them.