Review of Eli Hinkel (ed.), Teaching English Grammar to Speakers of Other Languages, Routledge, 2016.
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: This volume, edited by Professor Eli Hinkel, forms part of the Routledge ESL and Applied Linguistics Professional Series.It is aimed at students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels studying TESOL-related degrees as well as at practicing teachers and educators within the field.It adopts an engaging style which should appeal to a wide audience.It is very much concerned with providing practical advice and offers a range of materials, study questions and discussion points as well as lists of essential reading.The volume contains 12 chapters distributed across three sections; principles and foundations of grammar teaching; strategies and techniques; and grammar for productive skills: speaking and writing.Part one is concerned with the principles and foundations of grammar teaching and contains contributions from Marianne Celce-Murcia on "The importance of the discourse level in understanding and teaching English Grammar", Sandra Lee McKay on "Teaching grammar: English as an international language", Susan Conrad who investigates "Using corpus linguistics to improve the teaching of grammar", Keith S. Folse who looks at "Grammar in student books vs. grammar that students need: which grammar to include, which grammar to omit" and finally Anne Burns who reports on "Functional approaches to teaching grammar in the second language classroom".This part focuses on areas for instruction and different methodologies and, as we can see from the titles, the section covers a range of different approaches.Chapter one (Celce-Murcia) describes a system for grammar teaching which departs in viewing language as discourse which is governed by contexts and purposes.The chapter is rich in examples and addresses how this approach to grammar teaching can be adapted to different levels of learners (from beginners to advanced).The different patterns which Celce-Murcia describes are to be seen as heuristics which learners can utilise in a number of ways.Furthermore, these different templates will also help learners achieve coherence and fluency.Chapter two (McKay) investigates how we can conceive of the notion of Standard English in an international context (English as an international language, EIL).After a brief survey of the current status of English, McKay presents several examples of activities which can be used to raise awareness of different aspects of variation in English to students of different proficiencies.The chapter ends with some discussion points which would prove useful for students of TESOL or similar as a way of further consolidating the points raised.Chapter three (Conrad) offers a brief introduction to corpus linguistics and describes how insights from corpora can inform grammar teaching, in particular with regards to content.At the end of her chapter, Conrad offers suggestions for how teachers can incorporate corpus linguistics into their own teaching practice and includes a brief list of corpora and software which may be useful.She also provides discussion points which would be useful for student teachers to reflect on.Chapter four (Folse) provides an overview of which grammar points are usually included in textbooks and encourages teachers to reflect on which grammar points to include and which to omit.Folse offers both sample activities and discussion points at the end of the chapter.The final chapter in this section, chapter five by Burns, adopts a functional approach and highlights Systemic Functional Grammar and the metafunctions of language suggested by Halliday.In this way, language learning and teaching is re-framed as the creation of meaning within a social context.The
Author: Jensen, Marie Møller
Institution: Aalborg University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2588507205