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Grammar and Phrasing Patterns for language learners

A “Generic Six-Step” Grammar Lesson Plan 

To work and be accepted by the most demanding of students, any language lesson must be:

• Engaging
• Efficient
• effective
• Energizing
• Encouraging
• Empowering

The above “Six E’s,” as opposed to the adjectives exacting, easy, effortless, entertaining, elusive, and endless, can almost insure language-teaching and learning success. Here are general descriptions of the five or six steps that should be included in an effective structure or grammar-based language-skills lesson or series of lessons:

STEP ONE: Comprehension of the grammar patterns (the sentence structures) in meaningful contexts. The purpose of this first step in most lesson sequences is to assess—and then to help learners develop—oral and written comprehension skills in regard to the “grammar topic” (the patterns and rules). As part of this step, students should be able to identify elements or parts of the patterns as well as pattern variations.

STEP TWO: Grammar explanation, printed and/or oral, in the simplest, clearest terms possible. All explanation should be appropriate for the language-proficiency level of the class, of course. It should include realistic examples, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be “complete”—that is, to cover all the possible situations that might come up in students’ contexts. If learners are involved in the language practice activities to come, their questions—and instructors’ or tutors’ corrections, answers, and comments—will take care of the details.

STEP THREE: Brief “drill” or pattern practice in the relevant forms and models of the target grammar. If these are conducted in a lively manner, perhaps with picture or word card decks and/or quick competitive games, such exercises will never be boring. In fact, materials and techniques at the word and phrase level may provide welcome relief from more  challenging activities, in which, in order to communicate, learners have to do everything “right” at the same time.  

STEP FOUR: “Controlled” exercises, in which students make use of supplied information to produce examples of the relevant grammar patterns. If they apply the rules correctly to the given vocabulary, learners should come up with correct answers. The “correction and discussion” phase of this step may evoke good grammar questions and helpful answers.

STEP FIVE: Expressive and communicative activities and games, in which learners apply the acquired structure patterns to simulated or actual real-life contexts. Using the relevant grammar, students express their own information, ideas, and opinions. They hear and respond to what others have to say. Their use of the relevant grammar is monitored and corrected. In addition, they  improve their language skills because of the natural feedback of the activity.

The last “step” in efficient and effective structure-based language lessons is application of the newly-acquired grammar and phrasing to language expression and communication in learners’ lives—in the worlds of work and school and everyday existence.  Hopefully, all of this will “happen”—happily and productively, and for good.