Teaching the Grammar of Past-Time Narrative

Jennifer Mullins
Department Of Applied Linguistics & ESL
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia USA
Introduction

This module is designed for low-intermediate ESL students in an Intensive English Program. The proposed audience is based on the classes I teach at Georgia Tech--students are from a total of 31 countries; they are literate in their L1; some intend to study at a college or graduate school in the U.S., but others are studying English for work-related reasons or for personal enrichment. A very high value is placed by our administration on students' satisfaction--which can be challenging given the widely differing goals of the students. To address students' expectations, it seems necessary for each course to incorporate some academically oriented materials, some business applications, and some cultural information/American popular culture.

In this module, I want to share my ideas about how the features of grammar associated with past-time narrative can be taught as a cluster. Or, to put it another way, how the teaching of the various features that cluster together can be integrated into a meaningful whole. These ideas derive from a study by Biber (1988) identifying clusters of grammatical features that co-occur in several discourse types. This analysis has great potential for application in the teaching of English as a Second Language (Byrd, in press). McCarthy (1991) also writes of the importance of "teachers and material writers paying greater attention to the insights offered by naturally occurring data."(p. 87) The challenge for the classroom teacher is to incorporate these insights into his/her approach to teaching and to find ways to implement this approach in actual course design/planning and teaching. In designing this module, I felt tension between my conception of how this material might ideally be taught and my awareness of the realities of the context in which I teach. I decided that a module based on a specific teaching situation would be most useful as a teaching resource. For some, the specific activities I suggest may be helpful and applicable. Beyond that, my hope is that in showing how a grammar from context model was adapted to fit one teaching situation, I will help others to see possibilities for adapting it to theirs.

Three discourse types that are particularly significant in Biber's (1988) study are: 1) involved (informal person to person communication, frequently oral); 2) informational, and 3) narrative, which is the focus of this module. The grammar features identified by Biber as associated with past-time narrative are: past tense verbs, third person pronouns, perfect aspect verbs, public verbs, synthetic negation, and present participials. This module incorporates all of these features except synthetic negation, which does not occur with any regularity in the texts selected. Biber's (1988) definitions of these features, intended, I believe, to facilitate understanding of his research methods, are cryptic. I will therefore refer to Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1983) as needed for help with defining the features and clarifying some of the teaching issues in dealing with them. Throughout, I will attempt to ensure that the definitions and explanations used are compatible with the features identified by Biber.

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The Teaching Program: A Conceptual Model
Organization of the Program

The table provides a sample timetable for teaching grammar through narrative and informational discourse types during a 10-week quarter. This module will focus on narrative only; the entire quarter is presented in outline form to give an idea of how the narrative discourse type might be made part of a syllabus that is based in discourse types. Note that in the Georgia Tech program, involved communication is practiced in an oral skills class and also in the discussion component of the reading & discussion class. However, discussion does play a role in this writing class. Where it does so, its purpose is to activate schema about the content, and to begin to practice vocabulary as well as to provide those students whose learning styles are aural/oral with an opportunity to do some of the thinking on a topic before beginning to write. In addition, exercises are also conducted in pairs or small groups at times for the same reasons and also to provide variety and interest. Activities using videos incorporate a visual element into selected class sessions. Awareness of the importance of addressing differing learning styles is growing in the ESL teaching community, and it's relevance for the teaching of grammar is discussed by Reid (in press).

To avoid a too radical departure from what is expected in our program, the discourse types are first introduced to provide authentic text to analyze for a discussion of paragraph form and sentence-level concerns--sentence types and punctuation. These same texts are then used to introduce each of the segments dealing with a specific discourse type. After they are recycled, additional texts are introduced.

The thematic content of the texts selected is varied due to the variety of our students interests and purposes in studying English. However, some themes do recur. For example, the piece by Marian Wright Edelman, which is used in the first narrative segment, addresses issues that are raised again in the final segment on narrative with a selection from the biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In each segment, grammatical features are first introduced through an authentic text. That is, the student will encounter the grammatical features in the text. Not all of the features of narrative discourse in the text can or should be addressed in a single segment. Additionally, because this module is directed towards low-intermediate students, some explicit grammar instruction will likely be necessary once the feature has been discussed in the context of the passage. The explicit instruction could then be followed by focussed practice (ideally also based on the text) and more communicative practice, typically involving student writing related to the theme of the text. The structure of the module is designed to spiral back to the grammar features of each discourse type. In a subsequent segment on narrative, the student will be asked to focus on a different or additional aspect of the grammar of past-time narrative--one which they will already have seen in the previous narrative text. The student, then, becomes accustomed to seeing these grammatical features in proximity to one another. It is not necessary at this level for him or her to be able to produce all of these features. In fact, participials, which appear in the final segment, need only be recognized by the students.

By now, much in the design of this module will appear familiar. There is nothing new in the grammar features being taught. The past tense, for example, has always been a focus of language instruction. Additionally, the sequencing of the grammar lesson suggested above--presentation followed by focused practice and then communicative practice is common and has been described by Celce-Murcia and Hilles (1988) among others. The use of texts to provide content on which to base writing assignments is familiar to some of us from our own foreign language learning experiences. To my knowledge, it is now common in ESL classes at both Georgia Tech and Georgia State in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. What is new is that the text is now being used to do part of the presentation of the grammar feature. It is being used not only as a source of content, but also as the focal point for the study of these specific grammar features. And it is the co-occurrence of specific grammatical features in certain kinds of texts that helps to determine the sequencing of the grammar features to be studied. As an example of how this can alter the approach to teaching a feature, consider how the past tense is often handled in class. Formerly, when I presented the past tense, I typically reviewed regular and irregular forms followed by formation of the negative and of Yes/No and information questions. All of this is important information. But Biber's (1988) work points out that information (WH) questions do not typically appear in narrative writing, while they frequently appear in interpersonal communication. By providing students with examples of authentic texts, and then focussing on specific grammatical features that occur in those texts, we are presenting together those features which they will encounter together and which ultimately they will need to produce together to create meaningful texts of their own.

This approach to teaching grammar from context is suggested by Byrd (in press). Note that, in this model, explicit teaching of forms is not being abandoned. But choices about the order in which to present the forms would be made based on discourse type.