How can teachers teach grammar in a way that empowers students to make meaningful grammatical choices in the writing class? This article by two primary school English language (EL) teachers in Singapore shares some strategies on how to do so. They were part of an action research (AR) project that aimed at integrating grammar as a meaning-making resource and writing in the EL classroom.

Grammar and writing

In general, there are two views of grammar: the prescriptive and the descriptive. The difference between these two views has implications for the role of grammar in writing.

The prescriptive view of grammar centres on how language should be used. The focus is on the correct use of grammatical structures and, as such, the teaching of grammar will emphasise grammar rules, errors and grammar drills. When such a prescriptive view of grammar is adopted in the EL classroom, grammar and writing will largely be taught separately.

The descriptive view of grammar, however, centres on how language can be used in different contexts and emphasises how grammatical choices construct meaning in text. Grammar is viewed as a meaning-making resource. The teaching of grammar and writing then takes place in an integrated manner in the EL classroom with a focus on exploring linguistic possibilities through grammatical choices writers can make in expressing meaning in writing.

Myhill et al. (2012b) argue that isolated grammar teaching, adopting a prescriptive view of grammar, is unlikely to improve writing development as, when grammar is taught in a decontextualised manner, there is a lack of integration between grammar and writing. In 2012, Debra Myhill and her team investigated the contextualised teaching of grammar in writing in a large-scale study (Myhill et al., 2012a; Jones et al., 2013) and found that when grammar is explicitly and meaningfully taught in the context of writing lessons, there is a positive impact on students’ writing development (Myhill et al., 2013). Such an approach to grammar teaching adopts the descriptive view of grammar.

Context of study

In Singapore, where the medium of instruction is the English language, a guiding principle of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) English language syllabuses (2010 and 2020) is to recognise language as a ‘means of making meaning, and of representing those meanings to others in communication’ (Tan, 2016:9). The syllabuses also state that that students will need to ‘learn the grammar of the language in the contexts of the various text types’ (Tan, 2016:10). Though the MOE seems to encourage the teaching of grammar within the contexts of texts, most Singapore primary schools still implement the practice of teaching grammar and writing separately.

The site of the project is a primary school with a range of low, middle and high-progress students. Two Primary 5 middle-progress classes (10–11-year-olds) were chosen to participate in this project because their respective EL teachers were keen to be part of this AR project. EL lessons involve teaching a thematic unit over 30 periods of 30 minutes each. Each unit is taken as a springboard to teach grammar, vocabulary, comprehension and skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing during different periods – with the teaching of writing done last to wrap up the unit. The EL teachers usually use the school’s writing instructional materials (IMs) comprising teaching slides and activities as teaching guides.

The action research project

Inspired by Myhill et al.’s (2012:30) suggestion that ‘a writing curriculum which draws attention to the grammar of writing in an embedded and purposeful way . . . is a more positive way forward’, a core team of five experienced EL teachers in the school and an EL academic specialist in pedagogical grammar (who is also the author of this article) embarked on an AR project to revise a specific, existing writing unit within the school’s Primary 5 writing IMs by embedding explicit, contextualised grammar components as meaning-making resources for writing. The two EL teachers of the selected Primary 5 classes also joined the AR project after the revision of the writing unit as they were involved in teaching the revised writing unit to their classes.

The core project team decided to review and revise the writing unit on the theme ‘friendship’ with a focus on the structures of noun phrases, sentences and adverbials. The review of the original writing unit revealed that there were useful strategies suggested like ‘show, not tell’ and ‘expand sentences – add adjectives, add adverbs, add a clause’. Examples of expanded model sentences were also provided, for example:

1. The man crept along the path è
2. The mysterious man crept along the dark, narrow path è
3. The mysterious man crept quietly along the dark, narrow path, stopping every few steps to look around.

However, no explicit guide was provided on how students can get from a) to b) to c). What was missing was the teaching of explicit grammatical structures that would act as scaffolding for students to make grammatical choices to expand sentences – or show not tell. As such, spaces for revisions in the original writing unit were identified to allow for the integration of grammar teaching within the context of writing. Teaching slides and activities on relevant grammar content knowledge, adopting a descriptive view of grammar, were included in the revised writing unit. The specific aim of this revision was to create more awareness and understanding of relevant grammatical structures so that students can make grammatical choices to express meaning in writing. Once the revisions were done, the two EL teachers taught the revised writing unit to their respective Primary 5 classes.

Grammar as ‘meaning making’ within writing

After teaching the revised writing unit to their respective Primary 5 classes, the two teachers, Delia and Nora, were interviewed on their experience of teaching grammar as a meaning-making resource and writing in an integrated manner. Both reflected that it is critical for teachers to make explicit the links between grammar and writing for their students. This would make students consciously aware of how grammatical structures connect with the creation of meaning and, in turn, content in their writing. The teachers shared three strategies to make these links explicit, such that students are empowered to make meaningful grammatical choices in the writing class.

Making visual the links between structures and content

Delia shared that it is important to visually demonstrate these links between grammar and writing. For example, in the teaching of noun phrase structures as a meaning-making resource, she drew out the noun phrase table (Figure 1) on a large sheet of paper and pasted it at the back of the classroom, to be ‘visually present all the time’ so that students could refer to the structure of the noun phrase and be mindful of it. Various examples were included in the table to guide the students.

Second, as one of the activities suggested in the revised writing unit, Delia got students to draw their characters as depicted by the noun phrases they created. For example, a student had initially described his character as merely ‘a boy’ (determiner + head noun). When asked to draw this character, the student drew a stick figure. Delia encouraged the student to develop this noun phrase using the noun phrase table. The student then developed it to ‘a cheerful boy with curly hair’. When the student then drew this character out, it was not a stick figure anymore but a boy with a smile and curly hair. Delia then explicitly shared with the class that developing noun phrases adds to content development in writing and, in this case, specifically enhances character development and vivid visualisation by readers. Such an activity got the students to visually see the impact of developing their noun phrases.

Figure 1: Table showing how grammar structures create meaning

Whole-class discussion about grammar

Whole-class collaborative writing involves the teacher and students co-constructing a piece of text. Nora shared that such an activity provides opportunities to discuss various grammatical choices, for example, whether to use a simple or complex sentence to express meaning. Nora said it is an opportunity ‘to let the kids discover’ by ‘go[ing] through the experience together’ the most appropriate sentence types to use for an impactful piece of writing and recognising that every sentence type has its role to play in creating an impactful piece of writing. Debating the appropriate grammatical choices to make for impactful writing is empowering for students. Grammar then becomes a ‘liberating force’ as it provides one with choices to create meaning (Widdowson, 1990).

Nora also added that teaching the grammatical structure ‘noun phrases’ in the context of writing not only allowed her to teach students about the structured order of premodifiers (determiner–adjective–noun), but there were also discussions, for example, on the appropriate adjectives to use within noun phrases, considering the purpose of the text. So, the teaching of noun phrases was not merely for the sake of teaching grammar, but for creating meaning.

Providing clear feedback on how to use grammar to enhance writing

Delia suggested providing clear and explicit feedback to students’ drafts on which and how grammatical structures could be used to enhance writing. Instead of providing general feedback like ‘please elaborate’ or ‘describe the character more’, teachers could prompt students to questions like ‘can we include a postmodifier here to further define this head noun?’ or ‘can we use a connector here to link the ideas?’ or ‘could we add an adverbial to elaborate on this idea?’. Providing clear feedback and scaffolding will empower students in developing their writing.

Conclusion

Students are empowered to make meaningful grammatical choices in the writing class when they are explicitly taught grammatical structures within the context of writing. Carter and McCarthy, in fact, stress that ‘the grammar of choice is as important as the grammar for structure’ (2006:7). As such, it is crucial to create consciousness in students of the ‘repertoire of infinite possibilities’ (Myhill et al. 2012:30) in the use of grammatical structures to create various meanings in texts. Nora interestingly shared that when students are aware of the grammatical structures and choices that they have, this ‘gives them a pause’ – they pause to think before writing, to make appropriate grammatical choices to express purposeful meaning in their writing.

References

Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press.

Jones, S., Myhill, D.A. & Bailey, T. (2013). ‘Grammar for writing? an investigation of the effects of contextualised grammar teaching on students’ writing’. Reading and Writing 26 1241–1263.

Myhill, D.A., Jones, S.M., Lines, H. & Watson, A. (2012a). ‘Re-thinking grammar: the impact of embedded grammar teaching on students’ writing and students’ metalinguistic understanding’. Research Papers in Education 27 2:139–166.

Myhill, D.A., Lines, H., & Watson, A. (2012b). ‘Making Meaning with Grammar: a repertoire of possibilities. English in Australia 47 3:29–38.

Myhill, D.A., Jones, S.M., Watson, A. & Lines, H. (2013). ‘Playful explicitness with grammar: a pedagogy for writing’. Literacy 47 2:103–11.

Tan, M.Y. (2016). Monograph on 50 years of Developments in English Language Teaching and Learning in Singapore. English Language Institute of Singapore.

Widdowson, H. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.

Christine Xavier is a lecturer at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She teaches on both the pre-service (diploma, degree and postgraduate diploma in education) and in-service courses, specialising in pedagogical grammar and applied linguistics. Her research focuses on the intersections between theory and practice in the areas of pedagogical grammar, and English language variation and use.