1

AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING
GRAMMAR IN ELT
Marianne Celce-Murcia

Historical Background
Grammar has long been a crucial part of language teaching. It has been both the
organizing principle and the primary component in many methods, and it has
been a minor or negligible component in other methods. Major issues in teaching
grammar have been related to whether grammar should be taught explicitly (i.e.,
through rules) or implicitly (i.e., through meaningful input without recourse to
rules), or whether it should be taught deductively (i.e., through rules which can
be applied to produce language) or inductively (i.e., through examples of language
use from which rules can be generalized).
In his history of language teaching, Kelly (1969) observed, “where grammar
was approached through logic [i.e., deductively], the range of methods was
reduced to teaching rules; but where inductive approaches were used, the deduc-
tive did not necessarily disappear” (p. 59). For Kelly, the teaching of grammar
appears to be explicit. However, some current approaches and some second
language (L2) research behoove us to consider implicit as well as explicit
approaches. An initial taxonomy of approaches to teaching grammar can be
represented as in Figure 1.1.
When classical Greek and Latin were the most important second or foreign
languages, getting learners to use one or both of these languages fluently was the
primary objective. Well-to-do families had their children tutored by proficient
users of these languages, who probably used both implicit and explicit methods, all
without the aid of textbooks. The tutors undoubtedly had access to a number of
manuscripts to use for reading instruction and as models for writing. Kelly (1969)
notes that the learners were often speakers of either Greek or Latin and were learn-
ing the other major language as part of their education.
4 Marianne Celce-Murcia

Language Pedagogy

Explicit Implicit

Deductive Inductive

FIGURE 1.1 Taxonomy of approaches to teaching grammar

During the Middle Ages, the formal aspects of Latin were the focus of teaching
to speakers of various European vernaculars. Rote memorization of grammar rules
(i.e., morphology [inflectional affixes] and syntax [word order]) was the primary
teaching method.
The Renaissance saw the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in 1440,
which permitted the subsequent mass production of books, including not only the
Bible and religious materials but also textbooks. According to Kelly (1969),
Renaissance-era teachers of Latin tried to supplement the formal rigidity of medi-
eval methods by introducing mnemonic devices (e.g., for declensions, the case-
based inflections on nouns and adjectives) and by encouraging learning via analogy
(i.e., applying previously learned rules and paradigms to new contexts). The
Renaissance culminated in an eventual refocusing of effort on the learner’s ability
to use the foreign language being studied.
One of the famous early post-Renaissance language methodologists was Jan
Amos Comenius, a Czech scholar and teacher, who published materials about his
language teaching techniques between 1631 and 1658 (Kelly, 1969). Some of the
implicit techniques that Comenius proposed were the following:

• use imitation instead of rules to teach a language;

• have your students repeat after you;
• help your students practice reading and writing; and
• teach language through pictures to make it meaningful.

In contrast, the followers of the French philosopher and mathematician René

Descartes (1596–1650), whose influence continued through the 18th century,
returned wholeheartedly to grammatical analysis and deductive learning in lan-
guage instruction. They began with the grammar of the learner’s first language (in
this case French) and then taught the grammar of Latin. Language instruction
consisted of the manipulation of units and rules, and the objective was to develop
the ability to parse words and sentences. The French Port Royal grammars, which
were heavily influenced by Descartes’s work, taught grammar rules through the
memorization of verse (Kelly, 1969).
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 5

This return to the association of grammar with logic and mathematics paved
the way for the highly analytical and purely deductive grammar-translation
approach to language teaching. It later became codified in Europe, most especially
in the work of Karl Ploetz (1819–1881), a German scholar who had a great influ-
ence on the language teaching profession of his time and for years thereafter. Pra-
tor (1974) summarizes Ploetz’s grammar-translation method as follows:

• the medium of instruction is the students’ L1 (first language);

• there is little or no use of the L2 for communication;
• the focus is on grammatical parsing (forms and inflections of words);
• there is early reading of difficult texts;
• a typical exercise is to translate sentences from L2 to L1 (or vice versa); and
• the teacher does not have to speak the L2 fluently (but just needs to know the
grammar).

Not surprisingly, the result of this method was (and is) an inability to use the L2
for communication!
As a challenge to the grammar-translation method, the late 19th and early 20th
century saw the development of “natural” or direct approaches to language teach-
ing, which were implicit and inductive in nature. Both the Direct Method and the
Reform Movement contributed to this change in focus from language analysis to
language use. The Reform Movement pioneers were members of the International
Phonetics Association (IPA), founded in 1886, and they argued mainly for a scien-
tific approach to the teaching of oral skills and pronunciation. At about the same
time, Francois Gouin began to publish his work on the Direct Method in 1880. It
became popular in France (Gouin’s country) and Germany. Key features of the
Direct Method, according to Prator (1974), are the following:

• there is no use of the learners’ L1 (the teacher need not be fluent in the
learners’ L1);
• the teacher must have native or near-native proficiency in the target language
(the L2);
• lessons consist of dialogues and anecdotes in conversational style;
• actions and pictures make meanings clear;
• grammar is learned primarily implicitly (occasionally inductively);
• literary texts are read for pleasure (not grammatical analysis); and
• the target culture is also taught (via implicit and inductive techniques).

In the early 20th century Émile de Sauzé, a disciple of Gouin, brought the Direct
Method to Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States to introduce it in the public
schools. He had only partial success due to the lack of native or near-native speak-
ers of Spanish, French, and German to serve as teachers who could correctly model
and implement the Direct Method (Prator, 1974).
6 Marianne Celce-Murcia

Grammar in 20th- and 21st-Century Approaches

Howatt (2004) contends that the Reform Movement of the late 19th century,
which was briefly mentioned above, played a role in the simultaneous development
of both the Audiolingual Approach in the United States and the Oral-Situational
Approach in the United Kingdom. Of these two, this chapter will focus mainly
on the Audiolingual Approach because of its dominance in the United States from
the mid-1940s through the early 1970s. The Audiolingual Approach is based on
the principles of structural linguistics (Bloomfield, 1933) and behavioral psychol-
ogy (Skinner, 1957). Audiolingualism’s most important characteristics include the
following (Prator, 1974):

• mimicry and memorization are used as techniques, based on the belief that
language learning is habit formation;
• grammatical structures are sequenced, and rules are taught inductively through
planned exposure;
• skills are sequenced (first listening and then speaking with reading and writing
postponed);
• efforts are made to ensure accuracy and prevent learner errors so that bad
habits are not formed;
• language is often manipulated without regard to meaning; and
• learning activities and materials are carefully controlled.

A growing dissatisfaction with the mechanical aspects of audiolingualism led to

several challenges. First, from the perspective of cognitive psychology (Neisser,
1967) and Chomsky’s (1959, 1965) model of grammar, language learning came to
be viewed not as habit formation but as the acquisition of recursive rules that can
be extended and applied to new circumstances as needed. This early cognitive
approach argued that language acquisition involves learning a system of infinitely
extendable rules based on meaningful exposure with hypothesis testing and rule
inferencing (inductive learning) driving the acquisition process. Errors are seen as
inevitable, something teachers can use for feedback and correction (deductive
strategies). It was concluded that grammar should be taught both inductively and
deductively because some students learn better one way than the other.
Another challenge to the Audiolingual Approach came from the Comprehen-
sion-based Approaches put forward by Postovsky (1974), Winitz (1981), Krashen
and Terrell (1983), and Asher (1996). The best known among these is the Natural
Approach by Krashen and Terrell; however, all of these authors propose that listen-
ing comprehension is the most important initial skill to master in a second lan-
guage. They also believe that there should be an initial silent period where learners
experience rich, meaningful input. During this initial period, learners can signal
their comprehension by using gestures or actions, choosing objects or pictures, or
uttering minimal verbal responses. Learners should not be forced to speak before
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 7

they feel ready to do so. Overt error correction is seen as unproductive and not
important as long as learners can understand and make themselves understood.
Rule learning is minimized and used only to help more advanced learners monitor
or become aware of their performance in speech or writing. Thus, the teaching of
grammar is largely implicit in these comprehension-based approaches.
The most radical challenge to audiolingualism, however, has come from the
Communicative Approach (Duff, 2014), which is an outgrowth of research in
linguistic anthropology in the United States (Hymes, 1971) and Firthian Linguis-
tics in the United Kingdom (Firth, 1975), with Halliday (1973, 1978) being the
most notable disciple of Firth. These scholars view language as a meaning-based
system of communication, not an abstract structural conceptualization. In fact, it
was Hymes (1971) who created the term communicative competence to complement
Chomsky’s (1959, 1965) linguistic competence. Language methodologists followed
suit. Communicative approaches reasoned that because most L2 students are learn-
ing a language for purposes of communication, the content of a communicative
language course should be organized around semantic notions and social functions
(Wilkins, 1976) and not around linguistic structures or grammar. In communica-
tive approaches, notions and functions are viewed as being as important as gram-
mar (if not more so). Beginning in the mid-1970s and up to the present day,
various incarnations of the Communicative Approach have appeared (e.g., immer-
sion education, content-based language teaching, English for specific purposes
[ESP], task-based language teaching, discourse-based language teaching, corpus-
based language teaching, and so on). What all of these incarnations share is a focus
on language use and the ability to deploy language resources and skills for purposes
of communication, along with other objectives such as learning subject matter,
acquiring academic language proficiency, or acquiring professional, vocational, or
sociocultural skills. While students learning a language through these approaches
generally acquire good comprehension skills and fluency in using the L2 for com-
munication, it was gradually noticed that many such learners did not acquire
accurate use of L2 morphology and syntax as an automatic by-product (Swain,
1985). Thus began a search regarding how best to integrate the teaching of gram-
matical accuracy into communicative language teaching (CLT).

The Role of Grammar in CLT

Some of the early work on the role of grammar in CLT was to describe the new
view of grammar entailed by adopting a communicative approach. Larsen-
Freeman (2014) has proposed for some time now that grammar has three
important dimensions, all of which need to be present in the teaching of any
grammar construction. These dimensions are (1) form—how the structure is
formed, (2) meaning—what it means, and (3) use—when and why it is used.
She illustrates this three-way distinction for the possessive inflection in English
(Larsen-Freeman, 2014, p. 259).
8 Marianne Celce-Murcia

FORM: ’s or s’ and /s/ /z/ /əz/

MEANING: possession, description, amount, relationship, part/whole,
origin/agent
USE: ’s/s’ versus possessive determiner (Sara’s book vs. her book)
’s/s’ versus of the (the table’s leg vs. the leg of the table)
’s/s’ versus noun compound (car’s radio vs. car radio)

These descriptions are admittedly brief and would require a full description in
any pedagogical grammar. However, the task for teachers, according to Larsen-
Freeman, is to know how to present the three dimensions of grammar by
anticipating what the challenges will be for any specific group of learners
given their proficiency level and current needs: What is the form? What mean-
ing is most important for the learners? How will they use the form? Larsen-
Freeman’s framework shows us that teaching grammar involves far more than
teaching form.
Another helpful description of the role of grammar in CLT comes from Canale
and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983), who propose that communicative compe-
tence, which is the objective of CLT, consists of four components.

1. Grammatical/linguistic competence. The ability to use all the language resources

(e.g., grammar, phonology, lexicon) for communication.
2. Sociolinguistic/sociocultural competence. The knowledge needed to inter-
pret and use language appropriately in a variety of contexts.
3. Discourse competence. The ability to interpret and produce coherent multi-
clausal units of language (spoken or written) in monologues or in interactions.
4. Strategic competence. The ability to plan and monitor one’s L2 interpretation
and production and to deploy effective means for compensating for problems
in communication.

This framework shows us that grammar is only one piece of the larger puzzle when
it comes to CLT. It is generally recognized that all four components of communi-
cative competence need to be integrated in effective L2 instruction.

New Conceptualizations of Grammar

Some new conceptualizations have contributed to a better understanding of
the role of grammar in CLT. These include when and how to focus on forms
(if at all), Sociocultural Theory (SCT) and teaching grammar, the use of
authentic materials and language corpora in language teaching, an under-
standing of the linguistic and social dimensions of language variation, sys-
temic functional linguistics as a framework for incorporating grammar in
discipline-specific academic language contexts, and new approaches to cur-
riculum development.
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 9

Issues Concerning Focus on Form

As Ellis discusses in his chapter later in this volume (see Chapter 12), an important
issue in the CLT framework is whether or not to focus on form in language
instruction, and, if one chooses to do so, how it should be done. Krashen (1982)
has argued that focusing explicitly on grammatical form does not contribute to L2
acquisition (i.e., to the subconscious process of making gains in a second lan-
guage). His position is that explicit teaching of grammatical forms gives learners
only a limited knowledge that may be useful for monitoring their output or for
editing their written production. However, other researchers have pointed out that
neglecting grammar instruction in exclusively meaning-based approaches results
in fossilization (i.e., when progress in development of certain target language fea-
tures stops), classroom pidgins (i.e., a grammatically simplified form of a language
used by a group of individuals not sharing a common language), and overall lower
levels of accuracy among learners (Skehan, 1998). Likewise, Schmidt (1990) has
pointed out that learners need to notice L2 forms and to become aware of them,
in order to incorporate them over time (through continual noticing) into their
ongoing L2 language development. According to Schmidt, if the forms are not
noticed at some level, they will not be acquired.
Research on integrating grammar instruction into CLT has indicated that it is
possible, using a variety of activities, to help learners to attend to the form of target
structures in context and to develop accuracy in using them (Doughty & Williams,
1998; Fotos & Ellis, 1991). Part II of this volume contains chapters by Valeo,
Hondo, Tomita, and Park (Chapters 2–5) that shed further light on this important
issue in both second and foreign language teaching contexts.

Sociocultural Theory and Teaching Grammar

SCT (Vygotsky, 1978) plays an important role in helping us understand the place
of grammar in CLT. SCT argues that learning is a mediated process (Lantolf &
Thorne, 2006; Vygotsky, 1978) and that “language use, organization, and structure
are the primary means of mediation” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 197). In SCT,
language is seen as dialogically based, and language acquisition occurs in rather
than as a result of interaction. In other words, interaction provides learners with
opportunities to produce collaboratively the new forms, and “learning occurs
when the form has become internalized” (Ellis, 2012, p. 105). When learners
encounter new forms, they may be able to produce them accurately only in con-
texts that provide them with instructional support or scaffolding from the teacher
or other peers. The process of an “expert” (e.g., a teacher or another peer who has
a higher level of language proficiency) collaborating with a “novice” (e.g., a lan-
guage learner) to help the novice perform a skill he or she cannot do alone is
consistent with the concept of scaffolding in SCT. Scaffolding is the interaction
and collaboration that learners use within their zone of proximal development
10 Marianne Celce-Murcia

(ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978)—a place of potential development where learners are

supported in the process of learning. English language teachers embrace SCT for
several reasons. First, the theory clearly explains the important role that teachers
can play in helping language learners achieve their goals. It also provides a theoreti-
cal basis for explaining the importance that most teachers place on social com-
munication and interaction as necessary components in the language acquisition
process.

The Use of Authentic Materials and Language Corpora

From the start CLT has espoused the use of authentic materials rather than materi-
als developed simply to teach language. Authentic materials are “oral and written
texts that occur naturally in the target language environment and that have not
been created or edited expressly for language learners” (Larimer & Schleicher,
1999, p. v). Such materials (recorded and written) expose learners to the ways in
which language is used for communication in the real world outside of the lan-
guage classroom. In recent years, there has also been a push toward employing
authentic tasks and activities for language practice (e.g., asking for information,
expressing opinions, solving problems, role-playing speech acts, conducting surveys
or interviews, playing games, etc.).
Relevant to concerns about the use of authentic language in CLT is the current
availability of English language corpora. One widely used and easily accessible
corpus is the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davies, 2008).
This corpus and others1 are available to language teachers, materials developers, and
even language learners and can be consulted to identify the grammatical patterns
in which words occur and the frequency with which the grammatical construc-
tions occur in various registers and genres. (See Chapters 6, 7, and 8 by McCarthy,
Liu and Jiang, and Folse in this volume for additional information about the use
of corpora in English language teaching and learning.)
For example, in a grammar based on a corpus analysis, Biber, Johansson, Leech,
Conrad, and Finegan (1999) showed that in academic writing adjective comple-
ments are more frequent than verb complements, a pattern that is not obvious or
generally acknowledged. A complement is a clause or a phrase that adds to the
meaning of a verb or adjective, as in the examples below.

Adjective Complements
It is obvious that the research design was problematic from the outset.
It was particularly difficult to resolve the problem.

Verb Complements
Previous research indicated that the first option was less expensive.
The results appear to be insignificant.
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 11

The lack of awareness of the fact that adjective complements are more frequent in
academic English has resulted in many textbooks and teachers focusing mainly on
verb complement patterns when it could be more useful to spend somewhat more
time and attention on adjective complement patterns, especially if the students are
studying English for academic purposes.

Language Variation and Varieties of English

Another issue in teaching grammar within a CLT framework is the fact that the
grammar of any language is not monolithic. There is variation in grammar according
to modality (i.e., spoken vs. written language) (McCarthy & O’Keeffe, 2014). Gram-
mar also varies according to genre or register (the preferred grammar patterns of
fiction are different from those found in news reportage or from those in academic
writing) (Biber et al., 1999), according to geography (e.g., differences between Brit-
ish, American, and Australian English), and according to social and occupational
contexts (the grammar of college professors differs from the grammar of teenagers,
which may differ from the grammar of a car mechanic or a short-order cook). Other
variations in grammar within a language relate to its use as an L1 or L2; in other
words, L1 norms may contrast with norms for English spoken in outer-circle coun-
tries (Kachru, 1985) in an L2 context, such as Indian English, Nigerian English, or
Singaporean English. This potentially wide-ranging variation in language means that
the variety of grammar selected as an instructional target needs to be appropriate to
the needs of the learners and should reflect the variety they are likely to use.

Systemic Functional Linguistics and Academic Language

With the number of English learners on the rise in many secondary and post-
secondary educational contexts, researchers and teachers have become concerned
about teaching language structure in discipline-specific academic contexts (Schleppe-
grell & O’Hallaron, 2011). Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday & Mat-
thiessen, 2004, 2013) is a theoretical framework that is being used by teachers and
researchers for analyzing and describing discipline-specific features of academic text
in secondary contexts. For example, language arts and literature teachers might work
with a text to understand what specific structures are used to explain how events in
a particular text are described, how authors ascribe attributes to and evaluate char-
acters, and how cohesion is achieved. (See Christie & Derewianka, 2008, for a review
and Schleppegrell, 2011, as an example of how mainstream history teachers in the
U.S. state of California have used SFL in working with English language learners.)
All teachers need to develop a working knowledge of how academic language is
conceptualized in their content areas and of what structural components of language
should be targeted for instruction. They also need to know how to support English
learners in both language and content development.
12 Marianne Celce-Murcia

Alternative Models of Curriculum Development

Until the mid-1970s it was always assumed that a language course would be orga-
nized around a structural syllabus, that is, around the forms of grammar, phonol-
ogy, and the lexicon that would be covered in the course. However, with the
beginnings of CLT and the early proposals for a syllabus organized around notions
and functions rather than structures (Wilkins, 1976), applied linguists began to
question the primacy of the structural syllabus. Simultaneously, the influence of
immersion education (Lambert & Tucker, 1972) made academic content the orga-
nizing principle in another approach, with language development emerging as a
by-product. As described above, Canale and Swain’s model of communicative
competence proposed four components, all of which would need attention in a
language curriculum: linguistic, sociocultural, discourse, and strategic components
(Canale 1983; Canale and Swain 1980). However, the Canale and Swain frame-
work is simply a listing and does not give centrality to any one of the components
with respect to curriculum design. Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) proposed
that the core component in a language curriculum should be discourse compe-
tence and that the language resources (grammar, phonology, vocabulary) constitute
the bottom-up elements, whereas sociocultural competence includes the top-
down elements (e.g., content and formal schemata, rules of social interaction, etc.).
They recommend that everything should be taught from a discourse perspective.
Strategic competence is a very general, all-encompassing competence that should
be part of a language curriculum to enhance the learners’ interpretation and pro-
duction of L2 communication and the use of L2 skills (i.e., listening, speaking,
reading, and writing). There are different strategies for different tasks or skills and
for solving problems that arise in the course of ongoing communication. Thus,
teaching strategies and making learners aware of them is also an important part of
language teaching (Cohen, 2011).
Where do the alternative curriculum models leave grammar? Grammar still
plays a role in curriculum design, but there is growing agreement that grammar
should be taught in context and from a discourse perspective. For example, almost
40 years ago Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) Cohesion in English showed how forms
that signal reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction function across sen-
tences in larger pieces of discourse to create texts that are cohesive. Two decades
later, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) showed how forms expressing
tense, aspect, and modality function to create coherent discourse in English. Most
recently, McCarthy and O’Keeffe (2014) demonstrated how grammatical forms
function in extended spoken English discourse and how these forms differ from
what occurs in written discourse. In other words, sentence patterns are not taught
as isolated structures for their own sake but as resources for creating and interpret-
ing spoken and written discourse.
There are many current curriculum models congruent with a discourse-based
approach to grammar instruction: content-based language teaching (Snow, 2014),
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 13

English for specific purposes (Johns & Price, 2014), task-based/project-based lan-
guage teaching (Nunan, 2014), literature-based approaches (McKay, 2014), and so
forth. None of these approaches uses grammar as the organizing principle. How-
ever, grammar emerges from the discourse and subject matter presented in the
teaching materials (as do vocabulary and pronunciation). Sociocultural awareness
can come both from the subject matter and from the manner in which the lan-
guage course is conducted (e.g., through group/pair work, teacher as facilitator,
peer interaction, sharing of life experience, etc.). One of the most radical proposals
in course design has been the student-generated syllabus, whereby students (with
guidance from the teacher) decide on a project. All activities and coursework are
then focused on finding, creating, and sharing materials relevant to the preparation
of the final project (a class newspaper/newsletter/yearbook, a guidebook of places
to visit in a given area, an online resource packet for students from abroad who
will be coming to the United States, etc.). Once again, the instructor must know
how to incorporate relevant practice of language forms, language skills, and learn-
ing strategies into the various activities involved in the project. This task for teach-
ers is admittedly not a simple matter, and such curricula require that teachers
develop requisite language and classroom management skills to ensure proper
implementation.
Another context where grammar is very important is the L2 writing course.
The syllabus for such a course is typically organized around the types of writing
the learners will be doing (narration, description, comparison/contrast, argumen-
tation, lab reports, etc.). There are generally related reading materials and class
discussions that prepare the learners to deal with topics and assignments. The
initial emphasis is on the development of ideas and the organization of the given
assignment. However, grammar also needs attention, especially when the students
are revising and editing their papers, which usually undergo several drafts. Frode-
sen (2014) and Holten and Marasco (1998) provide excellent suggestions on how
to incorporate attention to grammar into L2 writing courses.
In all these approaches and courses the focus is first on comprehension and
production of meaningful discourse, and attention is paid to forms that occur in
the discourse segments when necessary and appropriate. It may be helpful to think
of an expensive camera with a wide-angle lens and a zoom lens. First the learners
should get the big picture (i.e., the wide-angle lens). Later the learners (or the
teacher) can zoom in on grammatical details that are new or confusing or that
warrant attention through targeted instruction. Duff, Ferreira, and Zappa-Hollman
(see Chapter 9 in this volume) give us an illustration of how grammar can be suc-
cessfully integrated into content-based language teaching.
With courses that are organized around content, skills, or tasks, questions often
arise about how the teacher can ensure that the important points of grammar get
covered. Larsen-Freeman (2003), among others, has suggested that language courses
could have a grammar checklist rather than a grammar sequence. In this way, the
grammar naturally occurring in a reading passage or the grammar naturally elicited
14 Marianne Celce-Murcia

by a task can be given special attention but also be noted on the checklist with the
expectation that it will be reviewed and revisited with new content on several occa-
sions. This also ensures that if there are useful and frequent grammar constructions
on the checklist that are not being covered in the content materials or the tasks used
in the course, the teacher can then seek out and present the learners with materials
that provide contextualized exposure to focus on form within a content-based lan-
guage teaching framework (see Schleppegrell, 2002, 2004, 2012, and also Chapter 9
in this volume).

Conclusion
Over the years, the honoree of this volume, Betty Azar, has produced many text-
books for teaching English grammar, most recently new editions with her co-
author, Stacy Hagen. These textbooks are excellent exemplars of structurally
organized grammar textbooks that reflect the best of the audiolingual and cogni-
tive approach traditions, including some influences from communicative language
teaching (see Azar & Hagen, 2006, 2009, 2011). In language curricula that are
discourse-based, teachers and learners can use chapters in these textbooks as
resources, especially when focus on a specific grammatical form is called for.
As the field of ELT has grown and changed, so have the publications that focus
on teaching English grammar. The presence of new books on English grammar
does not diminish the importance of Azar’s contributions but rather signals a
changing and growing field. There are now ELT grammars available that are
content-based. This means that each lesson or unit has a topic or theme that unifies
the discourse and the language practice (grammar, vocabulary, and skills) in the
lesson. The five-volume grammar series edited by Celce-Murcia and Sokolik
(2007–2009), Grammar Connection: Structure through Content, follows such an
approach for academically oriented learners from the beginning level through the
advanced level. An even more ambitious project was Insights: Book 1 and Insights:
Book 2 by Frodesen, Holten, Jensen, and Repath-Martos (1997). For this project,
university professors’ course lectures were videotaped, and related reading materials
and course assignments were obtained. The material was then used as the basis for
two academic ESL textbooks that focused on the content of these course materials
and prepared activities that developed the learners’ academic skills while not over-
looking the grammar and vocabulary that were critical to the materials. Current
research indicates that this blending of teaching grammatical forms in a discourse-
based approach for a specific context is the direction in which grammar instruc-
tion is heading. In this approach, the teaching of English grammar plays an
important but supporting role, especially in situations where fluency and accuracy
in writing or public speaking are highly desirable, if not necessary.
As this chapter has sought to demonstrate, the field of English language teach-
ing has changed greatly in recent years, and approaches to teaching grammar have
also undergone considerable change in response to contextual uses, as well as social
 Overview of Teaching Grammar in ELT 15

and political influences. For most teachers, the changes have been exciting, but
they are also reminders of the challenges that teachers face in responding to change.
In order to know what to change and how to make responsible changes in one’s
teaching practice as it relates to grammar, a teacher must know English grammar
and know how to answer the endless questions that students ask about English and
its structure. The answers that teachers provide should be clear, precise, and appro-
priate for the students’ levels of language proficiency, and demonstrate an under-
standing of the goals and needs of their English learners. Resources such as those
published by Azar and her colleagues and others mentioned here can support
teachers with clear explanations about how English works and students with useful
materials that give them practice in both form and function.

Note
1 Other useful corpora include The American National Corpus (ANC), http://
americannationalcorpus.org/; The British National Corpus (BNC), http://www.natcorp.
ox.ac.uk/; and The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE), http://
quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micase/

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