A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

330 ❘
Teaching in the disciplines
In practice, therefore, instead of being built around a purely structural syllabus, a
communication-based course sees form as a necessary tool for expressing and exchanging
meaning. This does not preclude or diminish the role of grammar. On the contrary,
advanced and skilful communication can only take place when learners have assimilated
a range of complex structures together with understanding of their application and
potential effects within a wide range of situations. Grammar and knowledge ‘about’
language are, however, no longer seen as ends in themselves.
Furthermore, grammar is not taught deductively by artificial isolation and presentation
of a series of rules, but inductively by the identification of useful patterns within contentfocused
language. Attention is drawn to recurrent structures, with subsequent
clarification and drilling exercises. The emphasis is, however, firmly on the context within
which such structures occur and hence the meanings that they have the potential to
convey. It is a question of identifying rules from examples rather than creating examples
on the basis of a presented rule.
Interrogating practice
• Think of a point of grammar you have taught recently. Did students learn
it successfully?
• Was it learnt deductively or inductively?
• In what contexts are the students most likely to meet this grammatical
item, and what is its communicative function?
• Was this function explored fully during the learning process?
• Can you think of ways in which you might have presented and practised
it more effectively to maximise learning?
One of the major tenets of a communicative approach is that of optimum use of the
target language for instruction and interaction. If the language is not used whenever
viable within the learning process, then not only is its status as a means of communication
severely undermined, but learners are also denied their only genuine stimulus
for developing coping strategies and learning to negotiate meaning. In addition,
being surrounded by examples of the language in real situations exposes them to a
far wider range of patterns and vocabulary than they would otherwise experience.
Although target language use has caused much debate in the professional literature,
discussion centres not on whether, rather on how much; the mother tongue is
both a thinking tool and a vital reference point for language learners (see Klapper, 1998;
Butzkamm, 2003) and should not be banned from the classroom. Its role, however,
needs to be clearly defined, and delineated, and limited to what is necessary to support
learning.
However, simple exposure to new language forms and vocabulary is not sufficient for
learning to take place; learners need to notice and internalise the language patterns in use