Holistic Approaches to the Teaching and Learning of Grammar

The Seminar
In textbooks and syllabuses, the most common approach to grammar is piecemeal, with topics arranged and graded according to long-established criteria, and often with verb forms as the backbone.  In spite of welcome moves towards combining the teaching of forms with the teaching of meaning, there is still a tendency for teaching to concentrate on the sentence as a unit of meaning. Yet so much of the mysteries of grammar are only revealed when we study what happens in whole texts or at discourse level, whether in the spoken or the written language.

All this needs to be  worked out pedagogically, and in this workshop I will ask participants to take part actively in trying out a range of classroom-oriented materials on different grammatical topics in context, resulting in a more holistic look at how the language works and the reasons for the grammatical choices that speakers and writers make. Topic areas will be drawn from the following:

			modal meaning
			tenses and views of time
			voice (active vs passive)
			reporting speech
			articles and determiners
			conditions and hypothetical meaning

Rod will frame the session with a short introductory input and a round-up of key principles at the end. He’ll be happy to deal with questions and comments as they arise.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Rod Bolitho is Academic Director of Norwich Institute for Language Education (NILE).  He started out teaching English in Geany and has been involved in teacher education and trainer training for over 30 years.  He has been consultant to a number of British Council initiatives since 1989, including major textbook projects in Romania, Russia and Belarus, and is currently involved in Teacher Education initiatives in Uzbekistan and India. He has authored many articles and a number of books, including (with Brian Tomlinson) 'Discover English' , (with Richard Rossner) ‘Currents of Change in ELT’, and (with Tony Wright) 'Trainer Development'. From 2008 to 2011 he was editor of Folio, the journal of the Materials Develiopment Association (MATSDA).  His main professional interests lie in the fields of Professional Development,  Materials Writing, ESP and Language Awareness.  He loves cooking, walking and reading, and is a lifelong supprter of Liverpool Football Club.

NEED MORE INFORMATION?
If you would like to find out more about this workshop, please send an e-mail to Kristijan Rajkovic.