TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CLUJ NAPOCA – UNIVERSITY CENTER IN BAIA MARE [311019]

[anonimizat]: [anonimizat]:

Prof. univ.dr.

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Candidate:

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2018

[anonimizat]: [anonimizat] (FAIRYTALES)

Research Supervisor:

Prof. univ. dr.

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Candidate:

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2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents ……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..

§Chapter I. [anonimizat]…………………………………………………………..

1.1.Are children innately prepared to learn language?……………………………..

1.2. The student’s needs…………………………………………………….

1.3. Learner personalities and learning styles……………………………….

1.4. [anonimizat]……………………….

§Chapter II. [anonimizat]…………………………………………………………………..

2.1.General aproaches in grammar teaching……………..…………………

Definitions and the roots of grammar……………………………..……..

The language course and teaching methods………………………………..

§Chapter III. Research methodology………………………………..……..

3.1.Learning styles ……………………….………………………………….

3.2 Teaching vocabulary to young learners…………………………………..

3.3. How do the young learn differently from adults?……………………………….

3.4..Practice new language (drills, [anonimizat])…………………………………………………………………..……..

§Chapter IV. Case study…………………………………………………….

4.1.Strategies/ methods of minimalizing the vocabulary deficit…………….

4.2. Assessing vocabulary effectively and creatively…………………………

4.3. Illustrated activities to be used in the class……………………………….

Conlusion/Recommendations …………………………………………….…

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..……..

Annexes…………………………………………………….…………..….…

TEACHING GRAMMAR TO MIXED ABILITY CLASSES OF YOUNG LEARNERS

Introduction

An understanding of standard written grammar is a functional part of the wider concern of developing the capabilities of writers and readers. [anonimizat]. This is the basic function of grammar; [anonimizat]. Evidently, there is much more to writing when trying to shape language to have an intended impact upon a reader. The grammatical structures are the foundation upon which meaning can be organised and developed. (Hahn, 2005, p.65)

Spelling, punctuation and grammar are back in the educational spotlight. Highstakes testing in Year 6, [anonimizat]-created an approach to teaching grammar in a de-contextualised, standalone manner. The pressures to achieve good marks in the test have meant that teachers have once again been left in the position of ‘gaming the system’. The practical thing to do in this set of circumstances has been to teach grammar in discrete lessons so as to prepare for the testing that follows. The value of this systematic teaching is very much up for debate. Whilst educationalists are more interested in setting the teaching of grammar within the contexts in which it will be employed, the government want to test declarative knowledge in isolation. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at this matter, focusing on the ways in which teacher could harmoniosely conduct a lesson, assuring the acquisition of knowledge for all students. All great teaching is built on great relationships. The initial stages of those relationships are as critical as the constant maintenance and updating of them that continues throughout the school year. The work that is required here of a Year 7 teacher should never be underestimated. This is the learning that helps us to navigate through and beyond those early assumptions. You may have them confirmed, challenged, reinforced and dismantled as the year goes on. Your teaching will certainly be moving those pupils on through the next stage of their development as readers, writers and talkers. The time and energy that you will put in to these young people is not to be underestimated, nor is the task ahead of you. As they move through Years 7 and 8 – the only years that remain as truly Key Stage 3 – your classes are on the leg of their learning journey from primary school pupils to GCSE students. It is crucial that this leg is designed to build on the talents and understanding that have been developed by your peers in the primary sector. In general, the willingness to rely on “experts” is a frightening aspect of contemporary political and social life. Teachers, in particular, have a responsibility to make sure that ideas and proposals are evaluated on their merits and not passively accepted on grounds of authority, real or presumed. The field of language teaching is no exception. It is possible—even likely—that principles of psychology and linguistics, and research in these disciplines, may supply insights useful to the language teacher. But this must be demonstrated and cannot be presumed. It is the language teacher himself who must validate or refute any specific proposal. There is very little in psychology or linguistics that he can accept on faith. (Cameron, McKay, 2006, p.88)

The present work presents the aspects of teaching grammar of a different types of learners. The structure is builded on three chapters. First chapter reveals the theoretical aspects, the second chapter presents the methodology of the preesent study. The final chapter is reprezentated by the case study and the reyult of the reserch.

The aim of this study is redescovering of teaching methods in mixed ability clases and to find which are the best ways to make young students to asimilate the information regarding a new language.

§CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW-THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

General aproaches in grammar teaching

1.1.Definitions of grammar

Grammar may be regarded either from a theoretical or a practical point of view. From the theoretical point of view grammar is the science of language. One of the standard definition may be the fallow: “The rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences, or the study or use of these rules.” (Longman Dictionary of contemporary English, or, in another source: Grammar is “the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use the language. It can foster precision, detect ambiguity and exploit the richness of expression. This can help anyone, not only language teachers, but all teachers of everything”. By ‘language’ we understand languages in general, as opposed to one or more special languages. The first business of grammar, as of every other science, is to observe the facts and phenomena with which it has to deal, and to classify and state them methodically. (Vizetal, 2014, p.23).A grammar which confines itself to this is called a descriptive grammar. Thus a descriptive grammar dealing with Modern English would state such facts as that I call is made into I called to show that the action of calling took place in the past instead of in the present; and would go on to state that I go is made into I went, I hold into I held to express the same change of meaning—or, in the technical terminology of grammar, that most Modern English verbs' form their preterite by adding -ed, the verbs go and hold having the exceptional or ‘irregular' preterites went and held respectively. (Deutscher, 2005, p.271)When we have a clear statement of such grammatical phenomena, we naturally wish to know the reason of them, and how they arose. In this way descriptive grammar lays the foundations of explanatory grammar. There are three chief methods of explaining the phenomena of language, by the help, namely, of historical grammar, comparative grammar, and general grammar. Historical grammar tries to explain the phenomena of a language by tracing them back to their earlier stages in that language. Thus, if we go back a few centuries in the history of the English language, we shall find that went was originally the preterite of a verb to wend, meaning ‘ to turn'—a meaning still partially preserved in such literary phrases as to wend one’s way, to wend homewards. The historical explanation of the preterite of go is therefore that it was originally the preterite of another verb of similar meaning. Eut if we take the preterite held, and trace it back even to the oldest English of the eighth century, we cannot explain its origin. To do this, we require the help of. Comparative grammar, which compares the grammatical phenomena of a language with those of the cognate languages, that is, languages which are related to it through having arisen from a common parent language. Just as the Romance languages—Italian, Spanish, French, etc.—are cognate to one another through being independent developments of their parent language Latin, so also English is cognate with Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish, and the other Germanic languages. Now in the oldest Germanic languages the preterite of hold appears in some such form as hthald, being formed, like many other Germanic preterites, by reduplication, that is, repetition of the beginning of the word.(Dobrin, 2010, p.65) The Germanic languages themselves are cognate with Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and the other members of the Arian family of languages; and as comparative grammar finds reduplicated preterites in these languages also-—thus Latin mordeo, I bite, has preterite character : I bit'—it infers that such preterites formed part of the Parent Arian language—the hypothetical ancestor of all the languages mentioned in this paragraph. We see then that comparative grammar is really a branch of historical grammar, only it takes us a long way further back than we could go by confining ourselves to one language.( http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/)The historical explanation of held afforded by comparative grammar is, therefore, that it is a contraction of an originally reduplicated form. Historical and comparative grammar content themselves with tracing the phenomena of a language—or of a group or family of cognate languages—as far back as possible, without attempting to explain the origin of the oldest forms thus arrived at. To do this is the task of. General grammar (philosophical grammar), which is not concerned with the details of one special language or family of languages, but with the general principles which underlie the grammatical phenomena of all languages. In dealing with such a phenomenon as reduplication, general grammar asks what are the facts about reduplication in those languages in which we can observe it clearly ?(Constantinescu, 2014, p.321) and what is the explanation of those facts—what are the general principles on which they depend? Thus general grammar first of all tells us that reduplication is widely used in primitive languages all over the world to strengthen the meaning of words in various ways, as when man-man is used to express ‘more than one man" or ‘many men/ big-big is used to express ‘very big/ and so on. Hence it infers that in Parent Arian past time in verbs was regarded as more emphatic— because more definite—than present time, and so was expressed by reduplication. The explanation of grammatical phenomena often seems self-evident—a matter of common sense,' Thus the origin of the preterite of went hardly requires to be explained to any one who is acquainted with literary English, But even in such cases as this we can never dispense with historical and comparative grammar, for experience has shown that an examination of the older forms of a language. Lastly, grammar satisfies a rational curiosity about the structure and origin of our own and other languages, and teaches us to take an interest in what we hear and utter every day of our lives.

1.2.The roots of grammar

Considerable attention has been paid in ancient times in Antic Greece to the Tekhne grammatike ascribed to Dionysius Thrax, rightly or wrongly, as the earliest extant grammatical treatise on the Greek, or indeed on any European language. The form and the structure of grammar set out in it, passing through the later grammars of Latin, became the model for the description of virtually all subsequent grammars of European languages .: "There is scarcely a book on the subject English grammar that does not display evidence of its debt to Dionysius Thrax”). (Young, Paterson, 2007, p.59). The semantic expansion of the term may be assigned to the Hellenistic age, as it is set out by Dionysius. Later on, as the analysis of speech sounds, word forms, and syntactic structures grew more delicate and more detailed, a mure intense concentration on phonology, morphology, and syntax was favoured, and this is registered by a significant comment that the parts listed are not so much the actual parts of the word itself, as the different skills in w hich the term should demonstrate his competence and that he should teach his pupils. The contrast between these two terms became a matter of controversy among linguistic scholars, and this was the main question discussed by Sextus in his treatise On the Grammarians. In more general contexts these two words had been distinguished in the dialogues of Plato. (Auer,1998, p.286). English and German are closely related. Even after their separation in the first centuries AD they have had a long history of contact and interrelated development. Nevertheless they have moved in different directions from a typological perspective. While there are certainly similarities in their increase in analytic forms, there are even more differences in the development of the structure of grammatical categories (particularly the verb). Thus, while Knglish developed an aspectual system, German did not. Instead German kept and even refined a complicated system of mood marking, whereas in English the grammatical category of mood has been lost. Even the two categories that in both languages showed a trend in the same direction (Lc. tense and voice) contain fundamental disparities as far as the internal structuring of the paradigms and their values are concerned. In order to indicate the scope of topics brought together in this volume, some introductory notes on the verbal categories and their members in early Germanic are useful. Early Germanic verbs were inflected for person, number, mood and tense. The tense system was reduced to present and past compared to six or seven tenses in Greek and Latin. The two languages under closer examination here, Old English (OE) and Old High German (OHG), had an unmarked non-past tense form and a past tense marked by a dental suffix or by vowel gradation respectively. Additionally, forms of have or be could be combined with the past participle of a verb to form pcrfcct-like structures, although their status as periphrastic may be rather called into question. Reference to future events was made by the indicative or subjunctive in the present tense in combination with temporal advcrbials or other contextual clues. Additionally, in OE there existed particular uses of the ube/become” in constructions with future reference besides combinations of (pre)modal verbs and infinitive to express futures with modal colouring. Thus, the early Germanic languages, having been drastically reduced in their number of tenses, seem to have used their resources in various similar but not identical ways to create new grammatical means of expressing temporal distinctions.(Sebeok, 1975, p.33)

A grammatical category of aspect did not exist in the early Germanic languages, although residues of aspectual markers may be attested. They become obvious in the use of prefixed verb forms. (Decortraco, 1977, p.54).In example (1) geworhte ‘made’ is used in a perfective sense, while the same verb without a prefix in example (2) denotes an imperfective meaning. Historical study of language has become considerably more approachable during the past few decades. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that corpus linguistics is a methodology that enjoys an ever increasing popularity world-wide today’’ Electronic corpora have turned out to be invaluable tools in searching for linguistic items in large amounts of text, quickly and without too much manual intervention. They have also provided us with new methodologies in analysing linguistic data, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Diachronic change and synchronic variation can be approached from many angles, so that it becomes possible to even pinpoint important moments of language change and analyse more easily than ever before synchronic variation across social strata, regions, text types and genres. (Benthem, Meulen, 2011, p101)

Corpora are far from being online text archives today. The majority of present day corpora are still one-language databases, but there seems to be more and more need for comparative corpora consisting of data from different languages and obviously from different periods of time. With regard to the field of corpus development, Stig Johansson pointed out on several occasions that we need bigger corpora, better corpora, corpora with a wider range of languages, and we need to learn to exploit the corpora in tire best possible manner.(Robins, 1976, p.83) Historical corpus studies still lack electronic databases of the earliest phases of Germanic languages, but work is being done in that area too. Interdisciplinary corpus work is nothing new today: “Moreover, it is not only linguists that find the approach increasingly attractive: corpus linguistic methodology and language analyses arc nowadays applied to fields beyond linguistics proper Professionals profiting from techniques developed in corpus linguistics include historians,experts in law, literary critics, computer scientists and language teachers.(Pălăștea, 2011, p.39)

Corpus annotation creates a particular challenge to corpus compilers at the moment, but new methods for parsing historical texts, as well as for statistical analysis are being developed today. By example, we could present the difference between “too little” and "too much” in terms of annotation, but comes to the conclusion that the primary solution depends on the purpose that annotation is used for. (She also calls for a combination of manual and automatic techniques, as well as reliable retrieval tools, only when all these aspects arc taken into account wc will achieve reliable results. Uc volume and diversity of digitized material available for linguists today also creates problems, as for comparative study in particular, it would be ideal to have data that arc representative enough and comparable with each other. Several studies in this volume make use of historical corpora. 'Ihe majority of these represent the English language and arc databases of texts from different periods in the history of English, but annotated corpora have also been utilised. As the constitution of English diachronic corpora is more advanced than that for other Germanic languages including German the following description of available resources is confined to the English language.(Negură, 2012., p.85) For many of these corpora, basic information can bo retrieved from the Corpus Resource Database (CORD) as well as the ICAME Corpus Collection.(Diamond, 1953, p.333)

1.3.The language course

Answering the questioin of what we, teachers of English, are teaching seems to be easy: we are teaching English as a foreign language (L2). The answer, however, is not so simple. First of all, language is not taugh in itself, but through content, secondly, every age group requires different contents, as well as different educational strategies. But most of all, what the language teacher needs to understand is the fact that language itselfd is a very complex thing. Lingusts and philosophers of the language have spent a lot of time and enbergy to unravel its intricacies, but the subject is far from being exhausted. (Brington, 1958, p.66).Approaches to L2 teaching go hand in hand with the main linguistic theories of the age. Language is a semiotic system, a socially accepted system of signs. The signs of the language –its individual speech sounds, letter, words, etc.-are known and shared by the entire language community. For exemple, the letters of the Latin alphabet are meaningful and have the same value for the entire Western World, but they are alien to the Russians, to the Japanise or the Arabs, who use other alphabets, or different codes. In the same way , English words (e.g. boy, home, to work, to love) are meaningful to all the speakers of thE English language , but sound gibberish to Romanians who have not learned the language. It is thanks to such shared systems/codes that communication within the group is possible.(Firsten, 1995, p.78)

Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913), the father of semiology (the science of signs), wiewed human communication as a continuous proces of encoding –decoding that goes on between two or more individuals who ,, know the code´´ , share the same language. The process starts in the mind of the speaker –the producer and sender of the message, who puts his thoughts into words, organizes them into logical structures following the rules of the dictionary and grammar, and gives them a physicalform. The mesaage thus constructed is sent towards the listener/receiver of the message in the form of a ribbon, a continuous succession of sound waves. In his turn, the receiver who ,, knows yhe code´´ decodes the message by following the same route in the opposite direction : he receives the message in its phonetic form, analyses its structures and gets to the meaning the sender wanted to convey. In oral,m face to face interaction, the language ,, flows´´ between the two interactants as wather in a drainpipe, as Sausure´s picture of the ,, taking heads, sugests. In written communication , there is a similar encoding-decoding process, only this time the physical form of the message is a graphical , signs on paper, and there is generally a significant time lapse, the writer and the reader of a novel may never met. To name the spaker ´s knowledge of the language, Noam Chomsky proposed the term linguistic competence. Accordin to Chomsky, people posses a ,,universal grammar´´, an innate knowledge of the basic grammatical structure common to all human languages. (Chomsky , 2002, p.367)This is how, with the help of a finite set of terms and a limited set of grammar rules, the speaker can recognise and produce an infinite number of grammaticaly and semantically well- formed, accurate sentences, including sentences that are totally new. Following de Saussure´s distinction between what he calls langue ( the abstract systematic rules and conventions of a signifing system) and parole, the concrete instances of use the langue, Chomsky proposes the term linguistic performance to designate the speaker ´s actual use of language . Chomsky admitted that in their performance , native speakers often produce utterances that are not well-formed , elliptical or minor sentences, and that they often make mistakes when using the language infomallz. However, he considered that such utterances are not significant for a linguistic study. Chomsky´s ideas were taken up by foreign language teachers who, in accordance with hois theory established that their main goal was to endow learners with a kind of linguistic competence similar to that of the native speaker. Consequently, acquisition of a foreign language relied on learning:

-vocabulary, in the form of : spelling-the correct succesion of letters within words,

-prononciation , the chain of speech sounds that makes up a lexical unit,

-meaning-the dictionary description of a lexical unit .

-the grammatical structure of the target language.(Otero, 2007, p.45)

Unfortunately, some teachers still think that vocabulary and grammar are ,, all trhere its´´ to teaching and learning a foreign language . However, the concept speaker´s ability to interact and learning a foreign language. However, the competent speaker´s ability to interact linguistically with other members of society cannot be restricted to the rules of language or to grammatical and semantic well-formedness.

Aanalyzing wide samples of ordinary linguistic exchanges, linguists realized that vocabulary and grammar are unable to account for the boundless variety and creativity of individual sentences. They noticeds that ordinary communication abounds in non-well-formed or faulty linguistic constructs, yet this does not prevent meaningful communication . They concluded that the competent speakers´ ability to communicate largely depends on pragmatic factors , on factors pertainining to their knowledge of the world and of the unwritten rules that govern human society and communication.(Chomsky, 2000, p.54)

On the first sociolinguists, Dell Hymes(1927-2009), argued that conversations abound in non-wellformed utterances, zet they do not prevent meaningful communication. Hymes insisted that the competent speaker knows how to use the language not only corectly , but also appropiately with respect to context , addressee, register and activity type, that rules of the language are subordinated to the rule of use.

Therfore , Hymnes concluded, Chomsky´s insistence on linguistic well- formedness as criterion for linguistic competence is too narrow, linguistic competence is only one aspect of the component speaker´s communicative competence, his overall ability to interact with the help of the language.(Chomsky. p.2002)

1.3.1.Are children innately prepared to learn language?

Despite evidence of a domain-general language-learning mechanism, most contemporary researchers believe that traditional behavioral accounts of language acquisition are not adequate to account for learning syntax. What are the alternatives? Proponents of nativist theories propose that children are biologically prepared to learn language and do so with special, innate learning mechanisms, not through some domain-general set of learning devices as proposed by the bchaviorists.(Bybche, 1991, p.62) Children are born with a language instinct. In contrast, proponents of social-intcractionist theories blend aspects of the behavioral and nativists perspectives, granting that humans are specially prepared to acquire language but holding that aspects of the environment, especially parents, also might be specially prepared to foster language acquisition, although not to the extent that Skinner and his behaviorist colleagues once believed. For instance, proponents of these theories criticize the pseudolanguage presented to infants was highly simplified compared to natural language. Infants are unlikely to hear the same four words uttered repeatedly for 2 minutes in a natural language learning situation, after all. Therefore, statistical learning may not be sufficient to account for infants’ word segmentation in the real world. Indeed, in a slightly modified version of the original experiment. Infants with pseudowords of varying length and found that this added complexity hindered infants from learning to segment words. That is, infants showed no preference for the novel tape after 2 minutes of familiarization with the original string of nonsense syllables. Infants’ statistical learning capabilities might be of limited use in a natural language setting given that the process of word segmentation in the real world is undoubtedly much more complex than simply tracking the conditional probabilities between syllables. (Atance, 2015, p.23)

In the following sections, we outline some of the theory and data associated with nativist and social-interactionist theories of language acquisition. This account is admittedly a cursory one, and readers who would like to pursue some of the ideas mentioned are encouraged to seek out some of the suggested readings at the end of the chapter. Contemporary nativist perspectives on language development can trace their beginnings to the work of Noam Chomsky (1957). In 1959, Chomsky wrote, in his review of B. F. Skinner’s (1957) book Verbal Behavior, “I can find no support whatsoever for the doctrine . . . that slow and careful shaping of verbal behavior through differential reinforcement is an absolute necessity" (p. 42). Chomsky’s ideas were as radical in one direction as Skinner's were in the other. Instead of viewing language as something that is taught, produced by the child's environment, Chomsky insisted that language is something innate, produced by the child's biology. Chomsky believed that language, as we commonly use the term, is only one part of this process—the surface structure. Infants hear language being spoken around them and end up being able to speak it themselves within a few years. No simple rules of learning or conditioning account adequately for this acquisition, however, because the language children hear is too complicated, and often too ambiguous. In very general terms, three major types of theories have been postulated to account for language acquisition: (I) behavioral theories, (2) nativist theories, and (3) social-interactionist theories. Behavioral theories were popular in the early and middle part of the last century and proposed, basically, that children learn language like they learn any other complex behavior, through the principles of classical and operant conditioning (Skinner, 1957). Behaviorists emphasized the role of parents as models of, and reinforcers for, language. The behaviorists actually paid relatively little attention to children, who for generations had been producing perfectly understandable original sentences and phrases they could not have possibly learned through conditioning and imitation, such as “all-gone, sticky" to announce that their hands have been washed. Many claims of the behaviorists have not stood the test of time.(Barett, 2007, p. 452) For example, although words can be learned through conditioning principles in the laboratory, little evidence suggests that parents use such structured techniques at home; yet almost all children arc fluent in their native language before they reach school age. Other research has shown that parents seldom comment to children about the grammatical correctness of their spoken messages, only the meaningfulness of them, and although new words are obviously learned by imitation, new grammatical forms (such as plurals or the past tense) are typically not imitated until children are able to produce them spontaneously. In addition, although 2- and 3-year-old children hear between 5,000 and 7,000 utterances each day, more than 20% of those utterances are incomplete sentence fragments, and only about 15% are in the subject-verb-object form that is standard for English. (Barrouillet, 2011, p.61) pAll this makes it very unlikely that a behavioral theory of language development is adequate. (Atkinson, 1968, p.86).Thus, one way in which children apparently do not learn the syntax of their mother tongue is through the conventional rules of classical and operant conditioning. More recent research, however, has discovered that infants seemingly use a domain-general mechanism of statistical learning to discern what is a word and what is not, consistent with some claims of the behavioral position. In this context, statistical learning refers to infants essentially keeping track of how often different syllables follow one another and then using this information to determine which sound sequences arc meaningful (that is, are words) and which arc not. As adults, it might seem obvious how infants segment fluid speech into words. Surely it is because of the breaks, or pauses, between words. However, there are indeed more pauses within words than between words. For example, the phrase “pretty baby” consists of two words, but when spoken, the syllables run together. Note how the pauses offer no reliable cue to word boundary. (If you still don’t believe this, listen to speakers of a foreign language and see if you can be certain where one word ends. Early language development in general, and development of conversational skills in particular, does not take place only in the context of adult-child conversations but often in the context of other children, particularly siblings. Firstborn children usually surpass later- born children in both the early development of vocabulary and grammar but not in the development of conversational skills. In fact, later-born children tend to be better than firstborn children in the production of personal pronouns (/, you). Although reasons for these differences are far from clear, firstborn children’s vocabulary and grammar advantages likely stem from getting more of their mothers’ exclusive attention. Later-born children, in contrast, seem to take advantage of the richer and more varied speech they hear and of social interactions with both their parents and their older siblings. For example, it has been suggested that later-born children’s advantage over firstborns regarding the use of personal pronouns might result from the fact that they are overly exposed to a type of speech between firstborns and mothers that includes more personal pronouns than the speech they each address to them. For years, research and theory in communicative development followed the interpretation of Jean Piaget (1955), who proposed that young children’s speech is egocentric and presocial. In social situations, young children attempt to communicate with others, but their egocentric view of the world often results in speech that does not get the message across to a listener. This failure often docs not bother preschool children, however, because in many cases, they arc unaware that the message is not being comprehended. Such egocentric speech can be observed in young children in a variety of contexts. Listen to the phone conversation of a 4-year-old. When the voice on the other end of the receiver asked Alese, “What are you wearing today?," Alese responded, “This," while looking down and pointing at her dress. This apparently is not an atypical phone conversation for a preschooler (Barrouillet, 2011, p.61) The conversation of two 5-year- old boys playing together in a sandbox can be interesting. (Liowald, 2006, p.301)“I drive my truck over here, and then I drive beside your plane and I fill it up with stuff," says one child. In the meantime, the other is saying, “My plane’s coming in for a landing. I drop bombs on your truck and crash into it. Boom!" Such a conversation would not be taking place if each child were alone. However, what one child says has little to do with the comments of the other. The two hoys arc talking with each other but not necessarily to each other. Piaget labeled such egocentric exchanges collective monologues. Beginning early in life, children learn these various conversation principles, l or example, toddlers know to watch their listener for signs that they are being understood .They know that they must be close to their listener to be heard and if they arc not close to their listener, that they need to speak louder. They also know to clarify their speech when they are being misunderstood. A responsive listener provides a speaker with nonverbal cues, such as nods, gazes, and smiles, and he or she says “yes" and “uh huh" at appropriate times to make it clear that the message is being understood. These skills increase with age, but even 2-ycar-olds use many of these tactics when listening to an adult. Children also leant that, depending on the context, sometimes a question is not really a question, l or example, when a father says “How many times do I have to tell you to leave that alone?" and “Why do you insist on carrying that blanket everywhere?,” children learn that the question is a rhetorical one and does not require a serious answer. (Bartlett, 1932, p.284).Children learn from the speaker's tone of voice that these arc really statements because even young preschoolers seldom mistake them for real questions The reverse is also true: Sometimes questions can Ik- hidden in statements, such as asking a babysitter for a bedtime extension by staring, “Mommy always lets me watch The Simpsons". (Dievald, 2007, p.43)One aspect of pragmatics involves using different styles of speech in different situations. For example, children use one style of speech when at home or with their friends and another, more formal style when in school. These different styles arc referred to as speech registers. When the speech registers, or codes, children use at home and the ones they arc expected to use in school differ considerably, there is the potential for educational difficulties. Usually, children from middle-class families speak a “standard” version of the language that is similar to the more formal style used in school. In contrast, children from less affluent homes often speak a nonstandard version of the language that is often appreciably different from the one used in school. In the United States, this distinction between social (or home) language and school language among native speakers is often more obvious for children whose home language is described as Black English (or sometimes Ebonics, or African American Vernacular English).

The students needs

We live in a world where on line communication and fast means of transport have given a new meaning to the world ,, distance´´: we can talk to , and see friends living thousands of miles away, receive information instantly, travel to far away places in ba mater of hours . Furtermore, in a continously globaliying world, and especially with the enlargement of the European Union, people travel more than ever before, whether for touristic, aducational or professional purposes, and English has become the main instrument of communication , the lingua franca of the modern world. Under the circumstances , our students need to learn English so as to be able to communicate with its help. Numerous learners will also need a certificate attesting the knowledge of the language.(Haspelmath, 1989, p.78)

Accordin the Coomon European Framework of References for Languages; communicative language competence includes:

Linguistic competences , the speaker´s ability to recognise and produce meaningful and coherent utterances/texts, his knowledge of the vocabulary of the target language, his grammatical accuracy, to use the language flexibily and fluently.

Sociolinguistic competence, the speaker´s ability to adapt his message to the social environement, to use the language appropriatelz with respect to the receiver , the social and situational context in which exchanges takes place.

Pragmatic competence, the speaker´s ability to disambiguate utterances with help of the context and fill in missing links, to recognise the gap between what is said and what is meant, between the literal meaning of an utterance and the speaker´s intended meaning, to produce clear and coherent messages , to use the language functionally.(Gavronsky, 2010, p.123)

Strategic competence, the speaker ´s ability to identify cues and make inferences, to cooperate and negociate meaning, to use linguistic strategies of repair, compensating, monitoring and repair, of indirectness and politeness, aimed at obtaining real-world advantages and avoiding negative consequences.

Each competence requires knowledge of the language, linguistic competence, but it also calls for knowledge of the world´s conventions and structures , pragmatic competence. The interractional nature of communication necessitates sociolinguistic competence, but it also involves good control of vocabulary and grammar. Strategic competence attests good knowledge of the world and of society(sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence), as well as good language skills. Thus, to sum up: students must learn to use language meaningfully, accurately, appropiately, functionally and strategically.(Heine, 2002, p.95)

All comunication relies on transfer of meaning : the speaker must be able to convey his ideas and whishes , which the receiver must be able to comprehend. If meaning does not ,,flow´´ from the one to the other, there is sinmply no communication. Wheter the speaker ´s utterances are grammaticaly correct or not is less important that it´s ability to make himself understood. In the same way, the foreign language teacher must first of all focus on meaning, rather than accuracy . But as learner becomes more proeficient, the role of accuracy increases because, on the one hand, it helps the learner acquire higher level certifications , on the other, accuracy improves the speaker´s personal image and social status. Meaning and accuracy work an all linguistic levels – from pronunciation, through words choice and range, to the complexity of the speaker´s senteces , and the teacher must pay special attention to those aspect of the language that present some difficulty to Romanian learners. For example:

-Pronunciation Incorect mastery of the English phonemes may trigger chance of meaning , often with comic or tragic results, in a popular Berlity ad , youtube, a desperate voice on the megaphone calls out , We are sinking, to which the German coastguard calnmy replies: What are you sinking (i.e. thinking) about?

– In an exclusive social environement, such as a job interview, aprofessionl or political speech , incorect pronunciation brings on sneers.(Krug, 2000, p.208)

-Spelling: -the gap between spelling and propunciation makes English spelling especially difficult for Romanian learners, but spelling is verry important because slight mistakes can trigger serious changes of meaning , e.g. the sun is quite differengt from the son: one´s knowledge of the world is very different from one´s knowledge of the word, etc.(Bates, 1980, p.242)

– Polisemy: Most English words have more than one meaning( get, book, house, etc.). Phrases can also have more than one meaning, e.g. make up- to form , to invent, to be reconciliated. Due to high meaning potential of the English vocabulary, words and phrases must always be taught in context .

– Homonimy, words that are pronounced and/or spelled alike: The high occurance in English of homophones or near homophones makes it difficult for learners to differentiate between items such as sun-son, mare-mayon, word-world etc.

– Conversion , the ability of English words to take on various grammatical functions whitout any changes of form:

Due to high convertibility of English words, learners may find it difficult to idewntify the predicate of the sentences.(Kyfo, 2012, p.10)

Phrasal verbs-verb and particle are often opaque , their meaning cannot be guessed , so that they have to be learned just like any internal word, e.g: to hang out-to associate, to spend time with, to call of, pick on. Phrasal verbs are an essential part of the native speaker´s dictionary. So that they must become part of the learner ´s vocabulary as well.

Idioms – groups of words , which have a unitary, generally figurative meaning:

Just like phrasal verbs, idioms are often opaque , e.g. to be all ears- to listen attentively, to get to the hearth of something- to get to the essence of a problem , to speak with one´s tongue in one´s cheek, said in a way which is not meant to be taken seriosly.

Just like phrasal verbs, idioms are typical for native speech, so the learner´s must be able to reognise therm and perceive their metaphoric character.

Polisemantic words whosae second or third meaning is a false friend: fine: bine or fine- amendă. The CEFR assesses the speaker´s lingzuistic competence by criteria such as : general linguistic and vocabulary range, vocabulary control, grammatical accuracy, phonological control , ortographic control , fluency.

Obviosly, linguistic competence alone cannot ensure efficient communicationb : a person may have a rich vocabulary and know the rules of grammar perfectly and still fail to communicate well.

1.3.3. Learner personalities and learning styles

The process of differentiating instruction is most effective in a flexible and supportive learning environment, which encompasses both the physical setting of the classroom and its climate. The teacher sustains a relaxed yet challenging environment encouraging responsibility and autonomy, supporting students' different needs, and emphasizing students' strengths. In addition, sharing responsibility for the classroom climate with students helps to ensure that it is productive and comfortable for everyone.

Moreover, a move toward differentiated instruction, especially when it replaces homogeneous) grouped classrooms, can cause parental fears of low ered expectations for gifted students.(Alloway, 2010, p.76)

Peter D. Rosenstein, executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children, understands this skepticism. His group advocates a differentiation of curriculum and instruction that gives all children "an education that challenges them to reach their full potential.'' Often that means separate gifted classes, he says, "because 90 percent of teachers do not know how to differentiate" in a mixed-ability setting. "To train a whole school to do this would take years of practice." In the meantime, he says, "the kids at the high-end will lose out."(Hasselgard, 2012, p.49)

If learning style is represented as a profile of the individual's approach to learning, this profile can he seen to comprise two fundamental levels of functioning; The first is cognitive, referring to a stable and internalized dimension related to the way a person thinks or processes information; the second is the level of the learning activity, which is more external and embraces less stable functions that relate to the learner s continuing adaptation to the environment. From this perspective, therefore, the core of a learning style is the cognitive style,’ which can be seen as a partially biologically determined and pervasive way of responding to information and situations; and when such cognitive styles are specifically related to an educational context and are intermingled with a number of affective, physiological, and behavioral factors, they are usually more generally referred to as learning styles. In our quest to understand the nature of learning styles, therefore, we need to take a step back and start with the analysis of cognitive styles.( Bailey,2013, p166)

Cognitive styles are usually defined as an individual’s preferred and habitual modes of perceiving, remembering, organizing, processing, and representing information. In their attempt to achieve a consensus in definition (mentioned above), Armstrong and his colleagues (2012) produced the following ultimate definition:

Cognitive styles refer to individual differences in people’s preferred way of processing (perceiving, organizing and analyzing) information using cognitive brain-based mechanisms and structures, They are assumed to be relatively stable and possibly innate. Whilst cognitive styles can influence a person’s behavior, other processing strategies may at times be employed depending on task demands—this is because they are only preferences.

The advantage of focusing on cognitive styles prior to learning styles is that the former are devoid of any educational and situational/environmental interferences, thereby allowing for a purer' definition. Vet, as we will see next, this is still only a partial solution to the style ambiguity because we find an unspecified or ‘fluid* relationship between cognitive styles and personality on the one hand, and between cognitive styles and cognitive abilities on the other. Thus, cognitive styles are typically characterized as being in a conceptual gray area between personality and intelligence, and are expected to explain variance beyond both of these variables.

Research on cognitive styles goes back to the end of the 19th century when scholars noticed that some people had a predominantly verbal way of representing information in thought, whereas others were more visual or imaginal (cf. Riding, 2090a; for a recent historical review, see Nielsen, 2012). There have been ongoing investigations on styles ever since, but styles research took off in the 1940s anti 1950s, when Witkin and his colleagues initiated work on the study of field dependence—independence (see later in detail). During the subsequent decades, scholars identified an ever-increasing number of cognitive style dimensions, but the validity of such an extensive range of styles became the subject of a great deal of debate toward the end of the 20th century, with some scholars claiming that the different style labels did not reflect genuine differences and therefore most identified styles could be grouped into far fewer principal cognitive style dimensions . (Jhones, 2008, p.179)

Although the theoretical basis of cognitive styles is more solid than that of learning styles, even cognitive styles have been subject to a lot of criticism, which never allowed for the concept to take a substantial place in mainstream cognitive psychology. The crux of tire problem is that styles research in the past has not been able to demonstrate sufficiently that the notion of cognitive style is a theoretical construct in its own right, and thus the concept has become, in Sternberg and Grigorenko’s (2001) words, too ‘instrument-bound that is, a style was what a particular style questionnaire measured, which is a recurring issue in ID research, as we have found the same phenomenon in the domain of language aptitude research. And since most researchers produced their own idiosyncratic instruments, resulting in their own idiosyncratic style conceptualizations, these overlapping concepts could not converge sufficiently, thereby creating a rather confused and confusing overall picture. This was coupled with the fact that many of the actually identified and measured style dimensions were not sufficiently separate from certain ability and personality characteristics; for example, the MBTI personality types tend also to be listed as cognitive style dichotomies , as in Table 1 and the problem of overlap even led to the fall of the most famous cognitive style dimension, field dependence-in dependence, as it was found to correlate excessively with spatial intelligence

TABLE 1. Cognitive style dichotomies systematic survey of learning styles

convergers vs, divergers

verbalizes vs. imagers

holists vs, serialists

deep vs, surface learning

activists vs, reflectors

pragmatists vs theorists

adaptors vs. innovators

assimilators vs, explorers

field dependent vs. field independent

globalists vs. analysts

assimilators vs, accommodators

imaginative vs, analytic learners

non-committers vs, plungers

An orientation toward reflective observation focuses on understanding the meaning of ideas and situations by carefully observing and impartially describing them; it emphasizes understanding as opposed to practical application. Based on the combination of the two style continua, four basic learner types, or learning style patterns, emerge: (Bourghton et al, 1980, p.235)

• Divcrgers (concrete & reflective) have received their label because they prefer concrete situations that call for the generation of ideas, such as a brainstorming session. This does not mean they are abstract thinkers; just the opposite, they are down-to-earth people who learn best through concrete experience and like to look at concrete situations from many points of view in a reflective manner. They are also interested in other people and are fairly emotional in their dealings with them. They have

broad cultural interests and often specialize in the arts. In classroom situations they prefer to work in groups.

Convergers (abstract & active) are abstract thinkers who generate ideas and theories. They are, however, not detached from reality, as they are interested in active experimentation to find practical uses for their schemes.

They are good at solving specific problems, especially if the tasks are technical rather than interpersonal or social in nature. In formal learning situations, people with this style prefer experiments and simulations, laboratory assignments, and practical applications.

Assimilators (abstract & reflective) are also abstract thinkers but their strength is not in dreaming up Ideas and then actively trying to put them to test, like that of convergers, but rather, as the name suggests, assimilating disparate observations in a reflective manner, that is, understanding a wide range of information and putting it

into a concise and logical form- People with this style embody best the stereotype of the ‘aloof academic,’ as they are less interested in people than in abstract concepts and find it more important that a theory has logical soundness than practical value.

• Accommodators (concrete & active) are the most hands- on learners: They like concrete experience and active experimentation, and they are stimulated by challenging experiences even to the extent of taking risks. They often follow their ‘gut’ feelings rather than logical analysis. No wonder that this learning style is effective in action- oriented careers such as marketing or sales. In formal learning situations they like to work with others on active projects and enjoy field work.

Grammar seen as a code

The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the ‘creativity of language, that is, the speaker’s ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are ‘familiar’. The fundamental importance of this creative aspect of normal language use has been recognized since the seventeenth century at least, and it was at the core of Humboldtian general linguistics. Modern linguistics, however, is seriously at fault in its failure to come to grips with this central problem. In fact, even to speak of the hearer’s ‘familiarity with sentences’ is an absurdity. Normal use of language involves the production and interpretation of sentences that are similar to sentences that have been heard before only in that they are generated by the rules of the same grammar, and thus the only sentences that can in any serious sense be called ‘familiar’ are clichés or fixed formulas of one sort or another. The extent to which this is true has been seriously underestimated even by those linguists (e.g. O. Jespersen) who have given some attention to the problem. A generative grammar, then, must at least determine a pairing of signals with SD’s; and a theory of generative grammar must provide a general characterization of the class of possible signals (a theory of phonetic representation) and the class of possible SD’s. A grammar is descriptively adequate to the extent that it is factually correct in a variety of respects, in particular, to the extent that it pairs signals with SD’s that do in fact meet empirically given conditions on the semantic interpretations that they support. For example, if a signal has two intrinsic semantic interpretations in a particular language in English, a grammar of this language will approach descriptive adequacy if it assigns two SD’s to the sentence, and, beyond this, it will approach descriptive adequacy to the extent that these SD’s succeed in expressing the basis for the ambiguity. The genre, text and grammar model of written language proposed here is primarily concerned with ‘what’s going on' in writing; it asks why a particular type of writing works better than another. For example, if we are required to write a technical description, it is not helpful or indeed easy, in our culture, to use a narrative genre. We need to understand that technical descriptions have recognisable characteristics and that using these characteristics will make the writing process effective and efficient. Second, the textual conventions for technical descriptions will help readers to pick up the signals and read the text from a technical point of view. The textual characteristics of a story, on the other hand, would make the process cumbersome and inefficient, as well as giving readers the wrong reading signals.

The aim of a genre, text and grammar approach, then, is to provide students with the ability to use the codes of writing (the genres and grammar) effectively and efficiently. Without these codes the process of writing can be a frustrating and unproductive process. How many times do we see students staring at a blank piece of paper because they do not know how to start, let alone proceed with a writing task? A primary aim of teaching writing, therefore, is to provide students with the knowledge to become effective users of written English. The aim is not to provide students with simplistic formulas or rules and regulations for ‘correct’ English. While rules and formulas have their uses, on their own they do not produce powerful writers, writers who will become competent, confident and articulate users of the English language.

2.1. How to break the “code” of a language

Code choice in classroom communication is admittedly a frequent and central concern for teachers and students. For teachers, it usually has to do with preventing students from using their first language (LI); for students, it is often about how to use the LI and still function and succeed in the language classroom. In scholarship on second language (L2) learning, code choice has remained, for the most part, a tangential concern. A second purpose of this book is, then, to move the issue of code choice to a more central place in our thinking about L2 theory, curriculum, practice and research. It is no accident that the title of this book emphasises code choice rather than code-switching, because much of what I will argue is based onlearner choices in classroom interaction and teacher choices in curriculum design and teaching practice.( For the typical high school or university student in the USA, whether or not to study an L2 is often not a matter of choice. But most other aspects of the endeavor are: which language to study, when to study, how much energy or effort to invest in it, whether and when to speak the language (except when called on by the teacher), and crucially, whether one should buy into using the L2 in the contexts in which the instructor and the curriculum mandate.1 Unfortunately, many students are probably not aware of many of these choices as they make them. Our job as curriculum designers and teachers, then, is to find ways of raising learners' awareness of choice, of facilitating the management of code-switching in classroom conversation, which means raising awareness of which language to use, with whom, when and why. The larger purpose of this endeavor is to provide students with affordances for language learning through multiple code use in the classroom, and ultimately to help them become bilingual users of LI and L2. It is also to help teachers and learners to recognize and realize the language classroom's potential, not just for learning a new language and culture, but to make critical intercultural connections about language, discourses and life. To accomplish these goals, we must develop an approach to treating the language classroom as an authentic social environment in its own right, rather than as an artificial aberration from normal social life, and for promoting learner autonomy by allowing learners a say in the ways code choices are made.( Nechita, 2011, p.41)For language professionals, whether researchers or classroom teachers, this book seeks to call attention to an area of instructed L2 learning that has received relatively little attention, and actually no attention at all in some of the areas of inquiry in which it would be most needed. The multilingual approach I propose proceeds from four working assumptions about code choice and language teaching and learning. First, the curricular proposals presented in this book do not mean that the classroom should seek to re-create the norms of societal multilingual environments. Just as the assumption of a monolingual norm is naive and insufficient on its own, so too is the assumption that it is equivalent to a multilingual environment outside the classroom. The contrived nature of communication in most language classrooms is ubiquitous (compared with non-instructional learning environments), and any pedagogy considering code choice must balance the fact that it is a multilingual environment with the fact that it is, in many regards, an 'artificial' one, at least in terms of the settings and contexts that prevail in people's daily lives. We seek in the classroom to teach people how to talk when they are not being taught'. While this is certainly true, it is also crucial to note that this classroom artificiality of communication does not mean it is not also authentic human communication. Indeed, this very feature of classroom communication allows us – and, in fact, requires us – to develop a principled, theoretically motivated approach to the use of both L2 and LI. This book offers such an approach, to explore the ways in which language learners should acquire not only the idealized monolingual norms of communicative competence, but also those of multilingual and intercultural communicative competence.(Sikovzynska, 1996, p.33)

As a combination of theoretical discussion, empirical research report and pedagogical model intended primarily for language teachers and language program directors, this book also represents a rejection of the ubiquitous theory/practice dichotomy, which I believe has been a millstone around the neck of language teachers for decades. Regarding theory, research and practice as 'an essential unity in the process of doing curriculum; theorizing, researching, and practicing are thus inseparable ingredients in the professional conduct of a language educator'. I offer here some new ways to think about a key feature of the language classroom environment that 1 believe deserves greater attention among language professionals: the way the students and teacher choose and negotiate their use of the LI and the L2 to do curriculum :Thus, the book is also about letting both teachers-in-training and language students in on aspects of language learning and use that have traditionally been the exclusive territory of the applied linguist, the theorist, the philosopher of language and the veteran language teacher (although often this latter group, too, has been excluded from debates about the nature of language, learning and activity), ft is about moving away from considering language classroom communication as a bundle of discrete features and toward a view of the classroom as both a reflection of the world outside the classroom as well as a component of it, about exploring ways for learner and instructor reflection about code choice, and also, about politicizing that critical reflection, such that L2 learning itself becomes about much more than the acquisition of linguistic features or factual knowledge about culture(s).

2.2. Figuring out a language patterns (numbers analogy)

If you held that belief then understand that language patterns are entirely interactive and require both party's participation. Consider a child's game where someone hides an object and the only clues given are "warmer´´when the seeker gets close and "colder," when they move away from the object. The effectiveness of language patterns works much the same way. flic user must pay attention to the other’s responses From that information. they know whether they are getting "warmer" or "colder." The difference is in the degree of subtle changes that you will be observing. For many, those subtle changes have never been given proper attention, but the truth is that this information makes all the difference in getting what you want.Language patterns work for many reasons, a primary one being that they bring about an emotional state and then suggest an action to accompany the emotion. The Uuth is that someone can be talked into bed. a business partnership, or sold a product or service – just with words. This is because people almost universally make their decisions based on feelings, rather than reason. The skillful manipulation of emotions can drive a nation to war or to build giant monuments and institutions. Individuals in one-on-one encounters are no different, and gaining control is then often easier, because feedback is instant. One can notice this when language patterns are being used. For example, a man is using language patterns to win a date. A bystander hearing the conversation may think the guy is a little strange, talking about things that are typically non-guy topics, like "connection." "passion" and "the warmth of feelings." However, the woman likely has a completely different perception of the conversation.

Stage magicians make use of this effect all the time, when they allow the audience to perceive something "magical." while the volunteer on stage perceives that they arc merely following orders.

An example of this w ould be w hen, w ithout giving away an entire magic trick, the magician asks a volunteer to reach into the magician's pocket to prove to the audience that it's empty. As the volunteer does so. the magician says. "Don't do anything, okay!" This, of course, gets a laugh from the audience, as they envision the volunteer's hands potentially injuring the magicians nether regions. He then tells the volunteer. "Okay, take your hand out," and then he proclaims to the audience, "Your hand is empty."(Sultanovici, 2008, p.70). Cognitive Linguistics is. by definition, a usage-based approach to language. Its model of language places usage ul the very foundations of linguistic structure with a linguistic sign, the form-meaning pair, argued to become entrenched through repeated successful use, It is ihis entrenchment that renders symbolic gestures linguistic rather than merely incidental and represents the key to structure in language Patterns of language usage aeioss many individuals can he argued to he indices of shared entrenchment. When large numbers of language users possess the same or similar entrenchment, we can talk about grammar, that is, linguistic structure. Importantly, as cognitive linguists, we believe this structure to be conceptually motivated. A basic phenomenon in conceptual structuring is salience. This concerns the conceptual prominence of perceived (or conceived) objects and their relations. Although frequency represents an important factor in determining salience, a one-to-one relationship between relative frequency and relative salience does not exist. Various cultural and perceptual factors can make relatively infrequent concepts salient and vice versa. Corpus-driven linguistics is frequency based and so inherently restricted in what it can say about conceptual salience. Nevertheless, frequency data are perfectly placed to allow us to make generalizations about patterns of usage across speech communities. Importantly, from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective, we can make the assumption that these patterns of usage represent speakers' knowledge of their language, including the conceptual structures that motivate language. In this indirect way. the inductive generalizations based on frequency permit us to make hypotheses about the conceptual structure of language. This is possible without making more theoretically tenuous claims about the relation of frequency to cognition, Within Cognitive Linguistics, the use of corpora and empirical methods more generally represents an important movement. Indeed, many argue that such approaches are crucial to the advancement of the field. The application of such methods to the study of semantics is not, however, straightforward Corpus linguistics is essentially the analysis of large numbers of examples. A corpus linguist must examine many hundreds or even thousands of utterances before he or she cun make any generalizations, it must be remembered that those generalizations are only valid to the extent that the analysis of those examples is valid. ( Cela, 2015, p.39)It is a common myth that corpus linguistics replaces linguistic analysis with quantitative deductions. Nothing is further from the truth. The annotation of a dataset is the laborious linguistic analysis of examples. Often computational techniques allow one to automate much of that analysis, hut in the field of semantics, this is not possible. This study is concerned with precisely these quantitative usage-hased methods for semantic description and so annotation is entirely made up of manual semantic analysis.Closely related lexemes have a special place in Cognitive Linguistics because their use, both in terms of their overlap and difference, can he seen as a reflection of the conceptual structures that motivate language use, and thus its structure. Although there is a certain circularity in this reasoning, we can justify approaching the question in such terms because speakers choose between linguistic forms when they speak. If we assume that speakers have knowledge of their language and culture and make their judgements based on that knowledge, this entails that their choices will reflect such knowledge. In Cognitive Linguistics, where entrenched language structure (or knowledge of language use) equates conceptual structure, by identifying the patterns of similar and distinctive usage, we chart the conceptual structure that motivates those patterns.

The principle is the same for the study of polysemy. Indeed, the cognitive study of polysemy and near-synonymy can be seen as a re-working of the Structuralist semasiologieal-onomasiologieal distinction Seen in this light, polysemy, or semasl- ologieal variation, is the study of the different uses of a form and synonymy, or onomasiological variation, is the study of the choice between different forms. If we make generalizations about usage based on large numbers of examples, then we have a usage-based approach to conceptual structure. This, of course, must he presented w ith the caveat that we cannot make clear deductions about conceptual categorization and prototypicality until the relationship between ontological salience and frequency of use is better understood.

It was founded that Spanish speakers may have manner in gesture when there is none in the accompanying speech, while English speakers rarely have manner in gesture when there is none in the accompanying speech. In Spanish, all of the learner's manner gestures co-occurred with manner in speech in 1997, whereas 50% of them co-occurred with manner in speech and 50% with no manner in speech in 2006. The 2006 results were similar to the monolingual-Spanish speakers who had 55% of their manner gestures co-occurring with manner in speech and 45% of their manner gestures co-occurring with no manner in speech. In English, none of the learner's manner gestures cooccurred with manner in speech in either 1997 or 2006. This is very different from the native- English speakers who had 75% of their manner gestures co-occurring with manner in speech and 25% co-occurring with no manner in speech. There were also differences in the types of manner gestures that were produced by the Spanish speakers and the English speakers. The Spanish speakers produced both path and manner gestures and manner gestures, whereas the English speakers produced only path and manner gestures. In Spanish the learner produced only path and manner gestures in both 1997 and 2006. In English, on the other hand, she produced path and manner and manner gestures in 1997 and only path and manner gestures in 2006 . These results suggest that when it comes to manner, the learner has not yet internalized the English thinking-for-speaking pattern.

The number of clauses the participant produced in her narrations in both Spanish and English did not change much between 1997 and 2006, In Spanish she produced nine clauses in 1997 and 10 clauses in 2006, while in English she produced 15 clauses in 1997 and 14 clauses in 2006 .

However, the number of clauses she produced in Spanish was less than the number the monolingual-Spanish speakers produced and more than the number that the nativ e-English speakers produced. The number of clauses for the monolingual-Spanish speakers ranged from 12 to 21 with a mean of 15-8, and the number for the native-English speakers ranged from 6 to 13 with a mean of 8 6. The difference between the mean number of clauses for the monolingual-Spa nish speakers and the native-Eirglish speakers as previously reported by Stam (2006b: 154) was statistically significant,. The results suggest that the number of clauses the participant produced follows the opposite language pattern: her number of clauses in Spanish is more similar to the English pattern, and her number Of clauses in English is more similar to the Spanish pattern.

In terms of the participant's linguistic expression of path and manner, there were no differences in how she expressed path and manner linguistically in Spanish, In both 1997 and 2006, she expressed path with verbs such as Stibir 'ascend' and manner with constructions such as ir($e) rod&ndo 'go rolling'. This was similar to how the monolingual Spanish speakers expressed path and manner with verb constructions .There was a difference in how she linguistically expressed path but not manner in English during the period between 1997 and 2006. In 1997, she expressed path 33% of the time with just the verb^o without an accompanying satellite or prepositional phrase. This is something that native-English. Despite all of the above problems, however, the fact remains that the results of the cognitive assessment were consistently in line with expectations based on the general linguistic analysis. In general the two groups were in accord in their treatment of Animal and Substance referent types but differed in their responses to Implement referent types. Differences were observed both in the fundamental interpretation of the Implement referent types as shapes or materials, and in the salience of their number in various depicted contexts. These differences in the treatment of Implements showed up in tasks testing predictions derived from both overt and covert grammatical patterns, in tasks requiring diverse cognitive activities such as attention, classification, similarity judgment, and memory, in tasks involving both verbal and nonverbal response modes, and in tasks using both object and picture stimuli. Any alternative account of the results will have to account equally well for the overall pattern of results across a diversity of tasks and not just one result in an individual experiment. In short, it seems safe to conclude that there is good preliminary evidence that diverse language forms bear some relationship to characteristic cognitive responses in speakers.Language diversity and thought presented a critical analysis of previous empirical research on the linguistic relativity hypothesis and sketched the general theoretical and methodological parameters of an improved approach. The present volume operationalized this approach by developing a specific study comparing nominal number marking in Yucatec Maya and American English. Thus, the study can be evaluated both in terms of its success in meeting the theoretical and methodological goals, and in terms of the significance of the particular substantive findings.

The approach advocated here emphasizes that research on the hypothesis must be based on a comparative analysis of two or more languages, that differences between the languages should be used to generate hypotheses about possible nonlinguistic behavioral consequences, and that these hypotheses should be tested by careful comparative assessment of the individual behavior of speakers of the various languages. Further, it has been argued that such research will proceed most effectively at present if both the linguistic comparison and the language- cognition linkage are anchored in terms of linguistically defined referential categories.

The general goal of the cognitive portion of the study was to test whether the specific linguistic patterns of Yucatec and English corresponded with observable patterns of individual cognitive performance. The specific goals were to form plausible hypotheses, test them with a variety of tasks and materials, and find distinctive patterns, that is, where the two languages show similar patterns, cognitive patterns should agree; where they differ, cognitive patterns should differ in the appropriate ways. Although the studies reported here are rough and preliminary because of their exp I oratory nature, they nonetheless suggest that language patterns do affect cognitive performance.

The central expectation was that language-specific patterns of grammatical number marking (for example, scope of piuralization and unitization) would correspond to more general cognitive dispositions towards referents among speakers of the languages. On the basis of the linguistic analysis and the semantico-referential interpretation of it, two general hypotheses were formed. First, English speakers should habitually attend to the number of various objects of reference more than should Yucatec speakers. In particular, they should habitually attend to number for the wider array of referent types for which they obligatorily mark number. Second, English speakers should attend relatively more to the shape of objects and Yucatec speakers should attend relatively more to the material composition of objects.

Overall, speakers mentioned slightly fewer objects in the recall condition as indicated by the negative signs associated with the numbers. English speakers’ changes under the recall condition were most marked for Substances, whereas Yucatec speakers’ changes under the recall condition were most marked for Implements. Thus the groups showed slightly asymmetric declines in mention. The weakening of the similarity in patterns of mention exhibited in the description task is due, then, to changes in both groups. The asymmetric decline results in a close alignment of the absolute mention of Animals and Substances so that the entire difference between the two groups is localized in the Implement category.

2.3. The young learner, definition and characteristics

Early educational experiences can have a long-lasting effect on us. Most people can recount positive and negative learning experiences. When you ask a bit more about these experiences, people often talk about a particular adult. Where the experience has been positive, they speak highly of the individual and the effect on their learning. Sadly, some recount negative experiences and do so with great feeling. An ill-thought word or a look can have a devastating effect on a child. Sometimes this effect lasts into adulthood. The kind of interaction we engage in with all of the young people in our care is of vital importance. This book considers gifted and talented children and encourages us to explore our beliefs and practice relating to these young learners. By considering this group of children, we will be in a better position to meet the needs of all children in our setting.

In all activities, we have tried to encourage the use of spoken English by teachers. This is for three reasons: (1) because children are naturally equipped to learn from talk, especially at the younger end of the age range, (2) because using written English will limit the participation of some children who find reading and/or writing difficult, and (3) because the English classroom (and the English teacher) may be the children's main source of English language and we don’t want to lose a minute of that valuable time.

Some activities include samples of classroom language that teachers can use. We have included these to help teachers in various ways. If you are new to teaching children, you can see what child learners can be expected to understand. If English is not your first language, you can see examples of ‘natural1 teacher-child talk. If English is your first language, you can see how to simplify English so that children understand and are engaged.

In the classroom, the teacher has the responsibility to make sure that each child is learning; it is not the responsibility of the child alone to keep up with what the teacher is teaching. Teachers therefore need to observe and note individual children’s needs, and then work on meeting those needs through supporting their learning. Children bring different experiences and knowledge to their learning and it is likely children will each Jearn something different from the same activity.

Observation sheets for activities, prepared beforehand, help teachers to know what they are looking for. Record sheets help teachers to maintain an understanding of each child’s progress, and to plan to meet children s needs in the future as well as to assess progress by looking back over a term or year.Focused observations of the child’s level of participation and emotional well-being help teachers to attend to the child’s emotional and attitudinal needs, and parent interviews help teachers to understand each child's experiences, interests, and attitudes.Remember too that children can benefit from being exposed to the language around the language they understand: if sometimes your classroom language contains full and naturalsounding sentences, your learners will be getting more exposure to spoken language. Hearing and understanding English is good preparation for speaking it. Some children, especially those who have extra fessons outside school, are ready for more English than other. By adding extra words and phrases, you give these children something new and more challenging to learn, which will help them stay motivated.

Teachers rejoice when children begin actively to try to understand what is being said or what they are reading. Teachers need to make this happen by choosing activities that engage learners. These activities need to encourage your learners to guess or predict the meaning of language they hear, using contextual clues like gestures, facial expressions, movement, and the visuals and objects you show them, Children need to be allowed to take risks in their response to language. The method of Total Physical Response is useful for ail ages to check understanding of language. Older children still need lots of gestures, accompanying pictures and objects and other supporting material to help them to understand new language.

Even when children progress in their language learning beyond the beginning stages they will always encounter new language that they need to understand and learn. We always want them to try to make sense of language. Research has shown us that at the very early stages of language learning some children go through a silent period. Although they are not speaking, they are learning through watching and listening. It is important not to force them to speak. Indeed, teachers need to engage atl children in what is going on in the classroom, especially through activities that involve watching, listening, and physical response because all learners learn language this way to some extent. When we encourage children to guess or predict what is being said, and to participate, then we are engaging them in learning. We can see in their eyes if they are engaged. Children who sit bach and look out of the window or away from the action are not actively engaged. Also, when we allow children to say nothing, or to take risks with their responses, they have a chance to try out their guesses or predictions and to learn some more. It is a teacher’s responsibility to engage their learners and to give them a chance to take risks, because this is what language learning is all about Learning a language takes a lifetime; it is never finished with.This can be demotivating, especially for children who may think that learning English is like learning to ride a bike, learning to swim, or learning any of the other skills that are part of growing up. Discovering that there are always more words to learn, that they still can’t say what they want to, and struggling to capture a foreign accent can decrease children’s motivation but you can help by being as positive as possible about their efforts.

Gifted and talented children tend to process large amounts of information rapidly. When, as is often the case, learning is broken down into small manageable steps, so that all children can understand, the gifted and talented child may become frustrated or even stressed. lor such children, complexity and challenge are important and when these are absent from the learning experience they may simply opt out or learn to underachieve. Gifted and talented children can also experience internal conflict as they try to understand and come to terms with their abilities. Unconsciously we may exacerbate the issues faced by young gifted and talented children if, for example, we ignore their abilities. Young children often view practitioners as all-knowing, and so their words arc very important to them. Rather than filtering out the 'good bits' from the 'bad bits' they remember what has been said. If they hear 'I like your junk model' they may also hear '1 like you'. If they hear 'I don't like your junk model' they may also hear 'I don't like you'. These words then shape and influence the 'narrative' we have in our heads. This 'narrative' is then believed to be a stable trait, in other words, 'I can't change'. While much of this happens on an unconscious level, it is still hugely important as our words can have long-lasting effects. Work done by Heyman (1991) suggests that children who are criticized not only make general global statements about their negative traits, but also make universal decisions about the goodness of others – 'I am bad and always will be, they are good and always will be'. If we want to motivate our children to do better, then we have to think carefully about the words we use to achieve this.

§CHAPTER II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

For the application section, I chose as a research method the case study on some articles in the press about the transmission of manipulation to the reader. The objectives of the research are to determine whether the procedure used in the case in question has been effective and to propose alternative assumptions for resolving the crisis. The procedure corresponding to this method implied: determining the role of the case introduced in research in function of the goals and goals set in advance; Providing the theoretical framework needed to solve it; Adapting the case's difficulty to the level of the theoretical framework and applying the method in a way that proposes future solutions in similar crisis situations. The relevance of the choice of the research method can be motivated by the following arguments: The studied case represents a field for multiple observations, but also for the use of other methods (interview, social biography, etc.) necessary to gather useful information. The case study allows to see the connections between social phenomena are too complex to be approached through the investigation or experiment. The case study is an empirical survey on a contemporary phenomenon in the context of its life, in which the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not entirely obvious and where multiple sources of information are used. We also chose the case study for the fact that commercional media text (whether of what it is sold by them: products, political power or business) research situation, or the manipulation process in principle, implies that the number of practical variables is higher than the number of theoretical analysis units. However, the case study is not used to discover statistical frequencies in social life, but to highlight significant aspects useful in the scientific knowledge of social life, including in the theoretical elaboration process. The case study can be used in a variety of areas such as: central and local public administration, , social activities, managerial, legal or financial consulting, criminology, management, politics, personality studies, sociology, social assistance. Everyday social life, with the help of those involved in it. We describe the conditions, the resources, the values, the norms, the factors, the actors, arming us with a hypothesis (which we can shade) with which we "traverse" the situation and we try to capture its complexity. Fill the information with official documents, Conversations. Studying a case, knowledge, intervention skills can be learned, can enrich the theoretical knowledge stock or check the "power" of a theory. "The world studied by social sciences is a world of the individual, made up of individuals, organizations, cities, groups, states, provinces, nations. The objective of science is to overcome this level, to reach a higher level of generality. However, generalization does not eliminate the importance of particular events. In fact, the real purpose of the transition from the individual to the general is a better understanding and knowledge of cases that are facilitated by generalizations. "There were several study limitations that could not be removed from the project or became apparent during the research process. Overall, these limitations do not reduce the contribution of the study to the literature. However, they show how far the study can be generalized either for citizens and organizations in Romania or for others. There are several limitations in the application of findings to other populations. One of these limitations is that the findings can be culturally distinct. Culture is known to be a factor in purchasing decisions and has proven to influence research. As a result, it may not be appropriate to directly apply these findings to a population from another culture. Another potential limitation is that the representativeness of the sample is uncertain. This means that it is difficult to generalize the findings of demographic groups. Account should be taken of the potentially unrepresented nature of the population when using these results of the study. This is the most important potential and most difficult to limit, as collecting demographic data at the required scale would be a significant burden. During the research stages the data was chosen, the analysis and the elaboration of the research report were followed. Regarding the fulfillment of the conditions for performing a quality research using the case study technique, data from social documents, archive data, interviews, direct observation, participant observation, as far as possible, were merged. The establishment of certain facts was accomplished by triangulation (call to three data sources). The research questions are: We can build hypotheses that make the phenomenon understandable through.

Teaching mixed ability classes

Setting goals should be seen as a way of identifying strengths and areas to work on, based on the variables identified. The goals that are set should acknowledge the needs and preferences expressed by individuals, and attempt to find opportunities to engage them. (Constantinescu , 2014, p.78). At the same time, it is important to identify group goals that reflect the shared needs and preferences of the class.(Garry, 1990, p.28) There is a clear link between setting goals and achieving positive outcomes. Setting goals can focus minds, while achieving goals leads to a feeling of success. In the mixed-ability classroom, students should be given an active and participatory role to play in setting goals wherever possible, rather than always being presented with a list of goals that have been drawn up by the teacher. (Filimon, 1978, p.65). We should also set goals for ourselves as teachers, making sure that we have a clear idea about the objectives we would like to meet with the group and the methods we intend to use for the purpose. (Boas, 2005, p.49)This can be as simple as asking 'What am 1 hoping to achieve in this lesson? and then spending a few minutes afterwards reflecting on the actual outcomes by taking brief notes. Goals can rarely be achieved merely by identifying desired outcomes and then hoping for the best. Instead, it is necessary to formulate the specific steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the end result we are looking for. This way, checking progress can become an established routine and an integral part of classroom procedure. Goals can be set for single lessons or activities, in which case they should be discussed and written on the board. Alternatively, longterm objectives can be identified and displayed in the form of a poster on the classroom walk Unless goals for mixed-ability classes are stated clearly and made public, it Is hard for both teachers and students to be aware of them.(Jacobsen, 1989, p.107)

Students should be encouraged to identify both language-learning goals and attitude goals, and to think about how they can be applied to learning both inside and outside the classroom. Examples of appropriate goals can be elicited, or teachers can supply examples by drawing on their own experience as language learners. Examples of language-learning goals might be: keeping a notebook for new words and reviewing it after eveiy lesson, reading a newspaper article every day, or doing online grammar exercises for each completed unit in the hook.(Chierchia, 2000, p206). Examples of attitude goals might he: arriving on time for class, not interrupting when others are speaking, or respecting the opinions of others in the group. Frontal teaching does little to address the differences of level in mixed-ability groups. Trying to get learners to learn in lockstep mode does not account for differences in rates of learning or allow individuals to work according to their particular needs and preferences. Whole-class activities can be fun and engaging for learners, but if this is the only mode of instruction then frustration can mount. Stronger learners can become restless and weaker learners often get left behind. In addition, the feeling of being an anonymous member of the class can lead to passive behaviour. When learners in mixed-ability groups are given activities to tackle in small groups and pairs, however, there are more opportunities for personalized learning. Not only can learners get more help and assistance, but working in smaller groups provides more chances for language activation. In whole-class activities, heing called on to give a response can make weaker learners fee! as if they are being singled out. In the long-term, there are constructive ways to bring about a shift in learners' attitudes towards questions asked in frontal mode, but anxiety among weaker learners is difficult to overcome. Using pair-work and group-work activities on a regular basis remains the surest way of building learner confidence and achieving optimal levels of participation. Pair work and group work also offer greater variety within activities, allowing individual students to work together with a number of different classmates in the same lesson and, over the course of a term, with everyone in the class. The grouping procedure can be an engaging activity in its own right, providing plenty of opportunities for communication.(Lado, 1976, p.77) Grouping techniques are not only effective classroom tools, they are also a great way to get students’ attention and raise interest in the activity that is to follow. Naturally, some groupings will be more successful than others. With time, and as students get to know each other better, you will be able to find a system that works best for you and for them. Working with others certainly means that students will need to learn to compromise. Although this might be difficult for them on occasions, it is precisely the kind of life skill that will benefit them outside the classroom. Students who are initially reluctant to collaborate should be reminded of the benefits of this skill in real life, and provided with praise and encouragement for their efforts.

1.1.Integrating special needs students in mixed ability classes

During the late 1980s, debates escalated on who, where, and how disabled students would be successfully integrated into the general education classroom. As a result of these heated debates, a new and radical ideology of educating students with disabilities emerged. This new philosophical initiative became known as the inclusion movement. Although the concept of inclusion holds different meanings and assumptions for many people, in general inclusion refers to educating all students with disabilities including those with severe disabilities in the general education setting. Stainback and Stainback (1990) have defined inclusion schooling as "the inclusion of all students in the mainstream of regular education classes and school activities with their age peers from the same community" (p. 225). Inclusion schools embrace the values of diversity and learning communities. Student needs (i.e., academic and/or social) are accomplished through the implementation of combined resources and supports within one setting. (Marzano, 2015, p.165)Those who advocate for the inclusion movement can be conceptualized into three groups. The first group, and probably the most radical, includes those who advocate for the full dismantling of special education, eliminating special education placements and labels of special education teachers and students. The second group represents those who support that special education teachers should provide instructional services to disabled students and their nondisabled peers in the regular education classroom (e.g., Giangreco, Dennis, Cloninger, Edelman, & Schattman, 1993). Finally, the third group includes politicians, policy makers, and administrators who view inclusion as a means to reduce special education expenditures (e.g., Leo, 1994), Regardless which group or groups one ascribes to, all three believe that students with disabilities should be educated in the regular education setting full time. There are various placement alternatives for special needs students in Turkey. Until 1997, most special needs students were placed in special schools or special classes where available; they were integrated in regular classes when special education placement was not available. Tn a sense, special students used lo be integrated whenever they did not have a chance to be segregated. However, the new Special Education Law- has a principle mandating integration Lo be considered as the preferred option lor special needs students, Hence, this principle is expected to facilitate special education placements according to the “least restrictive environment’’ concept. The new Special Education Law mentions the need for special education support services for the integrated special needs students. Integration was started in Turkey without providing any support services to the integrated students and for to their teachers. Therefore, integration did not prove to be a successful placement for many special needs students in the past. Now that special education support services are considered in the Special Education Law, regular schools are expected to have support personnel for providing services such as teacher consultations, in-class support, or resource room services when necessary.(Semlyen, 1969.p.205)

Special education teacher training programs offer BA degrees in three special needs categories: developmental disabilities, hearing impairments, and visual impairments. Teacher training programs for the developmental^ delayed have a behavioral orientation and emphasize direct instruction for teaching concepts and skills. Teacher training programs for the visually impaired aim to equip their students with knowledge necessary lor teaching partially sighted and blind students. In teacher training programs for the hearing impaired, the auditory-oral approach is followed. Most of the graduates of special education teacher training programs apply to the Ministry of Education to be appointed as a special education teacher in a school or a guidance and research. By the lime this Education Act came into force, provision was being made for 156,384 children in the United Kingdom: Of these, 45% were children with moderate learning difficulties, 20% had severe learning difficulties, 14% were maladjusted, 9% were physically handicapped, 5% were partially hearing or deaf, and 2% were partially sighted or blind. Following 1981 legislation, these categories were no longer used except where they would aid in the specification of need. The Education Act requires local education authorities to be responsible for educational provision from birth if the parents request it and for the discovery of special educational needs from the age of 2. In addition; the procedures require parents to be active participants in every aspect of their child's assessment and placement. Within the school, procedures may be implemented differently from area to area but they must largely observe the following pattern:

-The teacher concerned with pupil progress or behavior implements a program to assess and then develop those areas where problems arise.

-Where change does not occur, alternative possibilities for the child are discussed at school meetings.

-The parents are involved in these discussions.

-Continuing difficulty leads, with the parents' permission, to outside professional involvement.

-No progress leads to a full statement prepared on the child.

-The local education authority acts on the basis of the statement in conjunction with the parents to place the child in a selling where special educational needs, as specified, can be met.

-Review s occur at least annually.

The central feature is the statement. This is the official document containing the local education authority's proposed placement of the child. In theory, the statement enforces multidisciplinary assessment of the child and allows the parents to offer evidence as well as their own opinions. In an ideal setting, the parents have considerable power in this process, as they must be consulted at every stage. The proposals for placement of the child and the statement of special education needs will be couched in positive terms to allow' parents and education authorities to monitor progress and determine whether the child’s needs are being met. Often, however, parents’ involvement is small despite receiving written details oil their rights. The proportion of parents offering evidence on their child is still very lowr. In effect, parents may not feel any more involved than before.

The whole process whereby professionals assess and deliver special education has been questioned, In effect, it has been proposed that those involved have had a vested interest in maintaining levels of provision that highlight their own roles. As a result, what is determined as need is what can be catered to by that group of professionals. This criticism strikes a chord with the increasingly heard views of people who have come through the system. There is no simple response to criticism in this area since it is an attack on the most fundamental aspects of special education itself. It does require a response, however, and as yet there has been none that would lead to more positive integration and a more sensitive education system.

There was radical reorganization of services throughout the United Kingdom in the wake of the 1981 Kducation Act, It is not surprising that the discussion of special educational provision has meant a clarification of the respective roles of different agencies. In the preschool years, which for children with severe problems means only up to age 3, there has been greater cooperation between educational and medical professions. Legally, education can begin at birth if the parents or health services request it. This requires increased contact between health personnel and education services and should provide a much higher level of response to children and their families. In the school years, the peripatetic teams support not only the child, bul also the teacher. In fact, Ihe job of educating the classroom teacher about disability has largely fallen on the support teaching service.

In the post school period, there has been greater attention to the child’s transition to membership in adult society and continuing education for special needs. The former has meant the development of new curricula for young adults that are more relevant to society’s demands. The latter has simply extended all special education issues into the areas of further education and adult education. The questions of integration and minority provision are no more easily answered in a college of further education than in an ordinary school.

2.Special education or special needs education

In the following chapters, these ideas and descriptions are elaborated upon and data gathered within this new framework are presented. The next chapter provides an outline of the methodology used to develop the data collection instrument, which is supplied at the end of the text. Categorisation of special educational needs- This topic also generated much discussion, in part because there is a growing movement in national systems which are implementing integrated provision in regular school settings for those with special educational needs in order to avoid such categorisation, However many systems do continue to employ various forms of categorisation which could provide useful data. It will also help link this study to the previously used categories based on disability. A consensus was achieved in favour of employing a simple categorisation system in the pilot work, while recognising that there will be practical difficulties for national systems which do not categorise.

It was agreed at the meeting that a tri-partite scheme should be adopted covering a) the '2%'' (or students with the most clear impairments). 6) learning disabled, and c) disadvantaged/compensatory ( NB: these are shorthand terms). It was accepted that major amplification and exemplification would be needed to clarify their meaning and assist in the provision of comparable information. It was also agreed that for post-compulsory education a fourth category, covering those who had not previously been identified, should be added and that respondents be asked to provide a single global figure relating to those falling within the operational definition in their country. They would also be invited to split this down into the subcategories which they used. The development of appropriate education indicators in the domain of special education was agreed as the second central thrust of the project. Possible approaches were explored and suggestions made. For example, in connection with indicating the extent to which a system treats all persons equitably, an approach might be to identify barriers in the system to such equality of treatment, whether at the simple level of physical access or in relation to flexibility of curriculum. It appeared that the goal should be the development of a small set of powerful indicators. There are special schools and special units (based and administered within regular schools) for pupils with special needs in the four categories of physical, mental, visual and hearing impairment. There is some integration of the pupils in the special units into regular classrooms of the schools and a relatively small number of other pupils with acknowledged special needs in regular schools (e.g where resources were not available to set up a special unit). Most schools are government schools but there are a substantial number set up by other organisations (eg. missionaries) which receive government aid; and of entirely private schools. These include both special schools and special classes. There is also some vocational training for special needs pupils, administered by other ministries.

The Zambian system is highly centralised in several respects, not least in its system of collecting educational statistics. There is an annual data collection exercise which requires all heads of primary schools to submit a return on a standard form, with all heads of secondary schools submitting a very similar return. These cover student numbers, split by gender, by grade and by age. The form has been modified in the last few years to also call for numbers of pupils with special needs in the four categories of physical, mental, visual and hearing impairment – also split by grade and gender. A separate return is made for repeaters – a category which includes those with special needs as above and hence some double counting. Other information is called for about resources, finance, etc., but the only other aspect where there is separable information relating to special needs is in connection with teaching staff. Here whether or not the teacher is special needs trained and the specialism of that training (in the four categories above) is recorded. In addition to this, the inspectorate collect statistical data but in connection with specific initiatives or inspections rather than on a regular basis. Nevertheless this information provides cross-checks on the national data. The data are clearly in standard form and substantial efforts have been made to achieve high quality through training sessions and monitoring of any apparently aberrant returns. Nevertheless it is thought that the special needs numbers within schools are somewhat under-reported (e g. by comparison with inspectorate cross-checks) due to a lack of sensitisation of regular school heads to special needs. It is also likely that there is some mis-categorisation and variability of criteria for use of the categories particularly in relation to mental impairment.(Adwards, 1998, p.209). The incidence of those with special needs within schools is also thought to be only a relatively small fraction of those who have special needs (in the sense that they would need additional resources to access the curriculum if they were in school) due to a multiplicity of factors (e g. stigma attached to special needs; distance and cost of education).

The main areas where revisions were required included additional clarification to the use of Categories A, B and C; and in particular where children with behaviour difficulties, the gifted and those with multiple handicaps would fit. Further description was needed on the classification of those who act as teachers in special education since many of them are not necessarily trained as teachers. The link between institutions and categories of special needs was also seen as requiring further exploration, since they do not necessarily map onto each other in any direct way In addition, it was noted that there are other forms of institutional provision that exist to cope with low incidence handicapping conditions which should be considered the division of the questionnaire into primary and secondary sections was suggested along with a number of technical points concerned with avoiding overlap and repetition of data gathered. (Swanson, 2009, p.304)The addition of information in the areas of the social services that support schools (e g. parent education programmes) was suggested. The countries agreed to take part in a wider field testing of the questionnaire. It was agreed that this sam pie should include those countries present at the meeting, plus a number of others to be identified. In addition the representatives from UNESCO agreed to include up to 10 other countries making a sample of approximately '30 countries in all. It was agreed that data from the year 1995/96 should as far as possible be used. The children’s daily life can be seen from three perspectives: a societal perspective, an institutional perspective and a persons perspeclive. The societal perspective is a macro perspective that gives conditions for the practices children can participate in, in home, education and work. Changes in childrens relation to the world are first and foremost connected to qualitative changes in what arc the dominant institutional practices in a child’s life. Entering a new institutional practice such as going to school is from a societal perspective viewed as important for a child’s development, Now children’s participation and learning in different institutional practices lead to developmental changes for a child has to be analysed in relation to the child’s social situation of development. (Swanson, 2013, p.244)Children’s activity takes place in different activity settings within different practices where their motivation and engagements are directed towards participating or creating activities in these specific activity settings,!'he setting is the cultural-material conditions in the form of the material characteristic of the institutions, room size, furniture, all sorts of material including books, TV, computers etc. available to the child, Practice and activity arc related concepts. Practice we will use when the institutional perspective is taken, activity whejE the persons perspective is taken : Children develop through participation in institutionalized practice that are characterised by communication and shared activities.

These forms of practice initiate but also restrict childrens activities and thereby become conditions for their development, A child’s participation in activity settings in kindergarten pract ice such as meals and play lead to different activities for the child in kindergarten than in home since the kindergarten setting and its practice traditions gives different conditions than home settings and traditions for these activities. In school, learning activities such as mathematics, eating lunch and playing are done within the practice tradition of schools. The institutional practice traditions contribute as well as the child's actions to the concrete activities that can be found within the school practice. (Kirk, 2015, p.58)To describe and understand the conditions for development, one has to ask what kind of institutional practices do children in modern society participate in, what activities dominates the institutional practices of modern society, what demands do they put on children, and what possibilities for activities and how do children act in these activities. Also what kind of crises will children meet through conflicting demands and motives (i.c. moving from one institution to the next , from home to school, or from school to special institutions, appropriating the orientation and competence required by these institutions,

2.1.Classification of learning disabilities

The three categories which were agreed are called A. B and C and are defined as follows.(Newirt, 2004, p.209)

Category A: refers to educational needs of students where there is substantial normative agreement -such as blind and partially sighted, deaf and partially hearing, severe and profound mental handicap, multiple handicaps. These conditions affect students from all social classes and occupations. Typically, adequate measuring instruments and agreed criteria are available. In medical terms, they are considered as being organic disorders attributable to organic pathologies [e g. in relation to sensory, motor or neurological defects).

Category B: refers to educational needs of students who have difficulties in learning which do not appear to be directly or primarily attributable to factors which would lead to categorisation as "A" or “C”.

Category C: refers to educational needs of students which are considered to arise primarily from socio-economic. cultural and/or linguistic factors. There is some form of disadvantaged or atypical background for which education seeks to compensate.(Dorneyei, 2005, p.60)

The heart of the identification model and approach to assessment is the focus on the measurement of RTI. Although some may see our model as appropriate only for schools, there is little evidence that evaluating a person in a single status assessment based on IQ-achievement discrepancy, low achievement, or patterns on cognitive and neuropsychological tests leads to better intervention. (Aashrock, 2006, p.276)Such assessments do not have direct implications for treatment; if the “diagnosis” is based on a single assessment, it may not be adequately reliable. More important, as soon as it is apparent that the person has an achievement problem, intervention begins; resources expended on “diagnosis” should be expended on intervention. People should not be identified as learning disabled until a proper attempt at instruction has been made. Serial monitoring of RTI with CBM and the integrity of instruction should be completed before children are identified as learning disabled. However, because of the need for more research on what constitutes appropriately intensive intervention, estimation of slope and intercept effects, and decisions that have to be made about cut-points to differentiate adequate and inadequate responders RTI cannot be the sole criterion for identification. Nonetheless, there appears to be considerable validity in approaches that incorporate RTI, not the least of which is the likely possibility that inadequate responders represent “unexpected underachievement,” epitomizing the essential construct of LDs (Vigotsky, 1993, p.205).

Assessments must be derived and linked to an overarching classification of childhood learning and behavioral difficulties. Academic skill deficits represent markers for an underlying classification that distinguish the I D prototype from, for example, a behavioral disorder like ADHD. If the classification and assessment is expanded to mental retardation, the key for differentiating mental retardation from LD (or ADHD) is not just the IQ test score; rather, the major issue is the development of adaptive behavior. For mental retardation, deficits in adaptive behavior are pervasive; for LDs, adaptive behavior represents a relatively narrow range of deficits: A classification of LDs, mental retardation, and ADHD (as an example of a behavior disorder) requires markers for achievement, attention-related behaviors, and adaptive behavior. The assessment should focus on the marker variables that identify members of different subgroups in the classification. In the absence of these types of markers, which stem from an overarching classification, people with problems are simply “disordered.” There is no need for assessment of any kind, because the same interventions would be applied to everyone. When the assessment of LD is tied to levels and patterns of achievement and RTI, an evidence base for differential interventions focused on learning in specific academic domains emerges that provides strong evidence for the validity of the concept of LD. It becomes possible to clearly articulate how LDs should be classified, identified, and differentiated from other disorders. Such classification models lead directly to evidence-based approaches for assessment and identification, and to intervention, which are addressed in the next five chapters.

Convergence of evidence between research and expert opinion provides validation for both sources. Thus, it is instructive to compare the conclusions of Fletcher et ah and the opinions of experts who were members of editorial boards for journals in learning disabilities and reading. We asked ihese professionals, among other things, to select components of a definition of reading disability for practice, to select the most important component, and to indicate whelher exclusion criteria should be part of a definition-

Fletcher et al. concluded that (a) IQ-achievement discrepancy is not a valid criterion for LD classification, (b) exclusionary clauses are not positive indicators of LD. and (c) the classification of ID will likely include responsiveness to instruction. Only 30% of our experts believed IQ-achievement discrepancies should be part of a definition, thereby supporting the first assertion. However, 75% of the respondents believed exclusion criteria should be used, specifically mental retardation, inadequate instruction, and sensory deficits. (Hedegaard, 1999, p.41). Although this finding contradicts Fletcher et al., the exclusion criteria that Fletcher et al. found least supportable (emotional and behavioral disability, cultural differences, and economic disadvantage) were selected by fewer than 30% of the respondents, thereby lending some support to the view that exclusion criteria are not useful. With respect to the third conclusion on response to instruction, two-thirds of our experts agreed that treatment validity, defined in part as response to instruction, should be a component of a reading disability definition. This is a surprising finding given the recent appearance of treatment validity in discussions of identification . I will return to this point in the consideration of expanded approaches to identifying LD. (Bernstein,2000, p.66) A particularly thorny issue for both Fletcher et al. and our experts is what to do with intelligence. Agreeing that the discrepancy' criterion is not valid is not the same thing as declaring intelligence irrelevant. Less than half of our respondents agreed that intelligence should be a criterion and none selected intelligence as the most important component. Yet of those respondents who believed exclusion clauses should be used in a definition, the most frequently selected criterion was mental retardation, which is largely defined by subaverage intelligence, A similar ambivalence was evident in the Fletcher et al, paper. Evidence was cited that suggested IQ was irrelevant, but a conclusion on this issue was not drawn clearly. 1 point this out not because I believe the authors should have an answer to this question but rather to highlight the point that the role of IQ will continue to be problematic in efforts to identify LD. To summarize, there appears to be a convergence of data and thought that IQ-achievement discrepancy formula and exclusion criteria that specify emotional and behavioral disability, cultural differences, and economic disadvantage are not valid criteria for the identification of learning disabilities,

Responsiveness to instruction- There also is agreement that responsiveness to instruction can play an important role in the iden till cation of LI). Responsiveness to treatment represents a critically important expansion of criteria to define LD- Definltlons anti classification of LD focus exclusively on intrinsic (wtthin-chlld) causes to the exclusion of the role of contextual factors including instruction That it took decades to begin to acknowledge the role of context in LD puts our field in the company of most social sciences: Social science research is far from definitive about whether 'context matters'” despite the fact that contexts such as families, neighborhoods, and schools “are essential to making the child fully human. (Reed, 1989, p.25). The problems associated with a view of learning disabilities neglects the effects of context generally and instruction specifically- What is missing in their discussion is reference to an existing model that provides conceptual specificity to the link between LD and lack of responsiveness to instruction. Undoubtedly this model will be reviewed in Gresham’s paper. However, it requires mention here because of its potential to address several points raised by Fletcher ct al. including the point that responsiveness to instruction should be considered a classification criterion for LD.

Rriefly, the treatment validation model requires continual monitoring of the academic progress of all children in a classroom, identifying children who fail to respond given a generally effective instructional program, and intervening within the general education classroom with the identified children. Children who fail to demonstrate progress after well designed and implemented general education intervention would be candidates for more intensive instruction in special education and may be considered learning disabled or at risk for LD.. These points include reunion of research and practice, retirement of IQ, focus on behaviors relevant to instruction, acknowledgment that LD may be best indexed within academic domains, and focus on inclusion criteria rather than exclusion criteria. This seems to me to represent a substantial convergence of ideas in an area that has created more anxiety than agreement. The treatment validity model is limited by some of the same weaknesses mentioned al the beginning of this essay, specifically that the underlying measurement mode only is appropriate for children in elementary school. Other methods of conceptualising response to treatment (e.g., benchmarks, dynamic assessment) arc plausible and should be studied. The primary point, however, is that we can use the points of agreement to guide a reconceptualization of LD that recognizes that classification is a dynamic process and that LD is a developmental phenomenon.(Yegaer, 1996, p.110)

However, studies that used researcher-defined samples did not find these biases suggesting that over-representation of males and minorities is an unintended and negative consequence of school identification. These examples illustrate that the discrepancy criterion may not pass muster on several facets of validation and provide important evidence with which to evaluate the validity of the classification criteria. The examples also emphasize the requirement that both intended and unintended consequences be evaluated.

2.2 Causes

Attention disorders, with or without hyperactivity, are not considered learning disabilities in themselves. However, because attention problems can seriously interfere with school performance, they often accompany academic skills disorders. Understandably, one of the first questions parents ask when they learn their child has a learning disorder is "Why? What went wrong? "Mental health professionals stress that since no one knows what causes learning disabilities, it doesn’t help parents to look backward to search for possible reasons. There are too many possibilities to pin down the cause of the disability with certainty. It is far more important for the family to move forward in finding ways to get the right help. Scientists, however, do need to study causes in an effort to identify ways to prevent learning disabilities. Once, scientists thought that all learning disabilities were caused by a single neurological problem. But research supported by NIMH has helped us see that the causes are more diverse and complex. New evidence seems to show that most learning disabilities do not stem from a single, specific area of the brain, but from difficulties in bringing together information from various brain regions. Today, a leading theory is that learning disabilities stem from subtle disturbances in brain structures and functions. Some scientists believe that, in many cases, the disturbance begins before birth. Throughout pregnancy, the fetal brain develops from a few all-purpose cells into a complex organ made of billions of specialized, interconnected nerve cells called neurons. During this amazing evolution, things can go wrong that may alter how the neurons form or interconnect. In the early stages of pregnancy, the brain stem forms. It controls basic life functions such as breathing and digestion. Later, a deep ridge divides the cerebrum—the thinking part of the brain—into two halves, a right and left hemisphere. Finally, the areas involved with processing sight, sound, and other senses develop, as well as the areas associated with attention, thinking, and emotion.(Gavin, 1999, p.56)

As new cells form, they move into place to create various brain structures. Nerve cells rapidly grow to form networks with other parts of the brain. These networks are what allow information to be shared among various regions of the brain. Throughout pregnancy, this brain development is vulnerable to disruptions. If the disruption occurs early, the fetus may die, or the infant may be bom with widespread disabilities and possibly mental retardation. If the disruption occurs later, when the cells are becoming specialized and moving into place, it may leave errors in the cell makeup, location, or connections. Some scientists believe that these errors may later show up as learning disorders. Through experiments with animals, scientists at NIMH and other research facilities are tracking clues to determine what disrupts brain developmen By studying the normal processes of brain development, scientists can better understand what can go wrong. Some of these studies are examining how genes, substance abuse, pregnancy problems, z toxins may affect the developing brain. In what it is concern genetic factors, the fact that learning disabilities tend to run in families indicates that there may be a genetic link. For example, children who lack some of the skills needed for reading, sucl as hearing the separate sounds of words, are likely to have a parent with a related problem. However, a parent's learning disability may take a slightly different form in the child. A parent who has a writing disorder may have a child with an expressive language disorder. For this reason, it seems unlikely that specific learning disorders are inherited directly. Possibly, what is inherited is a subtle brain dysfunction that can in turn lead to a learning disability.(Als, 1995, p.220)

There may be an alternative explanation for why LD might seem to run in families. Some learning difficulties may actually stem from the family environment. For example, parents who have expressive language disorders might talk less to their children, or the language they use may be distorted. In such cases, the child lacks a good model for acquiring language and therefore, may seem to be learning disabled.(Anastasi, 1988, p.33)

Many drugs taken by the mother pass directly to the fetus. Research shows that a mother's use of cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs during pregnancy may have damaging effects on the unborn child. Therefore, to prevent potential harm to developing babies, the U.S. Public Health Service supports efforts to make people aware of the possible dangers of smoking, drinking, and using drugs. Scientists have found that mothers who smoke during pregnancy may be more likely to bear smaller babies. This is a concern because small newborns, usually those weighing less than 5 pounds, tend to be at risk for a variety of problems, including learning disorders. Alcohol also may be dangerous to the fetus' developing brain. It appears that alcohol may distort the developing neurons. Heavy alcohol use during pregnancy has been linked to fetal alcohol syndrome, a condition that can lead to low birth weight, intellectual impairment, hyperactivity, and certain physical defects. Any alcohol use during pregnancy, however, may influence the child's development and lead to problems with learning, attention, memory, or problem solving. Because scientists have not yet identified "safe" levels, alcohol should be used cautiously by women who are pregnant or who may soon become pregnant. Drugs such as cocaine—especially in its smokable form known as crack—seem to affect the normal development of brain receptors. These brain cell parts help to transmit incoming signals from our skin, eyes, and ears, and help regulate our physical response to the environment. Because children with certain learning disabilities have difficulty understanding speech sounds or letters, some researchers believe that learning disabilities, as well as ADHD, may be related to faulty receptors. Current research points to drug abuse as a possible cause of receptor damage.(Ambady, 2001. p.381)

Problems during pregnancy or delivery. Other possible causes of learning disabilities involve complications during pregnancy. In some cases, the mother’s immune system reacts to the fetus and attacks it as if it were an infection. This type of disruption seems to cause newly formed brain cells to settle in the wrong part of the brain. Or during delivery, the umbilical cord may become twisted and temporarily cut off oxygen to the fetus. This, too, can impair brain functions and lead to LD.New brain cells and neural networks continue to be produced for a year or so after the child is bom.

These cells are vulnerable to certain disruptions, also.

Researchers are looking into environmental toxins that may lead to learning disabilities, possibly by disrupting childhood brain development or brain processes. Cadmium and lead, both prevalent in the environment, are becoming a leading focus of neurological research. Cadmium, used in making some steel products, can get into the soil, then into the foods we eat. Lead was once common in paint and gasoline, and is still present in some water pipes. A study of animals sponsored by the National Institutes of Health showed a connection between exposure to lead and learning difficulties. In the study, rats exposed to lead experienced changes in their brainwaves, slowing their ability to learn. The learning problems lasted for weeks, long after the rats were no longer exposed to lead. In addition, there is growing evidence that learning problems may develop in children with cancer who had been treated with chemotherapy or radiation at an early age. This seems particularly true of children with brain tumors who received radiation to the skull.(AAP, 2011, p.100)

In comparing people with and without learning disabilities, scientists have observed certain differences in the structure and functioning of the brain. For example, new research indicates that there may be variations in the brain structure called the planum temporale, a language-related area found in both sides of the brain. In people with dyslexia, the two structures were found to be equal in size. In people who are not dyslexic, however, the left planum temporale was noticeably larger. Some scientists believe reading problems may be related to such differences.(AAP, 2014, P.48)

With more research, scientists hope to learn precisely how differences in the structures and processes of the brain contribute to learning disabilities, and how these differences might be treated or prevented

2.3 Characteristics

No one has discovered a single cause of learning disabilities. Studies that focus on subgroups within the larger population of children with learning disabilities have identified some neurological differences associated with their learning problems

Although no one is quite sure what causes learning disabilities, some evidence indicates that learning disabilities may be genetic, as they seem to "run in families."Genetic patterns for children with learning disabilities have been noted in family relationships, and chances are good that their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, or other relatives will also have learning difficulties. Researchers are currently working to isolate the genetic markers for learning disabilities, and these may help us better understand the link between biology and learning. All learning disabilities, however, cannot be attributed to genetic causes. Some learning disabilities may stem from environmental factors and/or from inadequate prenatal health care, which may influence brain development. The brain is hardwired for learning, so what happens when an individual has a learning disability? Neurologists believe that the organization of the brain is different when a learning disability is present. Remember that while the brain functions as a whole, each area of the brain lakes on specialized tasks. Studies using imaging technolog)' have found differences in the brain structure of students who have reading problems, attention deficits, and auditory processing difficulties compared with their nondisabled peers. We still do not understand how these structural anomalies affect information processing. In these studies, the brain scans show different patterns of activity for children with dyslexia compared to children with no reading difficulties during reading tasks. One encouraging finding is the emerging evidence that when children are given explicit and intense instruction on reading skills (phonological awareness, decoding, and so forth), their brain scans show similarities to the scans of their nondisabled peers in how their brains process information. Although there is a significant evidence of brain abnormalities for children with dyslexia, we still do not know the specific impact and causal link of these differences with learning problems.(Kirk, 2015. P.62)

What causes learning disabilities? This is a question that healthcare and social care professionals are often asked. However, 'learning disabilities' is a diverse term so providing a comprehensive and definitive answer can be difficult. Since the beginning of history, assumptions have been made about the causation of learning disabilities and as we evolve and continue to explore our world, so we develop and revise these theories on an almost daily basis. One meaningful way of contextualising 'learning disabilities' is to think about it as an umbrella term under which all affected individuals are described as having varying degrees of impairment of intellectual and social functioning. However, if the cause is known, it can be useful to consider at which stage of the developmental process the learning disability has occurred – the preconceptual, prenatal, perinatal or postnatal stage – and if it is the result of genetic or environmental factors. Having an understanding of some of these issues may then assist professionals when they are asked 'What causes learning disabilities?’.

It is difficult to state the precise number of people who have a learning disability, but it is estimated that in England there are 1.2 million people with a mild or moderate disability, and about 210 000 people with severe learning disabilities (Department of Health 2001). Even if there were a more precise method of establishing the figures, the actual number of known causes would remain small because of the diverse and complex aetiology of the various conditions. An understanding of the potential causes and manifestations of learning disabilities is essential for professionals who wish to work holistically with people with learning disabilities. Arguably it allows carers to develop, in partnership with such people, appropriate person-centred care that takes into consideration any specific health-related issues that may impact on the individual’s daily and future life. However, it must be emphasised that labelling someone with a particular condition can have a negative effect. Simply slotting people into categories that inform treatment or aid prognosis should be avoided if we are truly to work with people in an individual and holistic way. As human beings it is important that we should treat each other as unique. The purpose of this chapter is to inform the reader of issues that may be relevant to the care of a person with learning disabilities who has been diagnosed as having a specific, condition, within the more general condition known as learning disabilities.(Gates, 2007, p.644)

2.4.Learning styles in mixed ability classes

Many teachers incorrectly assume that differentiating instruction means giving some students more work to do, and others less. For example, a teacher might assign two book reports to advanced readers and only one to struggling readers. Ora struggling math student might have to do only the computation problems while advanced math students do the word problems as well.

Although such approaches to differentiation may seem to have an adequate rationale, they are typically ineffective. One book report is too much for a st ruggling learner without additional support in the process of reading as well as interpreting the text. Or a student who could act out the substance of the book effectively might be overwhelmed by writing a three-page report. If writing one book report is “too easy1' for the advanced leader, doing “twice as much" o! the same thing is not only unlikely to remedy the problem, but it could also seem like punishment. A student who has already demonstrated

mastery or one math skill is ready to stop practice related to that skill and begin practice in a subsequent skill. Simply adjusting ihe quantify of an assignment wdill generally be less effective than adjusting the natutft of the assignment to match student needs as well.

Labels are tricky with snuggling learners, too.

The term “slow learners” often carries with it a negative connotation of being shiftless or lazy, yet many struggling learners work hard and conscientiously—especially when tasks are neither boring (such as a steady diet of drill and skill) nor anxiety-producing (such as tasks that require more than they can deliver even when they work hard). The tenn “at-risk” overlooks the portion of the learner that may well be “ai-promise.” One child’s struggle stems from a learning disability, another’s home life lakes all her energy, and another just finds a subject his nemesis.

Further, just like with an advanced learner, the learning profile of a struggling learner may shill over time; for example, suddenly a student becomes an eager reader after trailing the class in decoding and comprehension for some time. Many students whom we perceive to he ‘.slow,' at-risk,” or struggling ” may actually be quite proficient in talents that schools often treat as secondary, such as leadership among neighborhood peers, story telling, or building contraptions out of discarded materials.

Nonetheless, many students do struggle with school tasks. They an: a diverse group who can challenge die artistry of the most expert teacher in listening deeply, believing unconditionally, and moving beyond a recipe or blueprint approach to teaching to shape classrooms that offer many avenues and timetables to understanding.

Here are some principles that can be helpful in ensuring that struggling learners maximize their capacity in school.(Tomlison, 2001, p.310).

Figure 1

3. Teaching grammar to young learners

Contemporary students and teachers want to take responsibility for their future careers and they do not want to enter classrooms without extensive previous practice in teaching. Furthermore, they would like to be competent in the language that they teach. Interestingly, their aims are in accordance with those of the Council of Europe. (Elliott, J. ,2006, p.44), By following these guidelines and by implementing them in the reform, European programmes for educating primary school teachers destined to teach languages to young learners could produce qualified teachers, who are linguistically and methodologically well equipped. This is the key to young learners having a successful and pleasant start to learning foreign languages. (Holmstrand. L. ,1983, p.203)

Teaching is increasingly complex work and it is teachers and teachers only who can improve and develop language education in schools. Teachers are in the position of being able to make use of their own educational contexts to generate ideas for change and improvement they identify as important, and with action research as a tool, they are able to develop their professional learning through systematic investigation rather than by reproduction of disconnected teaching tip-offs. Through action research, teachers will begin to understand what is really happening in their classrooms. Action research can be understood as a natural part of teaching as to be a teacher means to observe students and study classroom interactions and to explore a variety of effective ways of teaching.

The teachers have been free to choose their own research questions and thus it is the teachers themselves who have conducted research in their own educational contexts. Their research questions have then been categorised into five themes which can be viewed as key areas for desired school improvement concerning early language teaching and learning:

an early start;

target language use;

strategies for teaching and learning;

motivation;

documentation and language portfolio. (Ladberg, G. ,2003, p.77)

More than 25% of the action research projects focus on an early introduction of English (preschool or Year 1) and all of these projects seem to have been successful in commencing English with children as young as 6 and 7 years of age. Teachers seem to be convinced that such young children can benefit from early language learning in the same way as older pupils do. When identical introductory courses were delivered to 6 and 9 year olds, no specific learning differences were perceived according to the teachers involved.

A variety of methods and strategies for assessment and documentation have been introduced by the teachers participating in the action research project. The overall aim has been to visualise pupils’ language learning and achievement in order to make pupils more aware of what they are learning in language lessons and how they are progressing. By practising individual target-setting, both for teachers and pupils, with the starting point in the national curriculum guidelines and goals to attain, pupils seem to have become more aware of what they are learning in language lessons and why they are doing certain activities.(Rubin, J. ,1975, p.118), When teachers have begun to present the aims to pupils at the beginning of each lesson, alternately on a weekly or thematic period base, and constantly refer back to the aims, pupils seem to respond well and work more actively. Progression awareness seems to coincide with enhancement of motivation according to the reports, for both teachers and learners alike, which is underlined by statements like “I had no idea I was so good at English, it made me feel so happy!”and “My pupils’ progression has made me much more interested in my job”. Language education seems to need more evidence that teaching and learning has been successful. (McKeman, 1996, p.265)

In the following, I will briefly outline some examples of the strategies used for third grade class students to understand and have insight into the main grammatical elements.

Nouns

Nouns are people, places, or things, They tell us what we are talking about. The words cat, Jack, rock, Africa, & it are nouns.

There could be:

count nouns

uncount nouns

count/uncount nouns –

Nouns – Proper nouns

Adjectives

Adjectives modify, or describe, nouns. The words tall, beautiful, irresponsible, & boring are adjectives.

We use adjectives to describe nouns.

Most adjectives can be used in front of a noun…:

They have a beautiful house.
We saw a very exciting film last night.

or after a link verb like be, look or feel:

Their house is beautiful.
That film looks interesting.

Adverbs

Adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs. They tell us how, when, and where things happen. They express quantity, intensity, frequency, and opinions.

We use adverbs to give more information about the verb.

We use adverbials of manner to say how something happens or how something is done:

The children were playing happily.
He was driving as fast as possible.

We use adverbials of place to say where something happens:

I saw him there.
We met in London.

We use adverbials of time to say when or how often something happens:

They start work at six thirty.
They usually go to work by bus.

We use adverbials of probability to show how certain we are about something.

Perhaps the weather will be fine.

He is certainly coming to the party.

Determiners

Articles, quantifiers, and other determiners modify nouns. They resemble adjectives in that way. Determiners help us say what we are talking about.

Determiners are words which come at the beginning of the noun phrase.

They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general.

Determiners are either specific or general

Specific determiners:

The specific determiners are:

the definite article: the

possessives: my, your, his, her, its; our, their, whose

demonstratives: this, that, these, those

interrogatives: which

General determiners:

The general determiners are:

a; an; any; another; other; what

When we are talking about things in general and the listener/reader does not know exactly what we are referring to, we can use an uncount noun or a plural noun with no determiner:

Milk is very good for you. (= uncount noun)
Health and education are very important. (= 2 uncount nouns)
Girls normally do better in school than boys. (= plural nouns with no determiner)

Pronouns are words we use in the place of a full noun.

There are many different kinds of pronouns: personal pronouns

it and there

you and they

possessive pronouns (see possessives:- pronouns)

this, that, these and those

one and ones

questions

reflexive pronouns

reciprocal pronouns: each other and one another

indefinite pronouns

relative pronouns

This possessives page brings together information about

possessive nouns

possessive adjectives

possessive pronouns

questions

reciprocal pronouns

Verbs & Verb Tenses

Verbs are action words. They tell us what is happening and when (past, present, future). Verbs can also express possibilities and conditions.

Verbs in English have four basic parts:

Table 2

Most verbs have past tense and past participle in –ed (worked, played, listened). But many of the most frequent verbs are irregular.

The principal subjects in this area are:

irregular verbs

question forms

Activity:

verb phrases

present tense

past tense

Activity 4 th grade:

perfective aspect

continuous aspect

Activity

active and passive voice

to + infinitive

-ing forms

talking about the present

talking about the past

talking about the future

verbs in time clauses and if clauses

Activity

wishes and hypotheses

the verb be

link verbs

delexical verbs like have, take, make and give

Modal verbs

double object verbs

phrasal verbs

reflexive and ergative verbs

verbs followed by to + infinitive

verbs followed by -ing clauses

verbs followed by that clause

Activity:

Designed as a Class Project to consolidate the use of ‘to be’, ‘to have’, ‘to like’ and ‘can’.

Write animal names on slips of paper and have Ss draw one.

Each student gets a dog to cut, write a short description of the animal on it and colour the picture.

e.g. Horses are big. They are brown, white or black. They have long legs. They have a long tail and they can run fast. They like apples and grass.After all descriptions are done, assemble the book by applying glue on the ribbon area or make a punch hole in the middle of it and tie with a string. Hang it on the wall.

Following this activity, the students intuitively used the verbs in a fun activity, for each animal being composed a set of simple sentences.

Speech

When we report what someone says, we can cite the person directly or indirectly. Indirect speech rules are an important area of grammar.

Punctuation

Punctuation is not part of oral grammar, but it is essential to master in written English.

Relative Clauses

We use relative clauses in English to create more complex and more precise sentences.

The basic unit of English grammar is the clause:

[An unlucky student almost lost a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000]
[when he left it in the waiting room of a London station.]
[William Brown inherited the 1698 Stradivarius violin from his mother]
[and had just had it valued by a London dealer at £180,000.]

Clauses are made up of phrases:

[An unlucky student] + [almost lost] + [a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000]
[when] + [he] + [left] + [it] + [in the waiting room of a London station.]

[William Brown] + [inherited] + [the 1698 Stradivarius violin] + [from his mother]

[and] [had just had it valued] + [by a London dealer] + [at £180,000.]

We can join two or more clauses together to make sentences.

An unlucky student almost lost a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000 when he left it in the waiting room of a London station.

A preposition is a word or set of words that indicates location (in, near, beside, on top of) or some other relationship between a noun or pronoun and other parts of the sentence (about, after, besides, instead of, in accordance with). A preposition isn't a preposition unless it goes with a related noun or pronoun, called the object of the preposition.

Examples:
Let's meet before noon.
Before is a preposition; noon is its object.
We've never met before.
There is no object; before is an adverb modifying met.

William Brown inherited the 1698 Stradivarius violin from his mother and had just had it valued by a London dealer at £180,000.

The most significant finding for us all in the entire action research project w'as the realisation of how difficult it is to bring about any change in methodology within a school culture which has strongly embedded teaching traditions. When the culture, processes and practice are so firmly rooted, then change is resisted. However, this project has shown that action research can be a useful tool for empowering language teachers and improving teaching and learning in young learners’ classrooms. Maybe action research, with its cyclical characteristic with no finishing point, has a better chance of dealing with resistance in the field of education and in-service training than other models. Teachers reported that the action research model felt like a powerful form of professional development because it grew out of their own specific contexts and they were in control of the process by their planning, action and reflection.(Nikolov, 2007, 173)

3. 1. The role of grammar in teaching English as a second or foreign language (EFL) to young learners

This extract from a poem by Eleanor Farjeonr a well-known writer for children, can serve as a neat illustration of the potential value of poetry for foreign- language classrooms that are both creative and competence oriented: (1) as a mnemonic that may be particularly useful in classroom rituals, (2) as support for affective learning and intercuiltural insight and (3) as a grammar template for the future. (Read, John and Nation, Paul ,2004, p.103)

I As a mnemonic: the rhythm and the rhyme of poetry function as memory aids. In this example the play on words (King's Cross as the London railway station, as well as an angry royal person), in addition to the rhythm and rhyme, is memorable. As a template this can function usefully and humorously in classroom management situations, whenever a child behaves in a short- tempered way: Sue's cross I What shall we do? Leave her alone for a minute or two.

The poems introduced in this chapter have included negatives, imperatives, interrogatives, infinitives, comparatives, conditionals, modal verbs, relative clauses, phrasal verbs, many prepositional phrases, formulaic sequences generally, idiomatic language, future, genitive and passive, and numerous examples of present and past tenses. The aim is for young learners to add many unanalysed exemplars of grammatical categories and lexical patterns to their repertoire of language. These are acquired as templates and hopefully in future reactivated. With sufficient input, children may infer productive patterns, and, as in first language acquisition, increased command of language may emerge. Moreover, it is to be expected that pedagogical grammar rules learned in the secondary school will be more effective and meaningful when language students already have a repertoire of lexical patterns and grammatical categories as illustrative exemplars, for 'the rule is an artefact of the pattern- based learning, rather than the underlying source of learning' (Prodromou, Luke ,2008, p.244)

The centrality of repetition in language learning has been highlighted in this chapter A major advantage of performing poems in primary school is that the repetition is both natural and pleasurable, and poetry offers 'the kinesthetic bounce of repetition and surprise' The following poem can be practised in a tactile and whole-body fashion. The storyworld is easily visualized, and the alliteration, personification and direct speech draw the young learners into the pretty green garden

I saw a slippery, slithery snake Slide through the grasses,

Making them shake.

He looked at me with his beady eye.

'Go away from my Pretty green garden', said I.

'Sssss', said the slippery, slithery snake,

As he slid through the grasses,

Making them shake, (anonymous)

In order to practise the poem until all the young learners have learnt it by heart, the teacher invites the children to form a circle, standing close together

around the pretty green garden. All the children stand facing in the same direction, with their hands on the back of the child in front. Their hands perform the slippery, slithery movements of the snake on the child's back in front of them, and shake the shoulders of the child on the words 'Making them shake'. Gestures that illustrate 'beady eye', 'go away' and 'sssss' accompany the next lines. Finally, the children perform the snake movements of the last two lines on the back of the child in front. Reciting a poem in a circle in this participatory way can also fulfil the function of an end-of-class ritual over a number of weeks. (Piper, Watty (ed.) , 1922, p.73)

Similarly, the following rhyme combines meaningful and tuneful language as an opportunity for a whole-body classroom ritual. At the beginning or end of the English lesson, the young learners can transform from silent 'paper and string' (the children crouching on the ground) to a kite that flies (the children dancing with their arms and bodies, but attached to the ground by the string), then back to the ground as silent string and paper:

A kite on the ground

is just paper and string

but up in the air

it will dance and sing

A kite in the air

will dance and will caper

but back on the ground

it's just string and paper, (anonymous)

It has been shown in this chapter that the pulsating and salient language of poetry helps young learners develop phonological and grammatical sensitivity. (Rott, Susanne, 2009 p.184). I have also emphasized that children experience a sensory pleasure in meaningful repetition, such as rhythmical chanting, rehearsing and repeated performance. However, this approach is very different from that of the pattern drill of the audio-iingual method, which was based on ,,behaviourist theory´´. (Schmitt, Norbert, 2004, p.181), For I have discussed in this chapter the importance of context, meaning and storyworlds that allow young learners to create mental representations of the language in the poems. This aspect was missing from the soul less mechanical pattern drills of the past Young learners' language learning requires patterns with an emphasis on meaning: ‘Mindful repetition in an engaging communicative context by motivated learners' Lexical patterns and grammatical categories can be. (Pawley, Andrew and Syder, Frances ,1983, 191).

3.2. How do the young learn differently from adults?

Learning is understood (in various ways) as the acquisition of knowledge about ourselves and our world. It is critical to our capacity to make sense of our world and to act in it. At birth, we know little of the language, ideas and meanings of the cultural world into which we are born and our capacity to move and act on that world is limited. Yet, very quickly young children move to a point where they have considerable knowledge of their world and capacity to act in it. For instance, by 6 years of age, many children have a vocabulary of over 10,000 words

How do these changes happen? How docs learning happen and how can we best foster it? These questions are at the heart of any educational programme. Harly childhood educators often answer these questions using the ideas of child development theorists who explore and explain how we change over time and who develop principles on which we can act to support our growth to adulthood. Our understandings of nature’s role in children’s learning influences how we interact with them. If learning results from an innate internal drive, then the less that adults interfere with nature’s timetable, the better the child will learn. Maturationism is the belief that we can maximize young children’s learning by listening to nature. A ‘conforming to nature’ model of the learner is associated with two contradictory ideas about diversity — that it is abnormal and that it is natural. These ideas have specific implications for how an educator might seek to create equity, especially when working with children with disabilities. Attempts to normalize the child link to an assimilationist approach to equity. To assimilate something is to absorb it into a larger group and, by doing so, make it the same as the larger group. Thus, adherents to an assimilationist approach to equity believe that we can create an equitable social world by ensuring that everyone shares the same ideas and values – when we arc the same, we arc equal. Within an assimilationist approach to equity, developmental, cultural and social diversity is problematic – if we are different, we cannot be equal. An early childhood educator who took an assimilationist approach to equity would believe that his or her role is to support each and every child to become as normal as is possible. We could say that assimilationist approaches to developmental diversity attempt to create equity' by obliterating developmental distinctions and by encouraging children to adapt to pre-existing physical, social and cultural norms. If a disability is ‘aberrant’ or ‘abnormal’ development, then equitable education for children with disabilities would aim to make them as normal as possible by ensuring that they have ‘normal’ experiences within the early childhood programme by, for example:encouraging all children to achieve the same goals at die same time; emphasizing the similarities between people; ensuring that all children conform to the educator’s ideas about normal ways to think, act, feel and speak.

In summary, assimilationist approaches to equity attempt to create a common culture and/or set of norms for behaviour and actively work to ensure that everyone is a member of that common culture and/or adheres to those norms. Norms are not only physical but also social and cultural, so assimilationist approaches to equity emphasize the importance of children adhering to norms irrespective of their gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, language, culture, socio-economic or ability background. (MacNaughton, 2003, p.304)

3. 3. Ways of Teaching Grammar

Planning for CLIL is complex, takes longer than planning for ELT lessons and causes teachers concern, but planning for CLIL lessons is vital. To quote Miranda and Garcia, two primary CLIL PE teachers, 'teachers were going to cope with new scenarios, and planning acquired major importance' The 4Cs Framework – content, communication, cognition and culture, as detailed above – is a useful tool for teachers when planning for CLIL, The teachers must first decide on the subject content learning outcomes their pupils are working towards achieving. (House and Scott, 2012, p.124), Plans then focus on choice of a sequence of tasks to achieve the learning outcomes and analysing the cognitive demands of those tasks Next, plans need to address language input from the teacher, book or digital resources, and this input needs to be linked to learner output For instance, in an art lesson, are young learners going to talk about primary and secondary colours ('Red and yellow make orange'); are they testing and commenting on mixes of different colours ('This orange paint has got a lot of yellow in it, Let's put more red in it, Look! Now it's dark orange. It's beautiful .or are they evaluating the effectiveness of different colours they have used in a painting? In addition, support strategies reed to be planned so that young learners can communicate in a range of general and academic language appropriate for the curricular subject as well as the age and stage of the young learners. Examples include putting forward ideas about how to solve a number problem, asking questions about a science experiment and expressing uncertainties about how people lived 500 years ago, In addition, in European contexts, CLIL teachers are required to plan for competency-based education, which includes assessment of competences such as digital competence, learning strategies, sociocultural and civic competence, cultural expression and intercultural learning. A primary CLIL approach promotes learning by doing, active and cooperative learning, which demands development of both communicative and cognitive processes. In genera!, the higher the cognitive demand of a CLIL task, the more advanced the grammar required for young learners to communicate their knowledge and ideas. For example, although tower-order thinking processes such as recalling parts of a plant require young learners to produce relatively technical vocabulary such as soil, roots, stem, leaves and petals, it may only entail use of the simple present tense However, when young learners are developing higher-order thinking processes such as analysing and evaluating, for example, the best positions for plants to grow, use of more advanced grammar, such as the modals 'could', 'might' or will', is required to talk about possible locations to set up the experiment: We could put plant 1 in the cupboard and plant 2 near the window'; 'Plant 3 might grow well on this table'; and to predict outcomes: 'We think plant 2 will grow the most'. (Rixon, Shelagh ,2015 p.22), In order to achieve tasks such as these, young learners in CLIL contexts are likely to need an abundance of support and rich contextual background. In the plant examples, a visual of a labelled plant, sentence starters or gap-fills such as: 'We think the plant will grow best in/on/next to the ' can be offered. At a further stage, young learners may reed support to describe how a plant grows. This see, sharing stories is central to humankind, Stories, or narratives, help us learn from experience and to Currie 'it does not seem at all exaggerated to view humans as narrative animals, as homo fabutans – the tellers and interpreters of narrative, Stories allow us to use our imagination to possibly engender new options and hopefully act with foresight, 'to explore our own mind and the minds of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future. Thus this chapter will touch upon issues that have a wide relevance for education. Authors, unsurprisingly, have also observed the apparent human predisposition for storying: 'stories appear to be there because stories are a pervasive and perpetual human characteristic, like language, like and Le Guin writes: ’For the story – from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. (Maldonado, et al.,2012 p.72), There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. Of old, storytellers were our teachers, we learn from stories in complex ways and we can pass learning on as teacher-storytellers: 'There are lots of things that are vital to being human,. Things like food, culture, warmth, The things that are most vital, and most easy to overlook, are stories. People that think stories aren't important – aren't as important as breathing, aren't as important as warmth, aren't as important as life – are missing the point.

With a picturebook, the potential for language learning arises from the active engagement that takes place between learner and book, which results in participation with and use of language. There is nothing fixed about this affordance; it is dependent upon the learners and their own personal experience as they interact within a meaning-making experience. With picturebooks, young learners are given a multitude of opportunities to use language that represents the pictures and the words and the interpretations created from the two modes conning together. English is a school subject with a vast potential for variation, underpinned by a wide variety ot engaging, exciting and wonderful stories and genres to choose from' In using engaging picturebooks, the children's aesthetic, cultural, cognitive and emotional development can be simultaneously supported alongside their language and literacy development as example:

The audio system – this includes prosodic features (patterns of intonation, stress, pitch, tempo, volume and rhythm), sound effects, music and silence

The spatial system – this includes the set, as well as the positioning of interlocutors/ characters to each other and to the audience.

This complex combination of semiotic systems in drama processes bears a resemblance to the interactive language play of children, with its vocal- visual and vocal-tactile choreography . The link between the rich semiotics of drama and childrens play is echoed in the polysemic word 'play', which also refers to a stage play As children are extremely involved in learning through imitation and playful experimentation, the sociocultural context is central to their L2 acquisition. Learning another language, can be considered 'another way of creating, conveying, and exchanging signs, not primarily of acquiring new grammatical and lexical tools that are then put to use in a social context'. Drama is a holistic method, both in the sense of whole language – learning whole language in context and usage-based – and holistic in the sense of the whole person – or humanistic learning. Drama, in the first sense, as discussed above, avoids decontextualized language that is abstracted from any sociocultural context Drama thus avoids monodimensional activities, for example filling gaps in worksheets, which inhibit multisensory encounters with language. In the second sense, drama aims to achieve 'learning as a whole person, with body, mind, and emotions in harmony with ore another'.Young learners can identify with their language learning – so achieving a positive mindset – if they can emotionally engage with it. Many scholars consider the affective dimension of central importance in language teaching .The following is from a mini-play for the primary EFL classroom written largely in rhythm and rhyme, Valentine's Day :

Alex: Can you do it?

Mark: I don't know

David: Is it easy?

Alex: I hope so.

Mark: Right. We'll try.

David: Lets have a go!

Lena: Help! It's no good! I don't know!

I ll never understand!

Scarlet: Don't worry! Come here! Let's see!

Let me give you a hand!

This excerpt can be rehearsed as a mini-drama on the topic of supporting each other. If shared with young learners who as yet read very little in English, perhaps around the age of eight, it is advisable to divide even this very short excerpt into two scenes, for a brief drama activity in two separate lessons.

3.3.1.Covert/inductive grammar – indirect grammar teaching

Test creation grammar activities go under various names—communicative grammar tasks, structured production tasks and focused tasks. My current preferred label is‘text creation activities’because this captures choir essential feature—namely, that when performing them, learners need to draw on their own linguistic’ resources in order to achieve a communicative outcome. In this respect, they are like tasks in general. They require a primary focus on meaning rather than form, there is some kind of gap i.e. an information, opinion or reasoning gap), and they are directed at achieving a communicative goal, not the display of correct language. However, they differ from general communicative tasks In that they have been designed to create a fpmmimicative context for either die receptive processing or the production of a predetermined grammatical structure. That is they are 'focused rather than unfocused. They also differ from ‘situational grammar exercises' in that the grammatical target is covert: learners are not explicitly informed of what grammatical structure they should use.

Text creation activities can be input based or output based. In an input-based activity, learners listen or read input chat has been contrived to present learners

While students are generally familiar with the role of grammar at the level of the sentence, exploring the role of grammar in the organization of texts involves looking at the ways in which Language is used for particular purposes and how the

Research from corpus studies enables teachers to identify information of this kind and to use it to inform both teaching and materials development (Reppen 2010). In this way, grammar can be taught in relation to different contexts of use and with different types of texts. Use of a corpus can help identify the vocabulary that is commonly used with different text types such as procedural descriptions, infor- nta&enal texts, and persuasive texts. Looking at corpus resources previously mentioned can help students become aware of the verbs that most frequently occur in

Learning grammar is a complex, multifaceted, and lengthy process.and no single pedagogical approach can claim priority in teaching (Ellis and Shintani 2014). Approaches to teaching grammar need to acknowledge that learners have different learning style preferences when it comes to learning grammar. Some students like explanations and are uncomfortable when they do not have a clear understanding of something. Others are more tolerant of ambiguity and do not feel the need for detailed explanations social context for language use (school, work, colleagues, peers, friends, family) affects the choice of language (Paltridge 2006). The key feature of texts is the use of recognizable patterns of organization. For longer, written expository texts, the reader generally expects to see the text organized into paragraphs and, within paragraphs, to find main ideas and supporting details—features that contribute to the coherence of a text. I Iowever. a writer’s use of the accepted organizational patterns of a text may vary, according to the intended audience. Hedge (2000:323) points out that although a text describing a medical problem and its treatment might generally follow the pattern: situation—problem—solution—conclusion, a writer may vary this sequence of information for effect. The sequence of elements above would probably be considered normal, with conclusions coming last. However, a newspaper article on the topic might report on the treatment first, in order to raise curiosity, and then move on to explain the problem. In fact, there could be several possible sequences for the information.

There are several ways in which students can be introduced to the concept of text, to the ways in which texts work, and to how they reflect grammatical choices. For example:

Have students read two texts with the same content and identify what makes one an effective text and the other not effective.

Have students compare written and spoken texts on the same topic (e.g., a news event) to compare how they are organized and how the grammar of the texts differs.

Have students listen to interactions such as requests made in different contexts (e.g., among friends vs. with a boss) and see how features such as modals and pronouns work together to create politeness.

In more advanced academic contexts, give students examples or model texts of research articles and have them analyze how the text is put together within the different sections (e.g., methods, results) and to use the information to inform their writing. By studying the different “moves” or sections that make up a text, students focus on questions. How does a text begin? When. is the main idea introduced? 1 low is an idea developed? What verbs are typical of certain sections?

As a follow-up activity, the teacher can use authentic texts such as the following one, delete the verb forms, and have students complete them and compare in groups.

To tourists who hail from more orderly, sanitized societies, Myanmar’s street life can be charming. On the sidewalks of Yangon, radishes are shtvdded, corn is steamed, coconuts are hollowed out and stalks of sugar cane are crushed into juice. Vendors sell knickknacks. On one stretch of sidewralk.

they hawk teacups, used knives, Chinese-made plastic toys, two types of cat poison and a large pile of dusty, secondhand TV remote controls. Therefore at times it may be appropriate to present grammar explicitly using a deductive or rule-driven approach the lesson may start with teacher presenting information about the role a particular- grammatical feature plays in texts and then examine one or more texts to see how the text reflects the grammatical feature. A number of advantages of a deductive approach, including: It gets straight to the point, and can therefore be tune-saving. Many rules— especially rules of form—can be more simply and quickly explained than elicited from examples. This will allow more time for practice and application. It respects the intelligence and maturity of many—especially adult—students, and acknowledges the role of cognitive processes in language learning, It confirms many students’ expectations about classroom learning, particularly for those learners who have an analytical learning style. A deductive approach tan also be used within a problem-solving collaborative format. For example, to teach the differences between the use of the simple past and the present perfect, the class could be arranged into sets of pairs and given an information gap task. Half of the sets of pairs receives a summary of rules for the use of the simple past. The ocher half receives a summary of the use of the present perfect. Next, they all receive a partially completed text in which there are many instances involvings choice between simple past and present perfect. The students use their grammar summaries to complete those sentences where their rules apply. Following this, the pairs are regrouped so that pairs consist of one student who received rules of the past tense and one who received rules for the present perfect They then examine the text again and share their ideas on how it can be completed. justifying their choices using the information from their summaries. To complete the task (the grammar exercise) learners will need to share the information, which in turn will involve speaking English. They are learning about the language and getting communicative practice at the same time. At other times, the teacher may prefer to use an inductive approach, providing examples of texts that include particular grammatical features and inviting the students to examine the grammatical features of texts. One way in which this can be achieved is through activities in which students compare two texts on the same topic or situation but that differ in their use of particular grammatical features. Students can consider differences that may reflect differences in Ftredr (e g..spoken or written), purpose (e.g., to persuade or to describe), or genre (e.g., newspaper report or an encyclopedia entry). For example,students might compare an extract from a travel guide that gives suggestions and advice on things to do and see in a city and compare this with a blog entry or an email message from a friend on the same topic. In comparing the two texts, they could consider how obligation is expressed in each text through choices related to modality. This could highlight the role of modal verbs as well as other means of expressing obligation and necessity. In addition to different learning styles, grant mar, like vocabulary, needs multiple exposures and practice. This re pea red exposure needs to be engaging and meaningful, i.e,, language practiced within its context of use rather than forced into an artificial context for the sake of practice.

3.3.2.Overt/deductive grammar – explanation of the new grammatical rules and structures to children

The alternative to deductive grammar presentation (within the explicit grammar teaching framework) is inductive instruction. This involves having students formulate rules from natural language, and it is perhaps more useful in teaching intermediate and advanced students. An excellent example of how this is done can be found in Carter, Hughes, and McCarthy (2000), Exploring Grammar in Context. In order to help students formulate the grammatical rule that constrains the position of adverbs in English sentences, they arc given two sentences and asked to guess which one would occur in “real conversation.” After judging several pairs like this, students are asked, What rules could you make for adverbs with going to in the future?" “What rules could you make for adverbs with do / does / did questions?" Examples of actual language follow. These are intended to help students formulate the rules that determine the position of different kinds of adverbs in sentences and to relate these discoveries to the use of adverbs in conversation as opposed to w riting. To aid the process, the authors provide summaries throughout the book that supply generalizations about the grammar of English adverbs. It is now' generally accepted that either form of explicit instruction is better than no grammar instruction at all. The criticism that Long and others level at the use of explicit instruction in current textbooks is that packaging materials into discrete units, i.e., chapters, gives a misleading impression that students have “learned" a grammatical topic after they have completed the chapter in which it was presented. Long and others know that the explicit presentation and practice is just the beginning, and much more practice will be required before students begin to approach competence. They have pointed to research show ing that acquisition of grammar is promoted by instruction that not only stimulates students to reflect on the nature of grammatical rules, but provides opportunities for those rules to be used as part of meaningful conversation in realistic contexts (DcKevser. 1998). This tvoc of instruction is what Lone (1997) has referred to as focus on form (as opposed to the focus on forms instruction used in many ESL/EFL textbooks). We will now discuss approaches for teaching grammar.(Cowan, 2008, p.204)

It is possible, claimed Chomsky, because all languages share a common “deep structure" from which the variable surface structure of particular languages is derived by a sort of deductive logic. It is, he said, this “universal grammar" that explains how children rapidly develop a sophisticated knowledge of grammatical rules and applications. If this sophisticated and subtle knowledge were merely a product of learning, argued Chomsky, children could not possibly acquire it without extensive trial-and-error experience and explicit feedback. But since children easily develop this knowledge in the absence of this training, Chomsky' concluded that a universal grammar must be an innate aspect of the neuronal organization of all human brains.'

There are many features of language, such as the presence of words and sentence units and the noun-part-verb-part distinction, that are common to all language systems. These universal features of language appear to have remained the same for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years inspite of the enormous variety of their implementations in modern language systems. But if language universal were embedded in our genetic programming, they would manifest in consistent and invariant ways in neural processes.And yet elements of language that are fairly invariant in all language systems, often referred to as the deep structure of the universal grammar, appear to place few constraints on the variable and complex structures of particular language systems. If the functional distinctions in language universal were encoded on some genetic template, they would manifest in all human brains in the same way, and all language systems would be highly constrained and invariant in structural complexity. Another major problem with the universal grammar hypothesis is that the highly distributed nature of language processing in the human brain makes it very unlikely that this grammar can be traced to one neurological source. The one neurological source argument also assumes that the genetic mutations that resulted in a universal grammar and complex language systems were very recent and quite sudden. But what if we make the more reasonable assumption that language evolved over time from simpler language systems with minimal grammar and syntax that children could easily learn to more complex systems that coevolved with the increased learning capacities of children? As evolutionary biologist Terrence Deacon has demonstrated, this more reasonable assumption. In Homeric heroic religion, the gods, although presumed to have existence outside the material world, were thought to express themselves more directly in natural events. As Walter Otto puts it, the divine in this religious tradition “is not superimposed by a sovereign power over natural events; it is revealed in the forms of the natural, as their very essence and being. For other peoples miracles take place; but a greater miracle takes place in the spirit of the Greek, for he is capable of so regarding the objects of daily experience that they can display the awesome lineaments of the divine without losing a whit of their natural reality.” This sense of naturalism in Homer, which allowed the gods to be identified with the processes of nature, was one of the unlikely conceptual seeds that grew into classical physics.(Nedeau,Kafatos, 1999, p.202)

4. Stages in Teaching Grammar to EFL

By the very nature of my job as a teacher of young learners, I must be aware of children’s basic physical and psychological needs. Teachers of young learners should provide the care necessary to meet these needs so that they can thrive and focus on learning. In other words, teachers of young learners have two jobs, to provide care and to provide instruction. In order to provide the best possible instruction, you need to adjust educational experiences to meet the developmental stages of the individual child.

The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget identified the following developmental stages in children as they progress from birth to adolescence:

Sensori-motor

Pre-operational

Concrete-operational

Formal-operational.

The social, psychological and intellectual development of children evolves through these four stages. These beliefs are expounded in the paragraphs below.

The earliest stage, the Sensori-molor stage, extends from birth to approximately two years of age. At this initial stage, the child leams to interact with the environment by manipulating objects. (Some developmental psychologists define "learning” on the part of all creatures, humans included, in terms of the interaction between an organism and its environment.) Linguistically, this stage is characterized by the rapid growth of the child’s vocabulary , and the gradual transformation from "proto-language” to real language through the emergence of grammar. (A proto-language consists of a rudimentary sound system and a rudimentary system of meanings.) The child will possess an idiosyncratic set of words, each of which will have only a single meaning. cites the example of a small boy, Mark, who used “num-num” to mean “Give me food, I’m hungry. Feed me!” I lowever, this is all it meant It did not mean “I'm cold Put a sweater on me,” or "I’m tired. Put me to bed.” With the development of grammar, this one-to- one relationship is uncoupled, and the potential of the learner to make a range of meanings of many different kinds begins to emerge.

At the Pro-operational stage, which extends from around two years of age to seven, the child is egocentric and thinks the world revolves around him/ her. The ability to think logically is also extremely limited. Linguistically, at this stage learners consolidate their knowledge of the grammatical system and, by the age of seven, their acquisition of the target grammatical system is almost complete (although there are complex structures that will not be acquired until the next stage of development).

The creative power of grammar is described in the following way:

Unlike symbol systems such as systems of road signs, where there is a oncdo-onc relationship between the symbol and the tiling it represents, language is not so constrained. This is because, in the evolution of language, grammar intervened between the symbols and the entities and events that the symbols represent. Imagine that English had no grammar and its lexicon consisted of only seven words: Betty, Bill, Roman, tall, short, interesting, lonely. It would only be possible to say seven things Along comes grammar — specifically the singular form of the verb ‘to be’. Wc can now say twelve things. Betty is tall, Betty is short, Betty is interesting, Betty is lonely, Bill is tall. etc. Add in the plural form of the verb to be’ plus the conjunction ‘and1 and we can say an additional twelve

The Concrete-operational stage extends from around seven to eleven years of age Intellectually, the child begins developing the ability to separate the self from the environment and to think logically. \ le/She also begins to make generalizations from the environment, although this ability is limited.

The Form a1-operational stage marks the end of the developmental process in the child. This stage begins at around the age of eleven At this stage, abstract thinking develops and the child is now able to generalize beyond his/her immediate context from the instance to the general. This stage marks the onset of puberty (although these days, puberty is occurring at a younger and younger age, particularly amongst females). Neurolinguistic ally, brain lateralization occurs This means that the two hemispheres of the brain become separated and begin to function independently, communicating through a thick bundle of fibers at the base of the brain known as the corpus callosum. (Although this is rather controversial, some researchers have questioned the assertion that brain functions cannot move from one hemisphere to the other after brain lateralization.) developmental stages through which young learners pass Then we discussed live major challenges that teachers of young learners will almost certainly encounter: cognitive development, motivation, attention span, multilevel groups and assessment. These are not the only challenges we will face in teaching young learners, but if you can deal with these, then we will be well on the way to being a successful teacher of young language learners.(Nunan, 2011, p.88)

4.1.Understand the form of the structure

A complete structural analysis of a sentence in linguistic study (not in pedagogical grammar description) typically involves the following three tasks: 1) parsing the sentence into smaller units in terms of syntactic and lexical categories (such as noun phrase anti verb pit rase) until the smallest meaningful units (individual lexical items) are reached; 2) identifying the grammatical roles or functions (such as Subject and object) of the parsed structures; and 3) specifying the semantic mles or functions (such as agent and instrument) of the parsed structures. It is very important to point out that whether and how much of any of the three sentence structural analysis tasks should be included in pedagogical analysis will need to be determined by various learner factors, an issue that will be returned to below. It is also worth noting that the three tasks of the structural analyses are not isolated but closely interconnected and arc usually performed simultaneously- An even more important point is that an understanding of the meaning of the sentence is needed in order to accurately analyze its structure. In fact, according to Cognitive Linguistics, meaning and form are inseparable because, if we recall, language structures are symbolic units composed of pairings of form and meaning. Let us now look at how each task, of the sentence structure analysis is performed by analyzing the simple sentence. The young man opened the door with a knife” Before we proceed, it is necessary to note that in sentence structure analysis, diagramming is sometimes used to help visualize the relations between the structural elements in a sentence. Three of the live English grammar books for language teachers include diagramming in their sentence structural analysis, but two do not. However, sentence diagramming does not appear to be used much in ESL/EFL teaching. Of the eight student grammar textbook series I examined, only a few include a minuscule amount of very simple sentence diagramming, The use and discussion of diagramming here is meant for teachers only because knowing how to diagram sentence structures may enable teachers not only to better understand sentence structures but also to use it in teaching if needed. There are several different diagramming methods. Besides the fC cut and the syntactic structure tree methods there is also the well- known traditional Reed—Kellogg method, first developed by Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg in 1877. I he method lias boon widely used in textbooks and grammar books for mainstream English, but not so much for ESL. Of all of the methods, the structure tree method appears to be the most widely known, so we will use this method as well. As we begin the three-part sentence structural analysis, it is necessary to note again that, in the actual analysis of a sentence, the three tasks are performed simultaneously. They are described one by one in sequence here simply for the purpose of showing more clearly what is involved in each task.We begin with the syntactic category-based analysis. In parsing an English sentence, except for imperative and fragmented sentences, we first identify the NP (called the subject by grammatical function) and the VP (the predicate by grammatical function) of the sentence and diagram them as the two main branches of the sentence structure. We then continue the process by identify ing and diagramming the smaller phrasal categories until we reach the individual lexical items, as is shown in Figure 2 (where the identified syntactic categories are written in normal font while grammatical roles are italicized and the semantic roles are underlined). Specifically, after identifying the main NP and VP, we need to identify the components of the NP and VP respectively.Thus, in parsing a sentence by syntactic category, a basic understanding of the phrasal structural rules will be very helpful. Phrasal structural rules specify what each phrasal category in a language is composed of and in what sequential order its components arc placed. Such information is very important for L2 learners because phrasal structural rules often vary from language to language. ESL/EFL learners will need to know, for example, that the sequential order of the components in the English NP structure is L)ct Adj N (not N Adj Det as in Thai) and the sequential order of the components in the English VP structure isV NP (not NPV as in Japanese). Next we identify the grammatical roles of the elements of the parsed sentence. We begin by identifying the subject and the predicate, with the latter including the verb plus any of its constituents, such as the object(s) and adverbial phrases. After identifying the subject, the predicative verb, the objects, and the other main grammatical roles, we can then continue to identify the grammatical roles of the lower-level phrases and lexical items, e.g., young as the modifier of the noun man, etc., is worth noting that, in phrasal structural grammars like structural and generative grammars, the object (direct or indirect) of a verb is often called a verb complement. Given that the term object is used much more widely, it is more preferable than complement in pedagogical language description. Furthermore, using the term object this way also helps distinguish noun phrases that complement a verb from prepositional phrases that are needed to complement some verbs, such as on friends in “relied on Inends during the crisis" and on the table in “put the books on the table." Verbs like rely and put require a prepositional phrase to be complete.

Finally, we determine the semantic roles of the parsed structures. In this task, we basically specify the semantic roles of the mam noun phrases related to the predicate verb, e.g., the young man, the door, and a knife. In this sentence, the young man is the agent, the door is the theme or patient, and the knife in “with a knife” is the instrumnit or the adverbial of instrument. For reference purposes, the semantic roles so defined are called thematic or theta/O-roles in generative linguistics but arc labeled Cases in case grammar, as developed by Fillmore (1968). There are other differences in the terms used for the semantic roles between the two grammars. For instance, in the sentence “John gave an iPhone to Mary” In generative grammar, I to Mary serves the theta role of goaf whereas in case grammar, it is called a beneficiary. It is very important to point out that analyzing semantic roles in such a manner is generally difficult and hence not very helpful for language learners, especially in cases where the subject NP is not an agent. For example, in the sen- fence “The young mall saw a bird,” die subject (the young man) is an exptriencer, not an agent, because in seeing the bird, the young man did not do anything to the bird but merely experienced the sight of it. In most eases, it will not be beneficial for language learners to make such subtle technical semantic distinctions.

Generally, semantic role analysis of this type should not be used in teaching, but they may be used with advanced learners to help them better understand some verbs or sentence structures that appear especially confusing to L2 learners, such as psychological verbs. These verbs express some affective state that people experience, such as love and fear,They are difficult because the experience!- may either be the subject or the object of the sentence as shown in the following examples:

a, Tom adores his father. b, Tom concerns his father.

c, Everyone loves Mary. d, Everything scares Mary these days.

Although the a and b sentences in each pair look similar in structure, they differ in meaning. In each of the a sentences, the subject (loin in 4a and everyone in 5a) is the experience but in each of the b sentences, it is the object that is the expericncer. I lie subjects in the b sentences are the stimuli, not the cxpericneers. Marking the semantic mlc of each of the nouns in such a sentence structure can help learners more accurately understand the meaning. Another potential benefit of this semantic role assignment activity is to help learners better understand how sentences that differ in structure may have essentiailv the same meaning but with different foci based on what the speaker wants to the listener to pay attention to.Tom opened the door with his key./The key opened the door/I he door was opened by Toni with a key. Despite their structural differences, the semantic roles of the nouns in these sentences remain the same. Whichever noun is placed in the subject position is either what the speaker would like to focus on or the old/known information in the discourse context.(Liu, 2014, p.123)

4.2.Practice new language (drills, interactive activities , games)

The objectives of a method, whether defined primarily in terms of product or process, are attained through the instructional process, through the organized and directed interaction of teachers, learners, and materials in the classroom. Differences among methods at the level of approach manifest themselves in the choice of different kinds of learning and teaching activities in the classroom. Teaching activities that focus on grammatical accuracy may be quite different from those that focus on communicative skills.( Asher, J. 1977, p.49). Activities designed to focus on the development of specific psycholinguistic processes in language acquisition will differ from those directed toward mastery of particular features of grammar. (Bosco, F. J., and R. J. Di Pietro. 1970, p.22) The activity types that a method advocates – the third component in the level of design in method analysis – often serve to distinguish methods. Audiolingualism, for example, uses dialogue and pattern practice extensively. The Silent Way employs problem-solving activities that involve the use of special charts and colored rods. Communicative language teaching theoreticians have advocated the use of tasks that involve an “information gap” and “information transfer”; that is, learners work on the same task, but each learner has different information needed to complete the task. The notion of the “task” as a central activity type in language teaching has been considerably elaborated and refined since its emergence in early versions of Communicative Language Teaching. As well, tasks have become a central focus in both second language acquisition research and second language pedagogy. The history and some of the current interpretations of the nature of language teaching tasks are described in relation to Task-Based Language Teaching. Different philosophies at the level of approach may be reflected both in the use of different kinds of activities and in different uses for particular activity types. For example, interactive games are often used in audiolingual courses for motivation and to provide a change of pace from pattern-practice drills. In communicative language teaching, the same games may be used to introduce or provide practice for particular types of interactive exchanges. Differences in activity types in methods may also involve different arrangements and groupings of learners. A method that stresses oral chorus drilling will require different groupings of learners in the classroom from a method that uses problem-solving/information- exchange activities involving pair work. Activity types in methods thus include the primary categories of learning and teaching activity the method advocates, such as dialogue, responding to commands, group problem solving, information-exchange activities, improvisations, question and answer, or drills. Because of the different assumptions they make about learning processes, syllabuses, and learning activities, methods also attribute different roles and functions to learners, teachers, and instructional materials within the instructional process. These constitute the next three components of design in method analysis. Learner roles in an instructional system are closely linked to the teacher’s status and function. Teacher roles are similarly related ultimately both to assumptions about language and language learning at the level of approach. Some methods are totally dependent on the teacher as a source of knowledge and direction; others see the teacher’s role as catalyst, consultant, guide, and model for learning; still others try to “teacher-proof” the instructional system by limiting teacher initiative and by building instructional content and direction into texts or lesson plans.( Carrell, P., A. Devine, and D. Esky. 1988, p.295) Teacher and learner roles define the type of interaction characteristic of classrooms in which a particular method is being used. Teacher roles in methods are related to the following issues: (a) the types of functions teachers are expected to fulfill, whether that of practice director, counselor, or model, for example; (b) the degree of control the teacher has over how learning takes place; (c) the degree to which the teacher is responsible for determining the content of what is taught; and (d) the interactional patterns that develop between teachers and learners. Methods typically depend critically on teacher roles and their realizations. In the classical Audiolingual Method, the teacher is regarded as the primary source of language and of language learning. But less teacher- directed learning may still demand very specific and sometimes even more demanding roles for the teacher. The role of the teacher in the Silent Way, for example, depends on thorough training and methodological initiation. Only teachers who are thoroughly sure of their role and the concomitant learner’s role will risk departure from the security of traditional textbook-oriented teaching. The model presented in this chapter demonstrates that any language teaching method can be described in terms of the issues identified here at the levels of approach, design, and procedure. Very few methods are explicit with respect to all of these dimensions, however. In the remaining chapters of this book we will attempt to make each of these features of approach, design, and procedure explicit with reference to the major language teaching approaches and methods in use today. In so doing, we will often have to infer from what method developers have written in order to determine precisely what criteria are being used for teaching activities, what claims are being made about learning theory, what type of syllabus is being employed, and so on. The model presented here is not intended to imply that methodological development proceeds neatly from approach, through design, to procedure. It is not clear whether such a developmental formula is possible, and our model certainly does not describe the typical case. Methods can develop out of any of the three categories. One can, for example, stumble on or invent a set of teaching procedures that appear to be successful and then later develop a design and a theoretical approach that explain or justify the procedures. Some methodologists would resist calling their proposals a method, although, if descriptions are possible at each of the levels described here, we would argue that what is advocated has, in fact, the status of a method. Let us now turn to the major approaches and teaching methods that are in use today and examine them according to how they reflect specific decisions at the levels of approach, design, and procedure.( Curran, C. A. 1972, p.101)

4.3.Use the new grammar item

It is very important to remember that learners do not learn from presentation alone, or even presentation followed by practice. This first focus on new language items is only a beginning, and the learners must continually use the language for communication. You will probably have to focus on most basic functional-grammatical items again from time to time, right through to intermediate level and beyond.

The sequence of steps described above usually provides an effective way of presenting new functional-grammatical items, but it should not be seen as a rigid, mechanical procedure. You are not only teaching English, but also learners, and you need to respond to their human behaviour, often rather unpredictable. You may find, for example, that the learners do not know some of the vocabulary items that you expected them to understand, or that they easily master some aspect of pronunciation with which you expected problems.

Different functional-grammatical items in English also require some flexibility. Some items, for example, are more typical in the written language than in the spoken language. The oral presentation steps given above may then be preceded or substituted by written examples. Other items arc grammatically very simple but their meaning and use is complex or subtle, in which case there may be much more emphasis on the context and concept from the beginning and less attention to the structure, for example, should , contrasted with "must and ‘have to’.

A useful technique for relating the written form to normal pronunciation is eliciting oral examples from the learners, writing them on the board, and getting learners to read them aloud, maintaining the same pronunciation as in the oral practice. The written examples can then be used to clarify the grammar. Marks such as underlining and arrows (preferably in a different colour) can be used for this purpose, for example, with the Present Simple:

He sings romantic ballads.

i

He does not sing rock.

(doesn’t)

The model can then be converted into a simple fill-in exercise for learners to copy and complete:

He romantic ballads.

He rock.

The learners will then have written examples of the new item to study at home.

New items in an English language course. New language items are prominent in most courses, They may be functional, grammatical, or lexical items, and are usually thematically connected in a unit. Teachers need to know, and learners to learn, the meaning, use in communication, pronunciation, spelling, structure, and relevant grammar of new items. The major new items arc usually presented in some kind of functional-grammatical combination. The emphasis may be more on the interactional aspect of the functional item (for example, greeting, introducing, apologizing), or on the notional aspect (for example, time, place). In this book we call them functional-grammatical items.

Presenting new junctiofial-grammatical items. To organize efficient and effective presentation and practice of new items, you need to understand them well and plan with your own specific learners in mind, not just ’teach die book’. Some functional-grammatical items are more difficult because of their meaning and use, others because of their structure and grammar. You should be prepared to deal with both kinds of difficulty. Most functional- grammatical items are best presented through model sentences in an appropriate context or situation. You can often establish the context or situation fairly conversationally, virtually as part of the communicative work in the course. A practical general procedure is:

Establish context – Present key model/s -Check understanding

The place ofu/riting in presentation. In the above procedure, the written form would normally be introduced after oral presentation and pracrice. In some easels for example, where the course focuses on reading and/or writing skills, earlier introduction of the written form is appropriate. Writing can be used to clarify grammar and to give learners a permanent record of the new item and its structure and grammar.

From presentation to practice. Presentation normally develops naturally into pracrice without a marked division between the stages. Sometimes a lesson goes backwards and forwards between practice and presentation, for example, when dealing with question-answer (Q-A) combinations.(Davies, Pearse, 2002, p.139).

§CHAPTER III. CASE STUDY-TEACHING GRAMMAR IN/TO MIXED ABILITY CLASSES

1. Grammatical deficits and special needs young learners

2. Dealing with grammar errors in mixed ability classes

3.Strategies/ methods of minimalizing the grammatical deficit

4. Assessing grammar effectively and creatively in mixed ability classes

5. Illustrated activities to be used in the class

CONLUSION/RECOMMENDATIONS

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APPENDIX I

LESSON PLAN

NAME:

DATE:

CLASS:

NO. OF STUDENTS:

SCHOOL:

TIME OF LESSON:

TEXTBOOK: “Global English”- Stage 3

UNIT/LESSON: Unit 3- Lesson4:“Friendship”

TYPE OF LESSON: teaching-learning; consolidation

LESSON OBJECTIVES: by the end of the lesson the students will be able:

to make use of previously obtained vocabulary in order to give personal opinions concerning the topic in discussion;

to find and use properly words’ antonyms – according to their level;

to make the distinction between different types of adjectives and their proper usage (semi-controlled practice);

to use correctly grammar tenses (controlled practice).

DIDACTIC STRATEGIES: a)methods and skills:

conversation, exposition, explanation, individual, pair-work, whole class work, all skills,.

b)materials and aids:

the textbook, Ss’ notebooks, laptop, whiteboard and markers, hand-outs, worksheets, power point presentation

ASSUMPTIONS: – Students are already aware of some vocabulary used for the topic and the grammar issues in discussion

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS: Ss may encounter difficulties in grasping the full meaning of some new words/phrases

– may be noisy when working in groups

SOLUTIONS: Provide explanations, simplify the language, keep them engaged in activities all the time

ACTIVITY 1

AIMS:

to create a pleasant atmosphere;

to check homework;

to revise the vocabulary connected to the previous lesson;

ACTIVITY 2

AIMS:

to encourage pupils to express personal opinions

to identify correctly antonyms of different adjectives

ACTIVITY 3

AIMS:

to assign proper attributes to people

to use correctly the comparative and superlative form of different adjectives

ACTIVITY 4

AIMS:

to widen the subject in discussion

to check the proper understanding of grammar elements in free practice, in a pleasant manner

ACTIVITY 5

AIM:

to check the proper understanding and use of all the grammar tenses studied in a fun , engaging manner

HOMEWORK:

LESSON PLAN

NAME:

DATE:

CLASS:

NO. OF STUDENTS:

SCHOOL:

TIME OF LESSON:

TEXTBOOK: “Fairyland”

UNIT/LESSON: “ Fun Time” – Round Up

TYPE OF LESSON: Revision

LESSON OBJECTIVES: by the end of the lesson the students will be able:

to use place prepositions in different contexts

to express likes and dislikes

to name different kinds of foods and drinks;

to describe different people according to their age, appearance, country, nationality, likes/ dislikes ;

to ask and answer questions using the verbs to be and to have ;

DIDACTIC STRATEGIES: a)methods and skills:

conversation, exposition, explanation, individual, group, whole class work, all skills

b)materials and aids:

the textbook, Ss’ notebooks, images, whiteboard and markers, hand-outs, worksheets, pictures

ASSUMPTIONS: – Students are already aware of most of the vocabulary and the necessary rules used for the topics in discussion.

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS: They may be noisy when working in groups and they may need some help with the assignments related to grammar.

SOLUTIONS: create a pleasant and warm atmosphere, provide explanations when necessary, encourage them to give answers

ACTIVITY 1 –WARMING-UP

AIMS:

to create a pleasant atmosphere;

to check homework;

to revise the use of place prepositions (semi-controlled practice)

to revise knowledge about wild and domestic animals(semi-controlled practice)

ACTIVITY 2

AIMS: to practice expressing “likes and dislikes” concerning food (controlled practice)

ACTIVITY 4

AIMS: to revise the knowledge of different countries and nationalities (controlled practice);

To encourage productive skills (especially speaking)

ACTIVITY 5

AIMS: to create a relaxed, fun atmosphere

to listen to confirm expectations;

to encourage students to ask and answer questions in English

HOMEWORK:

APPENDIX II