Myles Klynhout writes about the next SLB info session and the teacher-training workshop he’ll be delivering on grammar teaching. Both events are on Saturday May 21st, 2016 in Barcelona

1: SLB Information Session 2016

Date: Saturday May 21st, 2016   11:30-12:30 CET (doors open and refreshments from 11:15)

Place: Domènech 7, Espai de Treball, Barcelona

Cost: Free to all (reservation required – see below)

Are you interested in finding out about how our cooperative works? Would you like to know more about our projects and goals, as well as meet some of our members? In this session, SLB president Neil McMillan will take you on a guided tour of the SLB cooperative, a democratically organised collective of language teachers, translators, writers and other professionals. By the end of it, we hope, you’ll want to get involved too!

2: Keep the Grammar McNuggets in the box – serve a Focus on Form instead.

Date: Saturday May 21st, 2016:   12:45-13:45 CET (break and refreshments from 12:30)

Place: Domènech 7, Espai de Treball, Barcelona

Cost: Free to SLB Socios / 5€: teachers at Oxford House and TEFL Iberia  /10€: individuals  

*EARLY BIRD TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR INDIVIDUALS  – 7.50€ (MUST BOOK BEFORE MAY 16th)

Many teachers feel constrained by the grammar they are asked to teach and unsure about how to go about teaching grammar without a coursebook.

It was over 15 years ago that Scott Thornbury coined the term “Grammar McNuggets” to describe how grammar is sliced up and packaged into textbooks. This has created a structure-of-the-day approach, where the students’ primary focus is on accuracy at the expense of real communication and where the activities are directed intensively at a single grammatical structure (Ellis 2001).  

In this workshop we’ll explore alternative ways to teach grammar through a focus on form approach. What is focus on form? Well, it involves ‘drawing the students’ attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning or communication’ (Long 1991: 45-6). So, in a sense, it is introducing and attending to a range of grammar along the way as students are engaged in a communicative task or activity. 

After a quick look at the theory, I’ll suggest and run through practical activities which you can take away to your own classroom. This session is aimed primarily at teachers of English, but the strategies presented will also be of use to teachers of other languages.

Reserve a place: 

If you would like to attend either one or both events, please respond to myles@slb.coop. The final deadline for applications is Wednesday, 18th May but it is advisable to get in touch as soon as possible as places are limited. Please include your name, profession and mobile number/email address, and state clearly which session(s) you would like to attend.

References:

Ellis, R. 2001. Investigating form-focused instruction. In R. Ellis (Ed.), Form-focused instruction and second language learning (pp. 1–46). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Long, M. 1991. ‘Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology’. In de Bot, K., Ginsberg, R., & Kramsch, C. (eds.) Foreign Language Research  in Cross-cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 

Image by Kevin, Golden Nuggets [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ], via Flickr Commons. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/lcLxBc