A&HL 4085 - Pedagogical English Grammar

Dr. Wendy Bowcher, Associate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University
Dr. Terry Royce, MA Program Director, Teachers College, Columbia University
3 credits - no prerequisites. Required Applied Linguistics (III) course for Group 17 & 18
Letter Grade (option for P/F)
Advisement note:
This is an Applied Linguistics III course and is required for all groups from Group 17 onwards.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will introduce you to some of the fundamental principles of English grammar. Following the textbook, we will approach grammar from a structural, semantic, and functional perspective; i.e., for each grammatical structure we will consider its form, meaning, and use.

The material we cover in this course is aimed at providing you with the diagnostic tools you’ll need in your classes to identify and understand learner errors and make informed decisions on how to address those errors. By breaking language down into it’s various levels such as morphemes and phrases, you should develop a sense of which general areas learners are having trouble with. For example-

Beginning learners might overgeneralize final –s. But what are they really doing? On the one hand, they might not be able to distinguish singular and plural- maybe their L1 doesn’t make this distinction. Alternatively, they might be overgeneralizing 3rd person singular -s. Or they might be doing both. How do you know? Your knowledge of grammar will help you identify whether the problem is with noun or verb morphology so that you can plan a lesson accordingly.
Familiarity with English phrase structure rules will help you understand why no predicate material can occur in the sentence subject The man, as in *The in that house living man is Jake. You would then want to address the idea of the subject in English.
Knowing that because is an adverbial subordinator and that because of is a prepositional construction which requires a noun object will help you explain why a sentence such as *The team lost because of they were exhausted won’t work. This might lead to a lesson on adverbial phrases.

Being able to diagnose errors such as these requires a familiarity with the various aspects of grammar covered in the textbook used in this course. Being able to make a lesson plan and design materials to address these errors are topics which can be covered in the TC Methods and especially the Practica Courses. As such, this grammar course is designed to cover pedagogically relevant grammar, but not the actual teaching of grammar. Having said that, though, we will be happy to consider pedagogical issues such as why some of the forms we cover in class might be troublesome to learners. We can discuss such “learnability issues” in class, and they will be included in homework and quizzes. There will also be opportunities to explore aspects of discourse grammar if time permits.

CLASS FORMAT

The class will be conducted in lecture and small-group formats. Part of each lesson will be a formal presentation of learning points and part will involve the completion of tasks in pairs or small groups. Whole class discussions will occur throughout the sessions. Groups of students will also conduct seminar presentations on the teaching points relevant to specific chapters

READINGS

It is important that you keep up with the assigned readings. You will be responsible for material in the text that is addressed in the objectives even if we do not have the opportunity to discuss all the details in class.

TESTS AND FINAL EXAM:

Three tests and a final exam will be given during the course. Each test will last about 30 to 40 minutes and will mainly include material covered since the previous test. A cumulative final exam will be given during the last class of the semester and will include material covered throughout the course.

HOMEWORK

Homework assignments will be assigned throughout the semester. These will typically ask you to analyze sentences and learner errors in terms of one or more grammar points presented in the textbook.

REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING

Test 1 (15%)
Test 2 (15%)
Test 3 (15%)
Homework assignments (30%)
Final Exam (25%)

BOOKS TO BUY

Celce-Murcia, M., Larsen-Freeman, D. and Williams, H. (1999). The Grammar Book. Boston, MA.: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Time restrictions will permit us to cover most, but not all, of the material in the text book.

BIO

Wendy Bowcher is an Associate professor of Linguistics at Tokyo Gakugei University. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Liverpool, England.Her research interests primarily involve the application of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory to analyses of varieties of discourse including Australian radio sports commentating.

Dr. Terry Royce is Program Director at the Tokyo campus of the Teachers College Columbia University MA in TESOL Program and has been appointed by Teachers College (New York) to the Tokyo program. He has a BA in Economics and a Diploma in Education from Macquarie University, a Graduate Diploma in Multicultural Education from Armidale University, an MA in Applied Linguistics from Sydney University (Australia), and a Ph.D. in Linguistic Science from the University of Reading (UK). His research interests include the analysis of multimodality, discourse and cohesion analysis across disciplines (specifically scientific and economics discourse), the application of systemic-functional linguistics to discourse varieties and TESOL education, and the forensic linguistic analysis of police negotiators’ discourse.