Grammar
I am used to teach my students by grammar translation because I was taught in this way and even in these days, students accept this way more. They don’t think they understand it clearly without grammar translation. Whenever my student is confused about a sentence, he must ask me to translate it completely. When I teach a student grammar, I would explain its rules, reading some examples first and then have him do some exercises. However, according to Teaching by Principles, it is much more appropriate to teach it inductively. What’s more, it’s helpful to use charts, objects, maps& drawings, dialogues and so on.
Yesterday, I taught my student possessive pronouns inductively, making her find rules herself at first and then gave her complete rules. So far, I couldn’t learn whether it will make her remember the grammar easier or not but I think it is easier to understand and remember grammars instead of learning by being given rules deductively. Because of my learning experiences, I have used charts, especially some confusing tense such as perfect tense or past perfect tense. It does help students understand what you talk about. I will try to make good use of other ways such as objects or maps to teach in my later teaching.
Vocabulary
As the way of teaching grammar, I get used to teach my students in the traditional way. I usually start a lesson with the vocabulary list. After explaining words, I will teach with sentences and collocation because I think it’s useful for their reading and writing. You can know hoe to use the word in sentences instead of cramming. Frankly, I have never though about maybe it’s inappropriate to start with a long and boring list because it is what I was taught. I though it was normal in the past but I realized what I thought was wrong now. The best way to learn vocabulary is from context. But it may be a little difficult to teach a lesson by starting with a reading text because students would think there are too many unknown words and it’s torturous to guess so many words. I will try to start with a reading text and then teach vocabulary and grammar but before they get much used to guess meanings, I may still start with a vocabulary list, building their essential vocabulary for the context.
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So there are four types of reading texts:
a. many new words+ difficult grammar
b. many new words+ easy grammar
c. a few new words+ difficult grammar
d. a few new words+ easy grammar
Are there different purposes for using different types of texts?
Yes, I think so. But I am confused about the definition of difficult grammar. Maybe students will think grammar are difficult because the grammar is a new one they don't familiar with.
If I focus on the grammar, I would prefer to use "c" because it won't burden students with too many unknown vocabulary. But if I want them to learn more vocabulary and use them, I would adopt "b". I think maybe "d" could be used for communicative purpose because students are able to communicate more fluently, not being stumbled by too many vocabulary and difficult grammar. "a" could be adopted when the teacher's target is writing, and it helps students use diverse vocabulary and grammar.
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