Invert Your Conditionals and Always Let Your Grammar Be Your Guide

So I’ve been streamlining how I present and give students practice on grammar. I’ve really been trying to match my grammar lessons as much as possible to real authentic contexts. Almost every teacher tries to do that of course, but what I’ve been doing that’s new for me is letting the grammar itself determine the context, rather than the book or the unit.

I think that using the grammar itself to determine the context does a lot.

1. It shows students where they will actually use this grammar
2. It helps them recognize the grammar when they are exposed to it outside the classroom.
3. It makes it clear if this grammar is written or spoken
4. It lets you figure out whether you need students to primarily understand the grammar or produce it, depending on the context.
5. It makes it way easy to come up with authentic materials.
6. Often in context, the meaning of new or odd grammar forms is clear. That means students feel more comfortable with it and more receptive to understanding and using it.

So here’s a great example of how I presented a fairly obscure grammar point: inverted conditionals, such as:.

• Had I known, I would have come sooner.
• Should you need me, feel free to call
• Were I to do that, he would certainly never speak to me again.

The thing was that I honestly couldn’t imagine ever using these forms. Even the second one with should, I thought I would avoid if at all possible by saying, “Call me if you need me.” So obviously this was grammar they would need to recognize more than produce (passive grammar, if there is such a term).

I have two tricks for figuring out an authentic context for grammar.

Google it.

Not the name of the form necessarily, but some example sentences. As soon as I Googled “Should you need me,” I started getting lots of sample away or out-of-office messages. So that was easy. I ultimately settled on a funny message I found online and this made it easy to put together a quick, relatively material-light, lesson:

I gave students this email message, formatted to look like an email. I gave them a minute to read it and then asked them what was so funny about it. Finally I drew their attention to the grammar form, “Should you need assistance…” and asked them what that meant. Only once they were comfortable with the meaning did I break apart the form and point out that it was inverted. After that I had them write similarly funny messages.

Write lots of examples yourself

Googling the other two forms was less successful, so I started to reach into my own subconscious by letting my brain go blank and just writing sentences with that grammar form. What vocabulary did I instinctively use with this form? What meanings was I trying to convey? After a few minutes it became clear that this was a form I associated with formal language, informational messages, and apologizing or clarifying. From that point it was easy to realize that this form would be quite common in a fancy hotel on a welcome greeting. Or perhaps spoken by a guide on a tour of Buckingham Palace. In fact, I’m pretty sure the safety lecture on an airplane goes, “Should cabin pressure drop… Should you need the flight attendant…” Not the most formal of settings, but still one in which formal language would be required.

Once I had that insight, it didn’t take me long to put together this little announcement, Welcome to the New Haven Hilton. Again, I presented it to the students to read. I asked them what the document was and where they might see it to draw their attention to the context. Then we went over the three sentences that had the target grammar and their meaning. Students were of course easily able to understand the meaning and were quite surprised to note that the grammar was a bit off. So I was able to explain the form quite clearly to calm students because they already felt quite comfortable with it.

After that it was an easy leap to have them produce some similar announcements of their own. I gave them a choice of writing or presenting a speech and the rules could be for 1) a fancy hotel, 2) a prep school, 3) an airline, 4) a prison (just for fun).

So that’s a look at how I put together fairly materials-light, authentic grammar presentations. Now sometimes books do do a good job of providing a context and materials, but often I find that the authors have to juggle the theme of a unit, the grammar and the vocab so carefully that the grammar is quite often forced.

Any comments? Where do you get authentic materials that still target a particular grammar point?