Learners develop interlanguage grammar and become more accurate in their production in a four step process. Those steps are noticing, reasoning and hypothesizing, structuring and restructuring, and automatizing.
Noticing
This is the stage where learners pick out specific features of the language and pay attention to them. This happens when a specific feature:
- Occurs frequently
- Shares a basic function with the learner´s first language
- And has a function to which a learner would be likely to pay attention to.
Reasoning and Hypothesizing
This is the stage where the learner is able to see the patterns in the language and create a hypotheses about the rules these patterns might demonstrate. The learner will gradually revise their hypotheses according to new information. Hypothesizing is done in three ways:
- Reasoning deductively – The learner applies rules he already knows to working out the meaning of what he hears or to the formulation of what he wants to say
- Analysing contrastively – Comparing the first and second language for similarity or difference
- Transferring – The learner applies knowledge of one language to the understanding or production of another
Structuring and Restructuring
As learners work out new rules, these have to be integrated into the representation of English grammar they hold in the minds, and this information has to be restructured as the learner moves on to another stage of development.
Automatizing
Once a learner can achieve regular and consistent responses in conversation to a certain type of input, then it can be said that the language involved has been automatized.
Teaching Presentation-Practice-Production
The presentation-practice-production theory takes advantage of the four part adoption of specific grammar points by teaching grammar in three parts:
Presentation: The new grammatical structure is introduced. This can either be done in discovery/noticing activities or through explicit instruction.
Practice: Students practice the new grammatical structure introduced in a controlled way.
Production: Students are encouraged to use the new language in a freer way either for their own purposes and meanings or in differing, artificially constructed contexts.
What Can Grammar Do?
It is important that students understand the power that grammar has in a language. Here is a variety of uses for example:
Grammar as meaning (expressing concepts such as obligation):
- I must
- I ought
- I have to
- I´d better.
Grammar in discourse:
- Linking signals (that is to say...)
- Linking constructions (and, or, if)
- Substitution and omission
- Presenting and focusing information
- Order and emphasis
Grammar in style:
- Being able to recognize different characteristics of a specific style
- Making useful grammatical choices for effective interaction appropriate to the situation
Second language teachers now have linguistic science explaining how learners develop interlanguage grammar. Understanding and using these theories, as well as demonstrating to learners the different meanings grammar can infuse into the language, will result in more accurate production and faster automatization.
