AE Webinar 7.1: Connecting Reading and Writing in Grammar Teaching: A Functional Approach

We kicked off a new AE Webinar season with series 7. It was a new group, but some true-blue participants like Teacher Masnizan and Sabu were on board for their third tour of duty.  Big thanks Tn Hj Ramlan Awang and Professor Aswari from UniTARKB for being gracious hosts.

AE Webinar 7.1: Connecting Reading and Writing in Grammar Teaching: A Functional Approach was moderated by Lottie Baker. The goals of the webinar were: 1. Define grammar from a functional perspective. 2. Identify 3 functions of grammar. 3. Explore classroom applications of functional grammar. Lottie defined the traditional approach as Grammar Translation when dissect text according to the parts of speech. Lottie suggested if you face national tests using grammar translation, by all means use that method. However, if you want a more communicative approach here is an alternative.

The Functional approach is shift from teaching to translate to teaching to communicate. The goal is not to know the stagnant rules of language, but to apply language to the dynamics of communication. So you are asking yourself what is a functional approach to teaching grammar? It consists of 3 big ideas: 1. Makes Meaning 2. Connect Ideas 3. Makes social relationship.

There are many advantages to this approach. It connects grammar to meaning, applies all 4 language skills and promotes critical thinking and discussion amongst other things. It useful method to teach in addition to the Translating Grammar approach required by many school systems. The functional approach is more flexible and suitable for the 21st Century Classroom.

How does language make meaning? It can be broken down int 3 main categories. The categories are Participants, Process and circumstance. Participants are the who or what performing an action (subject). The process is what are thinking, doing, feeling or being actions (verbs). Circumstances are the when, where and how process occurs.

The method's strength is the application towards speaking skills. It fosters more flexibility for students sentence create more sentence varieties. Another strength pf the method is its focus on connectors which will improve students complexity. Well enough of me talking about it, you can watch it yourself.


Click on link to watch AE Webinar 7.1