Teaching grammar through the Сommunicative method

Achieving real language proficiency takes effort, but grammar alone isn’t the magic key. 

While it’s an essential foundation — helping learners speak correctly and with ease — it’s just one of several pillars that support successful communication.

At the same time, you can’t have fluency without that solid grammatical base.

This is where the communicative approach comes in: using grammar as a tool, not the ultimate goal, and integrating it naturally into authentic interaction. 

So let’s explore how this works in practice!

We as teachers aspire to develop our students’ communicative competence, honing their ability to use various aspects of language appropriately for different communicative purposes. 

But grammatical competence is just one of the four components of communicative competence. 

So, what are the components of communicative competence?

Thus, learning grammar isn’t the end goal but merely one of the tools used to facilitate the real end goal (communication). 

Does focusing on grammar help with communication? Not so much. 

Keeping your focus on the communicative goal, on the contrary, helps overcome the initial inhibitions. 

If grammar is just a tool, we should treat it as such, and the more we use it in real-life situations, the easier it will get.

There are two approaches when it comes to introducing grammar.

In an inductive approach, however, the rule needs to be discovered first. The students start by noticing patterns and regularities in the language offered by the teacher, working out the rule, and only then applying it. 

All the intellectual work is done by the learners, who have to tap into the knowledge already stored in their minds, which makes this approach very student-oriented, as opposed to the deductive approach.

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, and the teacher makes the decision based on many factors, such as:

The preferences and understanding of language teaching in general have changed considerably in the last decades, and nowadays more and more teachers use the Communicative Language Teaching approach (or CLT) as their methodology of choice.

The traditional lesson formats with mastering and practicing grammar through controlled and somewhat artificial activities (such as memorising dialogues and drilling) started shifting towards more student-oriented activities (pair or group work, projects, roleplays).

CLT is governed by the following principles:

These principles suggest that grammar is taught not for the sake of grammar rules, but to perform a task, a function. 

So, all the classroom activities should lead logically from drilling to speaking practice and from form to function.

There are four types of activities used in a logical order: 

Controlled Practice Activities

Controlled practice activities, also known as restricted practice activities, refer to activities focused on developing accuracy rather than fluency. 

They are usually restricted in nature and include repetition, scaffolding, and a specific target language focus. 

An example of such an activity would be substitution drills designed to practice the use of particular grammatical items.

In controlled practice activities, we are focusing on accuracy. Only one correct answer is possible, and the whole activity is designed to test whether our learner has grasped the target language.

These include:

Obviously, the restrictiveness within the range of controlled practice activities can vary. 

And if more than one such activity is used in the lesson, they are usually introduced in order from the most controlled to the least controlled.

It’s important to note that some types of controlled practice activities, such as multiple choice or matching, might appear similar in form to guided discovery or noticing activities. Their focus and goal are different, however.

Semi-controlled Practice Activities

Semi-controlled practice activities help our learners prepare for the meaningful application of their knowledge or skills in more complex ways. 

Semi-controlled practice builds on the knowledge and skills acquired by the students during the controlled practice stage. 

It can be done in different modes: pairs, mingling, inside-outside circles, etc. 

Some of the examples of such activities are:

It is necessary to allocate enough time for controlled and semi-controlled practice because the main goal here is accuracy, which demands students’ attention and requires time for reflection.

Freer Practice Activities

Freer practice activities (or an activating phase) are the part of the lesson when the students get to use the new language as communicatively and freely as they can. 

The focus here is more on the function, although the students might need to think about form as well. Examples of freer practice activities are:

The main difference between this type of practice activities and free practice activities is the obligatory use of target grammar (scaffoldings, restrictions) while performing freer practice tasks. This promotes automation in a communicative context.

Free Practice Activities

So when it finally comes to free practice activities, students are encouraged to use all the wealth of the language they have at their disposal, including but not limited to the target language. 

The focus here is on fluency and function: how well the students manage to use the language for the intended purpose. 

The activities for free practice include: 

To keep the flow of the lesson going, error correction here is postponed until the feedback phase.

Overall, the approach to language learning has changed significantly over recent years, with communication considered the main source of motivation for it. 

Thus, language learning is believed to result from:

They say perfection is the enemy of the good enough, and grammar is definitely one of the areas where this applies. 

Striving for perfection in a skill as fluid and multifaceted as a language means setting unrealistic goals for the learners, which could cause more harm than good. 

Now and then, one of the most impatient students asks this burning question, ‘When will I speak English like a native speaker?’ 

‘Possibly never,’ is the unwelcome answer, followed by shocked silence and the sound of dreams shattering in the background. A much better answer is, ‘Practice makes perfect.’