Practical Proficiency Podcast · Devon Gunning | La Libre Language Learning

#39 - The Role of Grammar in Your Proficiency-Oriented Classroom

·34 min·1 clip

The host begins by thanking listeners and inviting them to send in questions about classroom problems they are working through. She frames the podcast as support for world language teachers who want to move toward proficiency without giving up their well-being or their teaching style. The main topic is grammar. She asks what place grammar should have in a proficiency-oriented classroom and answers that it should not sit at the center of the program. Instead, grammar should support the larger goals of language acquisition. Those goals start with high-quality, compelling, understandable, crystal-clear input. That input should follow the target language's natural order of acquisition and its frequency of use. She also keeps output and self-reflection in the mix. To make the point concrete, she turns to English examples. Frequent forms can shift and warp over time, and the third person singular -s is another useful case. She notes that children do not acquire it quickly and that learners of English as an additional language take even longer. That leads into a brief explanation of saliency. A feature has to stand out clearly if learners are going to notice and acquire it. From there, she pushes back on grammar-first planning. Many programs still decide what to teach by starting with grammar goals. She argues for the reverse order. Teachers should begin with the units, communicative contexts, and chunks students need in order to function and thrive. Grammar can then be arranged to support those units rather than setting the whole agenda.

As heard by us

Grammar should support communicative goals, not drive the course map.

Devin stays on proficiency-first teaching and keeps pulling the listener back from grammar-first planning to input that students can understand.

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Why you'd press play

If grammar keeps hijacking your unit plan, this gives you a clearer way forward.

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