Teaching Grammar in Writing Classes: Tenses and Cohesion

1 10 TeachingGrammarinWritingClasses:Tensesan dCohesionEliHinkelSeattle University,Washin gtonINTRODUCTIONG rammarinstructioninmany English asa secondlanguage(ESL )an dEnglishas aforeignlanguag e (EFL) classroomsincludesdeductivetea ch-inga n d learning,whenth eteache rpresentsgrammarrulesfollowedby var-iousforms ofprac r actice can taketheformofclozeexer-cises,a translationofanEnglishtextintothelearner s' n ati velanguage,ororaltraining(readalouds, dialogues,o r sm all-gro u pactivities) (Ellis,th isvolume) . Inmostcases, suchexercisesdrawthelearners 'attentionto verbforms inse n tence-leve lcon tex tsthatarecrea te d bytextbookauthors,teachers,orstudentsthe mselves. Thislearningpracticelargelyaddressesth e skills associated with identificationof timead verb ialsa n d themanipu-lationofver balinflectionsandtense-relatedformsofau struc tures t opromote ap p lica tio nsofgrammarknowledgetoparticularsituatio nswhenstudentsarein volvedinmeaningfulo rmeaning-relatedcommunications(e.)

2 G .,games,problem-solvingac tivities,an d rol e-plays ).Inpart, because agooddealoflinguisticresearchseparatesth e an a lysisofrhetoricaldiscourseconve n tio n s (suchas topicse n te n ces,sentencetransitions, an d rhetoricaldevelopment) an d thegrammaticalstr u cturesoflanguage ,thete aching of writingandthete achingofgrammartendtooccupysomewhatdisti nctdomainsin secondlanguage (L2) p ara tio nofg r am m a r teachingfromL2writinginstruction181182 HINKELmay alsocomefromtheexpectationthatiflearners acquireL2grammarthroughexposuretoandinte ractionwithL2,theymayalsoapplytheirgramm arknowledgeandskills ,L2writinginstructionoftenhasthegoalofde velopinglearners'rhetorical,organiza-tio n,andtext-basedskills(Leki,1995;Raimes,1 995;Reid,1993)andaddressestheirgrammarsk ills ,Grabe&Kaplan(1996,p.

3 29)pointoutthat"L2writingresearchstrongl yfollowsEnglishL1[firstlanguage]writingr esearch," L2 writ-ingpedagogyand,ingeneral,in L2writingresearch, (NNS) Writing ,grammaticalaccuracyplays negativeimpactonthenativespeaker(NS)perc eptionsofthequalityofL2writing(Johns,199 7;Johnson&Roen,1989).Somestudiesreportth attoattainadvancedproficiencyin L2 writ-ing,learnersneedtoattendtogrammarin theirwriting,andthatL2peda-gogygenuinely concernedaboutlearnerproficiencyinwritin gneedstoincludetheteachingofrelevantL2gr ammar(Hammerly,1991).Specifi-cally,Fathm anandWhalley(1990) (1997)pointedoutthatmanyL2linguisticfeat ures,suchasverbinflectionsandusesoftense s, gram-marfeatures,theyneedtobecomeinstruc tionalfociwithina (Hinkel,1992,1997).Vaughn(1991)pointedou tthatinholisticassessmentofessays,incorr ectlyusedtensesoccupyaprominentplaceamon gthefactorsthatleadto ,ingeneral,ratersbelievethaterrorsinphra se-levelgrammar( Tenses ,morphology,andwor dform)aremoredetrimentaltotheoverallqual ityoftextthan,forexample, (1991),whoreviewedtheratingscalesandeval uationguidesofL2writingdevelopedby theBritishCouncilandusedwiththeMichiganE nglishLanguageAssessmentBattery, (Holten&Marasco,1998;Leki,1995;Ruetten,1 997).

4 However,becausesuchtextsusuallyseetheirg oalsasdevelopinglearners'writingflu-ency andrhetoricalskills, NNSgraduatestudents,SwalesandFeak(1994)i ndicatethatinacademicwriting,theusesofpa standpresenttensesneedtobeexplicitlytaug htbecauseinthecontextofacademicwriting, ,inabstracts,datadescriptions,summaries, purposestatements,andgeneralizationsthep res-enttenseis usuallyexpected, ,indescriptionsofparticularexperiments,s tudyfind-ings, casestudies,orpast-timeeventsusesofthepa sttensemay berequisite(Hinkel,1997).Overall,however ,althoughtheteachingoftensesisthesta-ple ofallgrammarteachingbooksin EFLandESLpedagogy,it isnotalwaysdirectlyconnectedtotenseuses , ,theteachingofgrammarhasnotchangedagreat dealdespitetheresearchpublishedinapplied linguisticsandtextanalysis(Ellis,chapter s2and9).

5 Traditionalapproachestogrammarpedagogyla rgelyconsistoftrainingintheinflectionalf ormsofEnglishverbtenseswiththeteacher'se xplanationsofwhenparticularformsoftenses areused, (e .g.,yesterday,fiveyears ago, next summer)thatrequirelearnerstoidentifythet imeframeforthesentenceanduseaparticularv erbform,congruentwiththetimemarkers,such as:Thetraffic situation------(get) worse every 'sbirthday(be) Friday, so we'd better buy her agift.(Thewlis,1997, , 238,respectively)AlthoughmanyL2learnersb ecomequiteskilledinidentifyingtheadverbs suppliedinpractically allexercisesentences,theyoftendonotassoc iatetheirexplicitand/orimplicitknowledge oftenseusesattainedingrammarclasses withotherlanguageproductiontasks,suchasw riting(Hinkel,1997).Forexample,thefollow ingexcerptin (1) waswrittenby anonnativespeakerwhohadreceivedsevenyear sofESLtrainingintheUnitedStatesandwasone yearawayfromgraduatingfroma university:(1 ) In myculture, 'thavetherightto talkbackevenwhenweknowwhatth weneededto dowasto sitthereandlistentothem.

6 ,-/184 HINKELIn thisparagraph, , , inthefollowingexamplethetenseshiftscanac tuallyobscurethemeaningin apaperonthesocioeconomicinfluenceondemog raphics,writtenby agraduatingsenior:(2)Earlymarriageis verycommonin ,youngcou plesgotmarriedintheirtwenties, a n d this istimewhentheyarestill h ayoungmarriedcouple to livea ttheirparents'houseaftertheygotmarried,o rifparentsarewealthyenough,theybuya napartmentfortheirch ild re n .Inthisexcerptit may bedifficultto tellwhethertheNNSauthordiscussesthesitua tionas itexistedjustbefore"thecollapseofcommuni sm"oras itexistsnow, ,thewriter's useofthepasttenseis justified, ,ifshedescribesthecurrentsituation,thent heshiftstothepasttenseseemto NNS writ-ing,theuseofappropriatetensesoftena ppearsto be apervasiveproblemthatcanresultinconfusin gtextandnarrativestructure(Guiora,1983; Rid-dle,1986).

7 However,McCarthy(1991)andLewis(1986)argu ethattheusesandmeaningofEnglishtensesinw ritingareconventionalizedto ,theypointoutthattheusesoftensesinwritte ntextarenotsomuchdeterminedbytheobjectiv etimeinwhichtheeventstakeplace,butmoreso ,however,thatevenadvancedlearners(asthea uthorsofthetwoexcerptsalreadygiven) , a varietyofapproachescanbeused, ( , thisvolume)pointsout,rudimentsofdiscours eanalysiscan beemployedforteachingvariousgrammarstruc turesanddevelopingteachingmaterialsandex amplesbasedonauthenticlanguageuse inbothspokenandwrittenEnglish. ,II\IThischapterpresentsanapproachtothet eachingoftensesthatcentersonanalysesofau thentictexts tohelplearnersdevelopfamiliaritywiththen otionofacontextualframeanditsconventions in ,hence, ,basedongrammardiscoverytasks (Ellis, 1997.)

8 , this vol-ume),allowslearnerstoexaminehowtense sar ,becausethesediscoverytasks relyonauthenticlanguage, ,thepedagogicalgoaloflearners'noticingth econtextinwhichparticularusesoftensesocc uris toenhancelearnerawarenessandunderstandin gofhowcohesivetextcanbesituatedandmainta inedin innewspaperarticlesandacademicwritinghas dif-ferences,therearepedagogicallyuseful similarities,forexample,thetenseuse inspotnewsresemblesthatinhumanitiesandso cialsciences,andthetemporalframesinscien tificreportingaresimilartothoseintechnic alandnaturalsciencedisciplines(geology, meteorology,andbiology)(Biber,1988, 1995).Theadvantageofemployingnewspaperar ticlesintheteach-ingoftensesandtimeframe sisthatusuallydiscourseinnewspapersis lex-ically,syntactically, ,accessiblein , scientificfindings,businessanalyses,andr eviewsofbooksandmoviesareeasy toobtain(forexample,fromtheInternet), isunlikelythatexamplesofallthetensescanb efoundinmostnewspapertexts,examplesofthe pastandpresenttensesabound,andthesetense sarecommoninacademicwrit-ing(Biber,1988; Swales,1990).

9 IDENTIFYINGCOMMONTIME FRAMESINAUTHENTICWRITINGM anypracticingEFL/ESLteachersknowthatadve rbialmarkers(ortimeadverbs)areusuallye m p loye d , lac e bothin theprese n t an dthepast,butonly th e pasttimeoftheeven t isre leva n ttoth e discourseframe:(3) Nearly71percentof women [college students]wereat l east somewhatconcernedaboutfinancing their collegeeducation, per-cen tof . About38percent of womenreportedthey frequen tly"[eliover-whelmed," compared with percen tof men .(Seattle Times,J anua ry 25,1999)In thisexam p le, it isim p o rt antto notethatth e useofthep asttense verbmarke rsdo esnotim p ly thatth e information inth e text isnotapplica ble toth ,thewritten discourseconventionrequiresthatth e tenseu seis consis te n tthroughout th e contextual fra m e.]

10 It is notkn own whetherth edi fferen cesbetweenm e n an d womena p p ly tothepresenttim ebecauseth etextis framedforthepasttime;h en ce,th e pastte nse of the ve rbs is lytaughtthat inmost cases,thetense swithinthecontex tualframe rarely shi f tuntilanotheradve rb ialmarke ris employedto warranttheshift a n d reframe th e di ch in g, a gooda n alogym aybetocompareth e semar kerstomovie flashbackswhenthesto ry line switchesfro m the p r esentto thep as t (or leaps several years for-ward) .Example sforchangingtim e fram esa re commoninwrittendis-courseandcanse rve as po in tsofdepartureforte xt an a lysisa n dmodelsfo r com positio scourse , tim e framesare usuallymarkedby meansofpast-timeadverbialso r p ast tenseverbalinflections.