Grammar for learners with poor narrative skills

Grammar for Learners with poor narrative skills

Mubarak Abdessalami

Grammar for learners with poor narrative skills

M. Abdessalami 2

Table of contents

Forward ------------------------------------------------------------- 3

Teaching writing via grammar lessons ---------------------------- 4

Part I

The simple past tense

What happened? ---------------------------------------------------- 5

The past simple from discrete sentences to narration ------------ 6

Part II

The past continuous tense

What was happening? ---------------------------------------------- 7

The past progressive from grammar to Narration ---------------- 9

Implementation ----------------------------------------------------- 9

Students’ sample writings ----------------------------------------- 11

Part III

The past perfect: Simple & progressive

Sequence of events ----------------------------------------------- 15

Illustration --------------------------------------------------------- 16

Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------- 17

Key words: writing, narration, past tenses, simultaneity, sequence

of events, recount, cohesion, coherence, unity of the topic, connectives,


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Forward

Narration is a skill which needs a relatively high scale in language

manipulation and communication abilities. Like everyone else, the teenagers are also fervently keen on recounting their past experiences, telling tales, and making up stories especially in a foreign language to share with people from other cultures. Yet, they are frustrated as the use and usage of language is an eminent obstacle hard to overcome overnight. Consequently they give in and never try again. What a loss!

As these same learners love grammar classes so much, I’ve thought of

teaching them narrative writing through grammar. I mean teaching the past tenses for the sake of paving the way for them to break the silence barrier and tell what they have to tell. I suppose when they learn the past tenses, they will be able to make use of them to tell about past events in a clearly well-organized and comprehensible way.

Teaching grammar for the sake of writing purposes is more beneficial for the

learners who have a lot of ideas, vocabulary and expressions and are eager to exploit them to improve their narrative skills. Therefore, why not teaching them the tenses in contexts to take as models to copy and then gradually try to write their own texts. This has greatly facilitated using English for them to come up with exciting recount writings?

In this first part, I’ll concentrate on how to make possible exploiting teaching the past simple tense to enjoin the students to write about their personal deeds some time in the past, last night, yesterday, last week(end), last month, last summer holiday, last year and so on.

The combination of the simple past and the past progressive in accurate

grammatical and semantic structures can result in astonishing stories provided that the imagination is fertile and the vocabulary repertoire is relatively rich, hence the gate for inventing fictitious stories becomes possible. The students need to master the use of the tenses in addition to some linking words such as “when”, “ while”, “ before” and “after” to focus only on these four in this stage.

Teaching compound sentences describing actions in the past is better done

through simultaneity showing that two or more actions happened or were happening at the same time. Later on they could learn to use the past perfect and the simple past to set chronology about actions in the past using more connectives apart from “before and “after”, like “as soon as”, “no sooner .. than”, “by the time”, “x days/months/years later” and so on.

The learners get motivated because all that they need is to surmount the

obstacle of describing simultaneous actions or sequencing events in the past. This measure is crucial to allow them to recount their experiences or share what happened to them or describe events for the sake of informing, entertaining or reflecting. Grammar thus can be successfully employed to target and boost the learners’ narrative skills and communicative competence.


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Teaching writing via grammar lessons

Most students have the false conviction that grammar is to be learnt exclusively for grammar tests, few of them only are aware that grammar is basically learned to help them write well for classroom work as well as for real life situations. Writing for most of them is just learning some old fossilised writing models and do the same, that’s why most of them should obligatorily ask a question in their introduction to answer in the core of the writing. They are used to that with philosophy tests. So what if the core doesn’t answer the question despite the fact that it is well-written?!

Writing doesn’t stand alone, it is an amalgamation of lots of language skills, starting with syntactically and semantically accurate statements to end in good punctuation check and in the midway between the extremities there are several other elements to carefully take care of before, while and after writing, and without them the writing could simply be rejected completely. In writing, every little mistake is unpardonable, spelling, word-order, tenses, pronouns, prepositions, Capitalisation, punctuation, and even indentation is part of the writing skill.

When the teacher could persuade the learners that grammar lessons are taught

to boost their writing skills, they’ll gradually understand that writing is only eligible when its grammatical syntactic structures are accurate. Teaching grammar for writing is to be focused upon by exploiting the grammatical lesson either through a short paragraph dictation or sentence unscrambling or subsequently through a writing assignment.

Writing a narrative text is never to be successful and enjoyable unless its tense

concordance is given much attention. Narration relies fundamentally on the good use of tenses especially the past tenses. Once the learners get aware of the tight connection between grammar (in this case, the past tenses lessons) and writing a narrative essay, they’ll perceive grammar from another angle. They would consider going from discrete sentences into a range of sentences which tell something meaningful in its totality (a recount, a tale, a story, a fable, an anecdote etc).

The students’ conception of the connection between grammar and writing is

blurring. They need to feel that connection in practice, and that’s the role of the teacher. Writing is never taught by itself except for the genre, either it is a letter, a report, a review, an essay or a narrative, but for the content, there is a series of intermingled lessons which the learners have to assemble in one entity to be able to make one … writing.

The narrative essay particularly requires passing through mastering the past tenses. The past tenses lessons are grammar lessons par excellence, so the teachers could teach writing through teaching and testing grammar lessons which the students prefer best. Allergic to the printed word as they are, the learners of this technological age will readily start discovering the sensation of being able and proud to accomplish a task which has until recently been totally archaic for them.


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Part I: The simple past tense

What happened?

The simple past tense is dedicated to storytelling par excellence. Its particularity dwells in its ability to define and describe an action or a series of actions which happened, lasted and ended in the past. It also describes habits in the past, and for this purpose it often calls on “used to” phrase very so often to emphasise the reoccurrence of the action for precision. In a word, though the past tense simple is crowded with tiny detailed components like adverbs of time and other signifiers (yesterday, last night, last week, x days ago etc), this tense is the most appropriate to teach narrative writing through grammar lessons.

The simple past is the tense generally used for the relation of past events which have terminated at a given time before now. Most of the verbs, referred to as regular verbs, which the learners could use to describe completed actions in the past have no inflexion (i.e. the same form is used for all persons), and this helps a lot.

1. I played 2. He watched 3. They arrived 4. etc

After learning how regular verbs are formed, the teacher starts introducing and inducing some of the very current common irregular verbs. It is expected from learners to make generalization mistakes with such verbs, and you can see things like, “He goed”, “She haved”. Only engaging exercises and quizzes can incite and force the learners to practice them to grasp them well,

do => did \ I did my homework last night go => went / I went to the cinema last week have => had \ I had breakfast two hours ago. eat => ate / I ate an apple early this morning. meet => met \ I first met my wife in 2011. buy => bought / I bought this smart phone a week ago.

Once the students learn the grammatical part of the lesson, and for intensification, the teacher can practice the tense by asking the students oral questions in a sort of interview like,

Q: Where were you last night? A: I was at home Q: What did you do? A: I revised my lessons. Q: What else did you do? A: I watched TV, played video games, and chatted with my friends on the net. Q: What did you have for dinner? A: I had spaghetti. Q: Did you stay up late? A: No, I didn’t. I went to bed early.


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In a second stage, individually, the students could express themselves in compound sentences such as

o Last night, I did my homework, and I revised my lessons. o This morning, I ate some cakes, but I didn’t drink any tea. o When we finished school yesterday, my friends and I went to the gym. o etc

The progress with the lesson runs this way in a slow pace until the students could

recount their past activities without being asked supporting questions. They have to use affirmative as well as negative forms.

The past simple from discrete sentences to narration

The above interview can be transformed into a short paragraph, the teacher has

to provide the students with connectives showing the sequence of actions, and all starts with it

Last night I was at home. I did several things. First, I revised my lessons, and I did my homework. Then, I had dinner with my parents and siblings. After that, I watched TV for one hour. Later, I played video games on my laptop and chatted with some friends on the net. Finally, I went to bed at about 10:30.

Once the students are capable of telling about past events, they can go further and write imaginary stories about themselves.

- Last year, I met up with an old friend of mine and … - Three weeks ago my brother had a strange experience … - The other day, my parents left me at home alone …

They can eventually tell tales, recount short sequences of events, and they can even describe what they saw in their dreams. With time this habit will be strengthened and will increasingly push them to keep diaries and start asking various questions about how to write about past events to maybe think about writing stories like professionals. They are to be advised to wait until they collect all the needed elements for a successful story, namely, the past progressive and the past perfect.

Once the learners have mastered the use of the simple past as a tense describing actions which started and finished in the past at a specific time (yesterday, last night, last week, last month, last year, in 2008, seven years ago and so on), they can easily shift to learn about how to describe actions which start at a given time in the past and have some duration.

Long writings often start with slight scribbles


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Part II: The past continuous tense

What was happening?

Introducing beginning learners to the past progressive, as a narrative tool, is never complete without showing how it could be used effectively but naturally with the simple past to emphasise abrupt simultaneous events in the past. However, the past progressive is not only used to express simultaneity, but to express different actions as well,

(1). To show gradual increase: when used without time adverbials. For example, “It was getting colder and colder.”

(2). To describe an action that began before a given point in time and probably continued after that. For instance, “At 7:30 the kid was getting ready for school”. (Getting ready for school started before 7:30 and probably continued until 7:55)

(3). To describe simultaneous actions like in a. “When the teacher came in, one of the kids was writing the date on the board”. b. “While the teacher was explaining the lesson, the kids were talking to each other”

(4). To combine narration and description as “The kids were sitting down peacefully doing their homework when suddenly, the lights went out”. When the past progressive is presented as a separate tense describing an action in progress at a given period of time in the past, the students can give as many examples as they wish. They only have to use all the verbs they know in a progressive form; but do their sentences really make sense? Do these discrete sentences urge them to be more creative? I don’t think so. Some verbs are never in the progressive form. Over-generalisation is expected from EFL learners anyway.

However, if the past continuous tense is introduced through the marvels of narrative styles, it will ignite the learners’ imagination and widen their scopes. As a result, the learners will be incited to think seriously about imagining and concocting extraordinary scenarios.

Now let’s start with the mechanical discrete sentences that have no effect on their productivity.

o Samira was singing in a loud voice. o The mechanic was fixing the car yesterday. o My parents were sleeping. o My grandpa was listening to the radio. o Last night I was not watching TV. o etc

So what?!

This is no more than a simple barren conjugation task converting the verbs they know into the continuous form respecting the following rule,


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The past tense of the verb to be (was/were) + the present participle.(verb+ing) The role of grammar ends here, but shifting to writing without transition makes the rigid lifeless sentences breathe. These discrete sentences have almost no or incomplete meaning alone. The listener must be expecting something else because the discourse sounds unfinished or stimulating curiosity about what happened or what else was happening at that moment. The speaker is required to say something else otherwise the simple past will do better.

o Samira sang in a loud voice. o The mechanic fixed the car yesterday. o My parents slept (early) o My grandpa listened to the radio. o Last night I didn’t watch TV. o etc

Anyone can easily wonder if there is something missing that those actions described previously need. Sometimes, they only need the adverb of frequency “always” to stress the fact that the frequently occurring past action is annoying, like in,

o Samira was always singing in a loud voice. (which irritated me) o My uncle was always calling me at work. (this was embarrassing for me) o My wife was always asking me to go shopping with her. (I didn’t like that) o My neighbours were always organizing parties. (that’s too much) In discrete sentences as such, the idea is conveyed complete. Now what if the adverb “always” is omitted,

o Samira was singing. (so…?!) o My uncle was calling me at work. (… and!?) o My wife was asking me to go shopping with her. (less deliberate action) o My neighbours were organizing parties. (Sooooo!?)

It is true that the effect of annoyance has suddenly vanished and so has the complaining tone, but the sentences become cut short and almost broken, and they seem to require some complimentary information to be legible.

Therefore, the use of the past progressive means that the speaker - implicitly- has the intention to tell about something else happened during or in accompaniment with the first action. Let’s go back to the former examples to see what lies beneath.

o Samira was singing when her father came in. o The mechanic was fixing the car while I was holding the torch. (as it was dark) o My parents were sleeping when my little brother started crying. o My grandpa was listening to the radio when he fell asleep. o etc Now I guess an eligible narrative context is created thanks to the use of simultaneity. Simultaneity brings some liveliness to the utterance and can make the reader suddenly interested especially if the sentences are somehow positively weird


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like showing coincidental happenings, irony or contradictions. The student never feels contained by grammar rules only, and tries to go beyond to discover the marvels of expressing oneself freely. In an advanced stage they might construct statements like,

Bob is such a silly boy. While his mother was preparing him something to eat, he was deranging her. The past progressive from grammar to Narration

Tricking the students into writing using what they have learnt about the past tenses (simple and progressive) becomes motivationally feasible and acceptable by the learners.

Just asking the students to complete the following sentences, is already a huge step towards deploying a grammar lesson to write something original. This exercise is paving the way to composing a recount writing, but gradually. It is an amalgamation of grammar testing and writing. However the basic aim is an incitation for the learners to concentrate more on writing taking grammar as a bridge to reach their purpose successfully. It is the gate for a grammatically accurate narrative paragraph calling for the learners’ resourcefulness and imagination. Implementation

/*/ Complete the following sentences

When I came back home last night, my father ____________________________________________________________ my mother ___________________________________________________________ my brother ___________________________________________________________ my sister _____________________________________________________________ the cats ______________________________________________________________ the dog ______________________________________________________________ When the students have finished the task, they are asked to write the sentences on the board. Generally, the final work would look something like this.

When I came back home last night,

my father was watching a football match on TV.

my mother was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

my brother was playing video games.

my sister was revising her lessons.

the cats were eating a fish.

the dog was barking.


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The students can link these discrete sentences to build up a narrative paragraph. Provide them with linking words such as, “while, whereas, and, but, as for” and so on.

The paragraph develops into the following.

When I came back home last night, my father was watching a football match

on TV, and my mother was preparing dinner in the kitchen. My sister was revising her

lessons whereas my brother was playing video games. As for the cats, they were

eating a fish; while the dog was barking at them.

Basically efficient learners could come out with better production, but it would be fair enough if the majority of students reach this level.

Grammar has become a bridge to far more important tasks notably communication. Isn’t that language?

Exploiting grammar to develop a recount paragraph into a narration always passes by this. After that the learners are enjoined to add some details (ornaments) to make their paragraphs grow profuse, funnier and more appealing for the reader. Here is a sample one,

When I came back home last night, my father was sitting on the armchair

watching a football match on TV and my mother was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

My sister was revising her lessons because she had a test whereas my brother was

playing video games on his mobile phone and chatting with some friends. As for the

cats, they were eating a fish; while the dog was barking at them because they didn’t

invite him.

I said it was a sample because some students can come out with better ones.

They have a fertile imagination, so all that they need are just the tools and mediums helping them to transmit the fictitious events they constantly live in virtually.

I personally came across very inspiring writings almost professional except for the disorder of ideas in their minds, the mistakes of over-generalization of rules learners commonly make like in “have => haved”*, the misuse of prepositions, the spelling mistakes etc. I bet if they have the opportunity and the persistence to know what they need to know and practice it regularly, they will soon be able to exteriorise their ideas astonishingly well.

Students’ Sample Writings

Here are random samples of students’ work. They were done in class as a quiz. I didn’t correct anything for you to see them in their original copy. Grammar has been recycled successfully, and chat “language” is almost discarded here at least. Their effort to improve their writing skill is apparent. That’s a triumph for both of the teacher and the learners.


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1.

2.

3.


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4.

5.


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6.

7.

8.


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This collection has been taken arbitrarily just to show the skills the learners have acquired from grammar lessons to use in their writings. As for the mistakes and errors this generation Y naturally makes, remedial work will help them get aware of them and will try to avoid them in the coming assignments. Practice makes perfect

Notice that these papers are done by students who are used to chatting on social networks, you know what I mean. It’s almost a miracle that they managed to overcome their signs, abbreviations, acronyms and the rest. They made mistakes, no doubt, but it’s far better than those signs they draw while texting. All in all, they have succeeded in converting grammar lessons into a work of value.


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Part III: The past perfect ‘Simple’ & ‘progressive’

Sequence of events in the past

What they miss now is how to express series of actions in the past. They need to know how to describe an action in the past which “had happened“ or “had been taking place” before or until another action “happened”. Once the students understand how to use the past perfect and the past perfect continuous, this means they can highlight the sequence of events perfectly well. The past perfect tense is great in narration for it shows which of two given past actions happened first.

The past perfect simple form

Subj + had + V3 She had seen the movie They had eaten all the food

(V3 = past participle of the verb)

The past perfect progressive form

Subj + had been + V+ing She had been watching the movie They had been eating a pizza

The past perfect can be referred to as the past of the past. Generally speaking,

any action set in the past perfect or past perfect progressive indicates that it had happened or had been happening in the past of another action in the past, i.e before another action in the past. For this reason, the students have to identify the appropriate connectives showing this succession, so they can use, Before => I had revised all my lessons before I sat for the exam Before I sat for the exam, I had (already) revised all my lessons

Until => The student had been waiting in silence until the teacher arrived.

When => Last night, I had been revising my lessons when the lights went off When the lights went off last night, I had been revising my lessons The illustration of the order of events is as follows

before Action in the past perfect � until / till � action in the simple past

when The same meaning can be expressed the other way around. That is to say, beginning with the action that “happened” after another one which “had happened” or “had been taking place” previously. After => Last night, I went to bed after I had finished my homework


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Last night, after I had finished my homework, I went to bed

As soon as => The thieves escaped as soon as they had seen the police As soon as they had seen the police, the thieves escaped As soon as the thieves had seen the police, they escaped

Because => They got sick because they had eaten too much last night

No sooner…than => No sooner had he finished the test than he went out. => He no sooner had finished the test than he went out.

The construction is always as shown below.

Action in the simple past � after � action in the past perfect because

as soon as no sooner than

N.B. For more details on the past perfect and the past perfect progressive check the following web pages

o http://eng43.tripod.com/ppt.html o http://www.angelfire.com/pro/eng43/ppp.html

Once the learners become able to situate the actions performed in the past and also can order them coherently and cohesively, the result will certainly be a great job. Suppose they master well the use and usage of all past tenses together, they could come out with a recount writing which resembles the following

With little elaboration, the short paragraph could grow to become a short “recount writing” or a very short “story”.

Illustration

The other night, when I got back home very tired, the house was in a real

mess. My brother, Ted, was standing on a stool in the hall. He was replacing the

lamp which had gone off a long time before while one of the neighbours was giving

him a hand. My father was in the living room. He was sitting down on the floor

trying to fix that old radio of his which his grandchildren had been playing with all

day long. My mother, on the other side, was shouting at the kids who had been

beating each other up because someone had hidden the remote control from them.

Whereas my younger sister, Danna, was in front of the mirror repeating the elocution

she was going to present at school the following day. As for the cats, they were

fighting over a dead stinky fish at the corner of the kitchen while Bobby, our crazy

dog, was jumping and barking at them hysterically. I suddenly realized that I had

just arrived at the worst moment an exhausted person could have a rest.


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Conclusion

We should never underestimate the power of a first mediocre writing; it is already referred to as “writing” despite its mediocrity. Most writings, if not all, start like that, don’t they? Big things often start imperceptible until they are there for everyone to become conscious about their existence. We should not neglect the hidden power of mediocre beginnings. Like seeds, they only need to be watered very so often.

To venture narrating without mastering the use and usage of the past tenses is quite chancy. It would generate ambiguity, and maybe the reader wouldn’t be able to follow you. The logical sequence and order of events in the past is what makes stories and tales worth appreciating and enjoying. The students with low narrative skills should unavoidably be familiar with some grammar. They must master the use of past tenses to be able to communicate and recount a story or a past experience in a cohesive manner easily and clearly.

Teaching grammar for the sake of writing is motivating for the learners. The rigid grammar rules swiftly turn to be fun. They become tame and friendly once the students realize that they are being learned for a tangible utility. The focus of the lesson shifts from constraints of grammar as such to the vast field of writing. When grammar is taught as a medium for something more significant, the students will enjoy learning it with enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is hardly triggered among technology addict learners today unless the teacher creates motivation for the students to get interested or else they would block you or simply “logout” and disconnect abruptly.

Grammar for learners with poor narrative skills

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