Whether your approach to grammar is to
drill it incessantly, explain it thoroughly and/ or hope students will pick it
up through exposure to the language, unless you know a magic method that is not
explained in any of the popular TEFL books you must have had at least one
student who after 6 years of English study still occasionally says "My father
have..." and makes you wonder briefly if you know what you are doing in the
classroom at all. The bad news is that I don't have that magic formula either,
but the good news is that I have found that examining why students continue to
make the same errors despite our best efforts can help you make little steps in
the right direction and give a sense of perspective.
Possible
reasons why students keep on making the same mistakes
1. They are not ready yet
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that
language learners, like native speaker children, pick up grammar points and
stop making mistakes with them in a very predetermined order. For example,
third person s mistakes (I do/ he does) tend to persist in both. If this is the
problem (if indeed you think of it as a problem), the only solution is
patience!
2. They don't realise it's the same grammar
Although you may be surprised when students
who have finally stopped saying "He has to goes" still say "He must goes" because
both should be infinitives, it may be that the students consciously or
subconsciously don't put the two pieces of grammar together as one. The best
solution would be to work on making the points as closely associated in
students' heads as possible, e.g. doing a lesson on all uses of infinitives, teaching
a very general rule, or even pairing questions up where they have to fill the
gaps in pairs of sentences with the same word.
3. They are overloaded
If the students are making elementary
errors with something they usually don't, it could be because their brains are
busier than usual with other things, e.g. coping with the rules of the language
game, digesting the latest language point, sorting out a logic or problem
solving puzzle, or concentrating on another point like their pronunciation. Learning
to cope with many different demands on the brain at the same time is a good
thing, as it is what you need to do with the language in real life, but make
sure all language input and correction are left to a time when they can
concentrate on the language more.
4. They are overusing one point for good reasons
In both native and non-native speakers, the
process of learning a new grammar point seems to often include a period of
overextending its use. For example, even people who know the Simple Past well
will start using the Past Perfect in situations they would have used (correctly)
the Simple Past until the day they studied the new tense . Apart from
understanding that this is part of the process and being patient, ways to
tackle this could be to give them lots of controlled practice of the new
grammar point, come back to the original grammar point they confuse it with a
few weeks or months later, and concentrate on correcting one area of confusion
at a time.
5. They are having a bad day
Anyone who has ever lived in a foreign
country can tell you there are days when all your language skills seem to
disappear. Again, this is something they will need to be able to cope with eventually.
Apart from trying to take away their tiredness and take their minds of their
troubles by giving them something easy to do or doing a physical warmer, maybe
the best approach is just to be less demanding on that day. This is also a good
opportunity to practice your skills in spotting the difference between little
slip ups they would usually get right and are probably best ignored on "one of
those days", and things they really don't know that are more worth some
correction and explanation.
6. They don't think that grammar point is important
Consciously or subconsciously, native and
non-native speakers tend to put a low priority on stopping mistakes with language
that does not convey a lot of information- i.e. if they can make that mistake
and still be understood putting more effort into it can wait until later. This
natural reaction can actually be a sign that they are right and you should move
quickly on from the Present Simple to giving them the stacks of vocabulary they
will need to reach the next level. There is a chance, though, that they are
just missing the way in which they could be misunderstood. The general
principle here is to include possible misunderstandings in all error
correction. If you can't do so, maybe that is a sign that grammar point can
wait until later.
7. That point is more difficult for them than it seems
The reason why students pick up some
grammar points more quickly than the teacher expects and others more slowly is
often connected to their first language, e.g. confusions between different uses
of similar forms or grammatical forms that don't have an equivalent in L1. Even
teachers who know the language the students speak can be miss out on particular
aspects of this, such as students who speak a particular dialect or different language
at home, or grammatical forms that only educated speakers of that language
would be familiar with. Responses to this include rearranging the syllabus to
leave more difficult points for particular students until later, concentrating
on the particular areas of difficulty they have when the time comes, and
approaching the same grammar point several different ways with gaps in between
to let their subconscious get to work.
8. It's an attempt to be informal
It may be that in the student's native language
grammatical forms are dropped when they are speaking informally, in a similar
way to "No way!" or "Long time no see" in English. Common examples that
students sometimes reproduce in English include dropping the subject or using a
different tense. Although this is usually subconscious, it can be reinforced by
the language they hear in English pop music and in certain English dialects. Depending
on their level, you might be able to do a lesson on substituting these with informal
forms we really do use or even doing a whole lesson on the more general
grammatical changes between informal speech and formal speech or writing.
9. Accuracy is not their priority
Again, there is a chance they are right on
this one and teaching them how to express something they couldn't at all with a
new grammatical form, new vocabulary, or new functional language might be
better than spending more time trying to root out basic errors. If, however, you
think lack of accuracy is the main reason they are not being understood, are
not ready for the next level, cannot transfer speaking skills into writing
skills or will do badly on a test, it is worth letting them know. Clearly
showing what effect mistakes can have on communication with dialogues with
communication breakdowns etc can also help.
10. They just have that kind of personality
Just as it is no surprise when some
perfectionists become obsessive about getting their sentences right, there are
some people whose outgoing nature, slapdash character or hyperactive speaking
style just seems to make it difficult for them to stop for a minute and pay
attention to what they are saying. Although this is not the only example of a
situation when students' language skills could be best improved by them
changing their personality, this is no easier to do here than in any other
case! Ways to get them to concentrate on accuracy more include making error
correction fun with grammar auctions etc, giving them an easy speaking task
they only need simple language for and can't get distracted from, and forcing
them to slow down to speak to someone who is a lower level (either in reality
or by their partner playing that role).
