Teaching Grammar to Young Learners: A Functional Approach Example

Abstract

Grammar has played a central position in language teaching and it has been changing significantly for the past few decades. At the era of post-method, teachers can select various classroom procedures and language content to meet the communication needs of the learners. One frequent question that teachers ask is how to teach grammar to young learners. Some argue that young learners should be exposed to a natural language environment and acquire language through activities. Others propose that explicit teaching of grammar is necessary for learners in non-native language environment. The controversies put language teachers in a challenging situation of continuously identifying what and how to teach. This paper focuses on some design principles for grammar teaching to young learners and classroom examples to support teachers’ decisions in applying functional grammar effectively to young learners in Vietnamese contexts. It first critically examines theoretical controversies in grammar teaching, young learners, and the learning contexts. Then it presents examples of classroom activities as illustrations.