Teaching Spanish Grammar: Effective Contextual Strategies

HISPANIA (2008) 91,2: 428-434Teaching Spanish Grammar:Effective Contextual StrategiesAileen DeverQuinnipiacUniversityTo increase the accuracy of writing and speaking skills, students need to understand how to use thecontext.language by learning the basic parts of speech and observing grammatical structures in a meaningfultoThis article illustrates how proverbs, poetry, and songs provide practical waysfor teachers of Spanishshowcasethe language in action and constitute a source of lively, thought-provoking discussionsin the classroom, as students also acquire new vocabulary.Abstract:Key Words:grammar, poetry, proverbs,songs,speaking,teaching,translation, vocabularyWhile passing by the libraryphotocopy machine lastDecemberteach Spanish, I overheard two Spanish instructorstalking.acquisition,writingin the college where I"Do you know what Santa calls his littlehelpers?" one of them asked."Mom and Dad?" the other said."Subordinateclauses,"wasthe reply.While watching winter snows melt to gentle greens, I have reflectedmany times on thatbriefexchange, confident that students taking a foreign language are among a privileged few whohave ever heard of subordinate clauses. Foreign-language students are part of theminority whounderstand the linguistic significance of article, mood, number, person, tense, and other suchcommongrammaticalconcepts.Evidently littletime is spent in our day on grammar inEnglish classes, both inhigh schoolsand colleges, emphasizing equally importantmaterial such as vocabulary acquisition, reading,and expository writing practice. Knowing the system by which a language functions leads to anatural understanding of good writing and speaking skills. Yet students are learning thoroughlythe essentials of English grammar and the eight basic parts of speech in foreign-languageclasses, because grateful students admit this tome each semester.Most of us who teach 100level Spanish in college as a core requirement have had the uncomfortable and somewhatdisturbing experience of asking students to define a noun and thenwaiting for one tentative,shaky hand to appear. And asking students to define a pronoun or an adverb brings alarmedsilence as students trydesperately not tomeet my eye in thehope of not being asked. Apparentlythe only studentswith solid backgrounds ingrammar are thosewho have taken foreign languagein high school. Most other students have never heard of the subjunctive mood and learnwithsurprise that italso exists inEnglish, although theyuse itall the time.1The teaching of grammar has become an increasingly important function of the foreignlanguage teacher, a functionundertaken because we realize that the ability towrite and speakcorrectly is critical to the future job success of our students and are aware that through theteaching of grammar, students learn how to create new sentences out of old ones. When I teachthe indicative perfect tenses, for example, it is not uncommon for students, even naturally brightones, to translate erroneously he corrido as "I have ran" or he ido as "I have went." At a job"TeachingSpanishGrammar:EffectiveHispaniaDever, AileenContextualStrategies"428-43491.2 (2008):

429TeachingSpanish w,very high translation;perfectrely heavilyteachingSpanishemphasizeboth Spanish and English theperfect tenses express time relationships. Having students discusshypothetically what they have done to prepare formy surprise party usually brings someinteresting replies but consequently students understand how this tense exists in time. Inlearning language acquisition, meaningfulness derives from context. Similarly, studentsunderstand clearly that sentences containing subordinate clauses beginning with si necessitate theuse of the imperfect subjunctive when the main-clause verb is in the conditional if theythemselves have to create sentences about what theywould do iftheywere rich.The accuracy ofstudent translations and willingness to speak in Spanish willspecific context inwhich touse grammatical structures.increase when students have aGiven their linguistic lacunas, however, many beginning students find themselves initiallyat suchnonplussedas adv.,abbreviationsgrammaticaladj.,s., v. followingthe pronunciationofmain-entry words in theirEnglish-Spanish dictionaries. Until students can better grasp grammarand can use a dictionary properly, they often translate literally, sometimes quite humorously,when writing compositions. My students have produced compositions with overly literalgemsglitteringwith lexical and grammatical originality.Culled froman endless listare examples below,accompanied bymy liberal translations:1.Estoybuena.Estoymulta.'(I m well.F m fine. )Soy un ventilador de losMets. Yo reloj lospartidos con mis relativos. Mi favoritopresente para mi cumplea?os de nueve a?os es unmurci?lago de b?isbol. (I'm a fan oftheMets. Iwatch the games with my relatives. My favorite birthday present when Iturnednine years old was a baseball bat.)3. Mi deporte es huellas. (My sport is track.)4. El ?rbol de Navidad mira muy bueno en la sala de vida. (The Christmas tree looks very2.good in the living room.)5.roturaLade primavera.(Springbreak.)6. Nos vestimos para arriba. (We dress up.)7. Mis padres tienen tres cabritos. (My parents have threekids.)8. Mi padre tieneproblemas con su secretaria. Pero es bienporque mi padre est? encimade ella. (My fatherhas problems with his secretary.But it's okay because my father ison top of it.)Such student translators clearly fail to distinguish between adjectives, adverbs, nouns, andverbs. Those beginning students who use computer software to translate from English toSpanish are easily recognized by translations thatvary from quite sophisticated at times to aliteral and meaningless hodgepodge of the original English.To reinforce grammar and vocabulary presented in a lesson,many otherwise good Spanishtextbooks require students to translate sentences or littledialogs thatare as dry as theAtacamaDesert, such as the following:"Are you going to take us to themovies, Miss Martel?""Yes,I always"Butyou"Yes,lam.seem"2take youveryto the movies""on Saturdays.tired.I used to concentrate for days on grammar and translation, therewould inevitably be thatbrave (or incredulous) soul who would finally ask me, with a frown, "Do they [Spanish people]really talk like this?"What that studentwas actually asking was whether Spanish speakers express themselves in such a stilted,precise, and boring way? Because some undergraduates takeonly one language class as theirmajors don't permitmore during their tightfour-year schedule,When

430Hispania 91May 2008foreign-language teachers know thatwe have a limited time to prove theworth and expressivebeauty of the Spanish language.As teachers of Spanish, we realize thatwe must seek that very delicate balance betweenteaching the structureof the language and making it so alien, soforeign, so disconnected fromtangible reality that students lose interest.By focusing too rigidly on grammar and translationwithout providing context, learning Spanish becomes as meaningless to some students asdrawing up blueprints for a magnificent home built in a vacuum. Obviously, many middle andhigh schools as well as colleges and universities lack state-of-the-art language laboratoriescomplete with sophisticated computers as study aids that provide grammar and speakingpractice capable of connecting students to Spanish speakers around the globe. However, otherways to provide a meaningful context for students are just as effective. Indeed, our oftencomputer-sawy studentswho have been members of the latch-key generation may actuallyprefer thatwe rather than a machine engage them.Proverbs, poetry, and popular songs provide an excellent context for students of all ages inwhich to reinforce the teaching of grammar.3They showcase grammar in amemorable form thatfacilitates student learning and also furnishnumerous opportunities formeaningful discussion.Both the grammarmethod and the spokenmethod are effective in language-learning but the twoin combination seem towork best. Derived appropriately from theLatin lingua, sometimes thehardest part of our job is actually to get students to use their tongues, to speak Spanish which iscrucial if they are actually to absorb the language. Incorporating proverbs, poetry, and songsinto daily lessons helps in coaxing students to speak Spanish by engaging the students' attention intellectually and emotionally. Another advantage of using proverbs, poems, and songsthe almost effortless acquisition ofwith beginning and even intermediate students?besidesnew vocabulary?isthat the wisdom, ideas, themes, passion and artistry enclosed in thosewords humanize the teacher in the students' eyes. The teacher no longer seems so removed fromthe problems, concerns, and attitudes of human beings generally. Furthermore, students ofHispanic background (although not all speak Spanish fluently) often connect culturallywith thecontent and offervaluable insights frompersonal experience.Anyone who has taught Spanish for a few years can anticipate the grammatical pitfalls forbeginning students including verb conjugations, uses of the definite article, possessiveadjectives,objectpronouns,ser vs.estar,the preteritvs.thethe subjunctiveimperfect,vs.theindicative, appropriate structures tomake comparisons and so on.4 Since the best chance ofcapturing and focusing students' attention is at the beginning of the class, my technique is tobegin by writing a proverb or a few lines from a poem or song on the board. Together the classrepeatsafter mefor pronunciationpractice.5Thenas wetranslate,weexaminethe grammar.Next,inhis or her own words a student explains themeaning, which is sometimes figurative. Lastly wediscuss together related topics suggested by the proverb, poem or song. This process typicallylasts eight to tenminutes and effectively shifts the students' minds from the English-speakingworld to that of Spanish. Assiduously, the students copy down the new lines into their notebooks. Some teachers may offer extra points to studentswho memorize a certain number ofproverbs, poems or songs for a test. Some proverbs used successfully inmy classes include:1. El tiempo vuela. Vocabulary: volar. Grammar: definite article used with abstract noun;can provide other examples of stem-changingstem-changing verb (o-ue)?studentsverbs. Conversation topics: ?Qui?n tiene un reloj de caja en su casa que dice "Tempusfugit"? Comparen la puntualidad en este pa?s y en otros.2.Veres creer.Vocabulary:ver. Grammar:Topics: ?Quieren Uds.?En qui?nes creemos?Conversationprofesora?3.Mientrasen casaestoy,rey soy. Vocabulary:infinitiveusedas noun;useof verbsiempre ver sus ex?menes o se fianmientras.Grammar:useser.delaof ser and estar,use of preposition. Conversation Topics: ?Qui?n es el rey (o la reina) en su casa? ?Laidea de ser rey de la propia casa ha sido verdad siempre en Espa?a o en los pa?ses