Teaching grammar through community issues

Abstract

In recent years, ELT researchers have begun exploring how teachers can link their lessons to student communities and student concerns; however, little attention has been given to the potential for explicit grammar focus in the context of such approaches. In this paper, it is proposed that language lessons structured around local issues and concerns can be successfully linked to explicit grammar focus; furthermore, it is argued that such lessons have the potential to raise students' awareness of critical issues in the world around them and to help them understand how ideologies and viewpoints can be expressed through grammatical choices. In order to highlight these points, the author relates one of his own lessons in which a grammar point—the passive voice—was taught in the context of a local concern—an on-campus labour dispute.