Positioning Language Learners as Cultural Informants: Innovative Grammar Activities from Two Different EFL Settings
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Most EFL classrooms focus on building students’ grammatical accuracy by learning rules and demonstrating mastery of form through exam-oriented assessments, rather than building fluency in the language by applying grammar in communication to make meaning. Moreover, grammar instruction is often rooted in materials that lack relevance to students’ interests and lives outside the classroom. In this article, we draw upon our experience teaching grammar in diverse EFL settings to share four innovative grammar activities successfully used to engage university students in communication by situating the grammar in communicative contexts within students’ local cultures. These innovative grammar activities from South Korean and Iraqi EFL classrooms enhance student accuracy and fluency by focusing on both form and meaning. They are centered on high-interest topics and student-generated visuals to cultivate a highly social, interactive classroom environment to nurture language learning. For each activity, we walk through the tasks and provide materials and sample student work to illustrate their pedagogical and cultural significance. La plupart des classes d’anglais langue étrangère (ALE) se concentrent sur l’amélioration de la précision grammaticale des apprenants en leur apprenant des règles et en s’attendant à ce qu’ils démontrent leur maîtrise de la forme par le biais d’évaluations axées sur les examens, plutôt que sur l’amélioration de la fluidité en utilisant la grammaire afin de produire du sens dans des situations de communication. De plus, l’enseignement de la grammaire se fait souvent à l’aide de matériel pédagogique qui manque de pertinence par rapport aux intérêts et à la vie des élèves en dehors de la salle de classe. Dans cet article, nous nous appuyons sur notre expérience de l’enseignement de la grammaire dans divers contextes d’ALE pour partager quatre activités grammaticales innovantes utilisées avec succès pour engager des étudiants universitaires dans la communication en situant la grammaire dans des contextes communicatifs au sein de leurs cultures locales. Ces activités grammaticales innovantes issues de classes d’ALE sud-coréennes et irakiennes améliorent la précision et la fluidité des étudiants en se concentrant à la fois sur la forme et le sens. Elles sont centrées sur des sujets très intéressants et des visuels produits par les étudiants afin de favoriser un environnement social et interactif propice à l’apprentissage des langues. Pour chaque activité, nous expliquons les tâches et fournissons du matériel et des exemples de travaux d’élèves pour illustrer leur importance pédagogique et culturelle.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.012 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".