Universidad Veracruzana

LICENCIATURA EN LENGUA INGLESA

Teaching Grammar:
The Causative


Adriana Gmez Quintanar
Mariel Guzmn Snchez
Jos Jaime Flores Jcome

ENSEANZA APRENDIZAJE DEL INGLS


Report
Teaching grammar: The Causative

Introduction

The aim of this report is to describe our choice of topic, target audience and
activities for the grammatical point The Causative form. Comments about the
different suggestions made in class on which changes could be made in order
to improve the lesson are going to be included. More over, considerations on
how to teach the same topic to different age groups will be discussed.

Topic

The causative includes many constructions with four words: have, get, let and
make. However, there are minimal changes of meaning depending of the form,
which may cause confusion among the students if presented all of them at once.
Thus, our choice was to teach the basic form with have and get in the
following construction:

Have + something + done
Get + something + done


These constructions indicate that one person causes one thing or person to do
something. Besides, there is an additional emotional meaning that implies
embarrassment or regret depending on the situation. It also should be
highlighted that one of the differences between have and get is that the
former is formal, and the latter is informal thus, more common in spoken
language.

These basic forms are considered as an intermediate topic or level B1
according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(CEFRL).

Target audience

Among the three options that were given (teenagers, young adults and adults),
it was decided to work with young adults. There are two main reasons for this
choice.

First of all, a determinant factor was the closeness of age with the people
enrolled in B.A. programme. For the purpose of the activity the range of age
was considered to be between 18 and 25. Given that this is the authors current
context, the approach to this kind of students seemed to be easier to achieve.

Secondly, it is widely believed that young adults have a genuine intrinsic
motivation which would mean that they are not being forced to attend English
classes. This is the main difference between the chosen group and teenagers,
who may not be willing to cooperate or may not be interested in the learning
process. As for the adults group, they are difficult to handle in the sense that
they might not be open to actively participate in the activities.

Method and Activities

The method that was used to convey the information was the PPP
(Presentation, Practice and Production). This was decided to be the best option
because it is said to be the most common and easiest to use and adapt since it
follows the logical order of progression from theory to practice.

In the first stage, the students were presented the structure accompanied with
an example, followed by a brief explanation of the causatives use. This was
done with the purpose of raising awareness of the difference between the
normal speech and the causative one.

The second stage consisted of various examples of
real life in order to familiarise the learners with the
new structure. Visual aid was implemented so as
they would retain the newly acquired information
faster. Differences between the formal construction
with have and the informal one with got were also explained.

In the third stage, according to the PPP method focuses on production. For
practical purposes, the activities were not implemented during the class due to
the lack of time. Therefore, two possible activities were suggested. Both
activities were intended to develop the speaking skill through the use of the
causative.

The first one consisted of asking the students to imagine they were billionaires.
With this in mind, they would use the causative to say what they would want to
be done for them.

The second task involved two steps: first, the students were asked to think of
what chores or tasks they considered to be the most boring ones. The second
step was to create causative sentences based on the previous answers.

Potential changes

Since the reported activity was only a simulation and explanation on how this
grammatical point should be taught. There was almost no interaction with the
students and the activities stated above were not carried out during the class
due to the lack of time. However, some suggestions were made because of that.

Regarding the lack of interaction, the following is suggested. In a real class, the
learners would be asked to read aloud the examples and definitions so as to
keep their attention focused on the topic. Additionally, they would be asked if
they have any doubts throughout the lesson and before the exercises.

It was also pointed out that the last proposed activity could be performed at the
beginning of the lesson. This would not correspond anymore to the selected
method (PPP). This would mean that the method should be changed to the
EEE (Exploration, Explanation and Expression). Yet, this could be considered
also for changing the activity for a different target audience, which will be
discussed in the following section.


Adaptation for different groups

In the case of teenagers, as stated above the EEE method may work better with
them. They should be introduced to the subject by first asking them a question
related to the topic (the causative in this case). In this way, they would infer
some parts of the grammatical structure at the same time they get acquainted
with it.

For the adults group, the ESA method (Engage, Study and Activate) seems to
be a useful tool to approach to them. As they need to apply the structures they
are learning to real life, this method is suitable for practising the language they
already know and apply the new structure in context.