The 7Cs: A Pedagogical Framework for Grammar Teaching and Learning Deak Kirkham Milada Walkova BALEAP 2019, Leeds

Today’s journey Rationale: neither theory nor pedagogical resource: a pedagogical framework A quick overview of the 7Cs The 7Cs in action: the passive Next steps: applications, implications, limitations

Rationale Central question: What form might be a principled framework which underlies the teaching / learning of grammar take? theories of grammar pedagogical resources

Rationale Grammar theory attempts to explain the human capacity for the ‘grammatical’ aspects of language Generative Grammar (Chomsky 1956, 1965, 1995) Systemic-Functional Grammar (Halliday 1985, 1994) Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 1996, 2005) Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, Croft 2001, Ellis 2013) Emergent grammar (Hopper 1998)

Rationale Pedagogical resources attempt to support the learning / teaching of grammar Hewings (2005): Advanced Grammar in Use (2nd ed) Grammar as structures; presentation → exercises Swan (2016): Practical English Usage (4th ed) Grammar as structures; no exercises Thornbury (1999): How to Teach Grammar and (2005): Uncovering Grammar Teaching techniques

Rationale 7Cs is neither a grammar theory nor a a pedagogical resource per se 7Cs is a pedagogical conceptual framework for thinking about and doing the teaching / learning of grammar practitioner-oriented

Overview 1. Categories units of grammar, defined morpho-syntactically and semantically word classes, e.g. noun, verb phrases, e.g. noun phrase, adverb phrase 2. Components broad sentence architecture predicate, arguments (subject, object), adjuncts types of clauses

Overview 3. Semantic Concepts semantic features semantic roles definiteness, animacy… 4. Syntagmatic Combinations various types of adjacent syntagmatic phenomena chunks grammatical collocations

Overview 5. Connections relations between non-adjacent elements in a structure e.g. choice of relative pronoun depends on the head, e.g. the boy with flowers who/*which is smiling 6. Correlations systematic mappings between two (or more) structures e.g. nominalisation <-> clause, e.g. my reliance on <-> I rely on

Overview 7. Contexts pragmatic, information-structural, stylistic and contextual aspects of structure including contextual motivation for using certain forms formality rhetorical effect

7Cs in Action: Passive voice Categories Components Semantic Concepts Syntagmatic Combinations Connections Correlations Contexts MW takes over here

Categories Transitivity: noun phrase auxiliary verb(s) past participle of a lexical verb regular or irregular optional, variable, e.g. prepositional phrase The essay has to be submitted on Wednesday. The plenary was given by Professor Feringa. Transitivity: transitive verbs intransitive verbs, e.g. *What was happened?  copular verbs, e.g. *Mary was become a nurse. ditransitive verbs, e.g. The students were allocated a new room. / A new room was allocated to the students.

Components Subject argument: NP Predicate: Be + past participle Adjuncts: (adverbial) (by-PP) ^Other adverbials not part of the structure Penicillin  The student office was discovered was contacted (by Alexander Fleming) (^in 1928). (^promptly). Subject argument: Clause Anticipatory it Predicate: Be + past participle that Postponed clause It has been argued 7Cs is a suitable framework for teaching grammar.

Semantic concepts up to 3 event participants, e.g. A new room was allocated to the students by the student office. semantic roles: Agent: It has been argued by a number of scholars that... Cause: The financial crisis was caused by deregulation. Experiencer: The course was enjoyed by the students. Patient: The research subjects were tested... Theme: Irrelevant data was discarded.

Syntagmatic combinations passive: predicate modal V aux V adverb BE PAST PART The disease could have  been eliminated. Many articles on the topic will  yet be written. The theory might possibly misinterpreted.

Connections transitivity of the main verb subject-verb agreement:  An experiment was conducted to...  Several experiments involving detection of DNA were conducted to...

Correlations construction example Active voice construction The student office allocated a new room to the students. Reduced participle clause Contacted promptly, the student office dealt with the issue urgently.  Nominalisations The discovery of penicillin... Inanimate subjects with active verbs Table 1 shows the results of the analysis...

Contexts EAP: to make writing impersonal can be ambiguous: The results are presented below. can be ambiguous: The research was based on Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning which was translated into the Slovak language.

Applications, implications and limitations 7Cs can be applied to a range of complex grammatical structures (but different Cs have varying degrees of relevance to a particular structure) systematic requires knowledge of metalanguage teacher training implications theoretical model that needs to be applied in practice