Presentation stage

Grammatical structures comprising active grammatical minimum are used in every kind of speech activity – reading, listening, writing and speaking. So, in the process of assimilating active grammatical minimum students should acquire both receptive and reproductive grammatical habits, assuming that reception is the first stage of reproductive grammatical habit formation.

Primary acquaintance with a new grammatical structure, its interpretation and comprehension takes place at the first stage. Speech has a situational character; thus students should be presented new grammatical structures in typical communicative situations. For this purpose real-life and simulative communicative situations formed with the help of verbal description, illustrative, object or action visual aids can be used.

Every structure has its functional and formal aspects. Any grammatical structure has certain functions – naming objects or persons; indicating the presence of an object in a certain place; expressing an action taking place at the moment of speech, etc. Introducing a new grammatical structure, the teacher should first of all draw the students’ attention to its function, while its form is to be assimilated in integral unity with the function.

Let’s look at the fragment of a lesson, aimed at presenting a new grammatical structure (the 4^th form, the 3^rd year of studying English).

Teacher (speaking Russian): Today you will learn how to speak about the things that are located in a certain place (on the desk, on the table, in the classroom, in the street) and about the things you cannot find there. Now I shall tell you in English about the things on my table. Listen attentively. Pay attention to the new word I shall use at the beginning of each sentence:

Look here. There is a book on the desk. There is a piece of chalk on the desk. There is a pointer on the desk too. There is no ruler on the desk. There is no bag on it.

You must have paid attention to the word there at the beginning of each sentence. In English this word always begins sentences saying that something or somebody is in a certain place. Listen to my story another time. And now I shall see if you have understood my story well.

Exercise 1. Give laconic answers to my questions:

T: Is there a ruler or a book on the desk?

P₁: A book.

T: Is there a pointer or a bag on it?

P₂: A pointer. Etc.

Exercise 2. Translate my statements into Russian:

T: There is a map on the wall.

P₁: На стене – карта.

T: There is no clock on the wall.

P₂: На стене нет часов. Etc.

Exercise 3. Now listen to my statement and tell me how many stressed words you can hear in it: There is a `book on the desk.

Yes, that’s right, there are two: book and desk. And which of these two words sounds stronger? Right – desk. Now we shall say together what there is on the desk. Repeat after me only the true sentences (The teacher repeats his story making a few false statements in it).

Thus, at the presentation stage exercises in active listening, checking comprehension and imitation are performed. At this stage using a new grammatical structure in several communicative situations and variable wording of the structure are to provide starting the formation of such an important characteristic of a grammatical habit as flexibility.