Teaching Grammar: Form–Meaning Mapping

Abstract

With advances in corpus‐informed descriptions of patterns in English grammar, research has revealed a wealth of detailed, specific, and meaningful form–meaning mappings and frequency information that provide teachers with attested examples of items with similar grammatical patterns and similar meanings. Starting from a discourse‐ or genre‐based approach has led to a complementary set of meaning–form mappings. Both sets can usefully inform grammar instruction, teaching materials, and syllabus plans. With connectionist research exploring form–meaning mappings in the brain through studies of processing time, and SLA theorists arguing for deep processing for effective learning, there has been a rise in popularity of approaches to teaching grammar that aim to encourage learners to work at making the connections between grammatical forms and associated meanings. A range of techniques compatible with this general approach are presented in this entry within a discussion of principles for teaching grammatical form–meaning mappings.