Enhancing Grammar Teaching and Learning: A Journey through SLTeDOL, GTL24
Nezaket Özgirin
Introduction and background information
Sabancı University School of Languages, Teacher Education and Development through Online Learning (SLTeDOL) offered another online course on Grammar Teaching and Learning (GTL 24) in 2024. SLTeDOL had previously offered Vocabulary Teaching and Learning courses (VTL 19 & VTL 20) and QR Codes in Teaching and Learning courses (QRTL 19 & QRTL 20) .
With the advent of online platforms, teacher training courses have become a cornerstone in equipping educators with the necessary tools and techniques to teach effectively. One such transformative journey is encapsulated in the Grammar Teaching and Learning (GTL24) course, a collaborative effort led by dedicated tutors, supervisors, and participants alike.
The course aimed to support teachers in developing their awareness, knowledge, and skills in grammar teaching and learning by focusing on major approaches, principles, and methods of grammar presentation and practice; error correction and feedback in grammar; and the assessment of grammar. GTL was enriched with various in-class and online videos and tools that were applicable in different settings.
GTL24, spanning over 10 weeks, served as a beacon of professional development for 104 enthusiastic participants who embarked on this educational voyage on February 23. On May 10th, 2024, 80 dedicated participants successfully completed all eight sessions, earning their well-deserved badges and certificates.
Course Tutors
Under the expert guidance of three tutors – Nezaket Özgirin, David Gasper, and Pınar Gündüz – and the visionary leadership of supervisor Deniz Kurtoğlu Eken who refined the curriculum while ensuring its efficacy in meeting the diverse needs of the participants, the course unfolded across eight enriching sessions to delve into the intricacies of grammar teaching and learning.
At the helm of GTL24 is Nezaket Özgirin, the founder and one of the trainers of SLTeDOL courses. Nezaket's wealth of experience with previous SLTeDOL courses VTL19, VTL 20, QRTL19 and QRTL20 laid the foundation for GTL24. Her innovative approach, which integrates pedagogical excellence with cutting-edge technological advancements, has elevated the course to new heights and empowered educators to thrive in the digital age.
David Gasper made insightful contributions to the course design and materials, elevating GTL24 to new heights with more interactive online tools, and recorded videos to enhance the learning experience. His commitment to continuous improvement fueled a dynamic environment where participants could engage with course material in meaningful and impactful ways.
Pınar Gündüz, another esteemed SLTeDOL trainer, lent her grammar testing and assessment expertise to enrich the course curriculum. Pınar's insights provided invaluable guidance to participants as they navigated the complexities of evaluating grammar proficiency and measuring learning outcomes.
Additionally, Züleyha Tulay, a dedicated SLTeDOL trainee trainer meticulously piloted the course focusing on every detail to ensure the effectiveness of the course. Her invaluable feedback and creativity, provided before and during the course, played a pivotal role in the instant improvements in the online platform to provide glitch-free experience for all participants.
Throughout the course, supervisor Deniz Kurtoğlu Eken offered her invaluable insights and unwavering support to both tutors and participants. With at least two rounds of feedback meticulously woven into the course outlines and each session, Deniz contributed to the sequential and synchronic coherence of GTL24.
Beyond the core team of trainers, the success of GTL24 owes much to the collaborative efforts of Sabancı University colleagues and students. Their diverse perspectives and innovative ideas infused the course with fresh insights, creating opportunities for deeper analysis and exploration of grammar teaching and learning methods.
Central to the course's success were the active contributions of the participants themselves who diligently engaged with and completed all the required tasks across the eight modules. It was through their active participation in forum discussions, their commitment to generating materials, and their provision of constructive feedback that the participants played an integral role in shaping the course experience. Their dedication to learning from each other and their willingness to share resources underscored the collaborative ethos that permeated throughout GTL24.
End-of-course Feedback from Course Participants
Reflecting on their experience, participants provided valuable feedback that highlighted both the strengths and areas for improvement of the course. Many expressed gratitude for the opportunity to enhance their grammar teaching skills and expand their pedagogical repertoire. While some found the course content-intensive, others appreciated its comprehensiveness and the diverse perspectives offered by fellow educators. A presentation of feedback can be seen here.
The metaphors used to describe the GTL24 course reflect a journey marked by rediscovery, intense and varied emotions, and gradual mastery. Participants likened it to rewatching a familiar film, experiencing unexpected surprises, and riding a roller coaster with its ups and downs. The course demanded consistent effort and acceptance of both challenges and rewards, much like running a race, climbing a mountain, or solving a complex puzzle. It provided a rich array of diverse learning tools, requiring time to fully absorb the substantial information. The collaborative and practical approach was akin to building a bridge or making a necklace, ultimately leading to a harmonious and enriching learning experience, filled with moments of satisfaction and achievement despite the rigorous demands. More metaphors and their interpretations can be seen here.
Despite the challenges, participants unanimously praised the professionalism and dedication of the course team in delivering a high-quality learning experience. Their feedback serves as a testament to the transformative impact of GTL24 and reinforces its position as a beacon of excellence in teacher education.
The course participants were asked to share the adjectives to describe the GTL24 course in the end-of-course feedback form. The course was frequently described as effective and highly effective by participants. Adjectives such as challenging, intense, demanding, and rewarding highlight the rigorous nature of the course. Other adjectives like enriching, insightful, and informative reflect the valuable knowledge and perspectives gained. Additionally, terms like engaging, enjoyable, and satisfying underscore the positive and fulfilling aspects of the learning experience. Overall, the course was viewed as a comprehensive and beneficial journey, despite its challenges.
The most popular aspects of the course as selected to be ‘highly effective’ were: communication with course tutors, input presentations, the web tools, the infographics, the certificate, and the course information. While most participants said forum discussions were ‘effective’, the rest said they were highly effective. Only a couple of participants expressed slight dissatisfaction with peer feedback but the majority considered it to be either highly effective or effective.
In terms of the impact of the course on the participants' knowledge, skills, awareness, attitude, and performance, almost all participants said that the course had a considerable impact on their awareness. ‘Excellent’ was also selected for the impact on their knowledge, attitude, skills and performance. Some participants felt the course impacted their performance and skills at a ‘very good’ level.
Reflections from Course Tutors
Deniz Kurtoğlu Eken (Course supervisor)
Based on my work with many teachers and trainers as well as on the numerous developmental lesson observations I have carried out with colleagues over long years, grammar teaching and learning has long been one of the areas where I felt we could all benefit from a well-designed and well-structured professional development course. A course where we would not take our knowledge of grammar and grammar teaching skills for granted, but critically explore and analyze the way we understand and teach it. I am overjoyed that our school has effectively designed and delivered such a course to all interested and ready to go beyond their comfort zones in this area! I congratulate all our wonderful tutors and participants who took part in this journey.
David Gasper
We worked extremely hard in designing and implementing a course that we hoped would benefit other EFL teachers in their grammar teaching. We wanted it to be comprehensive, engaging, and meaningful to a wide variety of teachers. We tried to make it concise and streamlined, but also challenging and exploratory. Undoubtedly, many of our course participants took up this challenge and set off as grammar explorers! In the end, all of our wonderfully hard-working participants made the course real and we hope that the ideas and knowledge gained will benefit their students and colleagues too.
Pınar Gündüz
Being involved in designing and delivering a session on grammar assessment for the GTL24 course was a gratifying experience. I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the intricacies of grammar assessment and re-exploring concepts. Additionally, learning from other course tutors and their experiences, particularly in terms of the use of educational technologies, was invaluable. As I facilitated my module, it was truly rewarding to read the insightful comments and witness the work of participants from such diverse backgrounds. Each participant brought a unique perspective to the discussions, enriching the learning experience for everyone involved. Their dedication and enthusiasm in exploring grammar assessment truly made the course come to life, and I am hopeful that the knowledge and insights gained will not only benefit their own students but also their colleagues in the field of English language teaching.
Züleyha Tulay
Embarking on a challenging journey with a great team of tutors and participants to explore the intricacies of grammar teaching and learning proved to be very inspirational. Reflecting on our beliefs on a regular basis, weekly interactions through the forums, exploring a variety of approaches, tools, and strategies that can be conducive to learning, and most importantly coming up with creative ways of teaching grammar that could be the primary driver of student learning were some of the highlights of the course. One main takeaway for me was that effective grammar teaching and learning are relational and social, which requires more collaboration with colleagues in this endeavor.
Nezaket Özgirin
Working on the GTL course has been an immensely occupying and exciting process. Specifying target objectives, conducting literature reviews, and ensuring a comprehensive and real-life summary of grammar teaching—where diverse methods, approaches, and views exist—and sharing it in the most practical and informative way was a long-term process. The most challenging aspect of the course was collecting lessons that could reflect our principles and selecting the most appropriate lesson recordings to encourage discussions. The unwavering support from the SLTeDOL team was the most important motivational factor. They were instrumental in improving various aspects of the course and it is difficult to express the depth of my gratitude for working with such a dedicated team. Moreover, the participants were incredibly active and collaborative. Their contributions not only enhanced the course but also provided valuable inspiration and insights for further improving grammar teaching in our contexts. Finally, we received a lot of insightful feedback that will be crucial in refining the course for the second round.
Reflections from the Participants
Çağla Tokyay
Taking the SLTeDOL-GTL Grammar Teaching and Learning course has been a transformative experience for me. When I first enrolled, my understanding of grammar teaching was primarily based on the Presentation, Practice, and Production (PPP) method. Throughout this course, I have developed a deeper appreciation for the field, realizing the effectiveness of different lesson models. In this course, I gained insights into the role of grammar in ELT, various approaches and core techniques, different lesson models and further grammar presentation techniques, accuracy and fluency-focused grammar practice, error and feedback correction techniques, and ways to assess grammar. The theoretical knowledge on these topics was conveyed through slides, infographics, videos, and recordings of our colleagues sharing their expertise on the subject. The practical aspect of the course was reinforced through assignments that we submitted, as well as forum and Padlet posts that facilitated knowledge sharing and interaction among peers. One of the challenges I faced was managing my time, as the course was quite intensive. I overcame this by spreading the coursework over different times and sometimes focusing on completing it over the weekends to avoid distractions. Aside from the minor issue of low volume in a few recordings, which I mitigated by using headphones, the course was well-designed and I encountered no significant difficulties.
This course has been beneficial for my professional development. Refreshing my knowledge, learning new information, connecting with others in the same field, and keeping up with innovations in our field undoubtedly contribute to both personal and professional growth. Since the language education system at my institution is grammar-based, I will have many opportunities to apply the knowledge and awareness I gained from this course. I would be delighted to participate in similar courses in the future. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone involved in making this course possible.
Esra Topuz
I have heard about the online courses and face-to-face workshops of the SLTeDOL team for a long time; however, I never had a chance to participate before GTL24. When one of my colleagues mentioned this online course, I immediately submitted my application. Honestly, at first I thought it was going to be an easy course where I would read or listen to some theoretical information and do some tasks or assignments, but then it turned out to be a roller-coaster adventure. Now, I will explain why I used the roller coaster metaphor. When session 1 of GTL24 started, I understood that
this course would not be as I had thought. The first thing I realized was that there was a plan. Each session had its own parts and was related to the other sessions. None of them were separate or irrelevant from the previous one. The plan of the course was like a snowball that got bigger and bigger every week by opening new sessions. Apart from being well-planned, each session was about a different aspect of teaching grammar and they were presented and summarized professionally using numerous references. Additionally, I would like to mention how impressed I was by the way technology was used. Each session was full of different ways of using technology, such as Padlet, videos, YouTube, Genially, etc. Theoretical information was given through different activities like quizzes, matching exercises, fill-in-the-blank exercises, etc. The whole course was planned to demonstrate how the ideal way of teaching in a classroom could be because there were also forums, tasks and assignments similar to what we asked our students to do in our classes. In each session, we read about and learned from our experiences on various topics. Moreover, with the help of forums or Padlet posts, we discovered other ways of teaching.
Ghada Ouda
This year I had the pleasure of taking the GTL 24 course with Sabancı University. This was not my first time to take a course with SL-TeDOL, I was also lucky to take the VTL and; QR courses there before, so it was not surprising for me to find this level of dedication, creativity and cooperation from the course instructors and organizers, along with the collaboration from the colleagues and course takers to achieve the development together.
The reason for feeling delighted by taking this course was that I found that it was not only informative, loaded with theoretical and practical information, but also it greatly spurred the creativity in my mind and I really needed such inspiration as I was away from teaching grammar for some time. The course focused on the different approaches of presenting grammar, the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, lesson planning, accuracy-focused and fluency-focused activities, error correction and feedback, and finally principles and methods of assessing grammar using traditional ways as well as using AI. I would highly advise teachers who are interested in professional development and keen on advancing themselves to take this course and enjoy it.
Gökçe Gök
First of all, I want to thank the Sabancı University School of Languages team for this great opportunity. As a person who is new to the English language teaching field, being a participant in this course was a great experience for me. In this course, I had the chance to meet many amazing English language instructors and teachers from around the world and our country. I learned many things from their experiences, perspectives, and discussions during the course. I also learned a lot from our course content, including approaches, methods, and techniques related to grammar teaching for TESOL, shared lesson examples, and learning materials that we discussed. As one of my lecturers said during my BA education, the best teacher is the best student, and there is always something to learn, reflect upon, and discuss. In the teaching profession, learning never stops. To conclude, I have learned that grammar teaching should be a combination of communicative and structural contexts. The way we teach grammar can be adapted, reflected upon, and evaluated depending on our learning and teaching aims and the learner profile. I want to thank the course organizers, English language instructors Deniz Kurtoğlu and Nezaket Özgirin, for this great opportunity and experience.
Miranda Karjagdi Çolak
Recently, I completed the Grammar Teaching and Learning Course that significantly enhanced my mindfulness regarding grammar instruction. The course refreshed my theoretical knowledge and introduced novel techniques and technological tools that I found invaluable. Shortly after starting this course, I was assigned to teach a remedial B1 class. Inspired by the course content, I observed the challenges in this class and devised a 7-week long intervention based on a teach-test-teach approach. The test phases included speaking tasks to cater to students’ communicative requirements. I also incorporated ChatGPT to provide personalized support for students in the controlled practice stage, addressing their individual needs. The results were remarkable, showing increased motivation, positive attitudes towards learning, and higher task completion and language use in speaking activities. However, there was a need for continuous monitoring, especially in the initial stages of using ChatGPT, to effectively adapt prompts and employ various techniques for explicit grammar instruction. This experience has profoundly influenced my approach to teaching grammar.
Nalan Güder
Although this was a highly demanding course, I am pleased to have completed the course. This course has contributed a lot to my classroom teaching since it helped me a lot to improve my awareness, knowledge and skills in teaching grammar. During the course, I had the opportunity to study the units at my own pace. The input sessions were very fruitful for me since I have had the chance to revise my grammar teaching and reflect on my classroom teaching. I also had the chance to reflect on the lessons taught by other teachers.
The use of forum discussions gave me the opportunity to not only share my thoughts, feelings, and ideas on various issues related to grammar teaching, but also reading the ideas of other teachers has given me the opportunity to expand my knowledge about issues related to grammar teaching and become more aware of some issues. This course has given me the opportunity to observe the other teachers’ lessons implementing various techniques and strategies in the classroom and reflect on my own teaching and move further by considering ways to improve my teaching techniques.
I am also pleased to mention that this course has provided me with the opportunity to learn how to practice grammar, both in accuracy-focused and fluency-focused activities and tasks. Thus, this has made me feel more confident about teaching grammar. Apart from these, the session about error correction helped me learn the use of new techniques and strategies while correcting my students’ errors. The use of various strategies has increased my awareness and self-confidence in when and how to correct my students’ errors.
I believe that the content of each module was very demanding since I had to spend more hours than I had planned to complete all tasks. It could be more fruitful for me if the duration of the course would be 10 weeks so that I could have had less stressful time to read, learn, digest, implement ideas in my class, and finally reflect on my teaching.
Serter Gözen
As the final weeks of my intensive three-month English grammar course unfolded, I found myself immersed in a sea of words. Beyond the rules and exercises, I discovered that language is a vessel for stories—each sentence carrying a student’s excitement, achievement, or even moments of frustration. Reflecting on this journey, I realized that English grammar isn’t merely a subject; it’s a force that shapes lives. The memories shared with my fellow learners transformed the learning process into something profound. So, as I write this, I feel a sense of anticipation. Perhaps this brief reflection will illuminate another student’s path, reminding them that grammar isn’t just a tool—it’s a bridge for expressing emotions, connecting people, and sharing experiences. I’m grateful for the journey. English grammar, once a set of rules, has become a tapestry woven with the threads of our stories.
Zeyno Bingör
First of all, completing the course has been a rewarding and valuable experience for me. It has also contributed to both my professional and personal development. Throughout the course, I gained useful information and new skills that I will apply in my teaching experience. The extensive modules covered a wide range of well-organized topics and allowed for practical application in our classrooms. Furthermore, the course has not only refreshed my teaching skills but also introduced me to innovative techniques and strategies that I am eager to implement in my classes. Additionally, the course fostered a professional network of like-minded individuals, offering a platform for exchanging ideas and experiences. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to participate in this course and for the dedication and effort put forth by Nezaket Hocam and her team. Thank you for providing such a comprehensive and enriching training program.