“Language walks in the world. When you go out in the world grammar gets under your fingernails, gets on your skin and occasionally poops on your head. … It’s not stuck in a cage so that we can come look at it. ” -Dr. Peter Shaw, circa 2015.  

Regarding Van Lier’s Green Grammar, our group enjoyed the Rainforest metaphor. Language is alive, organic, dynamic, as Peter pointed out above. Van Lier encourages us to think of language as more like an ecosystem than a “well-oiled machine.”His mission is to de-objectivize language. The sterile, mechanical metaphors of language need to be let go.

Johnson argues that making people of aware of what language is doing and what people are doing when using language. He emphasizes how language is used in which situations and why and the ways language conveys meaning. The importance of bringing students’ attention to language items is key.

3 main things in Gibbons. Meaningful use in a variety of contexts. And a curriculum can be viewed as a resource. Language can be acquired through the process of learning and using in meaningful contexts. Language is means, a tool for learning, that utilizes Curriculum as ongoing recycling of concepts. When language is treated as the subject itself the student learns about the language. With Gibbons there is a connection to comprehensible input, because ideally language will be situated in a context that enables meaningful understanding.

Team Members: Ben, Catherine, Jerry & Phil