STEP 3: Co-Construction
What is it?
Now that everyone's attention has been focused on the pattern of the main grammar point presented in the story, it is time to allow them to further investigate how the grammar point works. In the Co-Construction phase, the students will work in pairs or small groups to make predictions about the grammar "rule" based on the patterns they have observed. However, you will assist them in coming up with the rule through guided assistance.
In co-constructing the grammar rule, you must constantly monitor student progress and adjust the amount of help that they require to be successful. Sometimes, you may only need to provide probing questions, but other times, you may need to provide them with other materials so that they can understand how to form the rule.
It is best to start by providing the fewest amount of "hints" as possible. Start with some basic questions to see if the students can come up with the rule on their own. Some suggested questions to achieve this could include (Shrum & Glisan, 2005, p. 198):
1. What words do you hear or see repeated in the text, and what could they mean?
2. What pattern do you see in this group of words?
3. How do certain words change as their meanings change?
Your goal in this phase is to help your students discover how the grammar works without explicitly telling them. Try to avoid giving your students the answer. Instead, continually push them with questions that help them to see the patterns on their own. If these probing questions are not sufficient in helping them see the pattern, you can show them typed sentences of the story from the Presentation phase. However, instead of showing the entire typed sentences (as you might have done in the Attention phase), replace the grammar point with blanks. Have the students guess what would go in the blanks based on the patterns they may have noticed in either the Presentation or Attention phases (click here to see an example from the sample lesson). With enough guidance from you, your students should be able to come up with the "rule" or a basic description of it. Allow each group to come up with their own description of what they think the rule is. You can go around the room as they are working to see if they are getting it. You can then have some of the groups present their explanation of the rule to the class so that the students can hear several different ways of describing the same rule.
How it Contributes to Learning
Sometimes, when you explain a grammar point to students explicitly, without giving them an opportunity to discover it on their own, they simply don't understand. Grammar explanations can be confusing and overly complex for students to understand. Even a simplified explanation of a grammar point can overwhelm some students. But allowing them to discover and investigate the grammar point based on the patterns they notice means there is no (or very little) discussion specifically focused on grammar. An effective PACE lesson allows the students to see how the language works on their own, which means they can come up with their own way of explaining how it works, avoiding the confusion that can often result from traditional grammar lessons.
It is not until this phase of the model that the students actually come up with a "rule" for how the grammar point works. For example, if teaching the Passé Composé with avoir, the students may conclude that to form the past tense, you have to first come up with the present conjugation of avoir (the auxiliary verb) and then a second part (the past participle) based on the action verb (that usually ends in an "eh" sound [é]). They likely will not use the specific terms in their descriptions, but with enough assistance, they should be able to describe the general rule. Also, it is a good idea during the Co-Construction phase to discuss some common irregularities to the pattern. For instance, that not all verbs will use "avoir" as the auxiliary or that not all past participles will end in -é. But don't emphasize these irregularities too much. Let them first master the general pattern, and deal with exceptions a bit later.
Coming up with the "rule" for any grammar point is a very important step toward getting the students to use the rule in real language. However, in the PACE model, the students have focused extensively on meaning up to this point. In the Co-Construction phase, they finally get the "rule" for forming the grammar point. However, they already know what it means. Compare this to the traditional approach to teaching grammar, where students first spend a lot of time practicing how to form a grammar point before they get any time to practice using it in a meaningful way. Again, the focus of the PACE Model is always meaning over form*.
Additionally, learning grammar through the PACE Method allows students to practice reflecting about how language works. Teaching them to look for patterns and to make connections about grammar will help them make better use of the input they encounter. In a way, the PACE Model teaches students how to more effectively process the language they hear so they can make better sense of it.
Once you and your students have effectively co-constructed the grammar "rule", you can move on to the final stage of the PACE Model-- Step Four: The EXTENSION PHASE.