Is teaching grammar one of the biggest challenges you face when teaching? Are your students always bored and confused when presented with a new, complex grammar point? Do you find that teaching grammar in the target language is nearly impossible? The PACE Model was designed to help address some of these challenges. Designed by Donato & Adair-Hauck, the PACE Model focuses on the meaning of the grammar and helps students acquire grammar in a more natural way.
The PACE model (sometimes called the Story-based Approach) is a method for teaching grammar without the need for lengthy explanations of the grammar point, without overwhelming students with fill-in-the-blank activities and drills, and without much of the confusion that typically follows grammar teaching.
The beauty of the PACE Model is that it sneaks the grammar teaching into a lesson. Since, on the surface, the PACE Model does not seem to focus on teaching grammar, I have found that students have a much more positive experience with the PACE Model for grammar instruction compared to the "traditional" (i.e. boring) approach to teaching grammar.
So how can you teach grammar without focusing specifically on the grammar point itself? This site will help you answer all of your questions and provide you with some examples of the PACE Model in action. Hopefully, it will help you to teach grammar more effectively in your own classes and help your students become more successful language learners.
PACE is an acronym for each of its four steps: PRESENTATION, ATTENTION, CO-CONSTRUCTION, and EXTENSION.
To learn more about each of these steps, and to see how the model works, click here to visit the How It Works page.