Grammar is a set of conventions sedimented from frequent use, not a pre-installed system; in class it emerges from interaction, and the teacher’s job is largely reactive.
Claim
Language emerges on three timescales: historical (pidgins → creoles; going to → gonna), ontogenetic (each learner’s acquisition) and microgenetic (moment-to-moment classroom talk). Grammar = routinised patterns abstracted from frequent usage. Pedagogically: learners lead, the teacher scaffolds and recasts learner-initiated episodes.
Mechanism / theory
- Usage-based / emergentist SLA: N. Ellis (1998, Language Learning 48/4); Ellis, Römer & O’Donnell (2016) — connectionist modelling; Hopper (1998) “emergent grammar”; Holland (1998) complex adaptive systems; Christiansen & Chater (2016) Creating Language — the “forest track” metaphor (repeated use wears paths).
- Contrasted with innatism (Pinker 1994).
- Breen (1985): classroom language is “a communal product derived through a jointly constructed process”.
Classroom moves
- Expect and log emergent language rather than trying to pre-specify all of it.
- Scaffold and recast what learners try to say; let them initiate.
- Recycle items across lessons so repeated use “lays down tracks”.
- Teacher as guide pointing out landmarks, not pre-defining the route.
Limits & critique
- Geoff Jordan (comment): Dogme/TBLT don’t need emergentism — Breen and Long predate it; there are two emergentisms (Ellis’s input-driven vs O’Grady’s processor-driven). O’Grady (2010): “no comprehensive emergentist theory of language” yet.
- The post doesn’t engage the meta-analytic evidence for explicit instruction (e.g. Norris & Ortega 2000). (Claude)
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Frequency is the engine: in Prepare 2e units, track which target chunks learners actually hear and use ≥ 8–10 times across the unit, not just once on the presentation page.
- Exam classes are the boundary case: KET/FCE grammar lists are pre-selected (focus on formS), so emergentism works best as the recycling and reactive layer on top of a syllabus, not a replacement.
Connections
- Opposes / tension: MARS-EARS - the EPI instructional sequence (pre-selected patterns) vs reactive emergence.
- Mechanism shared with Fluency rests on memorised word-groups and The Lexical Approach - grammaticalised lexis, read critically.
- Pedagogy: Dogme ELT - materials-light, conversation-driven teaching, The 5 Rs of reactive teaching.
- Already in vault: About Language - Scott Thornbury (Thornbury).