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Date Posted: 04:25:41 11/19/04 Fri
Author: Maria tereza
Subject: Re: Task 5
In reply to: Verônica 's message, "Re: Task 5" on 18:10:50 11/14/04 Sun


Author: Verônica
Subject: Re: Task 5
In reply to: Kátia 's message, "Task 5" on 16:03:56 11/12/04 Fri

The place of grammar in a second/foreign language curriculum

It is possible to classify grammar into two different ways: descriptive grammar and pedagogical grammar (Lewis, 1986: 7). A descriptive grammar is the one produced by linguists who classify and describe the language based on an enormous number of examples of it. This kind of grammar is as difficult as a technical book to use because it contains long, complicated and accurate description of a rule. A pedagogical grammar is the one used by foreign language students. It is smaller and easier to use and contains simplified language. Instead of describing how the language is used, it tells how thee (THE) language should be used, conciliating accuracy and accessibility. Despite pedagogical grammar being more accessible it is not advisable to teach grammar to beginners in a second/foreign language course

The place of pedagogical grammar instruction in a second/foreign language curriculum has been discussed in the latest years. In methods like grammar translation and audiolingualism, grammar was in the first place. However, with the recent communicative approach, pedagogical grammar changed from thee (THE) first place to the last place in a second/foreign language teaching.

The first reason why we should not teach grammar to beginners is that learners do not need grammar instruction to acquire considerable grammatical competence. Students that have many opportunities to interact in the second language are able to acquire basic word order rules without assistance. For instance, according to Rod Ellis “Students do not put the adjectives after the noun, even when this is thee ordering in their first language. They are also able to acquire the English auxiliary system and, over time, use this in a target-like manner in interrogatives and negatives.” (Ellis, 2002: 22)

A second reason for not teaching grammar to beginners is that the early stage to second language acquisition (like the early stage of first language acquisition) is naturally agrammatical (I COULD NOT FIND THIS WORD IN THE DICTIONARY, MAYBE NON GRAMMATICAL IS BETTER). Language learners begin by learning items (words or chunks). According to Ellis “Students communicate by linking the structures into sequences that convey meaning contextually, as shown in the following examples (Ellis, 2002: 23):
- me no (= I don’t have any crayons)
- dinner time you out (= It’s dinner time so you have to go out)
- me no school Monday (= I am not coming to school on Monday)
Such utterances are usual in the spontaneous, communicative speech of beginners second/foreign language learners, both child and adult. It is only later that learners begin to grammaticalize their speech. According to Ellis (2002), they do this by extracting rules from the items they have learned. In this way, the early stages off language acquisitions are lexical rather than grammatical.


Some people would say that learners could fossilize the language before they reach the level to learn grammar. Of course, some learners would do such thing only to some structures, but it is nothing that harm (HARMS) their whole language acquisition process. Up to a point, the acquisition of a grammar takes place naturally and inevitably. In this way, teachers should wait the time when learners have developed a sufficiently varied lexis to provide a basis to the process of rules extraction.

VERÔNICA IF YOU ARE REFUTING THE USE OF GRAMMAR WHILE TEACHING A SECOND LANGUAGE, YOU SHOULD BE MORE CLEAR WHEN POINTING OUT YOUR OPPONENT´S ARGUMENT. I BELIEVE ALSO THAT IT IS MISSING A CONCLUSION IN YOUR ESSAY.

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