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Date Posted: 18:11:38 10/17/05 Mon
Author: Jane Queiroz
Subject: Final paper for evaluation: Teaching grammar

Teaching grammar to promote an effective communication in Second Language

Since the very beginning language learners start studying a foreign language, they are certainly shown some grammar rules. Moreover, they are asked to memorize such rules due to their relevance to help learners to make a proper use of the target language. However, some language teachers and researchers question this approach regarding the necessity and use of grammar rules in real communication. It means, are the learners going to be considered competent speakers if they know the grammar rules? Thus, teachers are led to analyze the grammar teaching concerning to what necessarily should be taught and its real applicability in an effective communication.
Although Swan (1998, p.1, 2) agrees that grammar is important in the learning process, he also observes that English language courses usually teach too much of it. As an illustration, he mentions two hypotheses to confirm this reality: the first one is that grammar is part of textbooks content while the second hypothesis is that grammar is often seen both as an easily teachable and as a testable part of language learning system.
Is it possible to state that students who have too much contact with grammar rules are able to effectively communicate themselves? Concerning this, Swan (1998, p.4) still points out that learners in that situation are more likely to fail than to be successful. Although they may think they have good knowledge of the language, when they face an opportunity to use it in real situations, they just cannot produce more than reciting the irregular verbs list or any other set of grammar rules. Certainly their failures in communicating their thoughts have mainly one cause: too much time has been devoted to grammar rules.
On the other hand, if a little grammar or any grammar is taken into account in a language course, students do not have any consistent knowledge about English language structure. Consequently, they are not able to produce a correct and comprehensible speech, mainly in formal occasions.
So, what has to be done is to balance how much grammar students need to be taught. Teachers must be aware of teaching grammar in a balanced and meaningful way, choosing techniques and activities that are both suitable and effective without being boring for their classes.
Communication focused activities are well known for being motivating and offering good opportunity for real use of the language. When given this kind of activity, learners are provided with the necessary “comprehensible input”1 (Krashen, 1985) that supports them in real conversations, unlikely a simple list of grammar rules.
Courses that follow this method involve their students in activities on which they are supposed to negotiate with a partner or a group in order to achieve the task completion. Tasks such as communication games and role-plays are principally focused on meaning rather than on form. Consequently, although learners may be able to select the necessary vocabulary to establish a fluent conversation, they are unlikely to be so accurate as they should since the teacher is not expected to control students’ performances nor be focused on the formation of correct sentences. In other words, this approach brings a development in fluency at the expense of a decrease in accuracy (Richards, 1999, p.3).
Attempting to solve this problem, Richards (1999, p.9-11) suggests that there is a possibility for teachers to address to students’ accuracy in three different stages from the task work performance: prior, during and after the task. As a prior address, teachers can activate students’ schemata (structure and vocabulary used in particular situations) with warm up activities or can give students some time to set up or even rehearse the task when they have the chance to focus on form and organization. As task that provides an accuracy address during its completion, Richards suggests written activities, for instance telling a story based on pictures or formulating a questionnaire for a survey. Finally, for an after task addressing, Richards suggests repetition of the oral performances when learners improve both accuracy and fluency2. In this way, students work with task-based activities and are led to an accurate production, since the teacher takes part in the process correcting errors at particular points of the process.
Although Richard’s suggestions may not be sufficient to solve the grammar teaching issue, they surely help us in dealing with it. It is clear that teachers do need to teach grammar without overwhelming students, asking them to memorize every single rule or making use of specific terminology. Beyond that, what learners need is to be given the chance to use the structures in order to achieve an accurate communication.





Notes:

1 – Krashen defines ‘comprehensible input’ as the exposure to the second language at a slightly beyond level to student’s level. Thus if the student is at level “i”, the input he will receive is “I + 1”. Krashen also argues that comprehensible input is sufficient to supply all needs to acquire a second language.
2 -This last kind of addressing to grammar is seen in some course books and is effective when well worked in classroom. Kay and Jones (2001) deal with it in a section called Anecdote. In this task students are supposed to choose some questions related to a topic studied throughout the unit and talk about it to a partner. The task instructions express clearly that the learner must be careful about the language that is going to be used and how to use it to make an accurate account. Teachers also receive instructions to make the task productive, like giving feedback after the task completion and repeating the task after some lessons, what gives students more confidence to talk about the same topic.










REFERENCES

KAY, S. & JONES, V. 2001. Inside Out - Upper Intermediate Course
Book. Oxford: Macmillan Publishers

KRASHEN, S. 1985. The input hypothesis: Issues and implications.
New York: Longman.

RICHARDS, J. 1999. Addressing the Grammar Gap in Task Work. In
Richards, J. & Renandaya, W. (Eds), Methodology in Language
Teaching – An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 153 – 166.

SWAN, M.1998. Seven bad reasons for teaching grammar – and
two good ones. In Richards, J. & Renandaya, W. (Eds),
Methodology in Language Teaching – An Anthology of Current
Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 148 – 152.

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