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Date Posted: 14:46:45 10/15/05 Sat
Author: Mariléia Xavier
Subject: Re: Final draft: Teaching grammar
In reply to: Jane Queiroz 's message, "Final draft: Teaching grammar" on 18:17:54 10/13/05 Thu

>Teaching grammar to promote an effective communication
>in Second Language
>
>Since the very beginning language learners starts (A)
>studying a foreign language, they are certainly shown
>some grammar rules. Moreover, they are asked to
>memorize such rules due to their relevance in helping
>learners to make a proper use of the target language.
>However, some language learners, 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. (B)
>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 a pretty
>good knowledge of the language, when they face an
>opportunity to use it in a communicative way, that is,
>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 no grammar
>at all (C) 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. As a result, the learners
>have a great chance to be misunderstood or suffer some
>prejudice.
>So, what has to be done is to balance how much grammar
>students need to be taught – not too much nor too
>less. 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. In other words, this approach brings a
>development in fluency at the expense of a decrease in
>accuracy (Richards, 1999, p.3).
>Courses that follow this method have their students
>involved 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.
>
>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
>fluency. 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.
>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 feed back (D) after the
>task completion and repeating the task after some
>lessons, what gives students more confidence to talk
>about the same topic.
>Although Richard’s suggestions may not be sufficient
>enough to solve the problem, they surely help us in
>dealing with grammar in language courses. 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 have 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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>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.

Hi Jane, You´ve done a very good job. My comments are:

A) ...language learners START not starts.
B) Sorry, but I think this paragraph is a little bit confuse. First: I don´t understand very well the use of the word HYPOTHESES. What do you mean? Using the two given examples Swan is trying to prove that teachers teach too much grammar? Second: If grammar is part of textbooks content does this mean that schools teach too much grammar?
C)AT ALL - have you checked the use of this expression? I´ve seen it at the end of negative sentences.
D) FEEDBACK(together)

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  • Re: Final draft: Teaching grammar -- Jefferson, 10:27:50 10/16/05 Sun
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