Teaching Language and Grammar in Context - Coursework Example

Teaching Language and Grammar in Context “Can we teach a second language to adults without teaching grammar? There should a clear and resounding No! It is like saying I want to buy that cow but without bones, please!” This teacher’s statement is largely true, but it simplifies a very complex problem. It is certainly impossible to teach a language, or even to learn one, without including grammar. However, teaching grammar in isolation, or even emphasizing it in language teaching is counterproductive, since it does not improve the learning of the language to do this. The cow certainly has bones, but we learned what the cow was and how it impacted our lives long before we had the need to know about the bones. However we came to the point of needing to know about those bones, the point occurred when we needed to connect the bones of the cow to something else we had learned. In the case of language learning, adult learners have already learned the grammar of their mother tongue, and we need to connect that to the grammar of the target language to be acquired, in order for them to have a frame of reference. How we teach grammar in the context of second language learning for adults is the most important consideration of language teaching, as it make a tremendous difference in the interest the students will have in the materials and how fast and well they learn. Cullken (2008) says that grammar should be liberating, not restricting, as proscriptive grammar is. Grammar as an isolated subject is boring, but grammar as a frame of reference is interesting and useful. Chomsky proposed in Syntactic Structures (1957 in Hinkel and Fotos, 3) that a universal grammar underlies all language. However, as Hinkel and Fotos noted ( 2002, 3), there is still no recognized universal grammar, though there seems to be a parallel of structure and function among languages. In other words, all languages have the same set of functions in common, but these are expressed differently in each. If we agree that grammar is the description of the functions of language and how they are accomplished we can begin to classify these functions and their agents. For example, all languages have some way of identifying and classifying things. In many languages this is accomplished languages these are thy using nouns and their modifiers. Another function of language identifies action or states connected to the people and things of the language. In many languages these are the verbs. Languages also share some way of pointing out direction and time, usually with prepositions and verb tense. These are, I think, the main shared functions of language. All the others seem to derive from these. So grammar as a function is the bones of the language cow. How adults will connect these bones to those of their own mother tongue varies among the language groups. as Hinkel and Fotos (2002, 4) mention that for most cognitive approaches to language teaching, my set of functions above is far too simple, since functional grammar is seen as an infinite set of functions constructed dynamically by the speaker. However, I believe that there really is a simple set of functions for language which are negotiated among the speakers of a language as a structured grammar in common use. "Krashens model of L2 acquisition suggested that learners would arrive at intuitive “correctness” (Krashen" (Hinkel and Fotos 2002, 5) By this notion, we can assume that teaching grammar in some way furthers the learning of adult students, since they can make use of this information to help them remember structures. However, as earlier stated, teaching grammar in isolation does not seem to further language acquisition, but merely furthers the acquisition of the rules of grammar. I found this to be true for my own experience of learning English. My first ESL classes focused upon learning the grammar of English and I learned very little about how to actually use the language. I find that this is true of teaching Arabic also. Students will learn grammar only if that is the focus, and they will not learn to use the language. The grammar will be only a memorized list of rules and will have no meaning. By teaching grammar indirectly as description of what they are doing with the language the students learn to use the language first and then make connections to what they already know of their own language by use of the description of the function of the grammar. Of the many different approaches to teaching grammar, I prefer the more indirect, such as scaffolding. If we think of grammar as the bones of the language, then we can hang different skin on these same bones. So we show the bones of the target language to the students and discuss how they work, and the students will make connections on their own. We simply need to identify the functional structure which the two languages (original and target) share and then point out the parallels. Of course, this requires that the teacher knows the grammatical structures of both languages. If this is not the case, the students can actually supply the parallel structures on their own as long as the function of grammar is clearly examined and defined and connected to examples. In this way, the students can make their own connections to their mother tongue grammar. One very interesting way for the grammar to be learned is to get the students to discuss how the functions under examination are done in their own language, using the target language, od course. So, a Chinese person might talk about how tense is noted by the addition of time words, such as today or tomorrow, but no change is made to the actions word (verb). The teacher can then identify the grammatical rule in the target language, so students can make note of it. I think that all learning works better if the students are interested in the material. I think boredom is the worst impediment to learning. It make the learning difficult. Babies learn their own language without any formal teaching of grammar at all, but that does not mean that they do not learn grammar. They just learn it as part of their language learning, not separate from the words. By trial and error or success, children learn both the words and the words and their functions. The grammar is just a collection of how the functions relate to the words. While this method of language acquisition takes longer, it also seems to work better, producing a knowledge of grammar that is almost intuitive in the learner. I am not sure that once we acquire one language we can ever learn in this way again, since we create that scaffold of bones that is grammar for ourselves as we learn to speak our own language. All other scaffolds will have to be compared with the one we know best and have internalized or there will be terrible chaos as we try to keep the two languages totally separate. However, I think just exploring and referencing the grammar as we acquires new meaning to communicate is all an adult learner needs to help make those critical connections. I like the way that Hinkel and Fotos described indirect grammar teaching in their book. (2002) "Many teachers and researchers currently regard grammar instruction as “consciousness raising” (Schmidt, 1990, 1993; Sharwood Smith, 1981, 1993; Skehan, 1998) in the sense that awareness of a particular feature is developed by instruction even if the learners cannot use the feature at once. Such awareness is produced not only by instruction on specific forms but may also result from “input enhancement, ” that is, operations performed on meaning-focused input in such a way that the target features stand out to the learner (Sharwood Smith, 1993)." (Hinkel and Fotos 2002, 6) This suggests that becoming aware of the grammar is actually enough to help the student learn to use the target language effectively. So why would we want to waste time on intensive grammar instruction? I think we should leave this for linguistic classes or maybe grammar classes. Most of us only need to understand the grammar for common usage, but we do not have to actually be able to pass a test on grammar. Our tested correct use of the language should be quite enough. Yes we do need to teach grammar in language instruction, because the language cannot serve the function of communication without grammar. How we teach it is the critical aspect of language acquisition for the student. Just as the cow cannot stand up at all without any bones, the language is just a heap of words without grammar. But it is not grammar which the students want or need to learn. Therefore, it should only be taught in the context of identifying the structures of the language they are learning. Grammar can be taught indirectly by simply identify the functions as needed. In this way, students can concentrate on communication and understanding. The learning will be engaging and not boring and all grammar content will be connected to what they are learning to use. This will make learning language easier and more fun. References Broughton, Geoffrey, Christopher Brumfit, Roger Flavell, Peter Hill, and Anita Pincas. 1980. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. New York: Routledge. Cullen, Richard. 2008. "Teaching grammar as a liberating force." ELT Journal: English Language Teachers Journal 62, no. 3: 221-230. Hinkel, Eli and Sandra Fotos, eds. 2002. New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Read More