Grammar Questions Analysis - Assignment Example

1) Grammar is acquired naturally; it need not be taught I do not believe that grammar is acquired naturally. It, like language in general, is something that needs to be taught to us. Whether we learn grammar from our guardians, teachers, media or peers it is taught to us. We can naturally just absorb some forms of grammar in our surroundings but this can only take us so far the rest must be taught. 2) Grammar is a collection of meaningless forms I do not believe that grammar is a collection of meaningless forms. Sure, on their own they may be seen as meaningless but as a collection they are really quite useful, necessary, and meaningful. Our way of communicating would be far less than ideal should grammar not exist. 3) Grammar consists of arbitrary rules Again, I do not agree with this statement. The rules that go along with our grammar are not arbitrary. They are very precise and need to be followed in order for our dialect and our written language to make sense to both the reader and the partaker in a conversation. 4) Grammar is boring This I can only say personally is not true. To many, grammar can seem dull and boring I’m sure. But it is also behind those interesting movie scripts, television shows, and games people find so interesting. It is in virtually everything we say, watch, or read so how can it be boring. But yes I guarantee the mere word ‘grammar’ strikes a boredom chord in many! 5) Students have different learning styles. Not all students can learn grammar. Students have different learning abilities as well so of course I can’t say for certain that every student is capable of learning grammar. 6) Grammar structures are learned one at a time. Some are built upon the other. Some students learn one at a time and some learn many. In any given sentence there are many structures so I do not think that I can say for certain that grammar structures are learned one at a time even if it may seem that way. 7) Grammar has to do only with sentence-level and subsentence-level phenomena This does not ring true with me. I believe that grammar has many levels and encompasses much more than this. 8) Grammar and vocabulary are areas of knowledge. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are the four skills. I do believe that grammar and vocabulary can be areas of knowledge. They are also so common throughout our speech and written language that they are sometimes disguised after awhile and it is not until you break it down that you realize how much knowledge is contained in our daily written and spoken activities. 9) Grammar provides the rules/explanations for all students in a language. Grammar does provide rules in how to manoeuvre and use our language in different formats. Students have access to the rules and explanation through example from parents, peers, media, and teachers. 10) I don’t know enough to teach grammar. I don’t think one can say that they ‘don’t know how to teach grammar’. Each individual is different but each of us uses grammar. Though I may feel I use it naturally and am unaware of the rules I teach others I’m sure that I could still be a good teacher of grammar for certain students. I also know if I sat down and thought about why I use particular words in sentences etc. I would have the ability to answer a lot of student questions on grammar. 1. Are her thoughts in line with your comments? A lot of her thoughts are in line with mine. She often agrees and disagrees where I do but not always for the same reason. 2. Do you agree with her views? Though my views were slightly different. They are also formed with a lack of professional study on the topic. I do agree with her views for the most part and can see that she has put a lot of research into her work. 3. Has reading this article help you understand a bit better some of the issues involved in teaching and learning grammar? It has definitely opened my eyes a bit further to some of the issues involved in teaching and learning grammar. I was quite aware of several issues surrounding the topic but it is nice to have it broken down in such a way that the myths are exposed to the reader. 1. How do you normally teach vocabulary to your students? I normally teach vocabulary to my students by introducing the word. Next I use a graphic organizer with my students to brainstorm possible meaning of the word. We then take that further and create a KWL chart. I have them write down anything that they know about this word, what they want to know about this word, and then we follow it up with the proper definitions and what we have learned during our lesson about the word. After all of this I have the students bring in a word journal on one of our words. This journal either has a pictorial definition of something they have seen about one of our words or a written description on how they have seen the word used in the media or in the real world. We then have open group discussions using our vocabulary. 2. Have any of the facts Paul Nation presents surprised you? The facts Nation presented haven’t really surprised me. They have reinforced the importance of some of the techniques I have uses and the reasoning behind the divided structure of my lessons. 3. What do you consider the most useful thing you have learnt from reading Nation’s chapter? I found the section on core meaning particularly useful. Often we overwhelm our students with definitions. It is important to focus on the core meaning. I think I will make this more of an emphasis in my teachings. It eliminates a lot of stress for the students if they realize that this core meaning is relevant in each definition they read on a particular word. 4. Will reading this chapter have an impact on the way you teach vocabulary to your students in terms of approach, techniques? It will have an impact as it helped reinforce the reasoning behind why I teach in a certain way. It was a positive read and made me feel good about the way I want to reach out to my students when it comes to vocabulary. Answer the following questions (attached file 3) 1. Why teach pronunciation? Is it important to teach students how to pronounce? It’s extremely important to teach students how to pronounce. Correct pronunciation is crucial in understanding. A lack of correct pronunciation eliminates fluency in conversation and understanding in your conversational partner. 2. Do you teach pronunciation in your classes? Yes. I think it is impossible not to teach pronunciation. Even today, as an adult, other adults correct me if I mispronounce a difficult word. I appreciate the stress on pronunciation and am grateful for their corrections. 3. What techniques do you use? When we are first learning new words I often make it into a game. I often say the word in three different ways and see if my students can guess the correct pronunciation. We vote and I then expose the correct pronunciation. We then say the word together. Next we play a clapping game and break down the syllables. After that I often pretend we are solving some kind of code and show them how the word would be written out in the dictionary. 4. Give an example of an activity that you carry out in class that involves teaching pronunciation? See question 3. 5. Should we correct our student’s pronunciation? I don’t think we should create negative experiences for students or they will hold on to those and perhaps dwindle a bit. I think it’s good to correct our students but it has to be done in a fun way and perhaps privately depending on the situation. It is never appropriate to call out a student and make them feel uncomfortable. I would definitely let them know that to this day I am still corrected and it’s just a part of our learning experience. It makes us stronger speaker, readers, and writers! Harmer 1. Do you find any of his proposals for teaching pronunciation useful? I do find he proposal for teaching pronunciation useful. I really enjoyed reading through the chapters as I found what he said interesting and useful. He gives valuable techniques and writes with experience. His approaches are not dull but inspire creativity in teaching. 2. Are you going to incorporate them/some of them into your teaching? I will definitely use some of his approaches when I teach in my classroom. If they can inspire me I’m sure my students will be inspired as well. Semantics in Language Teaching: The English Tenses and articles and analyse it critically in about 500 words. Also point out what ideas seem to be relevant for your own language classes. (Turkish and Greek language teaching) I am critical of this article because it states that it is the teacher who needs the conscious understanding and not the student. I think that both teacher and student need a conscious understanding of the language that they use. These students too may grow to be teachers and if they did not have this conscious understanding how will they then turn around and teach it? I know personally growing up there were very few times that I had oral instruction when it came to grammar. It was something that in the end became a very unconscious part of my language. It was initially difficult for me to dissect my language in order to help teach others. I had to relearn why I wrote or said certain things in my own language. This took a lot of time and had I had the oral instructions that I plan to give my students I would have perhaps been more familiar with grammar and it’s everyday use consciously instead of having to dig up the unconscious and make it conscious again. I am also critical of the lack of creativity or fun that the author is portraying on this subject. Learning can be a lot more memorable and valuable if you make it interesting. Grammar to a lot of students seems boring but it doesn’t have to be that way. He uses language such as this throughout his article: “The student must be..and then forced to…”. This is incredibly stagnant and doesn’t inspire me nor would it draw up any interest in the subject of grammar for many of my students. I am not critical of all of the things this author states however. I do agree that when you learn language straight from a book perhaps, as some ESL students may, it is difficult to build your language to the same degree as a native English speaker. But it is not always the case that non-native speakers learn this way. It is also the case that though native speakers are very fluent in their grammatical use they do not always know why and this too causes difficulty. I also agree with the stress he puts on teaching differentiation etc. This is important as it difficult to un-teach language mistakes that students create for themselves due to not being taught the rules or given extensive examples to memorize. Many of the ideas can be relevant in my classes. Though I found it to be an uninspiring read he does touch on some of the many issues we can see with grammar in the classroom. He addresses some of the common uses of misguided grammar in new learners and he gives ways in which he thinks we could help improve these glitches. 1. Do students learn better when their teacher is a native-speaker of the language? In the article he argues that both native and non-native speakers can be successful language teachers. He argues however that the native speakers have a one up on the non-native speakers because they thoroughly understand how the language works and have a stronger language competence when it comes to their own language. 2. What prejudices do NNSTs face? They are seen as “ill at ease with using English properly”. No matter how long they have been speaking or learning the language it seems that they will always be seen as second to a native speaker. A poll was even conducted where the 2/3rds of the respondents said they would prefer a native EFL teacher but would choose a non-native EFL teacher if they were ‘pressed’. Too often non-native teachers are seen as less than ideal no matter how well they know and speak the English language. 3. Can NNSTs teach as well or even better than NSTs? Why? I personally believe that NNST’s also have a one up on NST’s because they can relate to students who perhaps are learning English as a second language to their mother tongue as well. They kow which areas may be atruggle for their students and they perhaps also know how to break things down in such a way that the non-native learners will understand. I know as a student I always learned math the best by the teachers who told me they also struggles with the subject when they were youth. It was rare that I did well in a class where the teacher was born to do math. 4. What are the advantages of NSTs? The advantages of NST’s, according to the article, is that they have a higher level of competence when it comes to their native language while it I said that non-natives are only able to imitate the language. 5. What are the advantages of NNSTs? I believe the advantages of NNST’s are that they can truly reach out to their non-native students and help them in ways that a NST cannot. Perhaps an NST will question how a student doesn’t understand a simple lesson while the NNST will understand why and be able to address the problem quicker. Read More