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The importance of grammar to students
The importance of grammar to students
The importance of grammar to students
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2.1 Historical Background of Grammar Teaching 2.1.1 The Question of Whether to Teach Grammar or Not Grammar teaching has an irreplaceable place in English language teaching because of the fact that without teaching grammar learners cannot learn the system of English language; they may not achieve to express their intentions or meaning of the messages in a well-established communicative activity. It has been seen that throughout the history, the attention of grammar teaching has differed from time to time. In the beginnings of the twentieth century, grammar teaching was considered so essential that other aspects of language were ignored as it was thought that it was necessary to know the grammatical rules in order to communicate appropriately. …show more content…
Grammar translation is a way of studying a language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and tasks into and out using the target language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). The focus is given on rote memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary, learning syntactic structures and translation of literary texts. In this method, grammar is taught deductively and a syllabus is followed for teaching grammar in an organized way. However, as the main focus is on learning the grammatical rules, memorizing vocabularies and translation of texts, it neglects the learners’ needs for communication. Accordingly, pronunciation receives almost no attention (Larsen Freeman & Anderson, …show more content…
Grammar is introduced with the use of dialogues which students imitate and repeat. The students induce grammar from the examples and explicit instruction is avoided. Techniques such as dialogue memorization, repetition, backward build-up, chain, substitution, single/ multiple slot substitution drills are mainly used. Students are imitators of the teacher and try to respond to the teacher’s directions as accurately as
Children were taught to speak in a proper manner and because they were taught to speak correctly they wrote in a proper way as well. As technology evolved and texting came more profound grammar was becoming a lost art. In Dana Goldstein’s article ,‘Why Kids Can’t Write’, she talks about what teachers are doing about grammar. The teachers are not doing much about the grammar issue in schools.
The first one, according to Pio Bianco “has no connection with any living tongue but is built up by an arbitrary system." (Mario Pei, 1968, 3)
In the article, “Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar” by Hossein Nassaji and Sandra Fotos two main issues had been discussed. The first one is whether grammar teaching make any differences to language learning where the questions raised are whether grammar should be taught or not. The second issue is what kinds of grammar teaching have been suggested to facilitate second language learning. If grammar should be taught, how much and should it be implicit or explicit grammar teaching? Lastly, the article discussed on the current approaches to grammar teaching in which formal instruction can be integrated with communicative activities which are processing instruction, interactional feedback, textual enhancement, task-based
The lesson is designed to give implicit exposure of grammatical features to the students. In some sections of the lesson (e.g. warming up activity and transi...
No doubt that the basic teaching is needed. Teaching the alphabets and the formation of the words is essential and a must. But there is something that is even more important. The children must be able to speak the words and understand their meaning before writing them down. The foundation to teach English can only be taught using the orthodox methods of teaching the alphabets and the words and the rules. But then teaching only the rules is found to be boring by most students and it is because of this that they lose interest in learning the language. Although there is no way other than the traditional one to teach the basics of the language these methods must be tweaked a bit so as to appeal to the students. When it comes to teaching English to students of higher classes who already know the basics the traditional methods generally tend to yield poorer results that innovative methods. This has already been proven by methods implemented like use of stories, poems, movies, books and newspapers etc. These methods help the students learn the language better without them actually realizing and also it keeps their interest. This paper will discuss a few of such innovative Approaches, Methods and Techniques in English Language Teaching.
In the past and present day in Libya, learning English has been free to all students at all levels. Students start learning English as one of the main subjects from the age of 12 until the university stage. Libyan teachers followed the old traditional system, which was the grammar translation method. This method was based on analysing the grammar rules followed by translating of sentences and texts into the students’ target language and memorizing large amount of vocabulary, which was selected from the reading texts. Moreover, several of vocabulary items presented with their translation equivalents. As Larsen-Freeman points out, “students are given lists of the target language vocabulary words and their native language equivalent and are asked to memorize them”. Otherwise, reading and writing were a major focus whereas no systematic attention was paid to speaking and listening. For that reason, teachers tended to use the grammar translation method by focusing on these features. “In Libya, the teaching was by using a translation method, which emphasized the acquisition of vocabulary through reading” (Barton, 1968). As a result, teachers ignored all the communicative approach and techniques inside the class, for instance using different interaction activities such as games to attract learners’ attention and keep them interested in the topic.
A large part of an English teacher’s job deals with helping students find their own voices amidst the many teachings of their parents and peers. A student’s voice can be their values, their interests, and their perspectives of the world in which they live. Their voice can be their critical questioning of the many situations they face, whether in a text, the school cafeteria, or a park after school. It is the job of an English teacher to aid in finding this voice through their writing. It is by putting words and thoughts down on paper that a student can sometimes feel comfortable enough to take risks and find their true voices. Although traditional grammar instruction has long been thought to improve this skill, this is no longer the case. Instead, by providing a classroom environment in which students are immersed in classic literature from many genres including poetry, short stories, and novels, students will learn how to harness grammar for their own purposes of finding their voice in their writing.
How does the speaker’ domains of language in use with their multilingual linguistic plan collection interact and coordinate across different generations and the genders and Indian English?
The other stages of the two lessons may have some other similarities. When the students are asked to give examples of the language, the teacher should pay close attention to each sentence. Error correction, once again, plays a crucial role but crucially, when errors occur, T2 would only correct by saying the correct version and never referring to the grammar structure, as done by T1.
In conclusion, language learning has extensive area and to host a lot of methodologies and approaches. These kinds of approaches prove a huge of support to effective teaching and learning. Every approach has deficiency. Especially pre-methods approach like Grammar-translation and silent way methods. The importance issue is teacher aware of difference in these methods. In the past time or modern time are not the same but the teacher should set up to relative between to each other. All of the methods or approaches should be known but the most proper method/approaches should be chosen for cultivating effective language learners.
Teaching Grammar to ESL students, or general education students, can occur in many different methods. As the years go by, more strategies come out for appropriate ways to teach grammar to students. Inductive and Deductive are the most common strategies used to teach grammar. While both methods are essential, differentiating instruction from general education students is key too (Varela, 2010, 40). Differentiation should be used to help ELLs succeed, and excel. Scaffolding differentiation and the inductive and deductive approaches allows ELLs to achieve more.
The Grammar Translation Method has been considered as the major factor causing to the low linguistic competence on the learners. However, the role of translation in teaching English cannot be ignored. Translation was an important part of English teaching for a long time, and then it was replaced by other methods. When the communicative methodologies arrived and then totally dominant, translation was consigned to the past. In spite of this, now it is used in many communicative classrooms and successfully assists to the learning. Duff (1989) supposes that teachers and students now not only use translation to translate the language, but also to learn the language. Nowadays, translation activities have clear communicative aims and real cognitive
Johansen and Shaw’s article discusses their approach, called the Glossing process, as a way of teaching grammar. The article opens up with a short story of how Mr. Smith was not satisfied with his son, Sam, not receiving the “essential skills of grammar instruction” during his time in the Yarmouth School System (97). Johansen and Shaw devotes the first page to outlining the grammar dilemma. First, they question the reader whether grammar should be taught isolated or through writing or if it should be taught at all to students. Nowadays, students’ have easy
Moving through the history of approaches and techniques in foreign language teaching clearly indicates that the focus and goal shifted gradually from “reading” to “speaking”. According to Richard & Rodgers (2003), the same method utilize in teaching Latin were applied in teaching English, meaning the goal was not learning to speak the foreign language but to translate sentences into it or from it and speaking was limited to reading the translated sentences out loud. This was the beginning of Grammar Translation Method where little or no attention is paid to speaking and grammatical accuracy was the
There is no question of whether or not grammar should be taught because it is detrimental when learning a language. However, there are ways that grammar can be taught and utilized more easily than others. Providing students with an explanation, clear use of the specific aspect of grammar, and ways to practice, grammar can be digested much more easily. It is important that students understand why they are studying something and what importance it holds. As a student and as a teacher I understand that it is easy to be overwhelmed. A human being can only take in so much information in one sitting; this is key information to know especially when teaching grammar because it can be very intense to some.