Importance of Grammar

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A. Introduction It is not uncommon to say that grammar instruction plays an important role in language teaching. Regarding the status and importance of grammar teaching, a variety of opinions have been made. Batstone (1994) states that “language without grammar would be chaotic: countless words without the indispensable guidelines for how they can be ordered and modified” (p. 4). More vividly, Wang (2010) makes two similes. She compares grammar to the frame of a house, which is a decisive factor to ensure the solidness of it. Additionally, she regards grammar as a walking stick, whose function is to help and support students to learn English. Thus, the nature of grammar instruction manifests its own significance as it helps students enhance their overall language proficiency by integrating grammar into other aspects of learning, like listening, speaking, reading and writing. Although great emphasis has been attached to grammar teaching, there still exist many problems in school context. Nunan (1998) points out learners are provided with various drills to master a certain grammatical item, which makes grammar in textbooks isolated from real life. According to what Miss Wong has mentioned, students are not sure of the purposes of using passive voice at discourse level. That is to say, students do not fully understand in what occasion passive voice should be used, which is a common problem in contemporary grammar teaching. After a brief description about the importance and current situation of grammar teaching, this paper is aimed at analyzing Miss Wong’s teaching approach and trying to explore an effective way of teaching passive voice. This paper consists of six parts. The first part contains an introduction dealing with the bac... ... middle of paper ... ...006). Current issues in the teaching of grammar: An SLA perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 83-107. Fotos, S. (1998). Shifting the focus from forms to form in the EFL Classroom. ELT Journal, 52(4), 301-307. doi:10.1093/elt/52.4.301 Halliday, M. A. K. 1925, & Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Arnold. Lee, J. (2009). Teaching be and do. Modern English Teacher, 18(4), 47-50. Luu Trong Tuan, & Nguyen Thi Minh Doan. (2010). Teaching English grammar through games. Studies in Literature Language, 1(7), 61-75. Nunan, D. (1998). Teaching Grammar in Context. ELT Journal, 52(2), 101-109. Wang, F. J. (2010). The necessity of grammar teaching. ELT Journal, 3(2), 78-81. Williams, M., 1948, & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teachers: A social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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