Ｔｈｅ Ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ ｏｆ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ Ｇｒａｍｍａｒ

祖凤霞

Abstract:Acquiring the grammar system is vital in the foreign language learning, and there has always been the debate on how learners can best acquire the English grammar. In this paper, two methods for teaching grammar will be presented——traditional practice and consciousness-raising. Both the two methods have their advantages and disadvantages. But in practice, it is a better idea to combine different methods to make grammar teaching more effective. In addition, the consideration of different individual learners is also very important.

Key words:Grammar teaching traditional practice consciousness-raising

1 Introduction

It is well-known that grammar is vital in the foreign language acquisition, no one seriously interested in the development of foreign language has ever suggested that learners do not need to master the grammatical system of the English language. Acquiring the grammar system is of central importance. The debate has been over on how learners can best acquire the target grammar, whether and to what extent they should undertake exercises with a deliberate focus on form, or whether they should pick up the grammar in the process of meaningful interaction.

In this paper I am going to present the two methods for teaching grammar——traditional practice and consciousness-raising; and then compare their strengths and weaknesses. In the conclusion, the effective grammar teaching in different situations will be discussed.

2 Traditional method

People who adopt traditional method take the view that teaching grammar entails the formal explanation of grammar rules. In a language classroom learners received systematic instructions in grammar and language. Language teaching is based on structural syllabus. Language pedagogy has emphasized form-focused instruction and practice.

There are several advantages of explicit presentation of grammatical knowledge.

(1)Learners taught explicitly can develop a solid knowledge of the rules. And they can also be successful in using them in judging the grammar of sentences. Explicit presentation of rules supported by examples is the most effective way of presenting difficult new material (Ellis 1994).

(2)Ur (1988) also argues in favor of explicit teaching in the belief that mastering the individual elements of a language, be they lexical, phonological or grammatical, is a valuable means towards eventual ability to communicate in the language.

(3)Another advantage of traditional method is that a form-focused approach to language instruction can provide a way of integration fluency and accuracy of the language.

Traditional method of grammar teaching receives a lot of criticism. The major one is that linguistic forms are studied in isolation from their communicative function. The learners may become fluent in the structures they have been taught, but may not be able to use them appropriately in genuine communication outside the classroom (Nunan1991). The activities are much more focus on classroom not the real world, they cannot fulfill the variety of communicative functions to which the language is used. Textbooks and materials and activities are artificial and dull.

Other criticism includes that the extent to which individual learners practice specific grammatical features is not related to the accuracy with which they subsequently perform them in the communication. Learners' ability to make correct sentences in a classroom practice situation does not ensure that they could make sentences correctly in other contexts.

3 Consciousness-raising (CR)

Ellis (1994) believes that classroom learners can acquire a foreign language grammar naturalistically by participating in meaning-focused tasks instead of form-focused instructions. The proponents of CR emphasize form-function relationship. The classroom activities are basically carried out around tasks and consciousness acquisition. They are meant to facilitate the learning process by providing data and examples and also by helping learners link the new knowledge with what they already know .The teacher acts as a facilitator to assist learners to develop the foreign language acquisition.

According to Ellis (1994), the merits of CR are the following:

(1)The classroom is learner -centered, the input is more comprehensible to learners, and it may increase motivation to learn by arousing curiosity regarding rules and their exception (Tomasello 1994).

(2)In CR, teaching follows a task-based syllabus, but focus on learners attention on specific linguistic properties in the course, so it can carry out communicative activities.

(3)The consciousness expansion can also provide a relaxed but alert state of mind; it can increase imagination and creation of learners.

(4)It helps to develop individual learning styles and independent learning ability.

However, according to Ellis (1994), there are also some weaknesses of the approach.

(1)For CR, grammar teaching is carried out through a meaningful context, learners may not know what it is that teacher is trying to do in this part of the lesson nor whether they should be focusing on meaning or form or both.

(2)Learners will not be able to provide explanations of grammatical rules of the target language; the approach may result in errors in learner's sequent use of the language.

(3)The approach attaches more importance to the learners understanding of the structure of the language, and delay presenting the grammatical rules, which in turn may delay the development of second language acquisition.

(4)CR is not suitable for beginners and learners who have different cultures and big distance between their first language and foreign language. For they have no or little sense of the second language, it is difficult for them to build consciousness of the foreign language structures, especially the complex ones.

4 Conclusion

In practice it is a better idea to combine different methods to make grammar teaching more effective. Ellis (1994) himself suggested that" grammar teaching can involve combination of practice and consciousness-raising".

Another important factor for effective grammar teaching is the consideration of different individual learners. For example, traditional practice approach seems to work better for adults and female adolescent learners of above average intelligence.

And also for Chinese students, practicing grammatical structures under controlled condition is more suitable for them. There are several reasons underpinning this point of view. The first one is that Chinese students have totally different culture with the target language, it is very hard for them to raise consciousness of the features of the language, The second reason is that the input of the target language in only through classroom, they have no chance to do a cognitive comparison between their own utterance and the correct target language utterance from native speakers, which is vital important for consciousness raising .The third reason is that Chinese students are used to accept instructions from teachers. They like teachers to tell them the rules and structures explicitly, and then they practice and memorize them and try to produce correct sentences.

On the other hand, for those high level students with massive input of the target language both from classroom and outside the classroom, consciousness-raising is being preferred.

And as far as the language is concerned, the effectiveness of traditional and CR approaches may depend on the type of linguistic materials being learned. CR may be more likely applied to simple rules while for complex structures; traditional method may be more workable

To conclude, when we choose our teaching methods for a foreign language grammar, first, we'd better compare the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and next, we have to take other factors into account, such as the characteristic of individual learners, the feature of language being taught, teaching environment, testing materials, and so on. Then we can decide which method or which combination of methods is the most effective for the learners.

References:

[1]Ellis. R. Classroom Second Language Development. London: Prentice Hall, 1988.

[2]Ellis. R. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Pedagogy.London: Prentice Hall, 1991.

[3]Ellis. R. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

[4]Nunan .D. Language Teaching and Methodology. London: Prentice Hall, 1991.

[5]Tomasello. Study in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.