Grammar teaching can work, but the magic formula still awaits discovery.
Harsh criticism of traditional grammar teaching has continued over the last few decades, which has resulted in lack of confidence among language teachers. The proponents of audiolingualism argue that immediate error correction is necessary and grammatical errors should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, the theorists of natural approach persist that teachers who focus only on accuracy may sacrifice learners’ fluency. However, if no attention is paid to accuracy, then learners will not be accurate enough in using language in real context. Even though there may be differences of opinion, the general consensus is that grammar teaching is necessary to help students possess greater command of the target language. This does not, however, mean that traditional grammar teaching is effective. English language teachers have always resorted to using course books when teaching grammar, but sometimes this method falls short of fulfilling their goals. Traditional grammar teaching, which highly emphasized the categorization of forms in decontextualized activities, is rather rejected as learners tend to remember the taught forms only in similar contexts (e.g., grammar tests), but find it extremely hard to retrieve the appropriate forms in the context of communicative interaction. Studying grammar in isolation does not help students avoid grammatical errors in both speaking and writing. Teaching grammar as grammar is not effective and takes up classroom time that could be better spent reading and writing.
When reflecting upon my teaching practices and student performance, I tend to believe that the most effective way to teach grammar is to encourage and promote reading and writing. When students hear and see what is proper, they incorporate it into their own writing. The writing process itself teaches grammar. As students proofread, edit and revise their own work, they learn about the proper use of grammar. Teachers need to provide extensive opportunities for students to read literature (graded readers). Thus, students can analyze the sentence structure of authors and learn how the use of tense-aspect-mood-modality contributes to the author’s work. Students can then copy the style of an author they admire and improve their own writing.
Harsh criticism of traditional grammar teaching has continued over the last few decades, which has resulted in lack of confidence among language teachers. The proponents of audiolingualism argue that immediate error correction is necessary and grammatical errors should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, the theorists of natural approach persist that teachers who focus only on accuracy may sacrifice learners’ fluency. However, if no attention is paid to accuracy, then learners will not be accurate enough in using language in real context. Even though there may be differences of opinion, the general consensus is that grammar teaching is necessary to help students possess greater command of the target language. This does not, however, mean that traditional grammar teaching is effective. English language teachers have always resorted to using course books when teaching grammar, but sometimes this method falls short of fulfilling their goals. Traditional grammar teaching, which highly emphasized the categorization of forms in decontextualized activities, is rather rejected as learners tend to remember the taught forms only in similar contexts (e.g., grammar tests), but find it extremely hard to retrieve the appropriate forms in the context of communicative interaction. Studying grammar in isolation does not help students avoid grammatical errors in both speaking and writing. Teaching grammar as grammar is not effective and takes up classroom time that could be better spent reading and writing.
When reflecting upon my teaching practices and student performance, I tend to believe that the most effective way to teach grammar is to encourage and promote reading and writing. When students hear and see what is proper, they incorporate it into their own writing. The writing process itself teaches grammar. As students proofread, edit and revise their own work, they learn about the proper use of grammar. Teachers need to provide extensive opportunities for students to read literature (graded readers). Thus, students can analyze the sentence structure of authors and learn how the use of tense-aspect-mood-modality contributes to the author’s work. Students can then copy the style of an author they admire and improve their own writing.
Written & Edited by E.Kerr
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