SECTION 7
TEACHING GRAMMAR
TEACHING GRAMMAR
( Seven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar-and Two Good Ones – Addressing the Grammar Gap in Task Work )
Interestingly, the mistakes which the Greek teachers regarded as most serious were often those that troubled the native speakers least, and vice versa. The native speakers generally gave higher marks to mistakes which impeded their understanding when discussing the reason for their assessment, many mentioned intelligibility. The nonnative teachers seemed more disturbed by infringements of common grammar rules in discussion they referred frequently to basic mistakes. They seemed most upset by the fact that learners continued to break rules which had been taught earlier and which they should therefore have mastered. Effectively, they were teaching grammar, because it was there. First its tidy, Grammar looks tidy and is relatively teachable although English grammar does not have the kinds of inflectional apparatus which makes German or Latin look so magnificently systematic. Grammar can be presented as a limited series of tidy things which students can learn, apply in exercises, and tick off one by one learning grammar is a lot simpler than learning a language. Second it’s testable, grammar is often used as a testing short cut and because of the wash back effect of testing, this adds to the pressure to teach it. Then grammar as a security blanket, Grammar can be reassuring and comforting. People often regarded grammar as a single interconnected system, all of which has to be learnt, if it is to work properly.
In language teaching, grammar is the area where this mechanism operates most successfully. A teacher may have a worse accent than some of his or her students there may be some irritating students in the class with a vast vocabulary of American pop idiom of which the teacher knows nothing. As we know, education is never neutral, and the teaching methods in any society inevitably reflect attitudes to social control and power relationship, so instructional education, have to follow by good instructional.
Except seven bad reasons for teaching grammar which I mentioned, there are two good reasons for teaching carefully selected points of grammar. First is comprehensibility, knowing how to build and use certain structures makes it possible to communicative common types of meaning successfully, without these structures, it is difficult to make comprehendsible sentences, so try to identify these structures and teach them well. Second, is acceptability, English needs to be acceptable to these authorities, their prejudices must be taken into account.
A current interest in methodology is task-based approaches to teaching. These involve the use of tasks that engage learners in meaningful interaction and negotiation focusing on completion of a task, learners grammar needs are determined on the basic of task performance rather than though a predetermined grammar syllabus. Grammatical syllabuses were superseded by communicative ones based on functions or task, grammar-based methodologies such as the presentation practice production. Grammar has a relation to second language acquisition processes, according to drawing on van patten (1993), skehan (1996a-1996b) there are five stages of the learning process will be distinguished. First is input, second intake, then acquisition, next is access and output. Input refers to language sources that are used to initiate the language learning process. Acquisition refers to the processes by which the learners incorporate a new learning item into his or her developing system or inter language. Access refers to the learners’ ability to draw upon his or her inter language system during communication. And finally, output refers to the observed result of the learners efforts.
REFERENCE : Richards, Renandya. 2002 Methodology in Langauge Teaching. Cambridge University Press.
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