Teaching grammar as an improving speaking

Bahyt Laura Galymkyzy,

1^st course student of group BT-11, Karaganda State University named after E.A. Buketov.

Scientific adviser: Omarova GN.,

senior teacher of Karaganda State University named after E.A. Buketov

Abstract

For children with learning disabilities and children who are low achievers, systematic phonics instruction, combined with synthetic phonics instruction produced the greatest gains. Synthetic phonics instruction consists of teaching students to explicitly convert letters into phonemes and then blend the phonemes to form words. Across all grade levels, systematic synthetic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to spell.

Keywords: grammar, comprehensive, ludicrous, immersed, transferable, combination of methods.

Обучение грамматике языка с улучшением речевых навыков

Бахыт Лаура Галымкызы,

студентка первого курса группы БТ-11 Карагандинского государственного университета имени Е.А. Букетова.

Научный руководитель: Омарова Гульнара Науйпиновна,

старший преподаватель Карагандинского государственного университета имени Е.А. Букетова.

Аннотация

Для детей с ограниченными возможностями и отстающих детей, систематическое обучение, в сочетании с прослушиванием звуков английского языка, является предпочтительным, поскольку приносит наибольшие результаты. Прослушивание звуков обучает студентов преобразовывать буквы в фонемы, а затем смешивать фонемы в слова. Во всех группах, благодаря такому систематическому обучению с постоянным прослушиванием фонетики, значительно улучшилась способность читать по буквам.

Ключевые слова: грамматика, всеобъемлющий, нелепый, погружение, передаваемый, сочетание методов.

Encourage students to ask questions, during class, to understand difficult topics. Learning style and ability vary in each child. Teaching English and grammar require knowledge of different learning styles and methodologies successfully to reach every student in the classroom. Sometimes called “differentiation,” using many different teaching methods appeals to the widest possible range of students and helps improve comprehension and self -confidence by finding their strengths and expanding on them.

Why does grammar retain such glamour when re-search over the past 90 years reveals not only that students do not learn it and are hostile towards it, but also that the study of grammar has no impact on writing quality. …Until we have such knowledge, the grammar sections of a textbook should be treated as a referencetool that might provide some insight into conventions of mechanics and usage. It should not be treated as a course of study to improve the quality of writing.

There are many ways to teach English, but it is cumbersome to find a perfect way to teach. Maybe it is impossible to find the perfect and easy way to teach. However, as we would consider (?) ourselves as decent educators, we just have to find effective ways to teach English well. It will be ludicrous to say that native speakers of English are the best English teachers. Just because one can speak English well, does not mean that he/she is an excellent English teacher.

Experimental research as raised an important question that can best be answered by descriptive studies, for example, case studies of why writers make certain syntactic choices or how concern for syntax assists or interferes with planning and composing. A consideration of questions like these would be fruitful direction for future research.

Grammar cannot be taught as a stand-alone activity. What is the point of that? Children begin to under-stand grammar concepts, and start to apply them in their own writing, when they start to read with a writer’s mind. Punctuation rules and techniques are drawn from shared texts, texts that the children have already been immersed in and have a good understanding. Exploring these and embedding them creatively is how the learning takes place.

Answer To, too, and two. Three words, all different meanings. Public schools everywhere have been preaching this concept for years, yet for some mystical reason, society cannot seem to figure it out. If one is truly honest about the topic, he or she will have to admit that the collective grammar of this country is simply tragic. With rampant fragments, run-ons, and the sentence, “Your too old for me, I ain’t got no reason to date u,” the people are demanding a remedy.

Learning style and ability vary in each child. Teaching English and grammar require knowledge of different learning styles and methodologies to reach successfully every student in the classroom. Sometimes called “differentiation,” using many different teaching methods appeals to the widest possible range of students and helps improve comprehension and self- confidence by finding their strengths and expanding on them.

Learning English requires command of the four key skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Receptive skills are reading and listening as the learning is simply absorbing information and attempting to make sense of it. English teachers should test receptive skills often throughout a single class period to ensure students are processing information correctly. To check reading comprehension, introduce a piece of appropriate text verbally with the class as a group and explain any difficult words or concepts. Ask the students to read the text and answer a few multiple-choice questions. Listening can be tested in the same way by using recorded conversation or pieces of music. Encourage students to ask questions about any reading or listening selections.

In regards to the students, both eighth graders and seventh graders, such an approach — asking them why they chose to write things the way they did. Instead of telling them this is the way they should write would, I believe, be a much more effective approach to teaching grammar than the rote teaching (either through Shurley English, or through worksheets out of a book, or any other textbook-style method) that is currently despised and forced down by students.

Into whose lap does this task fall? English teachers. Teaching English grammar to a group of students is a job that should grant super human status to any teacher who manages to do it successfully. There is a steaming buffet of options to pick from when it comes to choosing the best way to teach this age old and ever-relevant area of study. There is the traditional “sit down, get out your grammar books, turn to page 134, listen to me drone on for 15 minutes about verbals, and then do pages 135, questions one through sixty” method.

There is the new-age method of teaching grammar, which ironically doesn’t actually teach grammar at all, but instead hopes students just sort of “pick it up” as they read different texts; then, there is a method somewhere in the middle, the “discuss some grammatical concept in a mini-lesson format, then analyze that concept as students read and write” method. Each method depends on who is doing the teaching, what kind of students occupy the classroom, and the demands of the school system, and each method has plenty to smile about and sneer upon.

The traditional method of teaching grammar is still very popular among experienced teachers and teachers that have been in the profession for a while. Every-one knows these kinds of teachers. They’re the ones who stamp their little feet and say, “Back in MY day, when children had some RESPECT…” and similar mantras. They proclaim this world has gone to the deepest pits of hell in the roughest of hand baskets, and truly, the rest of the teachers wonder why they are still teaching at all [3].

A few young, fresh, brave souls enter the teaching field and follow the example set by their teachers in high school the traditional, grammar book, worksheet, right or wrong example. Regardless of whether they look at the student population and see the wasting away of society or a field of young and potential-filled flowers, these teachers see grammar as something that should be taught in isolation. It should be given its own time, its own unit, and its own space in the curriculum. Correctly, they see their chosen field of study as something so highly important that it cannot be ignored nor tainted with other subjects; the students must learn it because, well, that is what students do: they learn grammar. Period.

Placing students in cooperative groups or using peer coaching is especially helpful in an ELL classroom where students are or can be at mixed levels of learning English. When this is the case, it is best to place them in groups that are chosen by the teacher in a manner that places higher-level students with lower level ones. In this way the higher-level student is learning, practicing, and perfecting techniques through teaching; and the lower level student is acquiring new knowledge and receiving help from a peer. This can also be used to place higher-level students together to work on an assignment while the lower level students stay with the teacher to learn new information. In this way the teacher is able is optimize learning by provide new information to both levels without actually having to make one or the other sit through information that is either below or above their learning level.

Based on this information, many have decided to abandon the practice of teaching grammar all together. They have brushed it off as worthless and have instead chosen to cross their fingers in hopes that if students read enough and write enough, they will start to naturally see the patterns of the English language. For some students this may work. In fact, it may work for many students [1]. However, teachers may collide into a problem with this system. In every state, teachers have a curriculum to follow, a list of “to-do” if you will that they must be covered in a year’s time. These curriculum lists usually contain a set of pure grammatical skills that the students must learn, and unless the teacher wants to rebel against the curriculum (and, therefore, the school and state boards) that teacher must teach those things. Ah, the endless dilemmas of the English teacher.

As a future teacher, I have known colleagues who have abandoned grammar all together and then right before testing they experience a sort of panic of the conscience. They realize, “Oh wow, I have ignored grammar all year. It is going to be on the test and my students are not going to know it! They are not going to know how to distinguish an infinitive from a gerund! Oh, and those dreadful dangling modifiers! I should have been teaching those things all along. Stupid, stupid me. I’m going to get fired, because their test scores are going to be in the toilet!” The panic continues until summer break when the teacher’s mind has gone into somewhere between the “at least I survived” mode and the “nothing I can do about it now” mode.

For those teachers who are neither traditional nor rebellious, there is a middle road of grammar instruction. This type of instruction combines grammar with reading and writing as an everyday experience in the classroom. The teacher usually introduces a grammatical concept; let us say «adjective series» that the students need to know. He or she gives a short “mini-lesson” on the issue and maybe has the students do a quick activity (not a worksheet, more like a creative exercise like, “Write a paragraph about your ideal career and include two adjective series in the paragraph.”) [2].

Then, the students may read a story, discuss the story, and then find examples of the grammatical concept in the story. This method is very much dependent on the teacher’s creativity and his or her ability to weave gram-mar into every other area of the English classroom. It is by no means the easiest way to teach grammar, but as re-search has shown, it may be the most effective. Definitely the method that takes the most time and creativity on the part of the teacher, but for a dedicated professional, these are both secondary concerns to the level of learning the students achieve.

Grammar is one of those issues that does not have an easy solution. It is tricky and it is tough, kind of like all-important things in life. It is not for the faint of heart or the creatively shallow. There are teachers who make the traditional method work; somehow, they have found a way to get bits of information to implant themselves into student minds like tiny eggs of precious information [1]. There are teachers who do not handle grammar at all, but they make their students read enough and write enough that somehow, they pass their state tests and grow up with a basic knowledge of the concepts; and there are teachers who creatively combine grammar to other classroom activities.

Which method works the best is up to the individual teacher, but one thing is certain: “there, they’re, and their” all have different meanings, and it is the English teacher’s job to make sure this information is cleverly presented. If it is not presented for the benefit and advancement of the students, it must be done at least for the sake of nile biting, socially disenchanted Grammar police everywhere who look at their news feed on the internet and shed a little tear with every non-agreeing subject/verb pair.

References:

1. Hillocks G. Ways of thinking, ways of teaching. – New York: Teachers College Press. – 1999.

2. Lucy Pollard. Introduction to Teaching-English, Lucy Pollard – 2008.

3. Wyse D. Teaching English, language and literacy: From new theory to classroom practice. Invited presentation at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), Department of English, Beijing. – 2012, 12 March.