Филологические науки/ 5.Методы и приемы контроля уровня владения иностранным языком.

Senior teacher Abdullina D.S.

Miras University, Shymkent, Kazakhstan

Teaching grammar

The place of grammar in foreign language teaching has always been the reason for much debate. What is grammar? A difference is made in applied linguistics between implicit and explicit knowledge of grammar. Implicit knowledge is knowledge of grammar that is intuitive and allows correct grammatical forms to be deployed automatically, without the user being aware of a particular form is correct – e.g. a native Kazakh speaker’s awareness of анашым менің су ішкім келіп тұр or a native Russian’s awareness of мамочка я хочу пить as correct formulation based on implicit knowledge of the relevant word order rules. Work in second language acquisition (see Ellis 1990) shows that it is not possible for language teaching to influence the development of implicit knowledge in any direct or immediate way.

Explicit knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge about grammar, i.e. the conscious knowledge we use in checking the accuracy of our language production or in employing rules to formulate utterances. Explicit knowledge is not immediately available in unmonitored language use but is called upon slowly and deliberately, either by an FL learner o by a native speaker when employing a “careful style” in such as essay or report writing.

Ellis (2002) has argued that explicit knowledge can рудз the processes involving in using and acquiring implicit knowledge, in particular by drawing FL learners’ attention to specific forms and structures, encouraging them to monitor their language production. For this reason grammar teaching should be aimed at the development or learners’ explicit knowledge.

For language to be acquired, spoken and written input – spoken and written samples of the target language – needs to become intake. A main role here is played by “consciousness-raising”, or getting learners to “notice” features of input in some way (Rutherford 1987, Schmidt 1990). This can be achieved either by direct grammar teaching about structures or by enhancing the input during meaning-focused work, e.g. by making the grammar we want students to focus on stand out in some way, either aurally or visually. Here, learners gradually start to work out how form and meaning map on to each other, first sorting the new information about a particular structure, then comparing it with, and unconsciously accommodating it to, their existing system of language knowledge, and formulating new hypotheses to account for the differences, or “gap”, between the two. The unconsciousness process continues as learners test their new theories by attending further to linguistic input and receiving feedback on their use of the new form.

Through repeated use in meaningful communicative interaction, grammatical knowledge becomes internalized, i.e. it becomes organized in such a way that the learner is able to draw on it readily and quickly, allowing production to become increasingly automatic; this is known as “proceduralization” (Johnson 1996). It is believed that, in this way, consciousness-raising and noticing play a major part in allowing explicit knowledge of grammar to develop gradually into implicit knowledge.

However, language learning is rarely as predictable or uniform as the above suggests. In particular, we should remember:

- Noticing and reasoning place a heavy cognitive burden on learners who may require a considerable period of assimilation before they can actually produce the particular form themselves.

- Restructuring of learners’ existing “interlanguage” system, to accommodate information about new grammatical items, can lead to a temporary drop in grammatical performance in other areas – a source of much frustration to tutors who have thought the particular areas had been “mastered”.

- Research shows that grammatical structures are acquired in a particular order but that each form develops very gradually and passes through transitional interlanguage phases in which non-target language forms are prominent and alternate with correct forms (Ellis 1997).

Approaches to teaching grammar

Old approaches to language teaching adopted an obvious approach to explaining grammar, usually involving extensive language description, met language and intensive practice. Such explicit – and often is not effective – teaching is based on erroneous assumptions about how language is acquired. Although there are occasions where explicit teaching may be desirable as a way to focus attention on a specific structure and to prompt subsequent noticing of the feature in input, it has clear limitations and its use should not become too protracted.

Much contemporary language teaching assumes less explicit approaches to grammar, with a considerably reduced role for formal language description and an enhanced role for contextualized, meaningful use of target structures. Among the wide range of possible approaches involving more meaningful, contextualized use of grammatical structures, some of the most common include:

- Pictures or drawings to illustrate specific grammar points (e.g. street maps or building layouts for prepositional use);

- Dialogues (e.g. friends discussing what to give a third person for his or her birthday as a way of introducing indirect objects);

- Visual organizers (e.g. a person’s appointment book or diary to introduce the “perfect tense”);

- Texts: short parallel texts might be used to compare and contrast key structures (e.g. one featuring imperatives, the other with the same ideas expressed less forcefully via modal expression).

The approach to grammar that most closely accords with what we know about language acquisition is discovery learning. This is much less direct and less directed technique, which engages students’ critical power and problem-solving capacity by encouraging the scanning and analysis language data, the noticing of key forms, the formation of hypotheses concerning the relevant grammatical rule and the testing of this rule in further analysis of data. Example of activities here include:

- identifying grammar items in short passage, categorizing them in some way, and articulating rules of use;

- Comparing formulations: students are given a text full of, say, English passive constructions and then receive key sentences from the text rewritten so as to avoid the passive; they have to compare how the ideas have been expressed and formulate rules for the construction and use of the passive;

- Identifying what is wrong in a set of incorrect sentences (perhaps a composite of the group’s own recent written work) and explaining structural norms and rules;

- xamining concordances of grammar items taken from a language corpus and formulating rules; at advanced levels, students might also compare the rules for use offered by standard prescriptive grammars with the evidence provided by corpus data.

There are good reasons for teaching grammar. However, insights from language acquisition research do not support an exclusively structural syllabus that assumes learners acquire implicit knowledge through intensive practice of carefully graded structures.

After years of contradicting methodologies and approaches, it seems rational to say that there is no single “best approach” to grammar teaching. Grammar instruction is a means to enhance and refine input by including noticing and consciousness-raising and thus to help language become intake in readiness for eventual acquisition. Provided we keep this in mind, we are justified in adopting a varied and eclectic approach to grammar teaching, with the exact mix of activities depending on the nature of the module, the students and their particular learning needs and individual learning styles. Ultimately, these are things only the individual tutor can judge.

Literature

1. Shortall T. “Grammar rules: teaching grammar in the foreign language classroom” – 2003., USA.

2. Scott Thornbury “How to teach grammar” – 1999, England.

3. Jim Scrivener “Teaching English grammar” – 2006, England.