BERSABA, Jazha Mari Ann V.

February 15, 2011

III-13 BSE-L English Prof. Ali Anudin

The Role of Grammar in the Language Arts Curriculum

(A Reaction Paper)

Grammar, basically defined as the art of knowing one’s letters (Dykema 23), had

undoubtedly contributed a lot in the development of language teaching. Our recent view of it had

been greatly influenced by the heated debates, extreme researches and careful analyses of experts

and teachers during these past years. But until today, the “war” about grammar is still on-going

and many are still confused of its use and its importance in the language classroom. The

question, “Should we teach grammar? Or should we ignore it?” has been on the hot seat for

decades and is still on that same spot even today.

In her essay, Nancy Patterson had presented different arguments and the claim of each

side with regards to teaching grammar. Traditionally, grammar lessons dealt with word order,

word choice and agreement. Students then learned through memorization and mimicking. At this

point, grammar, which belonged to the classical trivium together with logic and rhetoric, was

classified as the foundation of all knowledge. It was the only means for one to be able to achieve

‘eloquence.’ During this time also, speaking, especially writing were given great importance and

the basic definition of a good writing was supposed to be “error-free.” To achieve this, students

had to learn the rules of correctness and the names of the part of the language.

English teachers have traditionally often teach grammar in isolation from writing in the

belief that literacy is acquired through direct separate skills instruction.

 However, many have discovered that even though students are rigidly exposed to direct

instruction in grammar, their writing skills didn’t seem to improve and worse was that their

performance was lower than those who did not study formal language at all. This was where

Transformational Grammar began to find a place in the classroom.

As oppose to the traditional belief in teaching grammar, some teacher-researchers found

that grammar instruction can be far more effective if it is incorporated into student writing

instruction (Atwell 1987, Meyer 1990). Moffet and Wagner also emphasize that grammar skills

develop through the practice of reading, writing, listening and speaking. In the same light,

Holdaway believes that the purpose of language arts instruction should be on reading and writing

fluency not on the accuracy and mastery of rules of syllabification.

These are the general points in which may experts have been debating for so many years

about the stand of grammar teaching and the list goes on. The question on its effect to language

art classroom stills remains unanswered even today. I agree with a number of points that were

presented in the essay particularly about those people who believed that grammar should not be

taught in isolation. True, we cannot assume as to whether or not grammar teaching would really

have an impact on any language skills specifically on writing but then again, I believe that its

integration with the four macro skills would definitely make a difference. Having no experience

yet in teaching the language in a real classroom, I cannot say this on the point of view of a

teacher. However, I would say this as a student who had experienced learning the language. In

my opinion, it is not really the question “should we teach grammar” that matters but rather on

how to teach it. As what Hartwell believes that the most effective instruction should be based on

the “rich and complex iteration of learner and environment”, so is the role of teachers to foster

meaningful language-rich classroom activities. Students differ from each other, so we cannot
really focus on one approach on grammar. We should not teach in polar ─ pure traditional or

pure transformational ─ but must be sensitive enough in teaching the students to acquire the

knowledge in understanding both the meaning and the surface form of the language. This would

mean the preparation of the kind of language activity that would contribute to students’ increased

awareness of language as language.

In the end, should we really teach grammar? Personally speaking, yes, as long as it stands

in the equilibrium of language accuracy and language fluency.