SECTION 7 TEACHING GRAMMAR INTRODUCTION The role of grammar is perhaps one of the most controversial issues in language teaching. In the early parts of the twentieth century, grammar teaching formed an essential part of language instruction, so much so that other aspects of language learning were either ignored or downplayed. The argument was that if you knew the grammatical rules of the language, you would be able to use it for communication. This concept was strongly challenged in the early 1970s, Knowledge of the grammatical system of the language, it was argued, was but one of the many components which underlay the notion of communicative competence. To be considered a competent user of a language, one needs to know not only the rules cof grammar, but also how the rules are used in real communication, During this period, ‘grammar teaching became less prominent, and in some cases, was abandoned, In recent years, grammar teaching has regained its rightful place in the language cur- riculum. People now agree that grammar is too important to be ignored, and that without a good knowledge of grammar, learners’ language development will be severely constrained, There is now a general consensus that the issue is not whether or not we should teach gram- ‘mar. The issue now centers on questions such as, Which grammar items do leamers need most? How do we go about teaching grammar items in the most effective way? Are they best taught inductively or deductively? In this section, we consider classroom approaches (o the teaching of grammar. Although there is no one best method of teaching grammar — and we have to do more research to investigate the effectiveness of the many different tech- niques advocated by methodologists — we do know what constitutes sound approaches to the teaching of grammar. In the first article, Swan invites us to reflect on what grammar we teach and why we teach it. He identifies a number of reasons for grammar teaching which do not conform to 4sTeaching Grammar sound pedagogical principles. For example, teachers often teach grammar simply because it is “easy” to teach and to test, Some attempt to teach the whole grammatical system, thinking that it is both feasible and desirable. As a consequence, we have students who may know a lot of grammar but who are unable to use their knowledge for any practical communicative purposes. Swan suggests that the teaching of grammar should be determined by the needs of the students. Thus, the selection of grammar items to be taught must depend on learners’ aims in learning English. Furthermore, the teaching of grammar should be based on the principles of comprehensibility and acceptability. The second article by Richards examines the assumptions underlying a task-based approach (o teaching and identifies some of the practical difficulties that can arise. The most serious of these is the potential for students to perform a task with a poor level of grammatical accuracy, since they can often use communication strategies to bypass some of the language difficulties task performance involves. The result may be that task work develops fluency at the expense of accuracy and leads to the development of fossilized errors that may be difficult to eradicate, In order to address this issue, Richards draws on the work of Skehan and others to examine how a focus on grammatical accuracy can be built into the use of tasks. This involves adding a language-awareness dimension to tasks prior to, during, or after task performance, The last article, by Ellis, explores the role of practice and consciousness-raising in ‘grammar teaching. Although practice has arole to play in language learning, Ellis maintains that its value is rather limited. He argues that the available evidence seems to suggest that practice, be it controlled, contextualized, or communicative, may not be as effective as people claim itis. Consciousness-raising, on the other hand, offers an attractive alternative to traditional grammar practice. Through carefully designed consciousness-raising activi- ties, leamers will develop an explicit knowledge of the grammar of the language which facilitates their ability o communicate, Ellis admits, however, that this approach to grammar instruction has its limitations. It may not be appropriate for young learners or beginners. Discussion QUESTIONS Before Reading 1. How much grammar does one need in order to be able to communicate comfortably in a second or foreign language? 2. Some people claim that grammar is not very important as long as you can get your message across in the language you are studying. Do you agree with this statement? 3. What has been your experience in learning the grammar of a second language? 4, How do you go about teaching grammar? How do you decide which grammar points to present first, second, and so on? Is grammar best taught in isolation or in context? Explain your answer, Does one have to consciously know the rules of grammar? Why or why not? How important are grammar drills in second language learning? What are the assumptions of discrete grammar practice? 8. How do you correct your students’ grammar mistakes? Give at least three different techniques you usually employ in your teaching. After Reading 1. Swan lists seven bad reasons for teaching grammar. Do you agree with him? Add a few more bad reasons to his lst.10. Introduction ‘What does Swan mean by comprehensibility and acceptability? Design an activity that incorporates these two principles of grammar teaching, Observe leamers carrying out a task. To what extent does their performance illustrate the features of tasks listed by Richards? Choose an example of a task and plan how it will be used in the classroom, Suggest hhow an accuracy component can be incorporated into the task either before, during, or after task completion, as discussed by Richards. What are the goals of grammar-focused instruction according to task-based language teaching? Design an activity that promotes conscious noticing of certain grammatical features. What do you think is the role of grammar practice? Do you agree with Ellis that practice has a limited value in grammar learning? ‘What are some of the strengths and limitations of the approach advocated by Ellis? Examine an ESL textbook series and see how grammar is dealt with, What grammar items are included? How are they presented? On what basis are they selected? What are the principles used to sequence these grammar items? To what extent do the ‘exercises link grammar to communicative interaction? Some applied linguists suggest that grammar is best learned incidentally through, for ‘example, extensive reading. Do you agree? Should grammar be taught separately or integrated into the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing? ——aw]CHAPTER | 3 Seven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar — and Two Good Ones Michael Swan 48 Grammar is important, but most of the time, in most parts of the world, people probably teach too much of it.I think we can identify at least seven reasons for this. Seven Bap REASONS BECAUSE IT’S THERE Asked why he tried to climb Everest, George Mallory famously replied, ‘because itis there’, ‘Some teachers take this attitude to the mountain of grammar in their books: Its there, so it has to be climbed. But the grammar points in the course book may not all be equally important for a particular class. ‘The book may have been written for students with different purposes, studying in a different environment, perhaps with different native languages and different problems. It may have been designed for learners with more time to spend on grammar than they do today. The book may simply have been written by a grammar fanatic. It is important to choose grammar points relevant to students’ needs, rather than blindly going through the syllabus from left to right. In a well-known experiment (Hughes & Lascaratou, 1982), mistakes made by Greek secondary school children were shown to Greek teachers of English, British teachers of English, and British nonteachers. Members of cach group graded the mistakes on a scale from 1 (least serious) to 5. Before you read on, you might like to give your own as- sessment of the seriousness of the mistakes in the sentences in the box and compare your mark with the average gradings given by the Greek teachers (GT) and the British nonteachers (BN)Seven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar ~ and Two Good Ones ag] 1, We agteed to went by car. 2. We didn’t knew what happened. 3. Dizzys from the wine we decided to go home 4, The people are too many so and the cars are too many. 5. The bus was hit in front of. 6, There are many accidents because we haven't brought (broad) roads, Answers (2) GT4.6,BN22 Q)GT 44, BN18 (3) GT42:BN21 4) GT30;BN43 ()GT26;BN4.3 (6) GT 2.4; BN 4.1 Interestingly, the mistakes which the Greek teachers regarded as most scrious 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 reasons for their assessments, many mentioned ‘intelligibility’. The nonnative teachers seemed more disturbed by infringements of common grammar rules; in discussion, they roferred frequently to “basic mistakes’. They seemed most upset by the fact that leamers continued to break rules which had been taught earlier and which they ‘should” therefore have mastered. Eifectively, they were teaching grammar ‘because it was there’ ITs TIDY ‘Vocabulary is vast and untidy, We may attempt to systematise it by teaching semantic fields, superordinates and hyponyms, notional/functional categories and the rest, but ultimately vocabulary remains a big muddle. Pronunciation is more easily analysed (especially if you eave out intonation and stress), and it can be presented as a tidy system of phonemes, allophones, syllable structure and so on, However, in Tom McArthur’s immortal words, “pronunciation is that part of a student which is the same at the end of a language course as at the beginning’. That leaves grammar. Grammar looks tidy and is relatively teachable. Although English grammar does not have the kind of inflectional apparatus which makes German ot Latin look so magnificently systematic, there ate still many things in English that can be arranged in rows or displayed in boxes. 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, IT’S TESTABLE Many students like tests. Itis hard to gauge your own progress in a foreign language, and a ‘200d test can tell you how you are doing, whether you have leamt what you wanted to, and ‘what level you have reached. Tests show (or appear to show) whether students are learning and whether teachers are teaching properly; they rank learners; and (if you incorporate a ppass mark) they can be used to designate successes and create failures. Unfortunately, itis time-consuming and difficult to design and administer tests which really measure overall progress and attainment. On the otherhand, grammar tests are relatively simple. So grammar is often used as a testing short cut; and, because of the washback effect of testing, this adds to the pressure to teach it. So we can easily end up just teaching what can be tested (mostly grammar), and testing what we have taught (mostly grammar)Michael Swan GRAMMAR AS A SECURITY BLANKET Grammar can be reassuring and comforting. In the convoluted landscape of a foreign language, grammar rules shine out like beacons, giving students the feeling that they can understand and control what is going on. Although this feeling is party illusory (structural competence only accounts for a portion of what is involved in the mastery of a language), anything that adds to learners’ confidence is valuable. However, the ‘security blanket’ as- pect can lead students and teachers to concentrate on grammar to the detriment of other, less codifiable but equally important, aspects of the language. IT MADE ME WHO 1AM As a student, I worked hard to leam the rules governing capitalisation in German, In the interests of ‘simplification’, and without consulting me, the authorities have now changed therules, and my investment has gone down the drain. Iam not pleased. If you have struggled to lear something, you feel it must be important. Many foreign language teachers spent a good deal of time when younger learning about tense and aspect, the use of articles, relative clauses and the like; they naturally fee! that these things matter a good deal and must be incorporated in their own teaching. In this way, the tendency of an earlier generation to overvalue grammar can be perpetuated. YOU HAVE TO TEACH THE WHOLE SYSTEM People often regard grammar as a single interconnected system, all of which has to be learnt if itis to work properly. This is an illusion, Grammar is not something like a car engine, where a fault in one component such as the ignition or fuel supply can cause a complete breakdown, Itis more realistic to regard grammar as an accumulation of different elements, some more systematic than others, some linked together tightly or loosely, some completely independent and detachable, We teach — or should teach - selected subsystems, asking for each: 1, How much of this do the students know already from their native language? (A German, unlike a Japanese, knows the main facts about English article use before his or her first lesson.) 2. How much of the rest is important ? How much of that have we got time for? To try to teach the whole system is to ignore all three of these questions. POWER Some teachers fortunately, a minority — enjoy the power. As a teacher, one can get a kick from knowing more than one’s students, from being the authority, from always being right. Inlanguage teaching, grammars the arca where this mechanism operates most successfully. ‘A teacher may have a worse accent than some of his or her students; there may be some invitating student in the class with a vast vocabulary of American pop idiom of which the teacher knows nothing; but there is always grammar to fall back on, with its complicated rules and arcane terminology. Even if you have a native-speaking student in your class, he ‘or she will not be able to talk coherently and confidently about progressive infinitives or the use of articles with uncountable nouns. If you can, you win. Societies like grammar. Grammar involves rules, and rules determine ‘correct’ be- haviour. Education is never neutral, and the teaching methods in any society inevitably reflect attitudes to social control and power relationships. In countries where free speech is valued (up to a point) language classes are likely to let students talk, move about, andSeven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar - and Two Good Ones join in the decision-making (up to a point), In more authoritarian societies, students are ‘more likely to sit in rows, listen, learn rules, do grammar exercises, make mistakes and get corrected (thus demonstrating who is in control). Examination design follows suit, showing whether the authorities want future voters who are good at expressing themselves or ones who are good at obeying rules. (Guess which !) Examination syllabi the world over also generally include a component which requires great mental agility, is of doubtful value to ‘most people, and is regarded as a touchstone of intellectual capacity. In Wester societies, math has taken over this responsibility from Latin, but the grammar of foreign languages plays a useful supporting role THe RESULTS Where grammaris given too much priority the result is predictable and well known. ‘Course books’ become little more than grammar courses. Students do not learn English: They learn grammar, at the expense of other things that matter as much or more. They know the main rules, can pass tests, and may have the illusion that they know the language well. However, when it comes to using the language in practice, they discover that they lack vital elements, typically vocabulary and fluency: They can recite irregular verbs but cannot sustain a conversation, (As J. K. Jerome put it a century ago, few people care to listen to their own irregular verbs recited by young foreigners.) Such an approach is also psychologically counterproductive, in that it tends to make students nervous of making mistakes, undermining their confidence and destroying their motivation, THe OTHER EXTREME here are bad reasons for not teaching grammar, too. When, as sometimes happens, there isa reaction against grammar-heavy syllabi, people often fly to the other extreme and teach little ‘orno grammar. This happened in Britain the 1970s, when the communicative approach (in itself an excellent development) was widely taken as a justification for teaching ‘functions and notions’ or ‘skills’ instead of grammar. One of the results ofthis unfortunate trend was the appearance of a generation of British teachers and teacher trainers many of whom were seriously ignorant of the structure of the language they were professionally teaching. Doing to0 little grammar (Whether out of misguided principle or sheer ignorance) is of course as damaging as doing too much. Two Goop REASONS ‘There are two good reasons for teaching carefully selected points of grammar, ‘COMPREHENSIBILITY Knowing how to build and use certain structures makes it possible to communicate common types of meaning successfully. Without these structures, it is difficult to make comprehen- sible sentences, We must, therefore, try to identify these structures and teach them well. Precisely what they are is partly open to debate ~ it is difficult to measure the functional load of a given linguistic item independent of context — but the list will obviously include such things as basic verb forms, interrogative and negative structures, the use of the main tenses, and modal auxiliaties.Michael Swan ACCEPTABILITY Insome social contexts, serious deviance from native-speaker norms can hinder integration and excite prejudice ~ a person who speaks ‘badly’ may not be taken seriously, or may be considered uneducated or stupid, Students may therefore want or need a higher level of ‘grammatical correctness than is required for mere comprehensibility. Potential employers and examiners may also require a high — often unreasonably high — level of grammatical correctness, and if our students’ English needs to be acceptable to these authorities, their prejudices must be taken into account. WHAT To TEACH ‘What points of grammar we choose to teach will therefore depend on our circumstances and ‘our learners’ aims. Whatever the situation, though, we must make sure that we are teaching only the points of grammar that we need to in the light of these factors, and ~ of course ~ that we are teaching them well. If we can manage to focus clearly on these principles, we have a better chance of teaching English instead of just teaching grammar. Reference Hughes, A. & Lascaratou, C.(1982). Competing criteria for error gravity. English Language Teaching Journal, 36(3), 175-182.