A) The role of grammar in the English language classroom.

- Behaviourism: decontextualized grammar structures. Privileged FORM over MEANING.

- The 1980s experienced an anti-grammar movement, perhaps influenced primarily by Krashen's (1982) idea that
grammar can be acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities to interact in the classroom: in other
words,. that grammatical competence can develop in a fluency-oriented environment without conscious focus on
language forms.

- Grammar: approaches transitioned from HIGH to LOW priority. --> gram. inaccuracy --> in turn, REASSERTION of
grammar in syllabus design and the contents of lessons (gram. forms and rules). --> not identical to what it was before.

How do learners learn the grammatical system of English?

2 issues:

what insights are available into the ways in which learners move towards accurate production of the English language
to measure the usefulness of grammar-based knowledge and grammar-based practice as part of classroom
methodology

AND factors to consider? Age, degree of exposure to English, and reasons for learning English

OTHER QUESTIONS: If a focus on grammar is a necessary and/ or a desirable part of classroom language learning:

how to integrate grammar teaching into a communicative methodology which pays attention to all aspects of
communicative competence, and what precise form that teaching should take. And these imply further questions
about the choice of grammatical structures to present, what kind of grammatical description to use, whether to use an
inductive or a deductive approach, what the role of practice might be, and what forms of practice are appropriate for
different types of learner.

GRAMMAR-VOCABULARY LINK
Traditionally, grammar has been considered as being of primary importance with vocabulary in a
subordinate role, but currently vocabulary is seen as of equal significance in language learning,

B) What do we know about the learning or grammar?

INPUT HYPOTHESIS and the notion of INTAKE.

Learners receive information about language from a variety of SOURCES in the environment/classroom (teacher,
textbook, other ss, recordings, etc.). --> WORK to achieve ACQUISITION.

ACQUISITION (sequence of) PROCESSES:

1) Noticing: pay attention to specific features of the Lg. In order for the learner to notice, the Lg feature has to be
noticeable.

Criteria for being noticeable: frequent occurrence, related to ss common sense about basic FUNCTIONS of the Lg, its
functions are likely to noticed (example, DON'T).

After being noticed and interpreted (FORM-MEANING) --> become part of INTAKE. Ss have to work out how to fit this
new info into their PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE.

2) Reasoning and hypothesizing: analyse new Lg using a set of STRATEGIES they know:

a. Deductive reasoning: applying rules ss know to communicate (inversion of order in indirect questions)
b. Contrastive analysis: compare their knowledge of L1, L2 or other languages and work out their similarities and
differences. (False cognates)
c. Translating.
d. Tranferring: apply knowledge of one language to the understanding or production of another. "I no like..."

3) Structuring and restructuring: new rules have to be integrated into the representation of English grammar they hold
in their minds, and this information has to be restructured as the learner moves on to another stage of development.
Stages --> Lightbown and Spada (1999)

4) Automatizing: earlier stages, learner plans and chooses what to say and how to say it by paying attention to whether
the form communicates a meaning successfully. Through repeated practice of the successful form its use will ultimately
become automatic, in just the same way as L1 acquisition.
 Problems/qualifications:

1. The ways in which these processes of noticing, reasoning, restructuring, and automatizing relate to one another is
far from clear. Role of practice in the intake of grammatical structures (facilitate or confuse, succesful production in
focused practice in the lesson but not in later lessons, WHEN and WHAT KIND of practice helps),
2. whether processes occur consciously or unconsciously,
3. implicit vs explicit grammatical knowledge.
4. There could also be other processes.
DEBATE on just how language is processed by a learner: what the psychological
reality is, and what the respective roles of grammar and vocabulary are. For example, it
has been suggested (Pawley and Syder 1983) that learners improvise when they speak,
especially in the early stages of learning a language, stringing together chunks of
language in a process that owes more to memory and an understanding of word
meaning than the selection of grammatical units.

C) What information can help us in the selection and presentation of grammar?

Pedagogical grammars (in textbooks) therefore act as 'filters' or 'interpreters' between the detailed formal grammars of
linguists and the classroom (Candlin 1 973). This means that they are structured according to the age and level of
proficiency of the learners and in terms of their objectives for learning English.

 Points to bear in mind when reviewing the grammar component of a coursebook (pedagogical grammar):

1. Idealization: great difficulty to give rules for some aspects of grammar. --> 'the use of any in an affirmative sentence is
in fact much commoner than its use in interrogatives' (Any fool knows that!)

2. Different approaches to the description of grammar (NOT as a formal system):

1) Grammar as meaning: examples: modals, diff. person; intonation, contrast.

2) Grammar in discourse: go beyond the sentence; "Normal linguistic behaviour does not consist in the
production of separate sentences but in the use of sentences for the creation of discourse." Widdowson

Analysis of connected discourse (Leech and Svartvik): Six ways:

1. Linking signals: anticipate what comes next (fortunately, i.e.)

2. Linking construcions: conjunctions

3. 'Gral purpose' links: participle clauses (being a...), verbless clauses (... , too nervous to reply)

4. Substitution and omission: the use of PRNs to refer back to sth (the one... as good as I do) and ellipsis.

5. Presenting and focusing info: Contrast (spoken).

6. Order and emphasis: cleft sentences, inversion, fronting.

 Problems: discourse: context-bound (spoken) --> pragmatics. --> (efforts to achieve) Contextualization of
grammar in coursebook

3) Grammar and style: varieties of English: differences according to geography and situation, the latter covering
a number of things: written and spoken language; formal and informal style; impersonal, polite, and familiar language;
tactful and tentative language, and literary or rhetorical style.