Section 7

Chapter 13

Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar – and 2 Good Ones

The teaching of grammar should be determined by the needs of the students. The selection of
grammar items to be taught must depend on learners’ aims in learning English. The teaching of
grammar should be based on the principles of comprehensibility and acceptability.

SEVEN BAD REASONS

1. BECAUSE IT’S THERE
The books 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. It is important to
choose grammar points relevant to students’ needs, rather than blindly going through the syllabus
from left to right.
2. IT’S TIDY
Grammar looks tidy and is somewhat teachable. English grammar does not have the kind of
inflectional device which makes German or Latin look so systematic, there are still many things in
English that can be set in rows. Grammar can be presented as a limited series of tidy things which
students can learn, use in exercises, and tick off one by one. Learning grammar is a lot simpler than
learning a language.
3. IT’S TESTABLE
Tests show whether students are learning and they can be used to define successes and create
failures. It is time-consuming and difficult to design and administer tests that really measure
overall progress and achievement. Grammar tests are simple. So grammar is often used as a testing
shortcut; and, because of the washback effect of testing, this adds to the pressure to teach it.
4. GRAMMAR AS A SECURITY BLANKET
5. IT MADE ME WHO I AM
6. YOU HAVE TO TEACH THE WHOLE SYSTEM
7. POWER
Education is not neutral, and the teaching methods in any society reflect attitudes to social control
and power relationships. In countries where free speech is valued, language classes are likely to
let students talk, move about, and join in the decision-making. In more authoritarian societies,
students are more likely to sit in rows, listen, learn rules, do grammar exercises, make mistakes and
get corrected.

TWO GOOD REASONS

1. COMPREHENSIBILITY
Knowing how to build and use certain structures makes it possible to communicate common
types of meaning successfully. We must try to identify these structures and teach them well. It is
difficult to measure the functional load of a given linguistic item independent of context – but the
list will include such things as basic verb forms, interrogative and negative structures, the use of the
main tenses, and modal auxiliaries.
2. ACCEPTABILITY
In some social contexts, students may want or need a higher level of grammatical correctness than is
needed for mere comprehensibility. Employers and examiners may require a high level of grammatical
correctness, and if our students’ English needs to be acceptable to these authorities, their goals must
be taken into account.