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L E A R N I N G
A N D
T E A C H I N G
D I F F E R E N T
T Y P E S O F G R A M M A R
1. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
To explain what the term grammar means and how is learnt and taught, it is better to start looking at different types of grammar:
1.1.. Prescriptive Grammar
It’s the grammar that prescribes what people ought to do or not.
Modern grammarians avoid prescriptive grammar because they claim that their job is to explain how grammar is and what people say but not to decide what people should say or not.
Nowadays, prescriptive grammar lacks of importance: it’s believed that teachers should teach language at it is and thus, students should learn to speak real language, the language that it’s really used.
However, there are areas in which prescriptive grammar still prevails such as spelling and punctuation.
1.2.. Traditional Grammar
It’s concerned with labelling the parts of speech with their names and giving rules that explain how the may be combined.
But being the parts of speech relevant to grammar and grammarians, there are other grammatical concepts that they are equally important → for example, the context is not mentioned in the definition of a noun but if we see a noun in a sentence, will acquired the concept better-
Grammar books for language teaching often present grammar through a series of visual displays and examples.
The problem, as it’s said by modern language teachers, is that pupils are not equipped of traditional terminology while coursebooks and grammar books rely on the student knowledge of the terms of traditional grammar.
A useful modern source is the NASA Manual in the link of list on the website, which provides advice in traditional terms.
1.3.. Structural Grammar
Language is taught too by structural grammar, based on the concept of phrase structure → Structural grammar describes how the elements of the sentences fit together in a global structure built up from smaller structures.
This phrase structure is usually presented in tree diagrams.
Teachers have used structural grammar in substitution tables in which students substitute different words within a constant grammatical structure.
They I You
can draw a black white red
dog car rose
They are still common in coursebooks, although more as graphic displays of grammar.
1.4.. Grammatical (linguistic) competence
The knowledge of language that the speaker possesses in the mind is grammatical competence.
The base for grammatical analysis such as sentence tress, structures and rules is grammatical competence → The competence in our minds.
A native speaker knows the system of the language → It means to think in automatic way → it is implicit knowledge below the level of consciousness →
Some words consist of a single morpheme (book) and other words have morphemes added (books).
When it is used tree diagrams, the whole sentence is at the top and the morphemes are ate the bottom → the structure and behaviour of morphemes are studied in the area of grammar called morphology.
1.2.3 Sequences of acquisition
In the 1970s Heidi Dulay and Martina Burt decided to study how grammatical morphemes are acquired by L2 learners, discovering the similarities between the L2 learners independently of their first language:
- The learners had the same types of mistake whatever the first language they spoke.
- They have the same order in acquisition, both children and adults → adults have roughly the same order as children.
Research about grammatical inflections confirmed the idea of learner’s independent language, INTERLANGUAGE → researches with different learners demonstrate that much of a second language is common to all L learners rather than being simply transfer from their first language.
L2 learners have the same INTERLANGUAGE grammar, regardless of the language they are learning and of the first language and they go through the same stages of acquisition and in the same order.
2. THE PROCESSABILITY MODEL
The processability model (first called the multinational model) sees movements as the key element in understanding the learning sequence → learners acquire a second language in a sequence of six grammatical stages:
Stage 1
First, the learner can produce only one word at a time or formulas such as “What’s the time?”
Learner knows content words but not grammatical structures.
Stage 2
Learners acquire the typical order of the language → subject + verb + object (SVO) and they don’t know word orders based on movement such as questions.
Stage 3
The learners start to move elements to the beginning of the sentence → adverbials at the beginning or wh-words at the beginning with no inversion.
Stage 4
Learners discover how prepositions can be separated from its phrase from its phrase in English → this is a phenomenon known as preposition- stranding.
And they start to use the “-ing” ending.
Stage 5
The next are question words, the third person grammatical morpheme “- s” and learners starting to work within the structure of the sentence and not only doing movements at the beginning or the end.
Stage 6
Finally, the learners acquire the order of subordinate clauses → the learner is sorting out the more untypical orders in subordinate clauses after the ordinary main clause order has been learnt.
-4- All learners go through these stages in the same order: the processability model explains these sequences in terms of the grammatical processes involved in the production of the sentences and the six stages are related to the learner’s growing ability to process language in their minds-
According to these stages and if the students acquire language in the same sequence, the teacher can only fit with it → the processability model leads to the teachability hypothesis:
- An L2 student can learn from instruction only following the natural setting and consequently teachers should teach accordingly to the stage that the students are at.
However, teachability hypothesis is in conflict with the sequence in which grammatical are usually introduced in textbooks. So, if we compare the sequence of elements in a typical textbook with the processability model, we see how these textbooks differ from the six stages aforementioned.
A difficult problem to resolve → Learner’s interlanguage contains rules that are different from the native speaker’s competence so the student may temporally produce sentences that deviate form native correctness.
Thus, if the students go through natural stages: could learner produce mistakes since they are inevitable or should teachers try to prevent them? → The key of the answer is when and how the teacher will correct the student’s mistakes.
3. PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS GRAMMAR
- This parameter has effects on the grammar of all languages → they are pro-drop or non pro-drop.
- The question for L2 learners → Is there a difference if their language is pro-drop and the second language that they are learning is non pro-drop and vice versa?
This effect does not necessarily in both directions: English learners of Spanish, for example, do not have difficult with leaving the subject out. But Spanish learners of English have difficult with putting the subject in.
- An important point of this form of grammar is the important link to language acquisition:
- The parts of the language that have to be learnt are the parameters of variation. For example, if you have to use a subject, the word order in the phrase or acquiring new vocabulary. -6-
- The parts of the language that do not have to be learn are the principles of language (all language have them in common).
- Another important point is that this form of grammar provides a framework within which all languages can be compared:
- In its use of locality in questions
- In terms of the pro-drop parameter
- In terms of word order parameter
To point out that the study of grammar and acquisition by linguistic and SLA researches has been much concerned with the development of abstract ways than with the conventional grammar → language teaching should keep up with these new ideas of grammars.
4. L2 LEARNING OF GRAMMAR AND L2 TEACHING
The SLA research has changed the perspective of grammar:
- The category of grammatical morphemes in the SLA research cuts across the teaching categories of prepositions, articles and forms of be.
- Its principles and parameters theory put grammar on a different plane from anything in language teaching.
- Teachers can understand better what the students are learning and the processes they are going through
- The L2 learning of grammar has turned out wider and deeper → it ranges from morphemes, to processes of sentence production, to parameters about the presence of subjects.
- Teaching has to pay attention to the internal processes and the knowledge the students are subconsciously acquiring in their minds.
Language teaching presents the different aspects of language in order and traditionally, the sequence of grammar used to be in terms of increasing complexity → articles and determiners, present simple, present continuous and so on.
However, SLA research says there are definite orders for language learning language, particularly in grammar so teachers should taking into account four points of view:
1.- Ignore the parts of grammar that have a particular L2 learning sequence because learner will follow them automatically and teach the other things that the students needs.
2.- Follow the L2 learning order as closely as possible and but not forget that language used in class should be slightly ahead of the learner
3.- Teach the last things in an L2 learning sequence first → teaching the most difficult is more effective because students will fill the gaps for themselves spontaneously.
4.- Ignore the grammar altogether.
Another point is which grammar to use → textbooks are directed to the grammar of written language that implies textual sentences , rather than spoken language with its lexical sentences.
The traditional model for English, taken from a literate educated native speaker, ignores the varieties of English spoken in different countries and the variation between people in the country.
Teaching can not hold all these views but must balance against language functions, vocabulary and so on → teachers might choose different alternatives for each area of grammar or language depending on the stage of acquisition and SLA research provides information about sequences bases on the process going on in the learners’ minds.
5. THE ROLE OF EXPLICIT GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
5.1.. Explicit grammar teaching
See the glossary on the website:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Linguistics/LinguisticsGlossary.htm
