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PK E IMPORTANTE APRENDER INGLES
Tipologia: Resumos
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June 2013
Acknowledgement I would like to address my most sincere gratitude to the following persons for their invaluable support and encouragement. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Professor Meriem Harrizi for her outstanding supervision, kind treatment and remarkable devotion. She was always there for us, guided us, motivated us, and most importantly, provided us with all the materials we would need for the research. I also would like to thank my family, my mother and my little sister for their invariable belief in me which was the drive that motivated me, charged me with the desire to work hard and succeed and inspired me in times of despair. Lastly, I would like to thank friends Othman, amine and everybody else for the best three years of my life and for all the fun and great memories we shared together.
Introduction
Over the last few decades, a great debate has taken place among theorists as to what is the role of grammar. Certain notions and approaches to teaching languages started to emerge that neglect the role of grammar in acquiring a second language. These sorts of notions were based on the grounds that children didn’t have to learn grammar to pick up their first language. These notions, however, were proven later on impractical as grammar plays an irreplaceable role in breaking down the language for kids and facilitating it to adults.
This research is an attempt to highlight the vitality of grammar in teaching and acquiring a second language. The role grammar plays can take many dimensions. Some of the roles discussed in this paper are its ability to convey unambiguous meaning, having the capacity to create an infinite set of sentences and a substantial enabling skill. Additionally, grammar forms an important subject in almost all the syllabuses all around the world. Be it English grammar or any other grammar, be it a native or a bilingual, a person can not write or speak eloquently bereft of this key factor.
The research entails many aspects of grammar and its functions. The first part is composed of a definition of grammar from three different perspectives. The second part deals with the role grammar play in the process of acquiring and polishing the language. as for the third part, it tackles the different methods and approaches known to teaching and instructing a second language. last but not least, the fourth part is about the teaching grammar in the Bac level.
I. What is grammar?
What is grammar? A question we rarely ever ask ourselves when we speak our native language. However, when it comes to learning a second language, it’s the first thing we are introduced to. When we contemplate this question, the first answer that comes to our minds is a set of rules that govern a language. Yes, it is true, but there is more to grammar than that. Grammar is a system composed of many interconnected components that ensure accuracy and meaning. It is the art of writing and speaking a language correctly. It is “the mental system of rules and categories that allows humans to form and interpret the words and sentences of their language.”There is no escape from using grammar if we want to improve our English or learn a new language. Just as the latter, grammar is a living entity that evolves and undergoes a great deal of change over time. Grammar of the 19th^ century is by no means the grammar of today. These changes are due to several factors such as time, culture, literature and so on.
Grammar differs from one language to another and from one person to another. Non-native English speakers may presume that the English language has less complicated grammar in comparison to French or Spanish and that grammar, as a concept, to a Spanish speaker, may not be the same to a German or a Japanese speaker. Nevertheless, grammar, from a linguistic point of view, is the same in terms of complexity in all languages and they all share the same universal components. Although the grammatical structure or the arrangement of words would differ, yet its role remains imperative and instrumental in all languages.
Definitions of grammar vary greatly according to one’s knowledge and expertise in the realm in question. A laymen’s definition of grammar would be much distinct from a grammarian’s or a linguist’s. This distinction is primarily on account of the extent of knowledge one possesses over the field or the orientation one has chosen to pursue. A laymen’s definition would only scratch the surface of grammar while a grammarian’s definition would delve into
to the multiple usage grammar can take. They delve into more intricate details and tackle advanced components which would seem bewildering for the non-specialist. Some of these entities grammarians approach in view of grammar are like word class, clauses, part of speech etc and how they merge together to form accurate and meaningful sentences. A grammarian’s definition would take such a form as “The science which treats the principles of language; the study of forms of speech, and their relations to one another.” Also “A normative or prescriptive set of rules setting forth the current standard of usage for pedagogical or reference purposes”. Furthermore, grammarians have primarily two or rather three approaches in which they conceive the role of grammar. The first approach is the descriptive approach. The latter describes how a language is used. As for the second approach, it is the prescriptive approach. In this approach Grammar provides rules for correct usage. The last approach is the generative approach. It provides instructions for the production of an infinite number of sentences in a language.
As regard the linguistic perspective. Grammar is a branch of the vast field of linguistics. “It’s the part of the study of language which deals with the forms and structures of words (morphology), with their customary arrangement in phrases and sentences (syntax), along with language sounds (phonology) and word meaning(semantics).” In addition to this, grammar of language should be thought of as “a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis” (Chomsky 1957:13). It’s a system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language.
II. The role of grammar
Grammar plays a substantial role in governing the use and application of language. It gives the user the structure to build complete and meaningful sentences. The role of grammar can take many dimensions and varies according to the situation and context in which it is used.
to express what they want, Not necessarily correctly, but the recipient would most likely receive the meaning.
“Grammar communicates meaning, meaning of a very special kind” (article ‘grammar meaning and pragmatics’ by Michael swan ). Usually people disregard the usage of grammar to communicate when there is enough contextual input. Single words or motions would do the job. For instance, at a dinner, the waiter would come to you and ask you “coffee?” you would understand what the waiter meant by that due to the context. However, when you are home and you would like to ask your wife to make you some coffee, you can’t just go ahead and say “coffee”. It would seem inappropriate and rude. This is where grammar comes in, it serves to make the speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear when contextual information is lacking. Moreover, Grammar also serves as an enabling tool for articulating complex thoughts. Baby- talk is fine to a certain point, but there comes a time when you need to express more complicated concepts and meanings for which simple words are not enough. To do that, rule of syntax and morphology must be employed.
And last but not least, grammar is considered to be a prerequisite factor for effective communication. The role of grammar in communication comes in organizing words, clauses and phrases into meaningful sentences. The exchange of theses sentences results in a conversation. In this respect, the importance of grammar here resides in making it possible for each person to say exactly what they want to and be able to understand the other. It serves as a mechanism against ambiguity and confusion. On the other hand, however, when grammar is lacking in a conversation, there is a good chance for misunderstanding and disagreement. Imagine going to a foreign country and using a dictionary of the local language to communicate. You may pick the right word but the way you put them together can be funny, maybe even dangerous. The purpose of grammar in communication is to be able to convey
your thoughts through language. If you are not understood, then the whole point of the conversation is lost.
The roles grammar play are multiple and diverse. In this part of the research, however, we will focus on in what way or rather the extent to which grammar is an enabling skill, how it is a sentence-making machine and the role it plays in conveying meaning
One of the primary and uppermost traits grammar has, as mentioned above, is that it enables the user to process and produce correct sentences, be they spoken or written. The skill in question is an indispensible factor for the user to function properly in each of these areas (speaking, writing, listening, and reading). A decent mastery of grammar can make it easier for the person to communicate and articulate his thoughts coherently. However, when the person’s mastery of grammar is not sufficient, communication is more likely to be disrupted and misconceived. What follows is an attempt to demonstrate the role grammar plays in each of these areas.
“We know that the strength of a tree lies in its roots. Similarly the strength of any spoken language lies in its grammar.” (Blog, how to improve spoken English) That it to say, grammar serves the base and foundation of all spoken languages. Human interaction and communication are based on mutual understanding. This requires the person to have a decent level of grammar to be able to convey the message the same way he/her has in mind.
Speaking is an everyday activity and one can’t do without it. Therefore, a good command of grammar is vital for effective communication. More to the point, the way one expresses himself during communication gives off hints as to one’s knowledge and education. Whether
reading as well. The way grammar contributes to reading is that it helps the reader better understand what he/she reads.
“…an understanding of grammar and how it works, will improve your writing and speaking skills, allow you to develop your own unique style of writing and communication and express your thoughts and feelings effectively. More, this knowledge and understanding of your language enables you to read more and more widely, and absorb the ideas and techniques of the world’s great thinkers and writers.” (the importance of grammar by Maureen)
Among the multiple functions grammar has, its ability to convey and clarify meaning is the most important. A language is futile and doomed to perish if it’s ineligible of constructing meaning. Communication constitutes a central part of human activities, and meaning is a pre-requisite factor for the former to occur. There are many ways in which grammar determines the meaning of the sentence. Each grammatical rule serves a particular purpose. Conjugation to express an action in a certain time, modals to express obligation, probability and certainty, even the intonation while speaking says a lot about what the person wants to say. In addition to this, correct grammar enables us to articulate the same thought in so many ways and in so many different structures. Once the person learns how to efficiently employ these rules, he/she becomes able to use the language to convey any thought he desires.
One way in which grammar brings about meaning is the way it brings the words together. Words grouped together randomly have little meaning on their own. For instance, if father would like to know where his son is and the mother answers” with friends cinema go”. In this instance, the father is highly unlikely to get the message and even if he somehow managed to infer the meaning of the sentence, the latter is still ambiguous and open to
different interpretations. Unless they occur accidentally, like in “go study”. Words may have lexical meaning at the word level, but they convey no grammatical meaning as a group. However when a special order is given to these words, grammatical meaning is created because of the relationships they have to one another. The subject verb agreement, or to take another example the difference between the past, present and future forms of verbs. The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meaning of the words of which it is composed and partly by its grammatical meaning.
Punctuation is also another way in which grammar contributes to meaning. When having a face-to-face conversation, we use intonation, voice patterns and body language to express exclamations or questions. However, when reading, we don’t have these useful tools so we rely on the punctuation to help us figure out what the writer means. Punctuation has also the capacity to change the meaning of a sentence. Making mistakes at the level of punctuation leads to ambiguity. This sentence for instance:
‘A woman without her man is nothing’.
This sentence could be punctuated to have an utterly different meaning. A woman: without her, man is nothing. While in the first sentence, women are worth nothing without men, the second is the total opposite. Punctuation is a powerful tool. It helps maintain consistency and ease understanding. Being punctuation a sub- branch of grammar, this shows the importance and influence grammar has over meaning in particular and language at large.
To delve into more details regarding the role of grammar in conveying meaning, we must have a look at the linguistic branch that is concerned with meaning. that is semantics. The latter is the study of the meaning of words and sentences. The discipline in question studies the interpretation of individual words. People pick up the meaning of words subconsciously at first, but then as they grow more adept with language, more complex meanings emerge.
theory, children learn their first language through stimulus and imitation. Children imitate the sentences they hear and stimulus serves as a corrector when they make mistakes. Nevertheless, the nativist theory debunked the behaviorist on the ground that children are not born tabula rasa, but born with the language acquisition device (LAD). Furthermore, children do not imitate ready made sentences but they process what they hear in order to reach rules. A finite set of rules that would enable them to create an infinite set of sentences. This theory was proved to be true on the basis that is impossible for children to imitate all the sentences in a language and that by the year of five; they can produce sentences that they have never heard before, all due to the language acquisition device. This shows the underlying role grammar plays in generating sentences. Even if it was subconscious grammar and people use it without being aware of it, they can’t do without it or else the sentences they create would make no sense.
The role of grammar, at the sentence level, is not concerned with the sentence construction only but with their combination also. A decent mastery of the grammatical rules, gives the person the potential or rather the ability to manipulate and combine a variety of basic sentence structure. The goal of this practice is not to learn how to produce longer sentences but rather how to develop more effective ones. This applies to both, speaking and writing. People actually grow disinterested and bored when they hear or read a set of detached individual sentences, that in addition to the little meaning they convey. Instead of creating many sentences to convey simply one idea, with the sentence combination, they can all be merged into a one complete meaningful sentence. To exemplify, ‘the exercise was not difficult. The exercise was not easy. The exercise was manageable’. By cutting out the needless repetition and adding a few conjunctions, we can combine these three short sentences into a single, more coherent sentence: ‘The exercise was neither difficult nor easy but manageable’. Or ‘The exam was not difficult or easy but it was manageable’.
Furthermore, a systematic practice in combining and expanding sentences increases one’s repertoire of syntactic structures and may also improve the quality of sentences.
All in all, grammar is an instrumental tool that not only enables the speaker to create a wide variety of sentences but also equip him with the necessary instruction as to how combine and manipulate these sentences to best suit his purpose.
challenged” and Frank Palmer(1972), “the central part of a language is its grammar, and this should be of vital interest to any intelligent educated person”. Grammar, according to its advocates, provides the learner with a perfect understanding of language structures and contributes to eloquent self-expression. An english student who doesn't know grammar, for instance, the parts of speech, is like a composer who doesn't know the music notes. We shall delve into more details regarding this debate in the third section of this part.
The role of grammar in second language teaching is that it enables the teacher to break down the language into many pieces; That is to say, basic, fundamental rules and structures, for the student to pick up and understand so that he could reassemble them in real communication. There is no doubt that Grammar should be put in the foreground in second language teaching, because knowledge of grammar and vocabulary is the base of any other foreign language. The majority of people who learn a second language do so to be able to speak it. Well, grammatical competence is a pre-requisite factor of communicative competence. Communicative competence involves knowing how to use the grammar and vocabulary of the language to achieve communicative goals, and knowing how to do this in a socially appropriate way. Without this underlying competence, as stated above, communication will be fraught with blunders and misunderstanding. In an extensive review of research in the SLA Ellis (1994) suggests that the ideal approach to teaching of grammar is the combination of both formal teaching and engaging students in communicative activities.
Contrary to what some of the naturalist theorists such as Crashen and Terrel Believe, second language grammar is not acquired unconsciously. They advocate that knowledge is acquired implicitly through interaction with authentic input, rendering grammar instruction unnecessary. On the contrary, Grammar is not acquired naturally; unlike first language grammar, second language grammar must be taught and instructed. We may be able to exchange simple greetings and express emotions using short phrases, but without a good grasp of sentence construction, we most likely end up producing sentences and utterances that at best mislead listeners. The current trend argues that an explicit awareness or ‘noticing’ of grammatical structures is essential to attain high proficiency. As Seliger, (1979) observed, “conscious rules obtained by the learners through instruction result in different performance levels. They can facilitate acquisition to help induce hypothesis testing, Thereby making this process more efficient. “
Another argument that ascertains to the utility of grammar is the fossilization argument. It is possible for learners with a flair for languages to attain a high level of proficiency in a certain language without any sort of overt formal instruction. At some point, however, these kinds of learners are usually confronted with a wall which they find very difficult to get passed. In other words, they reach a language plateau beyond which is very difficult to progress. To put it technically, their linguistic competence fossilizes. Research suggests that learners who receive no instruction seem to be at risk of fossilizing sooner than those who do receive instruction.
Grammar instruction serves also as an accelerator of the learning process. Grammar helps students and learners learn the language much faster than those who don’t
