LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND TEACHING GRAMMAR IN MFL
Teaching and learning :
The effective teaching of grammar in modern foreign languages
(MFL)
'One of the most misunderstood words in the English language has to be the word ‘grammar’ '(Rendall, 2006: 53). This statement stands as the ideal starting point from which to unveil a rationale for the importance of grammar in the language acquisition process and how it has been perceived in the past decades . What is grammar ? Why and how should it be taught ? These questions, as basic as they look, do no seem as easy to answer if we look at the evolution of language teaching in the last decades . Grammar is the structure of languages and to understand its importance it would be helpful to review some of the most important language acquisition theories regarding first language acquisition and different approaches of Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching and learning in the 20th century in the Uk,
This paper reviews some of the theories and research which fuel ‘the great grammar debate’ regarding first language acquisition and second language teaching and learning . It will analyse how these theories have influenced governement policies, school curricula and teaching approaches in the past decades and what is the place of grammar within the current teaching of the modern foreign language (MFL), to finally explain how these researches have been informing my own teaching practice.
'The universality of language is what unites all human being across the globe .The different perspectives of thought is what differentiates our languages. ' (Rendall,1998:58). As stated by Rendall, language is common to all human being and is a typical characteristic of the human race. but the way we acquire,develop and evolve this special feature is still not clearly understood and has been the object of researches from which different theories about language acquisition has emerged. Following Dolati (2012:752) statement that 'Behaviourism, Innatism and Interactionism
The effective teaching of grammar in modern foreign languages
(MFL)
'One of the most misunderstood words in the English language has to be the word ‘grammar’ '(Rendall, 2006: 53). This statement stands as the ideal starting point from which to unveil a rationale for the importance of grammar in the language acquisition process and how it has been perceived in the past decades . What is grammar ? Why and how should it be taught ? These questions, as basic as they look, do no seem as easy to answer if we look at the evolution of language teaching in the last decades . Grammar is the structure of languages and to understand its importance it would be helpful to review some of the most important language acquisition theories regarding first language acquisition and different approaches of Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching and learning in the 20th century in the Uk,
This paper reviews some of the theories and research which fuel ‘the great grammar debate’ regarding first language acquisition and second language teaching and learning . It will analyse how these theories have influenced governement policies, school curricula and teaching approaches in the past decades and what is the place of grammar within the current teaching of the modern foreign language (MFL), to finally explain how these researches have been informing my own teaching practice.
'The universality of language is what unites all human being across the globe .The different perspectives of thought is what differentiates our languages. ' (Rendall,1998:58). As stated by Rendall, language is common to all human being and is a typical characteristic of the human race. but the way we acquire,develop and evolve this special feature is still not clearly understood and has been the object of researches from which different theories about language acquisition has emerged. Following Dolati (2012:752) statement that 'Behaviourism, Innatism and Interactionism
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