Teaching Grammar Communicatively

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TEACHING GRAMMAR COMMUNICATIVELY

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Table of content:

1. Introduction

2. What is Grammar?

3. Why study grammar?

4. Approaches to teaching grammar

5. Communicative grammar teaching

6. Current trends in teaching grammar

7. References

1. INTRODUCTION

What is grammar? Is there only one grammar? Is it compulsory that we should teach grammar? If so, how should we go about it? If not, why not? What is the role of grammar in language teaching? These are some of the questions that worry every English teacher. The ultimate aim of every language learner is to acquire the ability to speak and write the language correctly. In order to do this, it requires knowledge of grammar in some form or the other. Hence any course in language teaching assigns an important role to grammar. As teachers of English we need to know:
a) What is grammar?
b) How should we teach grammar? There are a handful of people who are fascinated by the magic of grammar, but most of us generally feel 'bored' with it; nor do we have any pleasant recollections of our grammar classes - either as teachers or as learners. We would rather teach 'poetry' than 'grammar'. This unit will help to examine some of the prevailing misconceptions in grammar teaching and enable to make grammar classes livelier and more interesting. At the end of this unit, we would have developed a balanced attitude to grammar.

2. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

The LONGMAN DICTIONARY OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH defines grammar as 'the study and practice of the rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences.' There are two basic elements in this definition: the rules of grammar; and the study and practice of the rules. Here grammar constitutes a subset of rules relating to word formation (morphology) and sentence formation (syntax). According to modern linguistics, grammar is a device that specifies the infinite set of well-formed sentences and assigns to each of them one or more structural descriptions. In other words, grammar tells us what the possible sentences of a language are and provides a description of them.
1.All of us are able to speak our mother tongue correctly. We do not make any grammatical mistakes. If someone else speaks our mother tongue incorrectly, we are able to identify the mistakes and correct them. Even an illiterate native speaker is able to do this in spite of the fact slhe has not learnt grammar formally at school. Slhe knows the grammar of herlhis mother tongue instinctively. Grammar, in this sense refers to the total mechanism of the language, which enables its users to communicate with each other. Let us call this Grammar 1, or GI.
2. Consider the following sentence:
He going to school every day.
Even an illiterate English speaker knows that this sentence is wrong. She is even able to correct it for you as "He is going to school every day". However, if you ask him/her why it is wrong, she is not able to tell you. On the other hand, an educated native speaker or a grammarian would say: This sentence is wrong because the 'ing' form of the verb is used without the auxiliary 'be'. The progressive verb phrase in English always takes the form: be + ing. Such an ability to think about language consciously and attempt a formal analysis and description of what one knows intuitively (GI) is also referred to as grammar. We can distinguish this from G1 by referring to this as Grainmar 2 or G2.
3. Grammar also refers to the rules for correct use of language, which may be prescribed for its users; for example words beginning with a vowel sound are preceded by 'an' whereas words beginning with a consonant sound are preceded by 'a'. Text books on grammar written by Wren and Martin, or Nesfield consist of such rules, which prescribe what learners should/should not do. Hence they are also referred to as prescriptive grammars. In contrast to this, Grammars of the G2 type merely 'describe' the facts of the language. Hence they are known as descriptive grammars. We call this third type Grammar 3 or G3.
4. According to modern linguistics there is a fourth meaning for the term ‘grammar' - 'Grammar' is regarded as the innate capacity which all human beings possess; it allows them to acquire language. In this sense grammar is a property of the human brain, rather than that of any language. This may be termed Grammar 4 or G4.

3. WHY STUDY GRAMMAR?

Traditional teachers of English considered grammar as an integral part of the language curriculum. They felt that it was not possible for a learner to speak or write English correctly if she did not know the grammar of English. Hence students were taught all about articles, prepositions, conditional clauses, etc. In the early years of the Communicative Approach it was felt that a knowledge of grammar may not be necessary for one to communicate in a language. As evidence, they cite the example of a child acquiring its first language. The child is able to speak the language grammatically by the age of five, even though no one has taught him/her the grammar of the language. So they argue that a second language learner can also acquire a language without learning grammar. The other arguments they gave against the teaching of grammar were: Much input produces little output. What is learnt is not applied. Grammatical analysis breaks up the unity of thought by its focus on detail and fails to relate the details to the whole. Grammatical rules may be thoroughly understood and learned and yet not applied in practice. The best way of imparting even grammatical competence is through use and not usage. In recent years there has been a re-thinking about grammar teaching. While as a reaction to the Structural Approach, the learners in a communicative classroom were expected not 'puzzle their heads with grammar', it is being increasingly accepted that "language learning is essentially learning how grammar functions in the achievement of meaning.'' (Widdowson: 1990:97). But instead of isolated sentences which were mostly used for drill and practice in the Structural Approach, the emphasis is now on providing suitable contexts to make the "learners realize the communicative value of grammar in the very achievement of meaning." In other words, the focus has moved away from the teachers covering grammar to the learners discovering grammar. Learners are first exposed to a new language in a comprehensible context, so that they are able to understand its function and meaning.
Only then is their attention turned to examining the grammatical forms that have been used to convey that meaning. The discussion of grammar is explicit, but it is the learners who do most of the discussing or working out of rules, with guidance from the teacher. What should English teachers do then? Should they teach grammar or not? We feel that grammar has an important place in the English curriculum and it has to be taught, for the following reasons: 1. Because it is there. We are constantly curious about the world we live in, and wish to understand it and master it. Grammar is no different from any other domain of knowledge, in this respect. It is the fundamental organising Teaching Grammar-I principle of language. 2. We encounter ambiguity, imprecision, unintelligible speech or writing. To deal with these problems, we need grammar to work out what went wrong. 3. After studying grammar, we are more alert to the strength, flexibility and variety of our language and thus are in a better position to use it and to evaluate other's use of it. 4. An intelligent study of grammar reveals surprising and interesting things about the orderliness of what the child has learned in a disorderly way. Thus there is an intellectual appeal, aside from practical benefits.

4. APPROACHES TO TEACHING GRAMMAR

Language [earning is a complex phenomenon, it would be foolish to reduce it to simplistic terms and say that "this is the best way to teach grammar". What works for , one context may not work for another. As teachers of English, it is necessary for us to be familiar with various approaches to teaching grammar. Let us look at some of these approaches: a) Formal explanation of grammatical rules b) Practice of common grammatical patterns, c) Providing opportunities for students to use English in realistic situations. d) Discovery method
Let’s look at each of them in details:

a) Formal presentations of grammatical rules

Traditional teachers of English followed this approach to grammar teaching. There are several grammar books which present the rules of English grammar, e.g. Wren and Martin, Nesfield, etc. These rules are prescriptive; while they have their own value, we should be careful not to exaggerate their importance. Some of these rules are no longer valid; if we continue to follow them, our English would sound quite funny.
The mastery of the rules of grammar will surely make our learners veterans in grammar; they will be able to answer the questions on grammar well and secure full marks in the grammar section of the paper. But when they speak or write they are likely to forget the rules they have learned and commit numerous mistakes. Hence they will not be able to communicate effectively in English, outside the classroom.

b) Practice of common grammatical patterns

In this approach students are not taught the rules of grammar; they are merely asked to practice the structures of language. They are given substitution tables which drill them in the correct use of structures. It is thus impossible for them to come out with an ungrammatical sentence.
Drilling helps students to become familiar with the basic sentence patterns in English. However, it does not tell them when to use these patterns. There is also the danger that they may mechanically repeat the sentences without understanding the grammatical rules involved.

c) Providing opportunities to use English in realistic situations

In this approach, the teacher is not concerned with teaching grammar - either in the form of rules or drills. Hislher major objective is to create opportunities for the learners to communicate in English. It is believed that by engaging in the process of communication, the students will implicitly master the rules of grammar. Hence, the more opportunities learners get for communication, the better their proficiency. Approach (a): Grammar Communication
We learn grammar rules now so that we will be able to communicate later. Approach (c): Coinmunication Communication
Implicit understanding of grammar. Learners are given opportunities to engage in the process of communication; this will enable them to acquire the proficiency to communicate (which includes grammatical competence as well).
These two approaches represent two extremes - the one focusing totally on grammar and the other completely on communication, to the exclusion of grammar.

d) Discovery Techniques

There is yet another approach which makes use of discovery techniques. Here the students are given examples of language and told to find out how they works- to discover the grammar rules rather than be told about them. Students can be asked to look at some sentences and say how the meaning is expressed and what the differences are between the sentences. As the students puzzle through the information and solve the problem in front of them, they find out how grammar is 'used in the text and are actually acquiring a grammar rule. The advantages of this approach are clear. By involving the students' reasoning processes in the task of grammar acquisition, we make sure that they are concentrating fully, using their cognitive powers. We are also ensuring that our approach is more student-centered: it's not just the teacher telling the students what the grammar is. They are actually discovering information for themselves. Now we outline a practical way of following a rather eclectic approach suggested by Celce Murcia and Hilles. According to them a grammar lesson consists of four parts:

1. Presentation
The teacher selects a grammar structure relevant to student needs and introduces it.
The teacher could present the structure (e.g.) the passive in a natural context.
She/he could then elicit the rule for forming the passive.

2. Focused Practice
In this stage, students get practice in the use of the Passive, through various exercises,
(e.g,) filling in passive forms of verbs in the continuous paragraph. After they finish the exercise, the teacher gives them the correct answers and also discusses their errors. 3.Communicative Practice
Now, the learner engages in communicative activities to practice the structure that has been learnt. These activities are similar to communication in real life. There is a genuine information gap as in real life contexts. As in real life the learners have the choice i.e., the freedom to say what they want. They also get feedback from their peers regarding the effectiveness of their communication.

4. Teacher feedback and correction
Although it has been listed last, feedback and correction actually form an integral part of all the three stages above. The teacher should not merely point out the error and correct it; instead slhe should provide a cognitive cl~allenge to the learners and provide them opportunities to discover their own mistakes.
The approach of Celce Murcia and Hilles, attempts a compromise among the approaches discussed earlier.

5. COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR TEACHING

Communicative grammar is based on the communicative approach to the teaching of second/foreign languages. Language structures must not be taught in isolation but integrated to the four skills of language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In this way a structure is practiced orally and in wrltten form. Grammatical pattems must not only be learned at the utterance level but at the dlscourse level; the main objective focuses on the development of communicative grammatical competence, which is understood as the ablllty to use and understand a structure in a variety of sltuatlons spontaneousiy. The approach calis for a certaln balance between pre-communicative and communicative actlvltles: the flrst prepare the learner to handle the language rules for actual communication and the latter enable him to use the structures in real communication. The students must not only do drills and precommunicative exercises in class, but they must interact and communicate with other speakers when they use the pattems they are studying. Classes are planned in a way that the students use the structures naturally and not artificially, and they require time and practico to internalize those pattems by using a process in which grammatical structures are recycled with more complex variations. Regarding the teaching of grammar, what has been done lately in second/foreign language classes is a presentation of grammatical pattems, followed by some drilling and structurai exercises with little or no communicative application of those pattems in context. Actually past approaches have deait mainly with the achievement of linguistic knowledge,one important aspect of language but not necessarily the only one. The mastery of the sound system and structurai pattems of language, which is called linguistic competence, was the aim. Therefore, communication was assigned a second place. It was not considered important to be taught during the process. This element was set aside in order to be developed by students on their own.The communicative approach goes beyond the presentation and development of linguistic structures as the only means of developing the communicative ability. This linguistic structure enables students to give form to their ideas, intentions and concepts. But it is not given top priority as other structural approaches do. There are other important elements that contribute to the establishment of a communicative act. They are classified as functions (intention or purpose), notions (of place, time, space, dimensión, etc.), as well as the topic, the situation, the communicative and the Interactive aspect. Thus, functions or illocutionary acts, imply a communicative purpose, "what people want to do or what they want to accomplish through speech" (Finocchiaro, p.13). Notions are "meaning elements which may be expressed through nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, or adverbs" (Finocchiaro, p.14), what Wiikins has called "semantico-grammatical categories" (Johnson, p.35). These categories are abstract concepts that are generally realized linguistically (for example, the notion of location is manifested in prepositions: "besides", "in front of", "on the right", etc). The other aspects provide the social framework where participants of a communicative act interact.The teacher must provide communicative practice for students to achieve non-linguistic goals such as asking for permission to do something, getting someone to do something, giving excuses, asking for help, etc. Learning activities must demand achievement of a particular task other than mere manipulation of language rules. This approach is based on the development of the ability to use language in real-life situations more than on manipulation of linguistic structures, which do not enable speakers to interact naturally in a real communicative act. "Grammatical form is taught not as an end itself, but as a means of carrying out communicative intent" (Salimbene, p.50). This language aspect which gives meaning to communication is known as language use, opposed to what The Audio-Lingual Approach claimed as the ultímate goal of learning, usage. These two aspects are what Widdowson (Brumfit and Johnson, p.118) has called "Valué" and "Signification". He says that many teachers and language teaching specialists believe that it is not necessary to teach "valué". For them, teaching "Signification" provides learners with the essentials of language, and they also affirm that it is a simple and easy task to use "valué" when we need to communicate. However, for students to use the language rules in real communication, these rules would have to be practiced in context in order to be integrated to the communicative competence. Moreover, to really ensure communication in the class students have to accomplish the two main components of discourse: cohesión and coherence. "When people produce a sentence in the course of a normal communicative activity they simultaneously do two things. They express a proposition of one kind or another and at the same time in expressing that proposition they perfomi some kind of illocutionary acf' (Widdowson, p.22). First each sentence or utterance has its own sepárate meaning, a semantic meaning. This individual meaning is what is called propositional meaning. The appropríate link of one proposition with another is known as cohesión, or propositional development. Coherence is achieved by the relationship of the illocutionary acts, or functions, that those propositions convey .When these two elements are present in a genuine exchange by two or more participants, we can talk about discourse of some sort. And when one deals with discourse, one is dealing with authentic communication. This takes us to what the communicative approach aims at, communicative competence which involves "the abllity to function in a truly communicative setting - that is, in a spontaneous transaction involving two or more other speakers" (Savignon, p.1). Learners must be able to interact with people in a natural way, to respond appropriately, to particípate or interrupt when he is expected to do so, to initiate or cióse a conversation, to use the appropríate register according to the context, in fact, to interpret and produce genuine discourse. For a broader understanding of the concept communicative competence,let US examine Savignon's definition (1987, p. 16-17): ...the abiiity to negotiate meaning, to successfully combine a knowledge of linguistic and socio-linguistic rules in communicative interactions...Communicative competence...has to do with much more than sentence-level grammatical competence; it has to do with social interaction...with real speaker-listeners who interpret, express, and negotiate meaning in many, many different settings...The temn applies to both oral and wrítten communication, in academic as well as nonacademic settings. Furthermore, learning activities must respond to what a student needs to communicate at a certain moment. They should not be intended to forcé students to communicate their ideas grammaticaiiy correct, setting aside his intention or communicative purpose. "The use of a language is the objective, and the mastery of the formal patterns, or usage, of tiíat language is a means to achieve this objective" (Carrol, p.7). What is important is what one is going to say, not how to say it. That is why rules about language must not be taught in isolation, but they must be integrated with language use. Besides, we must prevent language from becoming a subject of theoreticai study: language is acquired only through constant conversational practice in situations similar to real life. In communicative language teaching, interaction is an essential component. When speakers communicate, they have to interact in order to transmit Information and thus achieve a purpose. When interacting, the interlocutors have to accomplish a task in order to reaily carry out a communicative act. And in this exchange of ideas and intentions, they have to cooperate with one another to construct an on-going, coherent piece of discourse. In other words, they have to negotiate their purposes in such a way that one speaker's participation corresponds to the participation of another. In this way they achieve communication. Therefore, any communicative activity must account for these important components of communicative learning. The learning activities in any language class are divided in two categories: communicative and pre-communicative activities. The first are tasks based on the principies underiying the process of communication. They are specially designed to convey an intention or purpose and to simúlate natural, real-life contexts where native speakers interact spontaneousiy. Communicative interaction between two or more speakers is paramount; the participants must get immediate feedback. Moreover, these activities cali for opportunities to negotiate meanings appropriately. When doing this, students interact communicatively by encouraging cooperative relationships among them (Larsen-Freeman, p.132). In other words, these activities have to provide possibilities for the learner to "work with language at the discourse or suprasentencial (above the sentence) leve!. They must learn about cohesión and coherence, those properties of language which bind the sentences together" (Larsen-Freeman, p.129). The aim of these activities is the development of the ability to use the language as a whole, and not only the manipulation of the sepárate components of it. In addition, many of these activities present a communicative social context, a situation, where learners can interact appropriately. And students should be given opportunities to express their own ideas and opinions. When doing this, tliey have to think of tiie target language as a veliicle for communication, not just the object of study (Larsen-Freeman, p.128). Some other activities of this type also present an information gap where unl