Understanding Grammar in Language Teaching: Key Concepts

Understanding Grammar in Language Teaching

Grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. Instead of viewing grammar as a static system of arbitrary rules, it should be seen as a rational, dynamic system comprised of structures characterized by the three dimensions of form and use.

Myths About Grammar

Grammar is acquired naturally; it need not be taught.

It is true that some learners acquire second language grammar naturally without instruction. For example, there are immigrants to the United States who acquire proficiency in English on their own. Chomsky showed that native English speakers were still in the process of acquiring certain grammatical structures in English well into adolescence.

Grammar is boring.

This myth is derived from the impression that grammar can only be taught through repetition and other rote drills. Teaching grammar does not mean asking students to repeat models, and it does not mean memorizing rules.

Grammar structures are learned one at a time.

Teachers may teach one grammar structure at a time, and students may focus on one at a time, but students do not master one at a time before going on to learn another. There is a constant interaction between new interlanguage forms and old.

Grammar has to do only with sentence-level and sub-sentence-level phenomena.

Grammar governs the syntax or word orders that are permissible in the language. It also works to govern such things as number and person agreement between subject and verb in a sentence.

Grammar and vocabulary are areas of knowledge. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are the four skills.

Grammar can also be considered a process. Language teachers would not be content if their students could recite all the rules of grammar but not be able to apply them. The goal is for students to be able to use grammar in an unselfconscious fashion to achieve their communicative ends. As with any skill, achieving this goal takes practice.

Grammar provides the rules/explanations for all the structures in a language.

Linguistic descriptions can never be complete for all time; they have to accommodate the changing nature of language.