Rethinking Grammar II
Grammar tends to run our professional lives. I can see myself walking into a Teacher’s Room 20 years ago and asking a colleague, “What did you do in your Course 3 today?” “Oh, I taught the past tense.” All of our classes were defined by a grammar structure and we even were so overconfident we presumed to have “taught” the past tense in one fifty-minute class. At least we didn’t say the students had learned it. OK, you say, that was 20 years ago…but isn’t it also true today. Don’t we judge students’ proficiency by the complexity of the grammatical structures they have mastered? Don’t we have that itch to explain a structure to a student who errs in its use? Aren’t some of the most popular books sold in our field grammar references? Don’t students complain if we don’t “teach” enough grammar?
Here are a few questions I’ve had about how we “teach” grammar.
1. What exactly do we “teach”? How many times have you ever looked at the list of grammatical structures your students have to “master” to finish your courses? If you use a textbook, look at the Overview at the beginning of the texts. It often amazes me how much students are expected to learn and be able to produce in one or two years… present tense, past and future, nouns, adjective word order, relative clauses (restricted and unrestricted) and all three (or four) conditionals. Some curricula basically cover the entire English grammar system in three years of study. Here in Mexico until recently all Middle School students did this and when they got to High School they started all over and did it again.
2. How many of these “grammar structures” are really parts of the lexicon? Many “grammatical structures” are really just lexicon: frequency adverbs, possessives, modals, comparatives, etc. They should be taught in the “Vocabulary” sections of texts and not as grammar structures. And which “structures” require “analysis” and which are really just sentence patterns? In reality, most of the structures listed in our Overviews are really predictable patterns. Even the past tense questions: What / Where / When did [person] [verb] …? By learning the basic chunk, students can produce many different questions effortlessly. There is no reason to analyze the structure, draw colored lines transforming the affirmative sentences into the question, etc. Verb tense formation, many clauses (If I were you…., When X happened, [person] was/were [verb + ing], and other structures fall into this category.
3. What is more important—the correct form of a verb or knowing what the tense means and being able to use it when it’s needed? Teachers spend hours teaching students the correct forms of verb tenses (comparatives, clauses, etc.), but often forget that what is the most important is that the student understand what the structure means and how to use it. What use is it to the students if they can form the present perfect without error and know how to use it when they see since in the sentence, if they don’t understand what the tense really means in different situations and if they can’t even translate a sentence into their native language (a true test of understanding)?
4. How do you respond to a student who asks a question like: Why can’t I say he don’t if I always hear Americans say it on the TV? The question is, what is correct English and for whom? Why is a serious error for a beginning English student a common colloquial variant in many English dialects. Why do teachers get so upset when students make “errors” when speaking that not only reflect their level of language development, but also are real variants in many spoken dialects? Or How do you respond to this question from a beginning English speaker, “What happens if I forget the –s on the verb? Won’t people understand me?” I always tell them that they will be understood, but they will probably be branded as a being at a beginning level. This is probably a good thing if they are just learning the language since the person they are speaking too will probably speak more slowly and clearly and use simpler vocabulary. Of course, if the student isn’t a beginner, it isn’t the impression they want to convey. So, certain errors that are acceptable at one level, might be taken negatively if the student is more advanced.
5. In what order are “grammar” items taught and in what order are they learned? A few years ago I helped organize an Academic Panel at the Annual TESOL convention. Our topic related to why textbooks don’t always reflect what we want them too. On our panel we had some highly qualified writers and editors, including the prolific Jack Richards of Cambridge University Press and Sue Jones, an editor from Macmillan. The audience was free to ask them questions. We discussed regional vs. “global” texts and other relevant issues. One question I made was, “Why do all textbooks present grammar structures in the same order (BE, present, present continuous, past, etc.) even though research has shown that this order does not reflect the order in which these structures are acquired by the learner?” For example, research has shown that the –s on the present tense is an extremely complex form that is acquired late and how many of your students take years to use his/her correctly in speech? However, it appears in most Beginning Level texts. I asked why a text begins with the present and then much later teaches the past tense when most students are more interested in talking about the past (and future) from the beginning and many situations related to the present tense are really forced (How often do you tell someone what you do every day?). Besides, the past or going to future formation is much easier than that of the present. Sue Jones gave me an answer which, while it really didn’t answer my questions, limited further discussion with those commercial publishers…she said, “It won’t sell.”
A related question…should all grammar be included in textbooks? Many structures that students are expected to master at a beginning or intermediate level, either aren’t commonly used in speech these days (If I were you…, sequence of tenses (He said he would be late) or are really never acquired: I’ve never heard one of my students spontaneously use tag questions in their speech…unless they are doing a grammar exercise, of course.
To be continued….
