participles and constructions with them.
For example: I saw him run (running).
I want you to do it.
But the greatest difficulty is the use of the articles, as it is quite a new
phenomenon for Russian-speaking students. More often students make mistakes in
the use of the article or omit them.
That’s why Russian-speaking students must learn the article, pronouns and other
structural and form words first.
For example: This is a pen. The pen is red.
This is my pen and that is his pen.
Summing up what has been said we can divide all grammar material for teaching
purposes into three groups:
1. Grammatical items that don’t require any special explanation, as they are
similar to the grammatical items of the mother tongue. Students should be instructed
to use the habits acquired in the native language. For example: a table – tables – стол
– столы.
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2. Grammatical items that require correction. For example: money is, the family
are, the moon – she, the sun – he.
3. Grammatical items, that can’t be met in the native language. They require
explanation because new grammatical habits must be formed. For example: articles,
tense-forms, verbals, modal verbs in the English language. So, teaching grammar, the
teacher should think about the character of the item and its difficulties for students. It
is impossible to learn all grammatical items at school, but grammatical material must
be sufficient for communication: for auding, speaking, reading and writing.
At the same time it must be easy for learning in school conditions.
Grammatical material is carefully selected for teaching. All grammatical items
are divided into active and passive. Active grammar is for speaking and writing,
passive grammar is for auding and reading.
Passive grammar includes all the active material. Active grammatical material
for teaching at school is selected according to the following principles:
1. frequency of its use in oral speech
2. its ability to serve as an example
3. exclusion of synonyms
According to the first two principles those grammatical items are selected which
are used in oral speech with many lexical units.
According to the first principle only one synonym is selected for active
grammar: must (active) – have to (passive).
Passive grammar is for recognition in written speech and auding.
Passive grammar is selected to the following principles:
1. its frequency in literary (bookish) style. (Past Perfect)
2. principle of polysemy
For example: -ing – Gerund, Participle I, Verbal noun.
-ed – Past Ind., Participle II
-s (es) – Plural of nouns, 3-d person singular of Present Indefinite.
Success in teaching grammar to a great extent depends on the approach to
teaching that is how grammatical material is presented to students. One of the mostly
used approaches is the structural approach: grammatical material is learned in
structural groups. Grammatical structures are typical sentences. A structural group
can include two structures: Go to the door. Don’t go to the window.
Or it can contain all kinds of questions besides affirmative and negative
sentences: The book is on the desk. The book isn’t on the chair. Is the book on the
desk? – Yes, it is. Is the book on the desk or on the chair? Where is the book? It’s on
the desk. Grammatical structures can be used in communicative exercises.
3. The main ways of introducing new grammar items.
There are different ways of presentation of new grammar material: oral and
written. The choice of the way of presentation depends on many factors:
- The stage of teaching (elementary, intermediate, advanced).
- The character of the new grammar material.
The oral form is preferable at the junior stage of teaching, the written form is
mostly used at the advanced stage of teaching (through reading)
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The aim of teaching this grammar item: whether this grammar material belongs
to the active minimum or to the passive minimum. Active grammar is introduced
through oral speech.
To present a new grammar item means: to acquaint students with its forms,
meaning and usage.
The main ways of presentation of new grammar are:
1. practical (inductive) (implicit)
2. theoretical-practical (deductive) (explicit)
In the first case students are acquainted with a new grammar item in a speech
pattern, understand its meaning in the context and iearn its forms.
Then, by analogy, they make actions with it: Peter reads, Nina reads, Michael
reads etc.
Students make a conclusion that we add S in the third person singular. It is
necessary to observe the rule: One difficulty at a time.
This way of presentation can be used at an early stage of teaching, when students
learn simple basic forms.
In the second case the teacher gives a short explanation as to the formation,
meaning and usage of the gr. item and compares it to the item in the native language.
And then students do exercises.
Many researchers agree that formal classroom instruction of certain grammatical
structures – that is morphological inflections, function words, syntactic word order –
can be beneficial to students. Students in middle school and high school are already
literate and therefore have established expectation concerning language instruction.
Grammar instruction can also be beneficial as it raises learners’ consciousness
concerning the differences and similarities of the mother tongue and the foreign
language.
However, we must remember that grammatical structures by themselves are
rather useless; they take on meaning only if they are situated in a context and in
connected discourse. And besides, they will be used by learners if they are placed in a
situation in which they need to use the structures for communicative purposes.
Consequently, an important role of the teacher is to create learning situations in which
the students feel a need to use the grammar in order to comprehend and communicate
in the target language.
Although many methodologists agree on the benefits of some grammar
instruction, how to teach grammar has met with little agreement.
The controversy has become communicative language teaching revolution,
which has consistently underscored the importance of stressing meaning over form.
Some scholars advocate an explicit method of grammar instruction, with derect
teacher explanations followed by related exercises. Unfortunately, many of textbooks’
drills are grounded in shallow and artificial contexts, so these drills become rather
meaningless to students.
Another problem with explicit grammar instruction is that it makes the teacher’s
role most important and designates a rather passive role on the part of the students.
Interaction for them is supposed to take place after the explanation and after plenty of
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structural manipulation of the grammatical elements. “Skill-getting” is before “skill-
using”.
Implicit grammar explanation rejects the need for formal grammar analysis.
Methodologists, who advocate this method, argue that students can acquire language
naturally if they are provided with sufficient comprehensible input from the teacher.
In other words, if students are exposed to a sufficient amount of comprehensible
input, they will eventually be able to make up rules and determine the functions and
the meanings of the linguistic forms.
However, the inductive method cannot guarantee that the learner will discover
the underlying concept correctly.
Furthermore, the inductive approach can be frustrating to adult learners, many of
whom have already become analytical with regard the rules that govern their native
language.
Although inductive and share some notable deficiencies. Neither approach
acknowledges the contributions and backgrounds that the learners bring to the
instructional setting, neither approach recognizes the natural learning tendencies that
occur between human beings outside the classroom. Learning is a dynamic,
reciprocal and interactive process. Interaction is fundamental to learning as it occurs
naturally between humans in everyday life.
Some modern methodologists advocate a whole language and guided
participatory approach that contrasts with traditional explicit or implicit teaching. In
many ways this approach may serve as a compromise between the explicit/implicit
views.
Implicit explanations
Guided participation
Explicit explanations
Learners analyze
the grammar explanation
for themselves
teachers and learners
collaborate and
co-construct the
grammar explanation
teacher provides
grammar explanation for
learners
What is whole language teaching?
Psycholinguist Ken Goodman stated that “Language is language only when it is
whole”.
According to Goodman, the whole is always viewed as being greater than the
sum of its parts, and it is the whole that gives meaning to the parts. In terms of
grammar instructions, words, phrases, sentences gain meaning only when they are
placed in context, and when used in conjunction with the whole. According to
Goodman, once students experience the whole, they are then better prepared to deal
with the analysis of the parts. Many foreign language specialists are now emphasizing
the importance of content-based instruction, of authentic texts for listening and
reading comprehension, and the need for connected discourse in grammar instruction,
all of which emphasize the importance of whole language rather than fragmented
speech in foreign language classrooms.
Many language programs stress a bottom-up approach by emphasizing the “bits”
and “pieces” of language (sounds, vocabulary lists, verb drills, etc). This classroom
practice usually results in non-language that can be characterized as being unnatural
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and dull. On the other hand, a whole language approach stresses natural discourse and
encourages students to comprehend meaningful and longer samples of discourse from
the very beginning of the lesson.
By introducing the lesson with a whole text (for example, a story, poem, song,
taped listening selection, or cartoon) the teacher is foreshadowing the grammar
explanation. Foreshadowing of new language elements is beneficial, for it provides
“learners with a feel for what is to come”. In this way the lesson stresses the
functional significance of the grammatical structure before the learners’ attention is
focused on form.
Unlike many classroom textbooks, which may offer a group of disconnected
sentences or a contextualized drill a whole language and guided participatory
approach invites the learner to use language functionally and purposefully. As a
result, from the very beginning of the lesson the teacher and learners are engaged in
authentic use of language through joint problem-solving activities and interactions.
By using picture, mime, gestures the teacher helps learners, understand the story.
When comprehension is achieved, the teacher can then turn the students’ attention to
various linguistic elements.
Unlike bottom-up processing, which is linear in nature, grammar instruction
using a whole language approach is cyclical.
During the first stage of the cycle the teacher foreshadows the grammar
structure with a text. At this point the comprehension of the text is of prime
importance. The second stage is actually an extension of the first stage, since again
emphasis is on the meaning. However it differs from the first stage as learners’
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