7 ways to View Grammar/ A summery by Chaya Cohen
7 Ways to View Grammar
Some teachers
suffer from obsessive grammar syndrome. These teachers have different
perspectives on how to view grammar. This paper will provide seven of these
views.
Grammar as
rules
We use must+
be+ verb+ ing to say that something that is in progress at or around the
time of speaking is logically necessary or that we suppose it to be certain.
The sentence the blackbird must be flying is an example of this rule, and an
example of why this rule may not be useful to the learner. The learners may
struggle to understand some of the grammar rules. Therefore the teachers should
not expect the students to be able to apply all of the rules. Several rules are
simply impractical for a student’s daily life.
Grammar as structures
This rule has
the teacher look at grammar in its simple form rather than look at its meaning
or function. The idea is to practice the form so that you will be able to use
it. Fries believed that “To learn a new language one must establish orally the
patterns of the language as subconscious habits.” Students, who were taught
with this method, spoke more fluently, however did not show more understanding
of their sentences.
Grammar as
mathematics
In this rule
the teacher must describe the logic of a language. There is input and output of
knowledge, but the teachers are unable to know what is happening during the
process between input and output.
Grammar as
algorithms
It is important
to understand language in context. Language is about its function, and that is
why you can only understand it through context and surrounding information.
Grammar as
function
This idea is
that language should be viewed as useful and functional. An example of this
would be the sentence: “The dog is barking, therefore someone must be coming.”
This explanation looks at grammar as text based. It is often hard to decide
which part of grammar a structure may be categorized. This is a difficulty for
authors of textbooks, for example, because they do not know where the structure
belongs. Furthermore, vocabulary may be
included in big grammar or in small grammar.
Grammar as
collocation
This
perspective is that there is no boundary between lexicon and grammar; the two
are interdependent. There are some
expressions in language that are extremely common and therefore they become a
part of the language, even though they may have an incorrect form
grammatically. For example, there is the colloquialism in English “You must be
joking!”
Grammar as an
emergent phenomenon
Another way to
understand grammar is to say that “Language is not fixed, but is rather a
dynamic system. Language evolves and changes, […] grows and organizes itself
from the bottom up in an organic way, as do other complex systems.” A good
example of this is the usage of the phrase “gonna” instead of the correct term
“going to.”
Conclusion
The
perspectives of grammar as collocation and grammar as an emergent
phenomenon are the two which lectures most identify with. Teaching a
language as chunks helps the learner understand it. It is easiest to learn the
formal language, as much language as possible, so that they can remember it
better. This, however, is not enough to help the student be fluent in the
language. Learners must also be forced to converse in English, as the use of
language is required to obtain it.
In summary, the
lectures discuss that the most important aspects in a classroom are emergent
language combined with consciousness language. The teacher is required to
create language opportunities in the lass so that the students can improve.
Below is a list
of ways that a teacher can work with emergent language.
·
Show
learners that you like what they say.
·
Retrieve
what the learner just said.
·
Report
it. Ask learners to report what they said and heard in group work.
·
Recycle
it. Encourage learners to use the emergent items in new contexts.
·
Record
it. Have the students find a way to write down the language that is otherwise
simply spoken.
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