7 ways to View Grammar/ A summery by Chaya Cohen

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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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