Learn Grammar, easy!!!

Introduction 

 

This research project has been written for students and teachers of English who are curious confused about the teaching of grammar. We know grammar has been a controversial and misunderstanding aspect of language teaching. The fact remains that teachers who doesn't know how importance and how to teach grammar, can't to make their students are interesting in acquire grammar knowledge. We attempt to show essential techniques in the teach of grammar. We will share some information in order to improve the knowledge about our knowledge and it will inspire us toward the correct way of teach grammar.

In any time we must learn, we must remember: the more we practice what we are studying, the more we will learn.

The first part contains a brief overview of what grammar is. In the second part is show how to teach grammar from rules, the following part demonstrate how teach grammar from examples and the next is a brief explanation about how to teach grammar through text.

Justification

The purpose of this research is to discover How to teach grammar. That is why many teacher are teaching but, they are not teaching in the correct way. To study grammar i to prepare ourselves to be coherence when we speak and when we write. We want to improve our techniques and habitabilities on the teaching of a second language. Because it is important o know how to teach. Our work attempts to demonstrate how to teach. Teachers teach, students learn, but are teachers teaching what grammar really is? Are students learning grammar, because they know grammar is the key of the effective communication? Are teachers teaching with the appropriate methods and techniques.

Teacher must know how to teach. Students learn when they are understand. Grammar is about order, the classroom is where students order their ideas and thoughts. Teachers have to teach in order students be able to use what teachers teach.

What's Grammar?

Each time we think about grammar, we reflect it is difficult aspect of speech. That´s why we don´t know that grammar means “a coherent sequence”. Yes, we think grammar is about coherence and it is not only for ordering. If we consider grammar like this, we will have a powerful tool of teaching. We recognize our acts of communication are based coherence. Lets see what Scott Fhornburry thinks about grammar:

“Grammar is the study of what form (or structures) are possible in a language. Traditionally, grammar has been concerned almost exclusively with analysis at the level of the sentence. Thus a grammar is a description of the rules that govern how languages sentences are formed.”

(Fhornburry, Scott, how to teach grammar)

Grammar is the study or use of rules. It is about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences. A written speech is also know as text, it consists of sentences, which themselves consist of words and these words (when spoken) consist of sounds. These are the form that language takes: texts, sentences, words and sounds. In order to reach an objective we formulate certain sentences. It we formed well a sentences we can be sure that we will reach our goals. Moreover, when we speak we need to take into count what context or environment is around us.

Grammar is divided in two branches which are syntax (the system of rules that cover the order of words in a sentences) morphology ( the system of rules that cover the formation of the words.) Syntax tells us why the next two sentences are not well-formed:

-The bed girl jumping is on the bed.

-Dog my has been sick three days for.

In the other hand morphology tells us why the next two words are bad-formed:

-Leargnin

-Teaerch

Grammar is based in the study of sentences and words, and text as well. It is consist, in part, of looking at the way sentences and words are arranged and patterned.

A meaning is the value or importance that something has. There are at least two kinds of meanings and these reflect the two main purposes of languages. The first is to present the world as we experience it, and the second, it is to influence how things happen in the world, specifically in our relations with other people. These purpose are called respectively, language's representational and it's interpersonal functions. In its representational role languages reflects the way we perceive the world. For example, things happen in the world, and these events or processes are conveyed by verbs:

-The students study.

Many of these events and processes at initiated by people or things, which are typically in encoded in nouns, and which in turn for the subject of the verb:

-Gregorius is playing.

And these events and processes often have and effects on other things, also nouns, the things or person affected is often the object of the verb:

-Neville kicks the ball.

These events take place in particular circumstances -in some times or some place or in some way- and these circumstances are typically encoded in adverbials:

-Hans is playing in the park.

-Susie eats lunch at twelve o'clock.

-Josh kicks the ball angrily.

The second main role of language -its interpersonal role- it's typically reflected in the way we use grammar to easy the task of getting things done.

For example there is a different between:

-Help me!

-Help me, please.

-Can you help me, please?

-Would you mind if I ask you something?

Please is one way -a lexical way- for softening the force of a command. A similar reflect can be achieved by using modal verbs, such as can, may, and might. Modality, then is a grammatical means by which interpersonal meaning can be conveyed.

Grammar syllabus

It is important to have what to teach, and in what order. For this we can use a course book. A syllabus is to teaching what a itinerary is to package tourism. It is a pre-planned, itemized, account of the route: It tells the teacher (and the students if they have access to it) what is to be covered and what order. It is informed by to sets of decisions.

-Selection: That is, what is to be included?

-Grading: That is, in what order the selected items to be dealt with.

The criteria for selecting which items to put in a syllabus are essentially two: usefulness and frequency.

Note that is not always the case that the most frequently occurring items are the most useful. The ten most frequent word in English are: the, of, and, to, a, in, that, I, it and was. Together they constitute nearly one-fifth of all English texts.

There are two basic kinds of language, these are: Written Language and Spoken language. Written Language is based on the written form of the language. It is more syntactically complex constructions such as passive structures and subordinated clauses. Spoken language has its own distinctive grammar. It is the natural and non-structured language which we use. It uses tag questions and has sentences with two subjects.

How to teach grammar from rules

A deductive approach

A deductive approach starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by examples in which the rules is applied. An inductive approach starts with some examples from which a rule is inferred.

An example of deductive learning might be that, on arriving in a country you have never been to before, you are told that as a rule people rub noses when greeting one another, and so you do exactly that. An example of inductive learning would be on arriving in this same country, you observe several instances of people rubbing noses on meeting so you conclude that this is the custom, and proceed to do likewise.

The inductive approach (a rule-driven learning) to language teaching is traditionally associated with Grammar-Translation. Typically, a grammar-translation lesson started with an explanation (usually in the learners' mother tongue) of a grammar point. The following activities involved translating sentences out of and into the target language. The problem is that, since classes were taught in the students' mother tongue there was little opportunity for them to practice the target language. Practices involved only reading and writing, with a little of spoken language.

What this approach does require is teachers' language with sufficient proficiency in both languages- learners' language and the target- to make it work. Needless to say Grammar-Translation is not viable in multilingual cases.

Pros and cons of teaching with the deductive approach

Some disadvantages of teaching with the deductive approach (rule-driven) are:

-Starting the lesson with a grammar presentation may be off-putting for some students, specially younger ones. They may is not be able to understand the concepts involved.

-Explanation is seldom as memorable as other form of presentation, such as demonstration.

-Such an approach encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of knowing the rules.

Some advantages are:

-It gets straight to the point. This will allow more time for practice and application.

-It respects the intelligence and maturity of many-specially adult- student.

-It allows the teacher to dealt with language points as they came up, rather than having to anticipate them and prepare for them in advance.

What does a rule, a good rule?

Truth: Rules should be true. The rule must bear some resemblance to the reality it is describing.
Limitation: Rules should be clearly what the limit are on the use of a given form.
Clarity:Rules should be clear. Lack of clarity is often caused by ambiguity or obscure terminology.
Simplicity: Rules should be simple. Lack of simplicity is caused by divide and sub-divide, and sub-divide. There is a limit to the amount of explanations a learner can remember.
Familiarity: An explanation should try to make use of concepts already familiar to the learners.
Relevance: A rule should be answer only these questions that the student need answer.
As a conclusion, we can use a deductive approach when we teach from rules.

How to teach grammar from examples

The Deductive and The Inductive Approach

The inductive approach in learning is a rule-driven path. This path refers to present grammar that are designed to engage learners inductive reasoning processes. That is, using a variety of means the teachers presents learners with pre-selected language data and encourages learners to work the rules out for themselves.

In the deductive path, the grammar rule is presented and the learners engages with it through the study and manipulation of examples. In a inductive approach, on the other hand, without having met the rule, the learner study examples and from these examples derives an understanding of the rule. The inductive route is the way one's first language is acquired: simply through exposure of the language.

Induction, or learning through experience is seen as the natural route to learning. The methods which we can apply are the Direct Method and the Natural Approach. Induction, to work best than deduction. It requires more than random exposure: it needs the intervention of either the syllabus designer, the materials writer, or the teacher, or all three. The Direct Method (D. M.) attempts to simulate the way children acquired their first language through associations between language and the real world.

With an inductive approach we need to create situations in which the students be involve. “generative situations”. A generative situation is a situation which the teacher sets up in the lesson in order to “generate” several example sentences of a structure.

Also, it is important to motivate students to create, to write their own ideas. “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they themselves have discovered than by those which have come into the minds of others”.

We learn through trial and errors, with the guidance of the teacher and the feedback provided by the teacher. Discovery learning involves that.

Pros and cons of an inductive approach

Advantages:

-Rules learners discover for themselves are more likely to fit their existing mental structures than rules they have been presented with.

-The mental effort involved ensures a greater degree of cognitive depth which gain, ensures greater memorability.

-Students are more actively involved in the learning process rather than being simply recipients: they are therefore likely to be more attentive and more motivated.

-Working things out for themselves prepares students for the greater self-reliance and is therefore conductive to learner autonomy.

Disadvantages:

-The time and energy spent in working out rules may mislead students into believing that rules are the objective of language learning, rather than a means.

-The time taken to work out a rule may be at the expense of time spent in putting the rule to some sort of productive practice.

-Students may hypothesize the wrong rule.

-It can heavy demands on teachers in planning lesson.

How to teach grammar through texts

Texts and contexts

We are all familiar with the experience of being asked the meaning of a word and having to replay But what is the context? The very word word can mean different things in different contexts, as these examples show:

• What does this word mean?
• Can I have a word with you?
• I give you my word.
• Word has it that they are getting married.
• If you want help, just say the word.
• How should I word this letter?

Language is context-sensitive. This means that, in the absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase. This is true of words taken out of the context of sentences. It is also true of sentences taken out of the context of texts.

As decontextualized words and decontextualized sentences lose their meaning, so too do decontextualized texts. That is, texts divorced from their context may become difficult to interpret. Here are three short texts. Each is complete, in the sense (unlike the It's a drink example above). Nevertheless, in the absence of context, they are either ambiguous or unintelligible.

In order to become fully intelligible all texts require some knowledge of where, and even, the texts of the surrounding text and the context of the surrounding situation. The term text will be use from now on to refer to both written and spoken English. Texts take many forms: postcards, novels, sermons, football commentaries, street signs, jokes, and air safety instruction are just a few. In real life we generally experience texts in their entirety and in their contexts of use. That is to say, we experience the whole joke and we usually experience in it situation where joking is appropriate. The problem is that, just as it is easier to examine a fish out of water than in its natural habitat, so in order to look at grammar it is often easier to use examples taken out of context.

Source of the texts

There are at least two implications to the text-level view of English. The first is that if learner are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it in its context of use, and, at the very least, this means in texts. Secondly, if the learners are to achieve a functional command of a second language, they will be to be able to understand and produce no just isolated sentences, but whole texts in that language.

There are at least four possible sources of texts: the course book; authentic sources, such as newspapers, songs, literary texts, the Internet, etc; the teacher; and the students themselves. Course book texts tend to be specially tailored for ease of understanding and so as to display specific features of grammar. This often gives them a slightly unreal air.

One kind of authentic text – and one that has been largely under-exploited in conventional classroom practice – is the novels, are likely to be of much more interest to the students than those of character in a course book.

Students like to read what they write. It involves their personality, their feelings, their capacities, their skills, their tastes, and so on.

And finally, the students themselves are capable of producing text. The students' texts may be the most effective, since there is evidence to support the view that the the topics that learners raise in the classroom are more likely to be remembered than those introduced by either teachers or course books.

Conclusion

Grammar is not the most exciting subject in the world, but it is important. Grammar used to be taught using a language book, learning about parts of speech and doing language exercises such as diagramming sentences. Now grammar is usually taught with writing, and it is taught through mini-lessons. And it can be teaching based in the two basic approach:´the deductive and the inductive, it depends on the needs we have to learn. Also in what do we want to do: speak or write or both. When we teach grammar with the appropriate methods, students are more likely to remember the grammar rules and apply them to their everyday life. When we are teaching it is important give the students good and interesting information. We need to prompt our students.

Recommendations

Use the techniques we recommend before. And also these others:

1.Assess your students before you teach any grammar. If they already know what a noun and verb is, then you don't need to waste class time teaching them and doing exercises where everyone is getting 100 percent. The important thing about nouns, for example, are rules such as each sentence needs a subject, capitalizing proper nouns making sure nouns and verbs agree. What are your objectives in grammar for your grade level, and where are your students in regards to these objectives?

2.Plan mini-lessons to address your students' deficiencies with grammar. If your students can't remember to always capitalize the word "I" (such as a first grade class), then before writing workshop one day, gather the students around your chart paper and do a lesson on capitalizing the word "I." Students can practice this skill by writing a personal narrative where they use the word, I, and immediately, they incorporate the lesson into their everyday writing. Mini-lessons can be taught on any subject. Skills can be practiced in writing. It just takes a little planning on your part.

3.Teach grammar points while you are also discussing books you are reading to the class or that students are reading themselves. Real authors can be amazing tools to use to teach about contractions, noun/verb agreement and all other grammar points you may need to teach. There are even picture books that focus on certain parts of speech or punctuation. Ask your local or school librarian to help you find these books if you want to share them with your class. Show students how real-live authors use grammar in their writing, so students will also use correct grammar and punctuation in their writing. Point out if a character has a weird speech pattern and discuss it. Discuss why that character might not be using proper grammar. These discussions will be more meaningful than doing language exercises.

4.Practice punctuation, proper grammar, and capitalization with spelling sentences. Teachers often assign students to write spelling sentences, using a spelling word correctly in each sentence. What have your mini-lessons been focusing on? Ask students to practice these skills with spelling sentences. These sentences are also a good assessment when you teach grammar. They will show you if students are applying the grammar rules they are learning, or if students need more instruction and practice.