The Influence of the Teacher's Understanding on Teaching Grammar in Schools
TASK 1:
To What Extend is the Teacher’s Understanding of the Concepts and Theories of Grammar Helpful to the Teaching of Grammar in Schools?
It is generally acknowledged that grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. The misconception lies in the view that grammar is a collection of arbitrary rules about static structures in the language. Further questionable claims are that the structures do not have to be taught, learners will acquire them on their own, or if the structures are taught, the lesson that ensues will be boring. Basically, concept of grammar refers to the study of structural relationships in language or in a language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history. As for theories of grammar, it is referred to as linguistic theories that attempt to describe a native speaker's tacit grammatical knowledge by a system of rules that in an explicit and well-defined way specify all of the well-formed, or grammatical, sentences of a language while excluding all ungrammatical or impossible sentences. It is observed that Webbe (1998) was one of the earliest educators to question that value of grammar instruction, but certainly not the last. In fact, no other issue has so preoccupied theorists and practitioners as the grammar debate, and the history of language teaching is essentially the history of the claims and counterclaims for and against the teaching of grammar. Differences in attitude to the role of grammar underpin differences between methods, between teachers and learners. Thus, it is a subject that everyone involved in language teaching and learning has an opinion. And these opinions are often strongly and uncompromisingly stated. Here, for instance, are a number of recent statements on the subject. According to Penny Ur (2000), she states that “There is not doubt that a knowledge-implicit or explicit – of grammatical
To What Extend is the Teacher’s Understanding of the Concepts and Theories of Grammar Helpful to the Teaching of Grammar in Schools?
It is generally acknowledged that grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. The misconception lies in the view that grammar is a collection of arbitrary rules about static structures in the language. Further questionable claims are that the structures do not have to be taught, learners will acquire them on their own, or if the structures are taught, the lesson that ensues will be boring. Basically, concept of grammar refers to the study of structural relationships in language or in a language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history. As for theories of grammar, it is referred to as linguistic theories that attempt to describe a native speaker's tacit grammatical knowledge by a system of rules that in an explicit and well-defined way specify all of the well-formed, or grammatical, sentences of a language while excluding all ungrammatical or impossible sentences. It is observed that Webbe (1998) was one of the earliest educators to question that value of grammar instruction, but certainly not the last. In fact, no other issue has so preoccupied theorists and practitioners as the grammar debate, and the history of language teaching is essentially the history of the claims and counterclaims for and against the teaching of grammar. Differences in attitude to the role of grammar underpin differences between methods, between teachers and learners. Thus, it is a subject that everyone involved in language teaching and learning has an opinion. And these opinions are often strongly and uncompromisingly stated. Here, for instance, are a number of recent statements on the subject. According to Penny Ur (2000), she states that “There is not doubt that a knowledge-implicit or explicit – of grammatical