Grammar in teaching foreign languages

Following some feedback my last post prompted, I will attempt to respond to the issue raised concerning the teaching of grammar to foreign language students. I am aware of the enormous scope of the issue, but I’ll try my best.

My attitude towards learning and in effect teaching is not prescriptive. I acknowledge the value of learning through exposure to the language and I ensure that my students read and listen to as much authentic English as possible. However, there are a few considerations to be taken into account. I will briefly cite them here though each one of them deserves a whole book rather than a short paragraph:

First of all I teach English as a foreign language: there is no immersion learning. This automatically poses the question of the choice of language material at different levels.

Secondly I teach people of different age groups with different goals or even with different time limits. This defines to a large extent the material and the methods I use.

For children and teenagers who are learning English as part of their general education, I use a course book as guidance to language input and plenty of supplementary material which is adapted to my students’ level (stories, songs and factual books) but also original stuff which I consider accessible by my students.

I do not exclude grammar from my teaching. I am convinced that grammar provides a shortcut to accuracy and it is a tool which most of my students use in their first language learning so it makes sense to take advantage of it in foreign language teaching. Grammar functions in various directions: it generates accuracy in many similar contexts; it confirms learners’ generalisations extrapolated from their exposure to the target language; it raises questions the answers to which further elucidate the understanding of the foreign language; it promotes and enhances abstract thinking.

Grammar is not external to language; it is a set of rules the understanding of which allows speakers to decode the intended message or the application of which allows them to successfully encode and convey their message. Even when a grammar rule is violated, there is some intention in doing so: it probably explains a lot of great poetry!

Adult learners with specific purposes not only appreciate the use of grammar but are of the mindset that takes it for granted because of the way they were taught at school.

I do not get stuck with grammar when the age or maturity or the ability of my students for abstract thought make it irrelevant but by the same token I do not eschew it when it can speed up the process of learning and internalisation. One point I need to clarify here is that by grammar I do not mean the memorization and regurgitation of rules: I refer to the generalisations (rules) learners will make, which will allow them to understand input and produce comprehensible output.

 Grammar is all about meaning. Take word order for example:  in English, if we know who does what the verb denotes, it is because the subject precedes the verb. By contrast in Greek we would know from the ending which denotes case but not necessarily from the word order.

All learners make inferences about how language works whether they can verbalise them or not. Their inferences are tested and confirmed or contradicted. In the latter case they have to make new inferences till they get it right. Grammar preempts those inferences. There is nothing wrong with taking this shortcut if it suits the learner’s mode of thinking and learning.