On Grammar Teaching
topbnr2vm3.jpgWhether the teaching of grammar should be emphasized or regarded as a supproting role has been debated for a long time. People who think that grammar is a top priority for students believe that Grammar is the system of rules governing the conventional arragement of words, therefore we must learn grammar.
From my personal point of view, I always believe that grammar should not be taught as isolated rules. Instead, it should be instructed in context. In other words, it is the topic of teaching materials deciding which grammar is to be taught; not the grammar to decide the teaching materials. For example, we should not give students an article full of sentences in tense of present progressive when we want to teach them the tense of present progressive. On the contrary, we should give them an authentic article or graded reader which is at their level, and make students learn the grammar in the article.
Furthermore, I am convinced that teaching grammar inductively is more effective than deductively for teenagers. Because languages are not composed of a bunch of rules, if we teach a language in that way, it is against the nature of it and may make the class tedious and even boring. Besides, by ways of induction can students create their ability to observe and engage in the learning process in person.
To conclude, since we do not learn grammar as isolated rules when learning our native tongues, why should we do that when learning a second language?
Since we are not learning the target language the way we learn our mother tongue, analyses of sentence patterns and structures would be of great help. I like to learn and teach grammar inductively. I also think it better to introduce grammar patterns within different but meaningful contexts. However, when teaching, we encounter challenges resulting from many different factors. It’s important that besides the subject knowledge, we should be well-informed of instructional design (see: http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/idmodels.html) and teaching and learning strategies (examples: http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/front_strategies.html) to help our students learn better.