Lesson 2 : Issues of Grammar Teaching and Assessment

Lesson 2 : Issues of Grammar Teaching and Assessment

by Jennifer Nudalo

​TOPICS

·         Why should we teach grammar?

​·         Pedagogical Issues

​·         Sequencing

​·         Choice of Methods

​·         Patterns and Reasons, Not Rules

​·         From Structuralism to Transformational Generative Grammar

​·         Fossilization

​              When we teach and assess grammar in a language classroom, it is already presupposed that we will encounter issues. The recurrence of such issues are both disadvantageous and advantageous – disadvantageous in a way that we will encounter the same issues but in different context while at the same time advantageous because its recurrence already testify that these were already and will always be addressed.

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        Hence, this lesson will discuss the issues in teaching and assessing grammar. Specifically, the discussion will emphasize why we should teach grammar, pedagogical issues, sequencing, choice of methods, patterns and reasons not rules, from structuralism to transformational generative grammar, and fossilization.

​WHY SHOULD WE TEACH GRAMMAR

​Mart (2013) elucidated the imperativeness of teaching grammar in a language learning classroom. Accordingly, people should be taught about grammar because:

• ​Grammar skills will help learners to organize words and messages and make them meaningful.

• Without grammar, speech would be meaningless.

• ​Grammar provides knowledge about how language works.

• ​Grammar skills greatly contribute to language competence.

• ​Grammar helps learners to discover the nature of language.

• ​Language acquisition without grammar is confusing.

• ​Grammar teaches us comprehensibility and acceptability.

​        However, he highlighted that grammar should never be taught in isolation; thus, he promotes teaching grammar in context. He pointed out that proficiency in grammar, without its application in communication, is worthless because language is culturally and socially loaded – language contains knowledge and information grammar alone could not suffice. Integrating context to learning grammar definitely connects grammar proficiency to actual usage of the language.

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      As cited by Mart (2013), Thornbury quoted the importance of teaching grammar in context: if learners are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it in its contexts of use, and, at the very least this means in texts (p. 126). 

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