Critical Response

In the multilingual Malaysian society, introducing young learners to English which is

hardly used by most of the people in daily life is a challenging effort. A lot of issues arise as
to how English is supposed to be taught. This problem is especially magnified when it comes
to the teaching of English grammar. According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), grammar is
the description of language features and the way in which linguistic units such as words and
phrases are combined to produce sentences in a language (as cited in Cakir & Kafa, 2013).
These features and the grammatical terminologies are usually perceived as difficult to be
digested by learners of all ages; different approaches and instructions have been created
and developed throughout the years to facilitate and make the acquisition process easier. In
these recent years, second language acquisition (SLA) has been primarily focused on
meaning and how language is established naturally and as a whole (Corzo, 2013); however,
when grammar instruction is overlooked, it results in the inability of language learners in
producing comprehensible speech; this proves that grammar instruction in SLA is important.
Therefore, the issues that English as Second Language (ESL) teachers should look into now
is how to incorporate grammar in SLA and how to motivate ESL young learners in learning
grammar for their language development.
With communicative competency becomes the primary goal in SLA, the relevance of
grammar instruction is often questioned by majority of people. However, the requirement of
producing an accurate speech in communicating is as important as producing a fluent
speech so that misunderstanding can be avoided (Corzo, 2013). This shows that grammar
should be taught to language learners. Hence, form-focused instruction (FFI), an instruction
where communicative activities are still the core in acquisition process but with teachers
stepping in to facilitate learners to use the language accurately when the need arises (Long,
1991, as cited in Spada & Ligtbown, 2008), has taken a solid ground in SLA. The question
now is whether form-focused instruction should be used in isolation or in context. Spada and
Lightbown (2008) have proposed the terms isolated FFI and integrated FFI. The similarity
between both terms is communicative tasks are still the primary focus in the teaching and
learning process. The difference is the former instruction is where grammar will be discussed
discretely before the communicative task as a form of preparation or after to address a
particular language feature that learners have difficulty with; the latter instruction is where
language features are drawn from the tasks in which they are predicted by the teachers or
that they appear incidentally (Spada & Lightbown, 2008). Therefore, ESL educators should
consider few factors in order to choose the best approach that they can apply to cater their
ESL learners needs especially those of the young learners.

The foremost factor is the influence of the learners first language (L1). In Malaysia,
most of the primary learners are only introduced to English exclusively in the classroom;
their L1 may influence their SLA process as they may get confused with the differences
between their L1 and English. In such situation, isolated FFI plays a huge role in assisting
these learners. It provides the teachers the opportunity to put into focus the grammar
features that are foreign to the learners. Bahasa Melayu, the L1 of the majority of Malaysian
ESL learners, has different features from English (Samad & Hussein, 2010). For example,
the young learners may find difficulties in using be auxiliary verb where they have to take
the plurality of the subject into account, a feature that is absent in Bahasa Melayu.
Therefore, isolated FFI is the best approach where teachers can explain the rules to ESL
young learners.
The complexity of the rules presented also determines which instruction suits the
acquisition process as well. In SLA, isolated instruction is usually used to teach grammar
features that are fairly easy while difficult rules are very challenging to be taught in isolation
and away from its communicative use (Spada & Lightbown, 2008). Therefore, integrated FFI
is more suitable for such situation where young learners would be able to relate the
language forms and their functions through communicative activities. A study that has been
done by DeKeyser (1995) and Robinson (1996) support such measures where the
participants successfully acquired simple morphosyntactics rules better in deductive
learning and complex morphosyntactic rules better in inductive learning (as cited in Spada
& Lightbown, 2008). These indicate that language educators have to first weigh in the
circumstances of the language class before deciding the suitable instruction so that ESL
young learners can obtain optimum SLA experience.
Young learners ability also has to be considered. Grammar features which are
abstract and complex may be discouraging for them as some features are difficult to be
understood since concrete representation may not work most of the time. According to Shak
and Gardner (2008), young learners tend to perceive output as a mean to measure their
own success and the difficulty of the tasks given. Therefore, the communicative activities
conducted in the ESL primary classroom should be based on learners proficiency level so
that it can elevate their motivation in learning and also facilitate them in comprehending the
grammar structures. Ellis (1995) also agrees with the view and he promotes the importance
of the ability to identify and understand the meaning of grammar features through
communicative tasks (Kettle, 2008). According to Ellis (1995), these tasks are known as
interpretation tasks which encourage the learner to notice the difference between the
meaning conveyed by the grammatical structure in the input and how they are using it (as
cited in Kettle, 2008). This approach allows the learners to notice the common grammar

mistakes that they made during the tasks instead of focusing on the production.
Reactive/inductive explicit instruction can be used during this process. Ellis (2010) stated
that it is an approach where learners are given clear feedback to indicate that they have
made a mistake. The teacher will repeat the mistake and it will be followed by the correct
version so that learners will realize the mistake by comparing it with the correct version
provided.
In conclusion, grammar instruction plays an important part in SLA. As primary ESL
teachers, it is important that they utilize the opportunity to introduce the young learners to
English with the best approach that can promote their language development as their
proficiency level increase. Isolated and integrated FFI or deductive and inductive learnings in
language acquisition process should not be overlooked as both instructions are beneficial for
ESL young learners. Teachers should find different ways to incorporate both instructions so
that they can develop their language skills and able to communicate both fluently and
accurately.
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