Week 1 Prepared by:

Lee Sow Ying

Introduction to
the Teaching of Acknowledgement to:
Munirah Binti Hanafi @
Grammar Mohd Ghani 2019
A. Grammar and its role in
English Language
teaching
 What do you think grammar is?

You may perceive ‘grammar’ as:

 the system of a language – how language works
 the structure of language
 the ‘rules’ of language
 word order
 word structure
 meaning and function of language
 Getting Started
How many meanings of the word ‘grammar’ can you identify?
a. It’s a really complicated area of grammar.
b. Why don’t you look it up in a grammar?
c. Her spelling is good but her grammar is almost non-existent.
d. Children don’t do enough grammar at school.
e. We had to do generative grammar on the course.
f. He needs to work on his grammar and punctuation.
g. Systemic grammar is generally associated with the work of M.A.K. Halliday.
h. I’ve already had problems with German grammar.
i. It’s a grammar for learners of English as a foreign language.
j. Oh, no. We’re doing grammar again today.
 Stop and Think
Can you formulate a more precise definition of
‘grammar’, in the light of the above discussion?
Compare your definition with a dictionary’s or
with this one:
Grammar is a set of rules that define how words
(or parts of words) are combined or changed to
form acceptable units of meaning within a
language.
 Definitions of ‘grammar’ from the
dictionary
 Grammar is the ways that words can be put together in order to make
sentences. (Collins Dictionary)
 Grammar is the set of language rules that you use, most of the time
unconsciously, to create phrases and sentences that convey meaning.
(vocabulary.com)
 The study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and
relations in the sentence. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
 The whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general,
usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections)
and sometimes also phonology and semantics. (Oxford Dictionary)
Grammatical Structures
 A specific instance of grammar is usually
called a ‘structure’.
 Examples of structure would be: the past
tense, noun plurals, the comparison of
adjectives, etc.
Stop and Think
Think of two languages you know.
Can you suggest an example of a structure
that exists in one but not in the other?
How difficult is the structure to learn for
the speaker of the other language?
 Not all languages have the same structure: the
English verb has ‘aspects’ (such as the
progressive, e.g. ‘she is going’) which other
languages do not; German ascribes masculine,
feminine or neuter gender to its nouns, which
English does not.
 It is largely such discrepancies which cause
problems to the foreign language learner;
though it is hard to predict how difficult
these problems will be, even though if you
are familiar with the learner’s mother tongue.
 Occasionally, foreign structures that look
strange may be surprisingly easy to master,
and vice versa.
Grammatical Meaning
 Grammar does not only affect how units
of language are combined in order to
‘look right’, it also affects their meaning.
 Unfortunately, the teaching of
grammatical meaning tends to be
neglected in many textbooks in favour of
an emphasis on accuracy of form.
 Thus, it is no good knowing how to
perceive or construct a new tense of a verb
if you do not know exactly what difference
it makes to meaning when it is used.
 It is very often the meanings of the
structures which create the difficulties for
foreign learners as mentioned previously.
 The meaning of a grammatical structure
may be quite difficult to teach.
 It is fairly simple to explain that the addition
of a plural –s to the noun in English and
French indicates that you are talking about
more than one item, and there are parallels
in other languages.
 But how would you explain to the foreigner when
to use the present perfect e.g. ‘I have gone’ in
English, and when the past simple e.g. ‘I went’?
 If you are a grammarian or an experienced English
language teacher, you may have the answer at your
fingertips. But most English speakers who have
not previously studied this question will have to
stop and think, and may find it difficult to answer.
 Stop and Think
Choose a structure in your own language.
How would you explain its meaning to
learners?
How would you get them to understand when
this particular structure would be used rather
than others with slightly different meaning?
 Grammar, Language &
Communication
Do you think languages need grammar?
If so, why do they need grammar?
Perhaps……
 to deduce patterns in it
 to know how the system works so to create
more language
Grammar adds meanings that are not easily inferable
from the immediate context. The kinds of meanings
realised by grammar are principally:

representational - that is, grammar enables

us to use language to describe the world in
terms of how, when and where things happen
e.g. ‘The sun set at 7.30. The children are
playing in the garden.’
interpersonal - that is, grammar facilitates the
way we interact with other people when, for
example, we need to get things done using
language. For example, there is a difference
between:
 Tickets!
 Tickets, please.
 Can you show me your tickets?
 May I see your tickets?
 Would you mind if I had a look at
your tickets.
 Grammar is used to fine-tune the
meanings we wish to express.
‘It is all to do with making sense. The
fundamental purpose of language is to make
sense – to communicate intelligibly. But if we
are to do this, we need to share a single system
of communication. It would be no use if one
person were using Japanese and the other were
using Arabic, or one knew only Morse code and
the other knew only semaphore…
…The rules controlling the way a
communication system works are know as its
grammar, and both sender and recipient need
to use the same grammar if they are to
understand each other. If there is no grammar,
there can be no effective communication. It is as
simple as that.’
David Crystal (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the
English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
B. The current perspective of
Teaching Grammar in
English Language Education
and in the Malaysian
context.
 The Place of ‘Grammar Teaching’
 The place of grammar in the teaching of
foreign languages is controversial.
 Most people agree that knowledge of a
language means, among other things,
knowing its grammar.
 But this knowledge maybe intuitive (as it
is our native language), and its not
necessarily true that grammatical
structures need to be taught as such, or
that formal rules need to be learned. Or is
it?
 Questions to ponder:

 Should we teach grammar?

 What grammar should we teach?
 When should we teach grammar?
 Should grammar teaching be intensive or extensive?
 Should grammar be taught implicitly or explicitly?
 Should grammar teaching be massed or distributed?
 Should grammar be taught in separate lessons or integrated
into communicative activities?
 Mini Lecture & Tutorial Task
1. Form 5 groups. Each group takes one of
these reading materials:
a. Ellis, R. (2006) Current issues in the
teaching of grammar: an SLA perspective.
TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), pp. 83-107.
b. José López Rama & Gloria Luque Agulló
(2012) The role of the grammar teaching: from
communicative approaches to the common
European framework of reference for
languages. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas
Aplicadas, Vol. 7, pp. 179-191.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2012.1134
c. Nurusus, E. et al. (2015) Exploring Teachers’
Beliefs in Teaching Grammar. The English
Teacher, XLIV(1), pp. 23-32.
d. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001) Teaching
grammar. In: Celce-Murcia, M., ed. Teaching
English as a Second or Foreign Language,
3rd ed. London: Heinle & Heinle Thomson
Learning, pp. 251-266.
e. Fotos, S. (2001) Cognitive approaches to
grammar instruction. In: Celce-Murcia, M.,
ed. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign
Language, 3rd ed. London: Heinle & Heinle
Thomson Learning, pp. 267-283.
2. Read the reading material.
3. Summarise and present the information
you have gathered from the reading
material in a graphic form.
4. Present and discuss the issues
highlighted in the reading material with
the class during mini lecture and tutorial
hours.