extended version prezi on systems of language: grammatical system

Universidad Católica de la Santísima concepción English pedagogy Methodology I

Grammatical system of language.

Members: Daniel Gallardo Pedreros. Gerardo Valdivia Zavalla. Teacher: Roxanna Correa. Course: Methodology I.


Plotkin (1998) argued that “a language is a system, a functionally

determined, structured aggregate of elements”. A language system has three

subsystems: the lexical subsystem; the grammatical subsystem; the phonic

subsystem. Each subsystem has its own structural organization and is based on

the appropriate essence used in building its elements. In this essay our focus will

be the grammatical system of the language. First of all, we have to define what

grammar is. According to Plotkin (1998) the grammatical system's functions is to

arrange words in order to express thoughts to communicate an idea. In the same

way, Brown (2007) added that grammar is “the system of rules governing the

conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence”. The Longman

dictionary of contemporary English defines grammar as “the rules by which words

change their forms and are combined into sentences”. Harmer (1991) stated that

“grammar should be called the way in which words change themselves and group

together to make sentences”. In this essay the grammatical system of language

will be explained according to Nunan’s Organic approach, the inductive and

deductive approach and their advantages and disadvantages, how grammar

should be presented and taught, the three-dimensional grammar framework when

teaching grammar and some advices and strategies to teach grammar.

Nunan’s (1998) organic approach has five main points. The first is

“teaching language as a set of choices”, this points allows students to determine

which forms of the language they can use to give a piece of information according


to what they wish to convey. The second “providing opportunities for learners to

explore grammatical and discoursal relationships in exercising with easy tasks, but

also to challenge students to complete tasks with "real world" grammar and know

how this “real world” grammar works; the third main point that Nunan presents is

the idea of having a balanced diet of both types of texts. With this idea Nunan

expresses that it is important that the learners work with these two types of texts,

the non-authentic and the authentic texts. Both are important and the learners

should be able to choose which one they are going to use, but the ideal is that the

learner use it balanced and not one more than the other; the fourth point is that

“teaching language in ways that make form and function relationships transparent”

create pedagogical tasks in which learners structure and restructure their own

understanding of form, function and use relationships through inductive and

deductive tasks; the fifth is “encouraging learners to become active explorers of

language”, which means that teachers should encourage their students to be

responsible for their own learning, make them participate actively in the process of

learning grammar or a new content. Nunan (1998) suggests that this active

exploration should be characterized by an inductive approach of learning. So the

learning would be more profoundly stored and processed; the sixth is “encouraging

learners to explore relationships between grammar and discourse”, this point

emphasizes the link between grammar and discourse and that the grammatical

choices that the learners do depend on the context and intention they want to

obtain.


Nunan (1998) declared that the inductive approach should be

encouraged on learners because the learning would be stored and processed

deeply. Goner, Phillips and Walters (1995) stated that in the inductive approach the

students practice the language in context and they can realize the structure and

grammatical rules from the examples they were doing. As mentioned by Rivers and

Temperley (1978), in the inductive approach the teacher encourages students to

obtain the rules from the examples, so the teacher’s role is to provide meaningful

context to the students. On the other hand, Rivers ad Temperley (1978) proposed

that in the deductive approach the teacher presents the rules first, teacher dictates

the rules; in consequence students learn and apply the rules after they have

worked with the rules. The teacher is the center of the class and responsible for the

explanation of the new information.

Both, the deductive and inductive approaches have advantages and

disadvantages. Goner (1995) claimed that the deductive approach is less

appropriate for lower level language students, since it presents grammatical

structures that are complex in form and meaning for younger learners. The

advantages of the inductive approach are that students can focus on the use of the

language without being restrained by grammatical terminology and rules that can

reduce fluency. The inductive approach increase participation and the practice of

the target language inside the classroom. The inductive approach have had

success world widely, although its disadvantage is that sometimes for students

accustomed to more traditional styles of learning might seem complicated at first.


Goner (1995) indicated that understanding the advantages and disadvantages of

both approaches may help the teacher to vary and organize a lesson, in order to

keep classes motivating and interesting for the students.

In addition, how to teach grammar, Harmer (1991) exposed some

characteristics of a good presentation that will be mentioned: a good presentation

should be clear, there should not be any difficulties in understanding for learner; a

good presentation should be efficient, so that students can use the new language

as they wish; a good presentation should be lively and interesting, the teacher

should prepare lesson in order to maintain students interesting and engaged

during the whole presentation; a good presentation should be appropriate, the

teacher should not put so much information, the information should be simple and

brief; moreover a good presentation should be productive, the teacher should allow

students to make many sentences or questions with the new language, so they can

practice it as much as they want. On the same topic, Celce-Murcia and Hilles

(1988) presented the following structure of a grammar lesson, consisting of four

parts: presentation. The grammar structure is introduced inductively or deductively.

The teacher has to select the techniques and resources he or she is going to use,

depending on their students level and needs; focused practice, the learner

manipulates the structure so he can know it properly. The aim of this is to learn

how to use the form; the teacher should be convinced that most of the students are

able to use the form without mistakes, the teacher has to check the understanding

of the students; communicative practice, the learner practices the structure being


learned. There are some tasks that might be useful to implement, such as:

information gap, choice, feedback; Teaching feedback and correction, teacher

have to check if the learners understand what he or she taught and give them the

correct feedback in order to encourage them and engage them to continue with the

learning process.

The three-dimensional grammar framework when teaching grammar,

teachers have to make sure that form, function and use are taught clearly. There

are three dimensions of language that we must deal with: the form or structures

themselves, their semantics or meaning, and the pragmatic conditions governing

their use. The forms tell us how a particular grammar structure is constructed. In

the semantics, we deal with what a grammar structure means. Note that be

meaning can be lexical (a dictionary definition) or it can be grammatical. And

pragmatics, Levinson (1983) suggested that pragmatics deals with aspects of

meaning. Pragmatics is the study of the relations between language and context

that are grammaticalized or determined in the structure of a language.

There are many useful advices to take into account when teaching

grammar. One of those advices is that you should use brief and simple

explanations; students could understand the ideas easily if you do it and yo don´t

waste important time to continue with yor class; After that, another advice is to use

the mother tongue if you realize that the students are not understanding or cannot

follow the explanations in english; A third advice says thatyou could use charts and

other visuals whenever possible to graphically represent grammatical relationships.


This is important because sometimes grammar classes may be boring for some

students and charts and other visuals couls help to motivate them topay attention

to the class and to understand clearly what you want them to learn; Another avice

is to ilustrate with clear, unambiguous examples, making it easier to learners to

understand; A fifth advice is to take into account the different cognitive styles that

your students may have. You must know that not all the students learn in the same

way, so you must be able to prepareyour lessons in order to help all the students to

understant through their different ways of learning; Another advice is not to get tied

up in knots over so-called “exceptions” rules. When yo teach grammar it is

important to teach the normal applications and then the exceptions if the are. This

advice is given because there are many teachers that tend to start teaching the

exceptions and then the normal aplications making the students get confused

about the idea you want to express; Finally, the lastadvice is that if you don´t know

how to explain something, do not risk giving false information. As a teacher you

can forget something or just don´t know something. It is recommended to say that

you don´t know it, or say that you will find it and answer the next class instead of

giving false information.

The National Capital Language Resource Center, Washington, DC

(2003-2004) offered some strategies for Learning Grammar. The first is “relate

knowledge needs to learning goals”, about this point is important to recognize the

procedural and declarative knowledge to identify which goals students want to

achieve; the second “apply higher order thinking skills”, it is imperative to teach


students the way in which the language works, that would help them to create a

critical thinking and compare the language they know with the one they are

learning about; the third is “provide plentiful and appropriate language input”, is

important that students use procedural and declarative knowledge, since students

must be aware of the relationships that exist among use, meaning and form of the

grammatical rules; the forth strategy is “use predicting skills”, students should

predict according to the format of the text, this will allow them to anticipate the

forms and structures they will encounter in a given task; and fifth “limit

expectations for drills”, mechanical drills can help students memorize forms and

structures, but they do not develop the ability to use grammar correctly in oral and

written interactions, because these drills separate form from meaning and use.

Communicative drills persuade students to connect form, meaning, and use

because several correct answers are possible. In these communicative drills,

students provide their own content.


Conclusion

To conclude, Nunan (1998) suggested that grammar instruction would

be more effective in classrooms where: learners are exposed to authentic samples

of language. Tasks designed to make transparent the links between form,

meaning, and use. Learners are given opportunities to develop their own

understandings of the grammatical principles of English by progressively

structuring and restructuring the language through inductive learning. Learners

encounter target language items in an increasingly diverse and complex range of

linguistic and experiential environments. Balance between exercises that help

learners come to grips with grammatical forms, and tasks for exploring the use of

those forms. Some grammatical structures may be acquired in a linear way, but the

majority of structures are acquired in complex, non-linear ways. There are

advantages and disadvantages in the inductive and deductive approach and it is

necessary that the teacher make the right decision for student to achieve their

goal. The teacher must make a balanced use of the inductive and deductive

approach in order to make interesting and motivating the class. Harmer (1991) also

presents advices to take into account like: a good presentation should be clear,

and there should not be any difficulties in learning for the student. Harmer gives

those and more advices in order to guide the teacher to make the classes

interesting and motivating. If you are a teacher you must be aware about many

things at the time of prepare and make your classes. You must take into account

the ways in which the students learn, and the ways of making the classes


interesting and motivating for the students. In this essay have been shown different

views about the grammatical system and advices about how to teach grammar we

hope will be useful to improve your grammar lesson planning and your class

staging.


References

Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language

pedagogy. Longman.

Goner, Phillips & Walters. 1995. Teaching practice handbook: Structures, grammar

and function. Heinemann, 129-138.

Harmer, J. (1991). The practice of English language teaching. London/New York.

Harmer, J. (1987). Teaching and learning grammar. London: Longman.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (1991). Teaching grammar. Teaching English as a second or

foreign language, 2, 279-296.

Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Celce-Murcia, M., & Hilles, S. (1988). Techniques and Resources in Teaching

Grammar. Teaching Techniques in English as a Second Language. New

York: Oxford University Press.

National Capital Language Resource Center, Washington, DC (n.d) Strategies for

learning grammar. The essentials of language teaching. Retrieved from:

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/grammar/stratgram.htm.

Rivers, W., & Temperley, M. (1978). A practical guide to the teaching of English as

a second or foreign language. Oxford university press, 110.

extended version prezi on systems of language: grammatical system

Education

oxford university press

teach grammar

teaching grammar

inductive approach

declarative knowledge

grammar structure

deductive approach

grammatical system