TEACHING GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

TEACHING GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

          The teaching of grammar and vocabulary has always been a central aspect of foreign language teaching. For centuries, in fact, the only activity of language classrooms was the study of grammar and vocabulary. The twentieth century, especially the last half  ,has changed all that dramatically. Now, as we speed toward  the twenty-first century, language teachers are  often confused by a swarm  of mixed messages about the place of grammar and vocabulary in the communicative language  classroom. We’ll take  a look at the   questions  and some practical  answers  here. First, grammar.

The  place  of  grammar

Grammar is a system of rues governing the conventional arrangement  andrelationship  of words in a sentence. Grammatical  competence occupies a prominent  position as a major  component of  communicative  competence: Organizationalcompetence  is  an intricate , complex array of  rules, some of which govern  the sentence(grammar), while others  govern  how  we string sentences together ( discourse ). Without the structure  that organizational constraints impose on our  communicative attempts, our language  would simply be chaos.

Grammar gives us the form or the structures of  language  themselves , but those forms o are  literally meaningless without  a second dimension, that of meaning/ semantics, and third  dimension, pragmatics. In other words, grammar tells us how to  construct  a sentence (  word order ,verb and noun system ). Semantics tells us something about the meaning  of words and strings  of words or   I should say , meanings, because  there may be several. Then pragmatics tell us about  which of several  meanings to assign given the context of a sentence.

To Teach or Not to Teach Grammar

          Appropriate  grammar focusing techniques:

-are embedded in meaningful, communicative  contexts.

-contribute positively to communicative goals.

-promote accuracy within  fluent, communicative language.

-do not overwhelm students with linguistic terminology.

-are as lively and intrinsically motivating as possible.

-are as lively and intrinsically motivating as possible.

1.     Age

2.     Proficiency level

3.     Education background

4.     Language skills

5.     Register

6.     Needs and goals

Issues About How to Teach Grammar

1.     Should grammar be presented inductively

2.     Should we use grammatical explanations and technical terminology in a CLT classroom?

3.     Should grammar be taught in separate “grammar only”classes?

4.     Should teachers correct gr4ammatical errors?

Grammar Techniques

1.     Using Charts

2.     Using objects

3.     Using maps and other simple drawings

4.     Using dialogues

5.     Using written texts

Grammar sequenting in Textbooks and curricula

          Grammatical sequenting received a great deal of attention in the 1950s and ‘60s as curricula and textbooks were organized around grammatical categories.

A “Word” About Vocabulary Teaching

1.     Allocate specific class time to vocabulary learning.

2.     Helps students to learn vocabulary in context.

3.     Play down the role of bilingual dictionaries.

4.     Encourage students to develop strategies for determining the meaning of words.

5.     Engange in “unplanned” vocabulary teaching.