OFFICIAL SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES

UNIT 3

THE CONCEPT OF GRAMMAR :

SOME THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING.
FROM PRESCRIPTIVE TO COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR

1. INTRODUCTION

2. .THE CONCEPT OF GRAMMAR

3. LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING.

4. GRAMMAR IN THE L2 CLASS.

5. FROM PRESCRIPTIVE TO COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR

5.1. Form

5.2. Function

6. GRAMMAR AND COMMUNICATION

7. CONCLUSION
1. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the teaching of grammar in the classroom is done through the

Communicative Approach. In the past, grammar played a major role in language
teaching, both in the teaching of the native language and in the teaching of the L2.

The Grammar Translation Method, which was the preferred method for many years,
focused on grammar as a means of learning a language without recourse to actual
communication. The students had to do all that the teacher said, with the native
language being continuously used, as the meaning of the L2 was made clear through
translation into the L1. The method laid little or no emphasis on speaking.

Although things have changed greatly, we still find that grammar plays a role in the
planning of many foreign language courses.

In this unit we are going to look at exactly what role grammar has to play in language
teaching. We will begin by looking at the concept of grammar.

The information we will use has been taken from works by Ellis, Seldon, Quirk and
Cable.

2. THE CONCEPT OF GRAMMAR.

Grammar can, according to Quirk, be taken to include both syntax and the aspect of
morphology (the internal structure of words) that deals with inflections. The fact that
the past tense of buy is bought (inflectional) and the fact that the interrogative form of
he bought it is did he buy it? (syntax) are therefore equally within grammar.

Our usage corresponds to one of the common uses of the word in English. A teacher
may observe that John uses good grammar but his spelling is awful. This comment
shows that spelling is excluded from grammar. However, in the educational systems of
the English speaking world it is possible to use the word grammar loosely so as to
include both spelling and lexicology.

There are three main types of grammar studies, traditional, prescriptive and
descriptive.

Traditional Grammar is based on classical studies, mainly derived from the notion
that the basic structure of Latin can be applied to any language. However, this method is
not to be trusted, as analysis of language structure reveals certain patterns that do not
match the structure of classical languages.

Prescriptive Grammar has a formative influence. The concept of a standard language

is imposed on all of the speakers of that language. The main aims of the system, which
was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, are to codify the principles of the language
in order to show a system underlying the different varieties, to settle disputes over usage
and to point out common errors whilst improving the language. From prescriptive
grammar some common precepts are formed: double negatives must be avoided, a
sentence should not end with a preposition, infinitives should not be split, contractions
are informal and so on. Unfortunately, the only people who follow these rules are
foreign students. Nobody in a native English speaking country would still pay attention
to them. Therefore, in order to accommodate a less strict usage of the language,
descriptive grammar surfaced.

Descriptive Grammar focuses on the description of grammar constructions according

to linguistic usage - without social implications. It attempts to record the facts of
linguistic diversity instead of prescribing a standard language. Basically, the notion is
that all forms of use are valid - if they can be understood.

With this in mind we will move on to look at language and language learning.

3. LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING.

When a student starts to learn a foreign language he has to take into account many
areas. Simply knowing the language isn’t enough, he has to know when to use it, how to
use it and to whom to use it. This is known as Communicative Competence, and is
made up of five subcompetences, one of them being grammatical. This is where we
shall begin this section of the unit.

Grammatical Competence was a proposal made by Noam Chomsky in the 1950’s and
the 1960’s. The term Grammatical Competence referred to the ability to produce and to
understand rules within a sentence. The two concepts of rules and use meant that if a
student knew the rules of the language (Chomsky was referring to the L1, but it applies
to L2 learners) then he should be able to produce communication.

Dell Hymes (1972), felt that Chomsky had not covered all of the points. He also felt
that an ability to speak does not only include a knowledge of the rules of grammar, but
the speaker must also know something of the aforementioned how, when and to whom
of speaking.

Hymes understood competence as linguistic competence, although for him this was the
grammatical knowledge of idealised speakers of the language, whereas performance
was the actual use of competence in a given exchange. In other words, competence
alone is not enough to explain the knowledge of a native speaker. The speaker needs to
know how to use his competence in a communicative situation.

This Communicative Competence was developed by Canale (1983). He adjudged

language to have a series of subcompetences, which have been adapted into the Spanish
curriculum for language teaching. These subcompetences include Grammatical, as
suggested by Chomsky, but also add the following:

Sociolinguistic: The appropriate use of utterances in different sociocultural contexts

Discoursive: The combination of grammatical forms or meanings to achieve a

unified spoken or written text.

Strategic: The mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies.

Sociocultural: The degree of familiarity with the culture and society in which a
language is used.
Taking into account these two views of Communicative Competence, we see that the
learner of English as a foreign language would have to learn both the grammar and the
rules for using that grammar.

This can justify the inclusion of grammar in a language teaching programme.

In the language curriculum we have to think about how the knowledge of grammar can
contribute to language proficiency. For a learner to be proficient in a language, various
requirements have to be fulfilled.

Richards (1983), declares that:

Proficiency refers to the degree of skill with which a foreign language speaker uses the
L2 when carrying out different communicative tasks.

This means that both Grammatical and the other Communicative Competences have to
be adapted as various guidelines for proficiency, such as the student knowing how
language is used, rather than simple knowledge or competence. Language proficiency is
defined in relation to native speaker proficiency. This means that when a curriculum is
planned various factors have to be taken into account, including how we can help our
students to gain not just competence (being good enough), but proficiency (being able
to use language as a native speaker).

Richards also states that:

...although grammar must always play a central role in language teaching, its
importance can be derived from, and related to the proficiencies we plan as the
outcome to the language curriculum.

However, there are still many arguments about how and when to teach grammar in the
classroom. These can often cloud a teacher’s judgement, as he may follow the trends in
language teaching, instead of paying attention to his judgement of his students’ needs.
Discussions often centre around the point of grammar teaching, and what grammar
should actually be taught in the classroom.

We will begin the next section by looking at the different views that exist in the
language teaching profession about the value of grammar teaching.

4. GRAMMAR IN THE L2 CLASS.

In many classrooms, teachers prefer to simply teach the rules of grammar. The students
work mainly from books and make notes about the things that the teacher is writing on
the board. They will learn all the terminology and have a good knowledge of the rules,
but may have problems with actual communication as a result of lack of practice.

This method can be widely found in Asian communities with the result that people from
certain cultures come to England to study in a language school and find themselves
scoring very highly in a written entrance exam, yet still being placed in one of the lower
levels due to their lack of ability to speak. Nowadays the curriculum discourages this
method, but it is frequently used as some teachers may find it the only way that they can
teach in what are often overcrowded classrooms.

Other teachers like their students to practise simple basic patterns of grammar, such as
negations or questions. Here, the student will at least have the opportunity to use the
target language, but the problem is that it tends to ignore the situational use of English.

This means that even though the student may be able to gain a good knowledge of the
rules that govern the use of a second language, a question mark remains over whether or
not that student would actually be able to use the language in a communicative
situation.

Once a student has knowledge of the basic rules of language, he needs to have the
opportunity to practise those rules in as natural and as free a way as possible. This
system does practise rather than explain the language, but the difficulty also arises that
the student has to follow very set and very definite patterns to learn, in a way that is too
progressive.

By this we mean that, as an example, the word would probably wouldn‘t be taught until
later in the learning process, however, a basic function such as politely asking for
something demands the use of this structure, such as can be found in the phrase: Would
you pass me the salt?

For this reason, many coursebooks work on encouraging the student to learn the
language through a variety of different situations, aimed at giving him an immediate
experience in how the language rules work with other factors in order to make an
effective use of the language.

These systems seem respectively to advocate learn, practise and use, but they are not
combined. Surely the best method would be one that tries to incorporate the three styles
into language learning, so that the students gain a global command of the language?

For this reason the Communicative Approach to Language Learning, which we have
already mentioned, has become popular.

We will look at this approach in more detail later, first we have to see how grammar has
developed from a prescriptive approach to the system used today.

5. FROM PRESCRIPTIVE TO COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR

Let’s look at the following statement:

It’s bad grammar to end a sentence with a preposition.

Here the sentence is referring to a way of speaking or writing that is preferable to avoid.
This pertains to prescriptive grammar, which can be characterised as a set of rules or
regulations based on what has been evaluated as correct or incorrect in the standard
varieties of the English language.

Since England does not have an academy of the language, as can be found in France or
Spain, there is no one set of regulations that could be considered to be authoritative.
Instead, evaluations are made by self appointed authorities who, reflecting various
judgements of acceptability or appropriateness often disagree.

Authorities in usage, in this restricted sense, primarily deal with disputed usage, a
relatively small number of syntactic and lexical items that are controversial within the
standard varieties.

Their objections may persuade some, especially teachers of English as a foreign

language, to avoid certain areas, particularly in the field of written language. A prime
example of this is the idea that contractions, such as can be found in the word doesn’t,
are informal English, and shouldn’t be used in written work. This is now not considered
to be the case, in fact the full version is often only used for emphasis, and so has a
different function.

Over the last 2 centuries prescriptive rules have accumulated into a general prescriptive
tradition for speech and writing which is still to be found embodied in even the most
modern school textbooks and student reference handbooks, no matter how
communicative they may claim to be.

However, language is not now, never has been and never will be a static entity.

It is continuously evolving and changing. Therefore students of a language, although

they need to have rules prescribed to them, also need to have rules described to them.
This simply implies that the students will need to learn the language as it is actually
used today, rather than learning it through theories that are based on what some think to
be correct.

The communicative approach is based on the assumption that students learn grammar so
that they can use it as a tool through which they will have the ability to communicate in
the L2.

Therefore it is desirable that when we begin to teach language to students, we should

not organise it in terms of structures and rules, but in terms of the functions that the
student is likely to wish to perform through the use of the language.

This will certainly mean that grammatical points are going to come up, but the trick is to
ensure that these structures can be systematically related to meanings, uses and
situations.

The aim of successful teaching in a classroom where the Communicative Approach is

employed must always take into account the five subcompetences that we mentioned
earlier.

There has to be an integration that allows students to expand their limited command of
the language in actual communicative situations, and gives them help in how to make
up for the lack of grammatical knowledge that they may face at any given point. This
can include the use of strategies and non-linguistic resources such as gestures, which
can help the student to communicate.
This approach must meet the communicative needs and interests of the students,
providing them with the information, practice and experience needed, as well as
knowledge of the foreign language culture.

Therefore, the traditional role of grammar in the L2 classroom will be that of standing
for the functions and the macrofunctions of language in order to have the necessary
basis to be communicatively competent in real life situations.

This leads us to the question of whether or not we should examine language in terms of
the FORM or in terms of the FUNCTION.

Let’s begin by looking at the first of these points.

5.1. Form

If we organise a grammar class in terms of the form of the language, we are making
conscious decisions about the imparting of grammatical rules to our students. This
means that our students are acquiring valuable knowledge about the way that they
should be using the language in order to be correct.

The rules are laid out for them and they learn them.

Once they have learnt and practised a structure, and the teacher feels that they have
achieved a sufficient level of competence, the next structure can be moved onto.

An advantage of this method is that the teacher can check that all that he should have
been teaching has been covered in relation to the language. However, as we have
already noted, knowing the rule does not necessarily mean that the student is going to be
able to implement it. For this reason the function of the language, that which language
is used for, must also be taught.

5.2. Function

This should enable the student to use the language communicatively and for its given
purpose.

There are many functions that we can apply to language. We can use it to start and
maintain social relationships, argue a point, inform, express emotions and so on.
Grammar should be designed so that not only the rules are taught, but that the rules that
aim at completing these functions are included.

To finish this unit, we will look at how grammar can be interwoven with
communication.

6. GRAMMAR AND COMMUNICATION

The grammatical system is used to express meaning, and meaning is the purpose of
communication. Grammar provides the necessary means to achieve a communicative
goal, and therefore cannot be an end in itself.
There is no limit to the number of sentences that can be expressed in a language. For
example, we can have a personal way of constructing a sentence - often we can say
something in such a way as we never know if it has been said before. This creativity
denies the use of drills of grammar, instead, the teaching of grammar rules must be
adapted to the learner’s communicative needs.

Grammar, however, must not be ignored. It has to act as a foundation in the teaching of
a foreign language. In the 70’s, it became fashionable not to teach any grammar, but to
simply allow the students to acquire the language. It has since been realised that this
system is inefficient. If the students do not have a knowledge of grammatical rules to
fall back on, then too many errors may occur. This may not totally affect the ability of
the student to make himself understood, but no-one wants to make more errors than is
necessary.

However, grammatical errors are seen differently in the Communicative Approach.

They are viewed as an inevitable part of the learning process and a sign of progression.
It is important to involve the learners in the process of error correction, as they learn
more effectively if they can correct themselves rather than if they are given the correct
version straight away. Basically, the emphasis is placed on fluency, not accuracy.

7. CONCLUSION

The study of language is a part of general knowledge. Everybody has attitudes towards
the English language and its varieties, and has opinions on specific features. These
attitudes and opinions affect relationships with other people. If a person understands the
nature of language, he will realise the grounds of linguistic prejudice and moderate it.
He will also more clearly assess linguistic issues of public concern. In the case of a
foreign language learner this can take the form of making him reflect on the state of his
own language. Studying a language can help him to make use of his own language more
effectively.

In the study of language, grammar occupies a central position. There are several
considerations for the application of grammatical study:

A recognition of grammatical structures is often helpful for pronunciation.

A study of the grammar of a foreign language is useful for the study of the L1 grammar.
A study of the grammatical resources in English is helpful in adding coherence and
cohesion to both written and spoken language.

Although in the past the teaching of grammar has come into and gone out of fashion
many times, its inclusion in the most modern of language courses is testament to its
value, and the teacher should ensure that the students are aware of this.
UNIT 3 GRAMMAR

THEMES NOTES

Grammar Translation Method preferred for many years. Grammar can

be taken to include both syntax and morphology.
Concept of Grammar
Three main types of grammar studies, traditional, based on classical
studies, prescriptive that has a formative influence and descriptive
which focuses on the description of grammar constructions according to
linguistic usage.
Language and Language Learning:
Student has to know when, how and to whom to use language. This is
known as Communicative Competence, linked to Grammatical
Competence. Chomsky proposed Grammatical Competence. Refers to
the ability to produce and to understand rules. Hymes felt that Chomsky
had missed some points. He understood competence as linguistic.
Canale judged Communicative Competence to have subcompetences:
Grammatical. Mastery of language code.
Sociolinguistic. Appropriate use of utterances in different sociocultural
contexts.
Discoursive. Combination of grammatical forms or meanings to
achieve a unified spoken or written text.
Strategic: The mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication
strategies.
Sociocultural: The degree of familiarity with the culture and society in
which a language is used.
Richards declares that proficiency refers to the degree of skill with
which a foreign language speaker uses that language when carrying out
different communicative tasks. Grammatical and Communicative
Competences have to be adapted as various guidelines for proficiency
When we plan a curriculum we have to take into account factors such as
proficiency and competence.
Grammar in the Classroom
In many classrooms teachers still prefer to teach from grammar books.
Others encourage students to practise basic patterns. Some work on
language through situations. Mixture of all 3 needed.
From Prescriptive to Communicative Grammar
Language is not a static entity. Prescriptive: Set of rules or regulations
based on what has been evaluated as correct. Description means
learning the rules as they are actually used. Form: The rules are laid out
for the students and they learn them. Function: Using the language for
the purposes it should be used for, such as arguing, requesting, etc.
Grammar and Communication
Grammatical system is used to express meaning and meaning is the
purpose of communication. Errors are viewed as an inevitable part of
the learning process. Accuracy is more important than fluency.
Now evaluate your knowledge of unit 3 by answering the following questions.

1. What are the main characteristics of the Grammar Translation Method?

2. Which are the three main types of grammar studies?

3. What are the four most common ways of teaching grammar in the L2 classroom?

4. Explain the meaning of form and function.

5. What is the attitude towards errors in the Communicative Approach?