The Psychological characteristics of grammar skills
The Content of Teaching Grammar
The Grammar Translation method will be discussed
Grammar explanations as used in the major methods
Practical approach
The presentation of structural form
Correction
Recognition exercises
Creative exercises (speech exercises)
Навигация
The Content of Teaching Grammar
Teaching English Grammar
67631
знак
1
таблица
0
изображений
1.3 The Content of Teaching Grammar
Before speaking about the selection of grammar material it is necessary to consider the concept “grammar”, i.e., what it meant by “grammar”.
By grammar one can mean adequate comprehension and correct usage of words in the act of communication, that is, intuitive knowledge of the grammar of the language. It is a set of reflexes enabling a person to communicate with his associates. Such knowledge is acquired by a child in the mother tongue before he goes to schools.
This “grammar” functions without the individual’s awareness of technical nomenclature; in other words, he has no idea of the system of the language, and to use all the word-endings for singular and plural, for tense, and all the other grammar rules without special grammar lessons only due to the abundance of auding and speaking. His young mind grasps the facts and “makes simple grammar rules” for arranging the words to express carious thoughts and feelings. This is true because sometimes little children make mistakes by using a common rule for words to which that rule cannot be applied. For example, a little English child might be heard to say Two mans comed instead of Two men come, because the child is using the plural “s” rule for man to which the rule does not apply, and the past tense ed rule for come which does not obey the ordinary rule for the past tense formation. A little Russian child can say ножов instead of ножей using the case-ending “ов” for ножи to which it does not apply. Such mistakes are corrected as the child grows older and learns more of his language.
By “grammar” we also mean the system of the language, the discovery and description of the nature of language itself. It is not a natural grammar, but a constructed one. There are several constructed grammars: traditional, structural, and transformational grammars. Traditional grammar studies the forms of words (morphology) and how they are put together in sentences (syntax); structural grammar studies structures of various levels of the language (morpheme level) and syntactic level; transformational grammar studies basic structures and transformation rules.
What we need is simplest and shortest grammar that meets the requirements of the school syllabus in foreign languages. This grammar must be simple enough to be grasped and held by any pupil. We cannot say that this problem has been solved.
Since graduates are expected to acquire language proficiency in aural comprehension, speaking and reading grammar material should be selected for the purpose. There exist principles of selecting grammar material both for teaching speaking knowledge (active minimum) and for teaching reading knowledge (passive minimum), the main one is the principle of frequency, i.e., how frequently this or that grammar item occurs. For example, the Present Simple (Indefinite) is frequently used both in conversation and in various texts. Therefore it should be included in the grammar minimum.
For selecting grammar material for reading the principle of polysemia, for instance, is of great importance.
Pupils should be taught to distinguish such grammar items which serve to express different meanings.
|
The selection of grammar material involves choosing the appropriate kind of linguistic description, i.e., the grammar which constitutes the best base for developing speech habits. Thus the school syllabus reflect a traditional approach to determining grammar material for foreign language teaching, pupils are given sentences patterns or structures, and through these structures they assimilate the English language, acquire grammar mechanisms of speech
The content of grammar teaching is disputable among teachers and methodologists, and there are various approaches to the problem, pupils should, whatever the content of the course, assimilate the ways of fitting words together to form sentences and be able to easily recognize grammar forms and structures while hearing and reading, to reproduce phrases and sentences stored up in their memory and say or write sentences of their own, using grammar items appropriate to the situation.
PART 2 MAJOR METHODS AND PRINCIPLES
1.1A Brief Review of the Major Methods of Foreign Language Teaching
The grammatical systems of Russian and English are fundamentally different. English is an analytical language, in which grammatical meaning in largely expressed through the use of additional words and by changes in word order. Russian is a synthetic language, in which the majority of grammatical forms are created through changes in the structure of words, by means of a developed system of prefixes, suffixes and ending. (p. 121, Brown C. and Jule “Teaching the spoken language”, Cambridge, 1983)
No one knows exactly how people learn languages although a great deal of research has been done into the subject.
Many methods have been proposed for the teaching of foreign language. And they have met with varying degrees of success and failure.
We should know that the method by which children are taught must have some effect on their motivation. If they find it deadly boring they will probably become de-motivated, whereas if they have confidence in the method they will find it motivating. Child learners differ from adult learners in many ways. Children are curious, their attention is of a shorter duration, they are quite differently motivated in, and their interests are less specialized. They need frequent of activity; they need activities which are exciting and stimulating their curiosity; they need to be involved in something active.
We shall examine such methods as “The Grammar – Translation Method”, ”The Direct Method”, “The Audio-lingual Method”. And we pay attention to the teaching grammar of the foreign language. We shall comment those methods, which have had a long history.
Похожие работы
equacy in using games In this paragraph we would like to reflect how modern teachers evaluate the adequacy in using games when teaching English language Famous British teacher and educator Andrew Wright in his books' Language learning is hard work ... Effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time. Games help and encourage many learners to sustain their ...
... be learnt in passing but has to be studied and thoroughly practiced before students can produce it confidently and accurately in new contexts. [7:54] 2.1 Ways of presenting articles In the process of teaching English, teachers should pay special attention to countable and uncountable nouns. The distinction between countable and uncountable nouns must be clearly understood because it affects ...
... (for example: If she gets the job she’ll move to London). A list of grammatical items which are regularly focused on in language classes can be found in the contents list of any good learner’s grammar book such as An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage by Leech (Nelson), Practical English Usage by Swan (OUP) or The Heinemann English Grammar by Beaumont and Granger (Heinemann). Language can not only ...
... , even temperately, was a sin. (Dreiser) The verbal noun may be modified by an adjective. He (Tom) took a good scolding about clodding Sid. (Twain ) Chapter 2 Syntax and Semantics of English Verbals 2.2.1 The Functions of the Infinitive in the Sentence The infinitive can be used in different syntactic functions. A single infinitive occurs but seldom: in most cases we find an ...
0 комментариев