On-Grammar-Teaching-in-Middle-School--浅议中学语法教学.docx

On Grammar Teaching in Middle School

摘 要

“英语语法教学”贯穿于中学英语教学过程的始终，是学生提高听说读写译五项技能的基础，但不少学生学习意识淡薄,对语法知识望而生畏，由此出现的一些原则性的语法错误也比比皆是。本文抓住这一特点，首先提出了学生语法学习中的误区。其次，本文分析了要改变这一状况,必须充分发挥学生在语法课堂教学活动中的主体作用，教师应根据学生实际,设计一些趣味性强、真实性和实践性突出的英语语法教学活动，更新观念,制定措施,层层突破,从而调动学生学习语法的积极性,掌握理解语法术语和基本概念,一定程度上提高他们解决实际问题的能力。最后，讨论了一些关于英语语法教学的策略。

关键词：英语；语法教学；策略

ABSTRACT

Throughout the process of high school English teaching, grammar teaching is the foundation which can help students improve their basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. But many students are poorly aware of the importance of grammar teaching. There are some principles of grammar. Firstly, this thesis proposed student’s learning grammar errors. Secondly, analyzes the changing errors in order to change the situation, we must give full play to students in grammar teaching activities and teachers should design students’ practice with authenticity and practicality. We should teach English grammar with new ideas, develop measures to break through layer upon layer, mobilize student’s enthusiasm in grammar learning, and master the terminology and basic concepts in order to understand grammar. To some extent, we can enhance their ability to solve practical problems. Finally, this thesis proposes some strategies in English grammar teaching.

Key words: English, grammar teaching, strategy

CONTENTS

0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1

1. The role of grammar in English language……………………………………………1

1.1 The definition of grammar………………………………………………………..1
1.2 The importance of grammar in English learning…………………………………2

2. The problems of grammar teaching……………………………………………………4

3. The principles in grammar teaching……………………………………………...6

3.1 Practical principle………………………………………………………………..6
3.2 Sentence and grammar principle………………………………………………...7
3.3 Individual and integrated principle……………………………………...8

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………9

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………11

12

0. Introduction

Grammar is the means by which linguistic creativity is ultimately achieved and inadequate knowledge of grammar would lead to serious limitation on the capacity for communication. As we know we cannot use words unless we know how they should be put together. In China the teaching of grammar however is an area of some controversy and debate. In the grammar teaching classroom, some teachers excessively pay attention to the importance of teaching rules and grammatical structures, however, there are not many grammar rules that can be clearly formulated and some are relatively difficult. These more difficult rules are not always governed by the immediate linguistic environment and thus are difficult to practice in simple contexts. So gradually the students are not interested in learning English. They negatively accept and store the grammar knowledge. They are successful in mastering only small amounts of structural forms which are useless in improving their integrative communicative competence. Some other teachers excessively pursue the communicative function, emphasize the notional function, and totally reject grammar instruction. The method of ignoring structure is as putting the cart before the horse. The result is learners, who in Richard’s words are “successful but grammatically inaccurate communicators.” It is not surprising that a Chinese can’t express himself fluently and accurately after spending more than ten years in learning English. To some extent, the lack of grammar knowledge leads to the difficulty of communications.

1. The role of grammar in English language

Grammar teaching has a long history. Grammar learning is very important in our daily life. Because we use it every day. It is the foundation of speaking, reading and writing.

1.1 The definition of grammar

Collins new English dictionary gives two explanations to “grammar”: 1）the rules of language that show how sentences are formed, or how words are inflected.2）the way in which grammar is used; the teacher found errors of spelling
There are many kinds of grammar: prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar; synchronic grammar and diachronic grammar; contrastive grammar; pedagogical grammar and so on.
A grammar is a description of certain organizing aspects of a particular language. It usually includes sound, word composition, and sentence composition. It’s the central component of language. It mediates between the systems of sounds or of written symbols, and the system of meaning on the other. According to the theories of modern linguistics, a grammar for teaching purposes describes the usages of educated speakers. They called it “standard” language. The description is carried out by an analysis of the language by taking apart the various patterns of the language and examines them separately.
In a word, Grammar is the system of a language. People sometimes describe grammar as the “rules” of a language; but in fact no language has rules. If we use the word “rules”, we suggest that somebody created the rules first and then spoke the language, like a new game. But languages did not start like that. Languages started by people making sounds which evolved into words, phrases and sentences. No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time. What we call “grammar” is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time.

1.2 The importance of grammar in English learning

Grammar Teaching and learning are very important in English study. For a long time, the education sectors who taught English grammar are not aware of this. Some people think that grammar is the rules which can not be expressed, but on the contrary the target language is usually acquired in subconscious as long as more usual imitation exercises involved, such as listening to English tapes. Only in this way can more people naturally acquire the relevant syntax in good conversations. In English class, teachers often only pay attention to the dissemination of existing knowledge of books, including the terms of the recitation, dialogue and explain the texts, but often pass over or ignore to explain the sentence structure. Even if some teachers explained the grammar in class, but most of the teachers used a kind of matter-of-block-style with fragmented explanation and translation model. Because of the importance of English grammar or syntax are ignored in the methods of grammar learning process, many students can not get into the university because of the weak knowledge of its grammar, syntax, the concept. Similarly, they can not properly analyze sentence structure in reading comprehension. As a result they gulped down little grammar knowledge. According to incomplete statistics: about 80% of the students admitted that their English test scores are not ideal, mainly because the concept of syntactic structure, vocabulary, grammar, translation, or writing. Today, we stress college English teaching reform in order to improve the English ability of students. Therefore, the voice of grammar teaching should return into the classroom gains more and more strongly support.
When Chinese students learn English, they did not use the target language; after all, they can not quickly and accurately identify the features of mother tongue language and target language as well as the differences between them. From this sense, the study of grammar becomes very important. American society linguist Hymens said: “When a person learn a foreign language, he first focuses on the sentence which identifies the capacity in line with the rules of grammar and grammatical rules of sentence, linguistic structure and organization of the law, so that the meaning of the language is clear and understandable for each other by a set of rules. It is necessary to master the language skills, knowledge and train the important part of it. Therefore, the Chinese students are able to grasp the English grammar firmly and improve their ability of English language. In other words, in English teaching, it is essential to emphasize grammar teaching in order to improve the students’ English ability.

2. The problems of grammar teaching

Grammar teaching is an old but heat topic. On one hand, grammar is so important that we have to master it. Because it is the foundation of language. On the other hand, we have made many mistakes in grammar teaching. Some people think that grammar is a natural acquisition and it can not be taught by teacher in class. Someone may say grammar learning is a boring process because there are tremendous of meaningless matters with hard-line requirement. Others support that learning grammar needs special learning styles which can not acquired by all of the students. If we can not learn it well, it is better that we should not learn it at all. The followings are the current problems in grammar learning.
First, it is a natural acquisition of English grammar and it can not be taught. Some native learners do not need to know that English grammar can be learned. For example, many U.S. immigrants gain their English proficiency quickly, especially young people. However, not all learners can achieve this. In the same immigrant groups, the English proficiency of some learners is high, but not accurate. Learning English grammar really needs a lot of time. Carol Chomsky’s study shows that(1969): “even some native English speakers also constantly get some grammar knowledge in the process of learning. It is far from enough to master grammar. There are many studies on this issue (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). Pienenman (1984) study show: the learners with grammar guide in two weeks can get into the second stage of study; otherwise it is generally take several months.”
Second, the language structure is a meaningless set of matter. This misperception appeared when people combined grammar with verb conjugation tables and a number of structural rules together. But grammar is not diverse and meaningless. These three aspects are interdependent, but some times when one changes it may cause other changes. However, they were each provided unique perspective syntax. Therefore, grammar structure is not a meaningless set of matter to some degree.
Third, the syntax is hard-line requirement. It is no reason to say this. Grammar does have a number of synchronic rules. However, the provision which people think is not always the case. If a person’s perspective eye border is broad enough, he will find some things. Let us consider the following two sentences:
1) There is the book missing.
2) There is a book missing.
The grammar book may give the explains of sentences in another way which
will tell you 1) is an ungrammatical “there” is always after the noun and a non-restrictive phrase. Why? “There” is used to lead to new information; his information is usually not in the end of sentence; and the new information of noun phrase is obviously a sign that the indefinite article “a” or “an”.
Fourth, grammar is boring. This misunderstanding stems from the impression: English Grammar drills and we can memorize it by repetition. Grammar is not letting students to drill a number of fixed patterns, nor to memorize some rules. So, it is certainly very boring. It is hard to teach grammar.
Fifth, students have unique learning styles, not all students can learn grammar well. Research shows that some people have a more analytical learning style. According to Hatch’s study, the accuracy of these people is high, but they are good at English. Hatch called these students the “data collector”, the language they spoke is very fluent but inaccurate. This phenomenon does not indicate all learners can learn grammar well. Although students have different learning styles, but so far, there is no study has showed that some students do not have ability to learn syntax. Each student has their own strengths and weaknesses. Students can learn grammar, which can be proved because they can grasp their mother tongue. All in all, it is not a proper expression that not all students can learn grammar.
Sixth, grammar is learned by one sentence and another. This view can be proved wrong. Teachers may only teach one grammar point in class; students may also get one breakthrough in a grammar class plan. However, students do not fully grasp a grammar after another syntax item. Between the old and the new syntax items there are interrelated effects. We can not learn them separately in English grammar learning.
Seventh, Grammar provides all the eternal rules of language structure. The exploration of the syntax will be a constant theme. Because of the language is changing all the time. Linguistics’s description of the language will not be permanent. They have to reveal the internal changes in the language. For example, most grammar books say a static verb can not used in present form, so the following sentence is ungrammatical: “I am wanting a new car.” To the English speaking people this is possible. My point is, language is changing, and the rules of grammar should be subject to change unconditionally. Grammar itself and the study of grammar are not static.

3. The principles in grammar teaching

There are may principles in grammar learning. We should follow the principles when we learn grammar. Only in this way can we improve our ability of learning English.

3.1 Practical principle

As the saying goes, practices makes perfect. Practice principle is a simple but effective way of improving our ability of learning.
Fox example, you should use visual means to explain the grammar. When you teach adjective, you can take three different sizes of things (apple), one bigger than another. Answer the question when you put up the question:
Side A:
A: What's this?
B: It's an apple.
A: Which is bigger?
B: The first one is bigger.
B: Which is the biggest of all?
B: The second one is the biggest of all.
After this repetition, the teacher can allow students repeat several times until they can perform it independently then the teacher should write the sentences on the board to enhance student’s understanding. Finally you can cite some examples, through repeating practices, there will be a more profound understanding.

3.2 Sentence and grammar principle

Sentence is combined with words with correct grammar principle. It is a wrong way to learn sentence or grammar alone. When you repeat the sentence, you remember the grammar at the same time. If you want to memorize the grammar point forever, it is a better way that you put the grammar point into a sentence. Only in this way can we learn grammar in a vivid way.
Grammar and sentence should be taught together. Structure sentence is sentence’s structure. It is summarized from a large number of typical