Efl teaching grammar

6) The rule-of-law argument
It follows from the discrete-item argument that, since grammar is a system of learnable rules, it lends itself to a view of teaching and learning known as transmission. A transmission view sees the role of education as the transfer of a body of knowledge (typically in the form of facts and rules) from those that have the knowledge to those that do not. Such a view is typically associated with the kind of institutional is learning where rules, order, and discipline are highly valued. The need for rules, order and discipline is particularly acute in large classes of unruly and unmotivated teenagers - a situation that many teachers of English are confronted with daily. In this sort of situation grammar offers the teacher a structured system that can be taught and tested in methodical steps.
7) The learner expectations argument
Regardless of the theoretical and ideological arguments for or against grammar teaching, many learners come to language classes with fairly fixed expectations as to what they will do there. These expectations may derive from previous classroom experience of language learning. They may also derive from experience of classrooms in general where (traditionally, at least) teaching is of the transmission kind mentioned above. On the other hand, their expectations that teaching will be grammar-focused may stem from frustration experienced at trying to pick up a second language in a non-classroom setting, such as through self-study, or through immersion in the target language culture. Such students may have enrolled in language classes specifically to ensure that the learning experience is made more efficient and systematic. The teacher who ignores this expectation by encouraging learners simply to experience language is likely to frustrate and alienate them.
METHODS OF TEACHING GRAMMAR
Clearing the ground
When reading this chapter, it is crucial to bear in mind that teaching and learning are inextricably bound together, so that writing about one of them automatically involves the other. Stern (1983: 21, his emphasis) offers us the following definition: “Language teaching can be defined as the activities which are intended to bring about language learning.”⁵
In this chapter we will try to find out how approaches and methods have influenced the teaching and learning of grammar, which in turn shed slight on the legacy of today’s English language teaching (ELT), i.e. why do we teaches we do? We will, in addition, attempt to find out where the ideas behind the approaches and methods came from and look at the criticisms they met.
A couple of words need clarification before we can set out on our path of exploration, namely “approaches” and “methods”. Richards and Rodgers (1986: 15) offer us the following definition based on Anthony (1963):
… approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about
language [i.e. linguistics] and language learning [i.e. psychology] are
specified; method is the level at which theory is put into practice and
at which choices are made about the particular skills to be taught, the
content to be taught, and the order in which the content will be
presented …⁶
Various theories of language and language learning may be linked together to form different approaches. A relevant example is Audio-lingualism, which is based on structuralism and behaviorism, its linguistic theory and learning theory, respectively. As we saw, Anthony views method as the practice of an approach; Richards and Rodgers (1986: 26), however, prefer to refer to the relationship of method to approach as theoretical, and the realization of method as “procedure”: “… [procedure] focuses on the way a method handles the presentation, practice, and feedback phases of teaching.” For our purpose, this fine distinction is superfluous, and thus the term method will encapsulate the realizations of an approach, whether theoretical as in a syllabus or practical as in the classroom.
Our point of view is clearly diachronic in this chapter, but the difficulty lies in where to draw the line, in other words where the starting point of our study should be. Since the Direct Method (DM) was the first method with a theoretical basis, it seems appropriate as a point of departure; nevertheless, the period before has been important in the history of ELT. Thus we will start with the Grammar-Translation Method (GTM).