Universite d’antananarivo ecole normale superieure

3.2.1- On teaching grammar

Teaching grammar can be boring if teachers think of it as teaching prescriptive rules to the students. Students may also be bored if they are always given rules and asked to apply them in accuracy exercises. We suggest that teachers should look for topics that interest students in order to draw their attention. In the present study, we have given some interesting ways of teaching conditionals. They can be applied in any grammar teaching. The most important principle that teachers should bear in mind is that teaching grammar is not only meant to develop students’ grammatical competence but also to develop their communicative competence at using the grammatical structures that they learn. In other words, both form and meaning are important when we teach grammar. Mastering the form means students are accurate when they use the grammar point, and as such they have grammatical competence whereas understanding the meaning helps them to develop their communicative competence at using that grammar point in realistic situation.