University of sulaimani college of basic education english department

A
Assessing Teaching English Grammar to Kurdish EFL Students at University Level
By
Laveen Kamaran Muhamad
2019
College of Basic Education- English Department, University of Sulaimani
B
Teaching Grammar in Context: Why and How?
By
Çağrı Tuğrul Mart
2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.
Department of Langauges, Ishik University, Erbil, Iraq

To begin with topic (A), the reviewer believes that, the topic is general in compare to the second study, due to the fact that, it has not been clarified which part of grammar or what method of teaching should be assessed, not until the researcher did find.

According to Mart’s paper, first and for most, the reviewer believes that, the topic (B) is manageable since grammar has been narrowed down and specified to be taught in a context only, due to its importance for effective learning.
Regarding to the abstract (A). First, the topic has been defined, which is an attempt to assess and to identify the best suited approach for teaching grammar by the university instructors who teach grammar in the English departments at the universities in Kurdistan Region. The paper furthers identifies the aim of the study which is helping teachers to use the best-suited approach inside the class for the purpose of raising students’ standards in English grammar as well as, identifying the most effective strategies for teaching grammar to Kurdish EFL students at university level. In addition, the study hypothesized that, native and non-native English grammar lecturers encounter serious problems during the process of teaching. Besides, English grammar lecturers adopt the deductive approach for teaching English grammar and follow only one strategy for teaching English grammar. After that, the methodology of the study is taken into place for investigating the hypothesis. They were a questionnaire and a class observation. But, the method of the research and the data analysis have not been mentioned in this section. Finally, the researcher
has identified the study which includes six chapters and shortly gave an explanation for each of them. It can be seen as a good point that, the researcher added two of her findings to the last lines of the abstract which states that, English grammar is an essential subject for Kurdish EFL students. Therefore, the best-suited approach is the eclectic approach (the mixture of inductive and deductive approaches) with various strategies depending on students’ different standards that could be applied for teaching English grammar.
As regards to abstract (B), it has been started with demonstrating the importance of the topic, which the reviewer believes that, it should have been stated in the introduction section. Furthermore, there is a null hypothesis which means there can’t be seen study hypothesis because it is an exploratory type of qualitative method, that is why, it is only for exploring and explaining the topic to answer the questions about why and how to teach grammar in a context. Additionally, methodology, which includes model, sample, type of data, method of data collection, analysis and reliability of the study, zero of them are being mentioned. The study, then has provided nothing about conclusion and there can be seen the absence of findings and recommendations, which they should have been mentioned in this abstract section. In conclusion, the article provided these key words of the study in this section “teaching grammar, context, accuracy, communication” which they are the core of the study and shows good point of the paper

As for introduction (A), the problem has been stated as the poor standard of Kurdish EFL students in grammar at the university level due to the adopted traditional approaches and strategies of teaching that have been applied by the lecturers. Another good point is that, the aim also has been clearly mentioned as 1. helping teachers use the best-suited approach inside the class for the purpose of raising students’ level in grammar 2. identifying the most effective strategies for teaching English grammar to Kurdish EFL students at the university level. Most importantly, the research questions now it is being stated as 1. What are the current problems the English grammar teachers encounter? 2.Which are the most effective approaches and strategies for teaching English grammar to Kurdish EFL students? Furthermore, the hypotheses and the procedures of data collection are mentioned, then the limitation of the study as it covers “the inductive and deductive approaches and strategies adopted by English grammar lecturers” and it is restricted to English departments at Sulaimani, Salahaddin, Dohuk, Cihan, Human Development and Knowledge universities in Iraqi Kurdistan for the first semester of the academic year 2018-2019. Finally, the value of the study also has been stated, which is to highlight the importance of English grammar.
As to introduction (B), the concept has been introduced clearly and the importance of the concept in general and in specific has been shown beside to its definition as “rules of language”. There is also theoretical background for further introducing the study can be seen in this section such as, Grammar is a system of meaningful structures and patterns that are governed by particular pragmatic constraints (Larsen-Freeman, 2001, as cited in Mart, 2013). In another definition, grammar is a description of the rules for forming sentences, including an account of the meanings that these forms convey (Thornbury, 1999, as cited in Mart, 2013). The researcher explains the importance of teaching grammar as an essential and inseparable aspect of foreign language instruction due to the fact that, in foreign language acquisition, accurate understanding of the language structures is the key part and grammar is all about accuracy. Then the researcher sheds light on the importance of teaching grammar through a context which positively affects learners ‘competence to use grammatical structures accurately in language skills. It is always useful for learners to see how language works in sentences or paragraphs. These explanations are written for the sake of clarification about answering the questions of why and how to study grammar in context. But the problem and the aim are not being mentioned which can be considered as a negative point of the paper.
Concerning the Theoretical background (A), the researcher then starts chapter two which is a theoretical background of the paper and this can be considered as a good point of this paper in compare to the other which is empty of the theoretical background. This theoretical background commences by an explanation and a description of assessments, different types of assessments and the roles with their functions and categories. They are introduced in this chapter in detail, which the reviewer finds it supplementary because it does not need to be expanded that much. Furthermore, two teaching approaches of grammar have also been concentrated on which are deductive (teacher-centered) and inductive (student-centered). As well as, their significance, principles and requirements. According to this thesis, they both are important and completing each other. In compare to the Mart’s study, it supports teaching grammar both inductive and deductively, while the other prefer to be taught inductively or in a context, that students are centered, formulate and practice grammar rules by their own. On the other hand, according to Mart’s study, it provides a comprehensive explanation (B) for the reasons of teaching grammar instead of theoretical background, literature review and methodology, since the study is fully qualitative and it is all about explaining and exploring ideas about how and why to teach grammar in a context. The importance of grammar to be taught explained as It is pointed out that students get confused and cannot differentiate between lie and lay, they won’t be able to choose who and whom correctly, mismatching subjects and verbs, mixing up pronoun reference, and using double negative. These mistakes are evidence of their need to study grammar (Tabbert, 1984, as cited in Mart, 2013). Grammar will give learners the competence how to combine words to form sentences, or to create fully-developed sentences, and to support this idea (Emery, et al, 1978, as cited in Mart, 2013) states that, the more learner knows about the form and function of the parts that make up the larger unit, the better equipped they are to recognize and to construct well-formed sentences. These all ideas are being explained to show that accurate teaching of grammar guides learners how to use the language correctly.
Concerning to the literature review (A), this thesis has a different goal form other studies, in which Teaching English grammar has been assessed at some university levels. Eventually, many researchers have written about the problems, methods, and procedures that English grammar teachers encounter in a particular area or in different perspectives. In compare to the other study, it is better, since the other study neither included literature review nor a theoretical background.
Concerning to the researcher’s exploratory (B), some reasons are provided to support and answer the questions about why and how to teach grammar in a context. Basically, the goal of teaching grammar in a context is not to teach grammar rules but to teach how to apply them in language skills. Across many different languages and subsystems of grammar, perhaps the most widely practiced traditional approach to grammatical instruction has been portrayed as the PPP -present, practice, produce (Larsen-Freeman, 2009, as cited in Mart, 2013). Long and Doughty, criticizing this three Ps model, they stated that, the traditional approach has some disadvantages. One of the weakness of this approach is that, students memorize the rules at least, they know it explicitly, but they fail to apply them in communication. Thus, the learnability problem following from the observation that grammar is not being learned in a linear and atomistic fashion, like to use the grammar rules in speech to understand how grammar rules work in sentences. The researcher believes that, learning grammar in a context will fill this gap, to support his idea there is a quote which says “Language is context-sensitive”. This means that, in the absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase Thornbury (ibid.) The teacher's chief task when teaching grammar is to show the students what the language means and how it is used. Also, to show them what the grammatical form of the new language is and how it is said and written (Harmer, 1991, as cited in Mart, 2013). The researcher furthers provided one of the effective ways of teaching grammar in a context is the use of dialogues. Because it generally matches learners’ expectations of how language is used in the real world. Generally, it is the use of scripted or recorded dialogue from the coursebook to teach the present simple to beginners. For example, Joe: “What do you do on weekends?” David: “well, that depends. During the school year, I usually have to study on Saturdays” and the conversation will continue. There are many more examples have been explained in detail in this article and they are very clear and supportive about teaching grammar in the context and with an academic writing style.
As for the methodology (A), since it is a mixed method, the researcher followed two procedures of data collection. Firstly, a questionnaire of thirty items was designed and collected from a sample of fifty-five English grammar lecturers at the English department from six different universities in Kurdistan Region. A second tool, is a class observation designed by the researcher, in which ten grammar classes have been observed. Then the reliability and the validity of the data was drawn through the use of jury member and Cronbach’s Alpha to measure reliability which is another good point of the study. In addition, for the analysis of the collected data of the questionnaire and the class observation, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program has been used.
In compare to the other study (B), since it is exploratory and pure qualitative, zero of these procedures have been taken. The researcher merely got benefit from secondary sources which he collected data from textual or visual analysis (from books or videos) in order to provide data and answer the questions of why and how to teach grammar in a context.
Referring to conclusion and findings (A), the researcher reached at eight conclusions which can be determined as the strength of the paper. Mostly support that, both the deductive and the inductive approaches offer different ways for Teaching English grammar, and each one of these approaches is effective in a different manner. Additionally, according to the data, the inductive approach serves the needs of competent learners and offers exceptional assistance for teaching English grammar than the deductive one. 3. The results of the questionnaire show that strategies like rule explanation in teaching grammar, teaching articles through grammar worksheets, self-study (homework), teaching grammar through a generative situation, through minimal sentence pairs and using concordance data are all persuasive strategies. Therefore, it can be seen that all of the questions which previously were asked in this study, now they have been answered. More than that, recommendations and suggestion for further studies, a list of reference with a scientific style, which is APA, and three appendixes are provided and they all are related to the topic. Therefore, the reviewer can say that, almost all the gaps are being filled.
With regard to conclusion (B), the term again has been described and summarized as to restate the abstract which is a good point. Other good points are, describing the problem which is the difficulty of grammar and providing the possible solution which can be teaching grammar in a context. More than that, a list of reference with a scientific style, which is APA, are provided. However, limitation and future research for researcher, recommendation, suggestion and appendix are not being mentioned.