Please allow me to start with a real story that happened
around me. My friend’s daughter is a year and a half. When the baby girl is
taught to recognize various animal cards, she is able to remember some common
animals such as cats, dogs and rabbits very quickly. However she fails to
recognize the pictures of penguins and rhinoceros every time no matter how hard
my friend had tried. Then I said ‘is it possibly because your daughter has
never seen a penguin and a rhino before? ’ She said yes. Then I recommended her
to take her daughter to the Ocean Park to see a real penguin and try again. The
result was very interesting that after their returning home form the Ocean Park,
her daughter was able to recognize the penguin picture and felt very happy when
seeing the picture, but still could not recognize the rhino picture. From this I
find: children can have a better understanding on the things they have encountered
before, but it is difficult for children to understand the thing they have
never seen let alone to understand the meaning of knowing them!
It is also the case while learning grammar, the picture
of penguin is correspond to abstract grammar rules; the real penguin is the language
we use; and students are like the baby girl. When students are not exposed with
enough real context (not seeing the penguin), they are unwilling to use it. When
students do not see a certain grammar in real language context they do not have
the motivation to learn it.
Therefore, I can explain
why students still feel very confused at a certain grammar although a teacher
has taught again and again.
Firstly, if students do not have enough
exposure to a certain grammar in real context and they do not have enough
chance to practice, they may feel unsafe to use it. In addition, the situation and cultural background of using the
grammar are not clear stated before teaching, so students do not know when and
where to use it. Another key factor
is that traditional grammar teaching methods often separate the grammar rules
with authentic text that has a certain function in our daily life. For example,
when teaching simple present tense teachers often give students a definition ‘we
use simple present tense to talk about habitual actions and general truths’,
but how to define ‘habitual actions’ and ‘general truth’? Is it a habitual action
that I used to go to school at 7.00 am everyday? Is it a general truth that
Einstein is handsome? Or should we say Einstein was handsome because he just
endured disfigurement? Therefore students can hardly understand the abstract
rules and definitions without enough input and reading enough authentic texts.
How to teach grammar?
According to the reading ‘functional
grammar is not a set of rules but a set of resources for describing,
interpreting and making meaning.’ ‘Being able to see the relationship between
the often unconscious language choices each of us make all the time and the
intricate social lives we lead is one of the most exciting language experiences
for students and teachers.’
So it would be better if the teacher
can 1. Provide a text of present tense (provide a real situation) and tell the
background information of the text(provide the context of situation)--This passage is the homepage of a twelve-year-old boy, Justin Wong,
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 |
| the teaching material that I used in China(produced by Longman Hong Kong Education) |
2. Then design proper activities to let them practice the form of this
grammar (get enough exposure) 3. Let the students themselves to discover the
use of simple present tense.
the teaching material that I used in China(produced by Longman Hong Kong Education)
4. Supply further exercise.
 |
| the teaching material that I used in China(produced by Longman Hong Kong Education) |
Then they can have a deeper understanding
on abstract grammatical rules.
In conclusion, teachers
should not separate grammar teaching with real situation, cultural background
and authentic texts, and they also need to set up proper classroom activities
and offer enough practice to students so that they can feel safe to use the
grammar they just learnt.
Reference:
Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Spinks., S., &
Yallop., C. (2000). Using functional grammar: An explorer’s guide (2nd ed). Sydney: NCELTR
Jones, R. H. & Lock, G. (2011).
Functional grammar in the ESL classroom: noticing, exploring and practising.
New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian.
Jo Ann Nelson., Kitty Chan., Alex Swan., (2004) Unit One Welcome to My Homepage : Hong Kong Longman Express Second Edition. Hong Kong: Longman Hong Kong Education
Hi Evey. You have clearly put a lot of thought into your post and it was an interesting read. It was a great idea to include photos of the coursebooks you used in China to teach English. Just to clarify, is the task to analyse the language (present tense) as used on a student's personal blog?
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with your point about the penguin. If students never encounter a piece of grammar in use, beyond not being able to identify it, they will most likely not even see the point of using it. I have fallen into this trap with language learning myself, as there is a certain tense in French that is only ever used in writing. Because I don't read or write so much, I see it very little and have even less use for it. Consequently when I do write in French, I don't even consider using it because of my lack of familiarity or understanding of it.
Hi Katie, thank you for your comment.^_^ Yes, the task is to analyse the present tense as used on a student's blog and write students' own blog with present tense( it should also include information about themselves,their family, their school just like the blog of Justin Wong).
DeleteHi Evey, great post. It was a good point about motivation and it made me think a lot.
ReplyDeleteIf we don't see grammar in context it's difficult to be motivated to learn it (at least for me).
Additionally, I wrote in my post about a similar experience to Katie's above - reaching a point where you avoid using something in an L2 language due to unfamiliarity or a lack of exposure to context.