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Date Posted: 12:21:23 06/18/07 Mon
Author: allisson ester de paiva (grammar teaching)
Subject: task four

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS – UFMG
FACULDADE DE LETRAS – FALE
PRODUÇÃO DE TEXTO EM LINGUA INGLESA – LET
PROFA: ADRIANA TENUTA
ALUNO: ALLISSON ESTER DE PAIVA
TASK FOUR (or FINAL TASK): ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY




IS GRAMMAR TEACHING A NECESSITY?



“Important issues concerning second foreign language grammar teaching have been raised and discussed by such applied linguists as Ellis (1991, 1993, 1995, 1998), Van Patten (1991), Spada (1997) and Borg (1998) who have speculated on the relationship between grammar teaching and effective language learning. Some of there issues are related to what, when and how grammatical items should be taught… It is assumed that grammar teaching contributes to second foreign language acquisition and is not exclusively tied to explicit instruction or teacher fronted lessons…”
Rosely Perez Xavier
(Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina)



Lately, with the boom of the communicative approach, non grammar focused classes tended to appear since the aim of a language is the communication and also the implicit knowledge, which is the one that you acquire automatically through exposition to the target language. Furthermore, it has been proved by the communicative approach tenets that explicit grammar teaching, which corresponds to the explicit knowledge which tends to make a speaker less fluent due to monitoring (Krashen, 1987) almost, banned the grammar teaching from the classes, mainly in the stronger form of the communicative approach. Nevertheless, the aim of this paper is to show that grammar should be taught in order to promote learner’s language awareness development and also to affirm that grammar should be taught in alternative ways making the learners unconsciously ‘acquire’ it.
First, we must recall Krashen’s dichotomy concerning learning and acquiring. According to him, one acquires when s/he is inside the community of the target language and s/he starts developing his/her abilities on the language naturally as a baby does with his/her first language whereas one learns a second language by classes or reading or any other way which is not the former cited above. So, since the communicative approach proponents based on this dichotomy, the grammar should not be taught in ‘in class environment’ or the students would not acquire the language but learn it. Nevertheless, there is a very interesting fact to be observed: when the statement above is mentioned, we automatically associate it to lecture based classes, where the teacher says and the students listen. Therefore; a misunderstood is clearly observed here because it has been proved on scientific ground that many other ways of teaching grammar have already been developed.
Second, the teacher is expected to find alternative ways of teaching the grammar such as interactive activities. Grammar has traditionally been taught through lecture based classes, monotonous exercises and mechanical patterns such as imitation and repetition. We ensure that grammar should be taught, yet, a way to integrate it in a four skills atmosphere should be found. Indeed, when and how grammatical items should be taught, as suggested by Rosely Xavier in her work: Focusing on Grammar Pedagogy should be determined by the teacher since s/he knows the class level and the students’ reality. One example would be the insertion or omission of topics according to the class developmental potential.
So, the communicative approach in its strong form proposed that grammar would not likely to be presented in class since it makes one lower his/her skills absorption towards the target language. Indeed, it has been proved by researchers such as Krashen and Terrell that through monitoring, the explicit knowledge one has tends to damage his/her ability in the second language. However, it has been stated that through integrated skills classes and also through teacher’s changes in his/her strategies concerning the class’s potential, grammar is likely to be taught in class and produce positive effects not only causing the students’ development but also their language awareness.

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