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Date Posted: 19:24:19 04/16/07 Mon
Author: Daniela Gonçalves
Subject: Peer Editing to Marina Morena -- Daniela

Problems of teaching grammar in regular schools

Teaching grammatical form helps students to improve their second language competence. Research has shown that students acquire better a language when teachers focus students’ attention on linguistic form during communicative competence (Celce-Murcia, M. 2001). However, to the second language be acquired properly, teachers need to decide not only the best topics and goals to be achieved, but also the best manner to teach these topics. In Brazilian regular schools, there are some problems with the teaching of grammar: grammar is taught without context, only grammar is presented to the students, and grammar is not related with other skills or topics. [R]

Teachers normally present only separated topics and without contextualise them. Students learn better when we show to them the context in which that piece of information is used, for example, showing authentic material. “It’s clear that when we introduce a new piece of grammar we must teach not only the form, but also one of its functions, and not only meaning but also use”(Harmer, Jeremy, 1986). Presenting the context, students will be able to memorize better the content studied and to be conscious that the structure learned really makes sense and it is usual in the second language.

Another current problem with the teaching [V] grammar is that teachers tend to teach only grammar in regular schools. They allege that the classes are crowded and the students are not interested. Nevertheless, the class became [Wvt] boring and the students miss the opportunity to develop other abilities such as speaking or listening. Teachers need to create opportunities to use the language and grab students’ attention. Different exercises and activities could be created to avoid this problem of teach [Wvf] only grammar.

In addition, teachers do not relate grammar with other skills. “Making students aware of grammatical facts is one of the things teacher can do, but there are many other activities in the classroom which are just as important – like reading, listening, and fluency activities” (Harmer, Jeremy, 1986). Games, songs, conversation, cartoons, and drills could teach grammar. Those activities could help [V] improve the students’ knowledge of the language form without miss the other skills.

In conclusion, teaching grammar is quite important and necessary to students have a great development of the second language. However, its learning needs to be contextualized, related to other topics or skills, and presented with other subjects. This way, students will use the second language appropriately, meaningfully and accurately.


Marina, in my opinion your text is very well written. The thesis statement is debatable, specific and it has only one idea; each one of the developmental paragraphs has one idea,reflects the thesis statement and there are quotations there; the conclusion restates the thesis and summarizes the developmental paragraphs. I think you should change only the points that I have corrected.

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