VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, [7], 8 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 13:19:00 04/12/07 Thu
Author: Sônia Nagy Varga Prado Gonçalves
Subject: Re: Task One Group Three
In reply to: Houssam Zahreddine 's message, "Re: Task One Group Three" on 14:19:13 04/11/07 Wed

>The Importance of Teaching Contextualized Grammar
>
>It is often said by language professionals that one of
>the most dreadful aspects of teaching English as a
>second language concerns grammar. Students will often
>feel unmotivated if exposed to the subject in a purely
>structural manner, while, on the other hand, although
>excessively diluting explicit grammar within the
>lesson may relieve tensions, this strategy tends to
>have students abstain from the subject, putting it off
>to a later imaginary time, which never arrives. Many
>would say then that the best solution therefore would
>be to have a balance between these two extremes.
>However, by doing this, one would be simply balancing
>out the problem, instead of proposing a real solution
>to the issue. The truth is that grammar may cease
>being a problem if one keeps in mind the importance of
>contextualization when teaching the subject.
> When comparing the grammar of the English language to
>the grammar of a Romantic language (e.g. Portuguese),
>it is fairly easy to realize that the former is more
>simplified in regards to the latter, in that it
>contains less inflections and verb tenses/aspects,
>often leading us to the conclusion that grammar in
>English is more homogenously systematic and easier to
>manage than grammars in other languages. Due to this,
>teachers have the tendency of wanting to teach it to
>their students in the form of a structural tool, which
>can be used to construct error-free sentences.
>However, this approach usually results in lessons in
>which students are over-exposed to rules throughout
>the entire time, without getting the chance to relate
>the subject at hand to their personal lives. Students
>tend to be bored, and do not feel motivated to produce
>language, either due to fear of making mistakes, or
>due to the fact that the lexicon used in the class is
>meaningless within their lives, for, in such classes,
>the vocabulary used serves the sole purpose of
>conveying grammatical structures, thus becoming,
>grammaticalized lexis, as opposed to meaningful lexis.
>This, however, does not mean that the teacher has to
>cease teaching grammar. He/she has to find a way to
>relate the subject being taught to the lives of the
>students, so that these firstly feel as an important
>and integral part of the classroom, and secondly, feel
>motivated to produce discourse which is meaningful in
>their lives, and for such end, incorporate the
>structure being taught as a means to their production
>of speech.
> Other teachers are so intimidated by the idea of
>teaching grammar that they abstain from the practice
>for fear of losing the students’ attention. As a
>counter tactic, they incorporate several
>vocabulary-driven games, such as hangman, within the
>classroom routine in order to keep students
>entertained. However, once this approach is used,
>teachers cease being teachers, taking on the role of
>entertainers, and students end up paying a high price
>because they now have tons of vocabulary, without
>having the knowledge of how to form even the simplest
>sentences. This kind of problem becomes further
>aggravated when the vocabulary being taught is
>randomly chosen by the teacher, in which case the
>student ends up either having tons of meaningless
>vocabulary from various different semantic fields
>which have no relevance to his/her life whatsoever,
>or, forgetting most of it because all of this
>irrelevant vocabulary cannot be coherently put into
>strings of words which would otherwise be more easily
>stored, due to the fact that he/she has not been
>provided with the skill to perform such a task.
>Teaching vocabulary is important, but one must
>remember that along with lexis there must be the skill
>of how to organize it, and this skill is grammar.
>Ultimately, then, not only is the choice of the
>vocabulary to be taught important, in that it must be
>meaningful in relation to the students’ lives, but
>also, grammar must be given along with it so that
>students have the tool to construct sentences through
>which they can express themselves. Grammar in this
>case becomes lexicalized grammar.
> In conclusion, grammar does not have to be the most
>dreadful aspect of teaching English as a
>second/foreign language. As long as it is done within
>a context which is meaningful to the students,
>providing them with resources to produce speech which
>is relevant to their lives, and giving them the
>possibility of expressing themselves, having students
>actually learn becomes a more tangible goal. As stated
>by Ruqaiya Hasan and Gillian Perret, “Speaking
>meaningfully is not simply producing a structure or a
>set of words; it is using wording for meaning within a
>social context for the living of life.”
>
>Bibliography:
>Odlin, T. (Org.). Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar:
>Cambridge University Press, 1994. Chapter 8: Learning
>to function with the other tongue: A systemic
>functional perspective on second language teaching, by
>Ruqaiya Hasan and Gillian Perret.

The text seems to be well written, presenting all the steps clearly, that is, an introduction, developmental paragraph and the conclusion. The thesis statement focuses on the idea that grammar may cease being a problem if one keeps in mind the importance of contextualization when teaching the subject. I consider this inviting since it will lead the reader to go ahead to see the reasons the author is going to mention. Besides it, he linked the ideas properly, using transitional words and the right punctuation, in this case, comma. He developed his following ideas talking about the difference between the grammar of English language and Portuguese one. After this ,he presents the reason teachers choose to use structural method and mention his opinion to change this kind of approach .He also talks about the bad results occurred in teaching and in the students motivation , when the teacher teaches vocabulary at random. At the end Houssan says about the importance of contextualizing grammar. He finishes his text emphasing the idea that grammar and contextualization together are the ideal form to teach English as a second/the foreign language. . From my point of view, this text presents coherence and cohesion.
I didn´t perceive any error, but what I found unclear is the word “ these” at the of the second paragraph. Who is the referent here? You are talking about what?

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.