Learning Grammar

Learning Grammar

One classroom over was a dynamic young teacher named Fred. His rambunctious group of grade four students could always be heard chanting away a variety of grammatical terms from noun to predicate to infinitive. Fred loves words, and his students were breaking down example sentences. In my classroom, was a teacher less confident with defining words and the reasons for their placement? My students were not chanting or as enthusiastic when Literature or Grammar came around. Their language use, be it written or oral was also less confident and less creative than Fred’s students. I came to adopt some of Fred’s techniques. Grammar is a technique. “It is a tool that can enhance creativity – not stifle it.”(1) This tool gives us the confidence of understanding and allows us to use language and experiment with it.

“When you learn a language you learn the sounds used in that language, the basic units of meaning, such as words, and the rules to combine these to form sentences.” (2) Grammar is the foundation of a language and sets the stage for further learning. “Without it we have no terms in which to describe and discuss language.” (3) Most of our native language knowledge comes not from a classroom, but from the rules we learn while acquiring the language. “This ability to make grammatical judgments reflects speakers’ unconscious knowledge of the syntactic rules of their grammars.’ (4) Humour, true or untrue sentences, sarcasm and nonsense sentences are all examples of where judgments are used. This unconscious knowledge is based on rules and accounts for fluency. The degree of fluency, however, is directly connected to the understanding of, and exposure to grammatical concepts and rules, which allow us to use vocabulary, express ourselves properly and communicate effectively. Luckily, rules can be learned.

After enrolling in this course and completing a few units, the grammar sections began to appear, much to my chagrin. I found these units very difficult and had to put a lot of time into figuring things out. English is a grammatically difficult language and I was/am challenged in this area. As I continued to work on these units, I came around to the idea that I was learning something important and necessary. This was also driven home while substitute teaching at a Canadian high school where students were unable to write or speak properly. The social changes of the 60’s and 70’s that brought about the de-emphasizing of grammar, and the age of computers and texting, have had ill effects on language and communication. As a person I recognize that language, written, oral or body, is communication and wanting to communicate well requires on going study. “It would be wise to note that if you can’t speak well and write well – your windows of opportunity are closed.” (5) As a language teacher, I believe carefully choosing and presenting grammatical rules is key to fluency. All languages have grammar, and for language learners to feel confident and truly understand a new language they must know important aspects of this grammar.“ Teachers must expand their traditional boundaries of accuracy to offer rules of appropriacy including knowledge of the communicative language tools students must be able to use, the communicative language choices they should be able to make, and the communicative language strategies they must use to compensate for the fact that they, like all users of the language including native speakers, lack 100% knowledge of the language.” (6) For this to happen the majority of language teachers will require training in grammatical rules and their presentation. 

Whether you are a child being introduced to language, a native speaker seeking improvement, or a student of a new language, the goal is effective communication and understanding. Achieving this goal will ultimately go hand in hand with the on going study of the intricacies of grammar. “I feel that fluency can best be understood, not in contrast to accuracy but rather as a complement to it.” (7)