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Explicit or Implicit Grammar Teaching

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12 views3 pages

Explicit or Implicit Grammar Teaching

Uploaded by

lecathy9
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Explicit or implicit grammar teaching?

Which grammar teaching method?


In ESL and EFL grammar teaching methods are debatable. Some see grammar
as the backbone of languages and learners should be presented with explicit
grammar courses. Others, however, think that knowing the grammar doesn’t
necessarily lead to language mastery. They contend that focusing on explicit
grammar teaching produces unsuccessful language users. Which one of these
methods is the right one?

Explicit grammar teaching


Teachers who focus on language forms presentation, explain the grammar rules
and practice through drilling hold a traditional view of language teaching. They
equate language to grammar mastery and accurate usage and create bored,
disaffected students who can produce correct forms on exercises and tests, but
consistently make errors when they try to use the language in context. In other
words, students under this form of instruction know a lot about the language
but they are unable to use the language itself appropriately in contextualized
situations – these students consistently make errors when they try to use the
language in context. One of the most famous methods which advocate this kind
of instruction is the audiolingual method.

Implicit grammar teaching


By contrast some teachers think that people can acquire language without any
overt grammar instruction much in the same way children learn their mother
tongue. They believe that conscious use of language forms may result in high
affective filter and consequently poor language profeciency and fluency. These
teachers prefer language use to language usage and focus on meaning rather
than form. For language activities, they provide contextualized and authentic
language and do not refer to rules or forms at all.

A balanced view
I believe that focus on grammar explanation and the absence of any reference
to meaning can be detrimental to language acquisition. Of course grammar is
the backbone of any language. Grammar knowledge can be helpful in
producing accurate forms of language and acts in monitoring its use. But, it is
worthwhile noticing that one can communicate more or less a message with
vocabulary items alone while it is impossible to do so using grammar alone.
This shows that grammar alone doesn’t make the language. What is more,
language use can be tremendously affected by conscious language usage as this
may create a stressful environment. So a balanced approach to grammar
teaching takes into consideration the appropriate use of language and doesn’t
reject the (conscious or unconscious) internalization of the rules. Some of the
major approaches that hold this view are the communicative approach, the
natural approach and the lexical approach. Here are key features of this type of
grammar instruction.

Exploration instead of explanation


Explaining a rule doesn’t necessarily lead to full understanding of the language
point. It is preferable to let students get the rules by themselves. A grammar-
discovery approach involves providing learners with data to illustrate a
particular grammatical point and getting them to analyze it in order to reach an
awareness of how the feature works. In effect, this needs acquirers to be active
thinkers in order to discover for themselves how the grammar works. Instead of
giving students a set of model examples to repeat and drill, it would be wiser to
give them the opportunity to explore the examples by noticing/observing,
making hypotheses and drawing conclusions about the language forms. This
leads to raising an awareness about the grammar and a meaningful and active
understanding of the rules.

Contextualized grammar
Habit formation through drilling and repetition cannot lead to language
mastery. However, using authentic language (instead of artificial language) to
unconsciously internalize language forms might be much more beneficial to
language acquirers.

Advantages of grammar-discovery
 Students discover grammar for themselves instead of being told.
 Grammar becomes a content to be communicated about.
 Acquirers develop analytical skills to understand and internalize
language rules.
 Grammar discovery leads to a deeper understanding and awareness of
the mother tongue or the first language as well as the target language
grammar.
 Grammar discovery teaches students to be autonomous learners.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, grammar must be part of any language instruction. But the
approach one adopts in the grammar teaching differ from teacher to teacher.
While some may underestimate any importance of grammar in the teaching
practices; others put grammar in the forefront of the language teaching. I
believe that a balanced view would consider grammar important as long as it
leads to better language use in context rather than being a set of rules about the
language that do not help much in the communication of meaning.

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