New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms

Eli Hinkel, Sandra Fotos, Eli Hinkel, Sandra Fotos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135644086
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms brings together various approaches to the contextualized teaching of grammar and communicative skills as integrated components of second language instruction. Its purpose is to show from both theoretical and practical perspectives that grammar teaching can be made productive and useful in ESL and EFL classrooms. In this text:
*First-rate scholars approach the teaching of grammar from multiple complementary perspectives, providing an original, comprehensive treatment of the topic.
*Discourse analysis and research data are used to address such pedagogical areas as grammatical and lexical development in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
*The communicative perspective on ESL and EFL instruction that is presented provides ways for learners to enhance their production skills, whereas the meaning-based grammar instruction can supplement and strengthen current methodology with a communicative focus. This volume is intended as a foundational text for second language grammar pedagogy courses at the advanced undergraduate and master's levels.

1
From Theory to Practice: A Teacher’s View

Eli Hinkel

Seattle University, Washington

Sandra Fotos

Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan

To appreciate the need for flexibility in grammar teaching/learning, this introduction first examines the changes over time regarding what consti-tutes effective grammar pedagogy. There may be no single best approach to grammar teaching that would apply in all situations to the diverse types of learners a teacher can encounter. However, teachers’ familiarity with different approaches to grammar instruction and language learning can allow them to apply to their particular situation the most effective blend of features that each has to offer. In addition, familiarity with a variety of views and approaches can lead to recognition that many approaches share common features and appreciation of an eclectic view of teaching grammar.

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION

As many grammarians have noted (e.g., Herron, 1976; Howatt, 1984; Rutherford, 1987), for more than 2,000 years, studying a second language primarily consisted of grammatical analysis and translation of written forms. Developed for analysis of Greek and Latin, this method divided the target language into eight parts of speech: nouns, verbs, participles, articles, pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions. Learning the language required study of the eight categories in written text and the development of rules for their use in translation.

However, when 18th-century grammarians moved beyond the Greek and Roman classics and began the study of English, again using the eight categories to generate grammar rules, it became clear that the parts of speech could not be used as effectively to analyze a language in which word order and syntax produced grammatical function (Herron, 1976) and where rules often had multiple exceptions. Nonetheless, this traditional approach remained the basis of instructional pedagogy in the United States and England until recently (Howatt, 1984), and is still being used in a number of countries as the primary method of English instruction. This is particularly true for many English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, where English is learned mainly through translation into the native language and memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary.

STRUCTURAL GRAMMAR AND THE AUDIO-LINGUAL AND DIRECT APPROACHES

When linguists compared and described world languages at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, it was again found that using the eight parts of speech as an organizational framework was not appropriate. Furthermore, since many of these languages had no written form, analysis necessarily shifted to description of the sound system. Languages thus came to be analyzed through three subsystems (LarsenFreeman & Long, 1991): the sound system (phonology); the discrete units of meaning produced by sound combinations (morphology); and the system of combining units of meaning for communication (syntax), an approach called structural or descriptive linguistics. When this structural view of language was combined with the stimulus-response principles of behaviorist psychology, the audio-lingual and direct approaches to second language learning emerged.

Audio-lingualism and related direct approaches arose during and after the Second World War, when development of spoken fluency in second languages was required. These approaches were also a reaction to the grammar-translation methodology, which produced learners who could not use the language communicatively even though they had considerable knowledge of grammar rules. Nonetheless, the spoken language was still presented in highly structured sequences of forms, usually beginning with to be and proceeding through more complex forms in a linear manner, often accompanied by a formal grammar explanation. Sequencing of the syllabus depended on contrastive analysis, a structural comparison of the learner’s native language and the target language so that areas of potential difficulty could be identified and emphasized. Pedagogy in this approach was based on drills and repetitions for accurate production of the target language.

FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES

In the 1960s, British linguists developed a system of categories based on the communicative needs of the learner (Johnson & Marrow, 1981), and proposed a syllabus based on communicative functions. Grammar content was organized on the basis of the forms required for particular communicative or situational activities such as “asking questions” or “at a restaurant.” At first glance, this appeared to be the opposite of a structural syllabus, but, because certain structures are often associated with specific functions, there was actually a structural basis to functional grammar instruction (Tomlin, 1994).

Such structure-based syllabuses have been termed “synthetic” (Long & Crookes, 1992) because they present rules and drills for specific grammatical or functional aspects of a language in a linear sequence from “easy” to “difficult” and stress immediate production of correct forms. Examination of many English as a second language (ESL)/EFL textbooks today reveals that they are often functionally/situationally based, with a dialogue introducing target structures and vocabulary, a formal explanation of the grammar points covered, practice exercises ranging from controlled to free production of the grammar structures and vocabulary, and perhaps a meaning-focused task or reading that elicits use of the structure during performance. Commenting on the durability of this approach, Skehan (1998, see page) labels it the three Ps: presentation, practice, and production, where the first stage involves presentation of a single grammar point, the second requires learner practice within a controlled framework, and the final stage is learner production of the form more spontaneously.

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR AND THE ROLE OF SYNTAX

Although there has been no “Universal Grammar” approach, the dominance of structural linguistics, with its focus on surface forms, was largely overturned in 1957 by the publication of Chomsky’s monograph Syntactic Structures. Rejecting the structuralist idea of language as habit, Chomsky viewed language as a generative process existing innately in the human brain and based on syntax, which consisted of a surface structure, or the apparent form of an utterance, and a deep structure, the mental concept underlying a particular semantic interpretation. It was therefore possible to identify syntactic universals for all languages such as agent (subject) and object, and Universal Grammar was hypothesized to underlie all languages. A key distinction was competence, that is, what the learner knows about the language, and performance, that is, how a learner uses the language (Cook, 1994).

COGNITIVE APPROACHES

With the development of Chomskian theories of Universal Grammar and syntax in the 1950s and 1960s, explicit grammar instruction received renewed emphasis. Grammar teaching and classroom curricula were designed to build on what learners already knew, giving them opportunities to construct new meanings and emphasizing deductive learning. This cognitive view of language learning held that grammar was too complex to be learned naturally and that language requires mental processing for learners to be able to attain linguistic competence. The cognitive method of L2 (second language) teaching was based on cognitive approaches to human psychology and language acquisition and relied on transformational and generative grammar theories. At the time, the cognitive view of language acquisition held that language includes an infinite number of structures that speakers could create and understand, and that L2 pedagogy needs to include the teaching of grammar as a foundational framework for all L2 skills. L2 methodology adopted in the 1970s and early 1980s centered on traditional formal grammar instruction and had the added goal of developing learners’ analytical linguistic skills (McLaughlin & Zemblidge, 1992).

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND HUMANISTIC APPROACHES

However, in the 1970s, particularly in California, a new type of pedagogy arose in response to the greatly increased number of ESL learners, who outnumbered native English speakers in some school districts. Many of these learners knew grammar rules but could not use the target language communicatively, and others urgently needed immediate survival competency in English. The related humanist approaches were also developed in the late 1970s and 1980s as communicative activities designed to give learners positive feelings toward the instructional process so that language acquisition was facilitated. Used primarily with basic learners, these communicative/humanistic approaches gave no formal grammar instruction but rather presented quantities of meaning-focused input containing target forms and vocabulary. The assumption was that the learners would acquire the forms and vocabulary naturally, during the process of comprehending and responding to the input, similar to a way a child learns the first language.

Krashen’s Monitor Model of the 1970s and 1980s had a great deal of influence on the rise of communicative pedagogy. His hypothesis of language acquisition pivoted on learner linguistic competence achieved by means of natural language acquisition in the process of real communica-tion when learners are exposed to many facets of language use, such as listening, speaking, and reading. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis stipulated that the learning of L2 depends on the presence of “comprehensible input” in the form of meaningful activities, listening and speaking, and reading for enjoyment. Thus, the communicative method of L2 teaching does not feature explicit grammar teaching or correcting learner errors.

Although the communicative methods reflecting Krashen’s model of L2 acquisition suggested that learners would arrive at intuitive “correctness” (Krashen & Terrell, 1983, see page) of their language, given exposure to and experience with L2, and that explicit grammar instruction was not needed, L2 researchers, methodologists, and practitioners have commented that grammatical competence is essential for communication (Brown, 1994; Larsen-Freeman, 1991) but cannot be attained solely through exposure to meaningful input.

Another important limitation of a purely communicative approach is that certain types of language knowledge and skills are difficult to attain in the process of naturalistic learning, for example, academic and professional speaking and writing. It has been suggested that advanced proficiency and accuracy in spoken and written production are essential for effective functioning in academic, professional, and some vocational communications, so attaining high levels of language competence and performance may require instructed learning (Ellis, 1996).

FOCUS ON FORM

To address these limitations of purely communicative methodology, a new approach to grammar instruction combines formal instruction and communicative language use. Called “focus on form,” it is based on the distinction between explicit instruction on grammar forms (with an s) and meaning-focused use of form (no s) in such a way that the learner must notice, then process the target grammar structure in purely communicative input. This concept holds that traditional structural syllabuses that teach specific sequences of grammar forms do not produce communicative competence (Long, 1991), only formal knowledge of grammar rules unless the learners themselves have reached the stage of interlanguage development at which they are psycholinguistically ready to acquire the instructed forms (Pienemann, 1984).

Communicative syllabuses are suggested to be equally inadequate because of their neglect of grammar instruction, tending to produce fossilization and classroom pidgins (Skehan, 1996), and lower levels of accuracy than would be the case under formal instruction. This consideration has received support from a review of research comparing instructed with uninstructed language learning, finding significant advantages for instruction in terms of the learners’ rate of learning and level of achievement (Long, 1988). Considerable research followed on methods for integrating grammar instruction with communicative language learning in such a way that learners are able to recognize the properties of target structures in context and develop accuracy in their use (Doughty & Williams, 1998; Fotos & Ellis, 1991).

NOTICING AND CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING

Many teachers and researchers currently regard grammar instruction as “consciousness raising” (Schmidt, 1990, 1993; Sharwood Smith, 1981, 1993; Skehan, 1998) in the sense that awareness of a particular feature is developed by instruction even if the learners cannot use the feature at once. Such awareness is produced not only by instruction on specific forms but may also result from “input enhancement,” that is, operations performed on meaning-focused input in such a way that the target features stand out to the learner (Sharwood Smith, 1993). Other researchers, such as Fotos and Ellis (1991), note that instructed grammar learning of L2 grammar can also serve as communicative input, based on which learners can internalize grammar rules. This is seen as especially important for the EFL situation, in which communicative exposure to the target language is usually lacking. They also point out that knowledge of grammatical structures developed through formal instruction can make these structures more relevant and applicable for learners and, thus, easier to internalize.

However, although the role of input and interaction has been the focus of considerable research, current findings (Gass, Mackey, & Pica, 1998, p. 305) suggest that input and interaction alone cannot determine the learner acquisition process but rather “set the scene for potential learning.” The learner’s internal factors, particularly the noticing and continued awareness of structures mentioned above, are of more significance in predicting successful acquisition.

The psycholinguistic foundations for this view involve the distinction between two types of grammatical knowledge: explicit and/or declarative knowledge, which is conscious knowledge about grammatical rules and forms developed through instruction; and implicit or procedural knowledge, which is the ability to speak a language unconsciously developed through acts of meaning-focused communication.

Whereas in the past these two knowledge systems were often treated as separate, it has recently been suggested that they are connected and that one possible interface is learner awareness or consciousness of particular grammatical features developed through formal instruction (Schmidt, 1990). Once a learner’s consciousness of a target feature has been raised through formal instruction or through continued communicative exposure, the learner often tends to notice the feature in subsequent input (Ellis, 1996; Schmidt, 1990, 1993). Such noticing or continued awareness of the feature is suggested to be important because it appears to initiate the restructuring of the learner’s implicit or unconscious system of linguistic knowledge (Ellis, 1996; Schmidt, 1990, 1993; Sharwood Smith, 1993). When a language point is noticed frequently, learners develop awareness of it and unconsciously compare it with their existing system of linguistic knowledge, unconsciously constructing new hypotheses to accommodate the differences between the noticed information and their L2 competence. Then they test these new hypotheses—again unconsciously—by attending to language input and also by getting feedback on their output using the new form (Swain, 1985). In this way, implicit knowledge has been created.¹

According to this model, activities that raise learners’ awareness of grammar forms—whether through explicit instruction or through communicative exposure that encourages learners to become aware of the forms—can assist learners to acquire these forms.

INTERACTION FOR GRAMMAR LEARNING

Within a purely communicative methodology, output has not been seen as important as input because language is thought to be acquired by comprehending input. However, in real communication one needs to understand and be understood; therefore, comprehensible output is also essential for successful communication to take place. To a great extent, L...