GRAMMAR:LEARNING AND TEACHING

Grammar is partly the study of what forms (or structures) are possible in a language. Traditionally, grammar has been concerned almost exclusively with analysis at the level of the sentences. Thus grammar is a description of the rules that govern how language's sentences are formed.

Is the analysis and comparison of the grammatical structure of related languages. It stablishes the relationship among all languages.

Also known as tranformational-generative grammar or TG. It is a grammar (or set of rules) that indicates the structure and interpretation of sentences which native speakers of a language accept as belonging to the language.

The generative grammar stored in the brain that allows speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand. "All humans are born with the capacity for constructing a Mental Grammar." This is called Language Faculty.

A description of the syntax of English as it is actually used by speakers in dialogues. It centers attention in language production.

The study of the essential components of any human language

The collection of prescritive rules and concepts about the structure of a language. We say that traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distiction between what some people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to a pre-stablished standard.

A therory of grammar that accounts for the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations and phrases structures.

The system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate.

A theory of language structure which holds that grammatical knowledge is largely a body (or network) of knwoledge about words.

A therory of descriptive grammar in which syntactic operations (or relationships) rather that syntactic structures are used to define grammatical processes.

Odlin(1994:1) states that even though it could cover more areas 'pedagogical grammar usually denotes the types of grammatical analysis and instructions designed for the needs of second language students.'The FOUR TYPES OF GRAMMAR has implications to teaching languages.

Theories of grammar and how they explain the grammar construction.The Psychological construct that underline interlanguage of performance and competence.Teaching methods and approaches.Material for teaching grammar.Textbooks and dictionaries.

Time spent in a language course is only a fraction of what is needed to develop proficiency in a second language.

Students have to become independent analyst of the target language if they are to deal with all the problems that their instructor lack time to cover in much detail.

If students do not become capable analysts, their interlanguage competence will diverge from the target language grammar.

Some of its characteristics are still in use as:The 8 parts of speech: nounsverbsparticiplesarticlespronounsprepositionsadverbsconjunctionsSometimes translation is used when teaching (could be to convey meaning)It is prescriptive

Detailed evidence, in professional literature, suggests that teacher can make a difference. Elli (1990b) concludes that 'Learners who receive formal instruction outperform those who do not; that is, they learn more rapidly and they reach higher levels of ultimate achievement.'

Was created as a reaction to Traditional Grammar Instruction. It offers another framework for the description of language through three systems, phonology, morphology and syntax.

It is a system of categories based on communicative needs of the learner and proposed a syllabus based on communicative functions.It appeared to be opposite to structural syllabus but it still be structureal since certain structures are often associated with specfic functions.

Noam Chomsky objected the assumption that language is a habit.He presented language as an innate generative process.This Process exists in the human brain.Chomky's vies of language is based on syntax.Universal Grammar underlies all languages.Distinction between the concepts of competence and performance.

Grammar must be instructed.Achieving linguistic competence requieres learners to go through a mental process.Cognitive approaches of L2 teaching use Transformational and Generative grammar.Learners should construct new language on previous one.They use the traditional approach to teaching grammar.Cognitive approaches aim for learners to develop analytical linguistics skills.

Were developed in the lates 1970s and 1980s as communicative activities designed to give learners positive feelings toward the instructional process so that language acquisition was facilitated.

It combines formal instructional and communicative language use. It makes a distinction between:Explicit instruction on grammar forms.Meaning-focused use of form.Learner must notice, then process the target grammar structure in purely communicative input.

Consciousness implies 'see', 'notice', have a structure present even if one isn't able to use it yet.Awareness results from both instruction of forms and meaningful input of language form.Communicative input can be, in fact, 'nstructed grammar learning of L2 grammar'Having knowledge of grammatical structure developed through a formal instruction can make these structure more relevant and aplicable for learners and, thus, easier to internalize.There is a disticntion between two types of knowledge: explicit and/or declarative knowledge and implicit and/or procedural knowledge.

In real communication one needs to understand and be understood; therefore, comprehensible output is essential for successful communication to take place.Interaction is then needed for learners to increase their output and this contributes to learner internalization of L2 knowledge.

Grammar can be taught through the use of different types of texts (genres).The analysis of discourse includes determining the features of the English narrative in situations related to work, studies, family, and other social activities.Discourse analysis provides an authentic context for learning and using grammar.The research done in the field of discourse analysis can be used for communicative purposes.

According to Loos et. al. (2004) 'a reference grammar is a prose-like description of the major grammatical constructions in a language, illustrated with examples.'It is designed to teach someone about the language and to give readers a reference tool for looking up specific details of the language.

IntroductionBodyIndexBibliographyList of abreviations

Azar, B. (2007). Grammar-Based Teaching: A Practitioner's Perspective. TESL-EJ. 11(2). pp. 1-12.Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs: Hall Regents.Butler-Tanaka, P. (1998). What do you understand by the term consciousness-raising? To what extent is a grammar-translation approach based on consciousness-raising? University of Birmingham. Retrieved fromhttp://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/cels/essays/secondlanguage/PaulBT2.pdf on July 18th, 2013.Hinkel, E. & Fotos, S. (Eds.). (2002). New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms.New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. New York: Oxford University Press.Mathews, P. H. (1997). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Prabhu, N. S. (1990). There Is No Best Method – Why?TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 2.http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3586897?uid=3738664&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102543797057 Retrieved on July 18th, 2013.Pullum, G. K. (n. d.). Learnability. Available at http://www.kornai.com/MatLing/learn.pdf Retrieved on July 18th, 2013.  Richards, J., Platt, J., and Platt, H. (1992). Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Longman