Review Teaching Grammar in Today's classroom.

TESOL Panel: Teaching Grammar in Today’s Classroom - Parts 1 & 2

By Betty Azar, Keith Folse and Michael Swan.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJwbnQOguEk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jutpjRc-So

A review by Ana María Silva

ÚNICA University, Bogotá, Colombia.

Teaching Grammar in Today’s Classroom is a TESOL talk carried out in 2008 by three linguists Betty Azar, Keith Folse, and Michael Swan, who discuss the controversial issue of teaching grammar in today’s classroom, something that I have found particularly appealing in my field, education, due to the fact that there are several different theories that propose both direct and indirect grammar teaching giving pros and cons about each one, but the ones that sometimes generate much confusion in teachers because who really knows what the best method of teaching grammar is. Nonetheless, this specific talk agrees with the fact that we, teachers, have actually the must of teaching grammar in an explicit way, but that does not imply sacrificing communicative activities and implicit grammar explanation. In fact, they should be combined, so in that way, we would be fostering both the inductive and deductive method respectively, and that would lead students towards acquisition; and what is more, that would permit students to get both fluency and accuracy, something that Azar defined as “a hybrid that works”.

As it was mentioned before, Azar proposes a blending between grammar teaching and communicative teaching. She also agrees with the fact that vocabulary is often more crucial than grammar. However, she points out that there should be a place for grammar, too. So, the goal of teaching a language (in this case English) should be: “create an interlanguage that is increasingly fluent and accurate in the use of English structures in meaningful communication.” Therefore, not only instruction should give students opportunities for communicating, but it should also give them the tools to communicate something meaningfully and accurately. On the other hand, she also argues about the point that second language acquisition is pretty much different from first language acquisition. She actually claims that zero grammar encouraged by Krashen, in which he states that a second language is acquired in the same way as the native language, (natural approach) is, in fact, wrong.

She also indicates, based on her research, that students in programs that include both grammar and communicative teaching show accelerated learning and substantial gain in usage compared to students with only communicative exposure. Therefore, I strongly agree with the fact that communicative and grammar instruction are not mutually exclusive, they should be put together in instruction to get a faster and more meaningful learning.

Keith, for his part, affirms that “of course, we should teach grammar.” He says that the purpose of grammar is to get students to be able to do something with the language rather than to get them to recite the rules back. In other words, teaching grammar allows students to use the language and consolidate what they have learned. He remarks the importance of focusing on students’ needs because we, teachers, are the ones who know them, know what they need, and what they are able to learn. In addition, he states that good grammar teaching  requires knowing grammar “WELL”, knowing linguistics features such as grammar differences between our students’ first language and English, and knowing how to teach, that is to have teaching skills by implementing multiple ways of teaching grammar, such as games, songs, drilling, and so on. This also confirms the fact that we should teach grammar in our classes. The point is to find different and meaningful ways to address it. It is not actually standing in front of the board and overwhelming students with metalanguage, but it is about implementing engaging strategies for students to consolidate and use language.

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