Grammar is vital, but plays second fiddle to efficient communication

January 18, 2012 11:54 am TWN, By Emilio Venezian
The Father Bauer column of Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012, was very much to the point but I would take it further.

Sometimes a decent grasp of grammar is vital, especially when you vocabulary is small and even more so if you do what I have come to regard as “the Chinese thing”: looking up every word you are not 100 percent familiar with in the dictionary without thinking about grammar. The problem is that if you take the words away from their context the chances that you hit on the right meaning are small. The adage “still waters run deep,” which I often use as an illustration, has four words, but each can be any one of several parts of speech and every part of speech has more than one meaning. You have over 100 different combinations of parts of speech and over 7,000 different combinations of Chinese characters or combinations of characters that might be assigned to those four words. So if you can process any one combination in one second, you still have to work for several days to grasp the meaning without grammar. We just cannot afford that kind of time for four words. Being able to parse the sentence, or at least to recognize which of the four words is functioning as the verb, cuts the possibilities down by a large factor.

However, the function of language is to communicate ideas in my head to other people. Grammar is, of course, also important to some extent as a resolver of ambiguities. Emphasizing grammar too heavily, and penalizing students for mistakes in grammar serves little purpose other than driving students to do the obvious: reduce their ideas to the simplest level and not communicating what is in their heads. Students, even at the graduate level, are so concerned with being penalized or losing face because of mistakes that they act as though saying nothing and making no mistakes is better than trying to express an opinion. That dread is paralyzing and it becomes impossible to evaluate what they really understand or whether they are repeating what they read with no understanding at all.

Many English proverbs are not grammatically correct. “Practice makes perfect” and “All that glitters is not gold” are two simple examples. Renowned authors occasionally use made-up words such as “civilness” (rather than civility), but that does not interfere greatly with communication. If the purpose of teaching a second language is to enable students to communicate, we should grade on the ability to get mature thoughts across, not on whether the grammar correctly expresses an oversimplified thought or a thought that was not what the writer or speaker intended.

My comments: In my opinion, grammar is important, but not the most important.  For a beginner, fluency should come before accuracy.

I told the students not to take notes but just concentrate and think. After class they can visit my blog and download the PowerPoint for review work.

Here is the ppt.

Relative Clauses.ppt

grammar–comparatives and superlatives.ppt

A reminder: When teaching grammar, since our focus is on the grammar point, we’d better use simple words when giving examples. If we use big words in the example sentences, students’ attention will be shifted.

John must be tired.

John may be tired.

John might be tired.

Different modals are used to express how sure we are of what we say.

To help students get a clearer idea of modals, I made two handouts. One is a list of common modals, with their meanings/functions; the other a list of common functions of modals, with modals connected to the functions. They are not the final versions, still leaving some space for improvement.

modals-functions-b4.doc

Functions-modals-A4.doc

leg-lengthened surgery or leg-lengthening surgery?

His argument was that since legs are lengthened, the former was correct.

However, the compound adjectvie is used to modify the noun “surgery.” Since the surgery is performed to lengthen legs, the correct usage should be “leg-lengtheing” surgery.

To provide learners with more practice, I created a PowerPoint for compound adjectives as follows:

compound adjectives.ppt

活化英語課 陳超明：棄文法廢課綱

【聯合報╱記者張錦弘／台北報導】2010/07/22

台灣的中學英文課，文法一向是教學重點，但政大英語系教授陳超明指出，今年大學學測已幾乎不考文法，學校應放棄文法規則的教學，廢課綱，改訂能力指標，以實用溝通為導向，把每個學生都教會，而不是趕著教完。

My comments: It seems only one item in the Cloze part on this year’s UEE tests students’ grammatical competence; however, some parts test grammar implicitly, for example, Passage Completion. Although grammar is not the most important in English learning, it can not be skipped.

他說，台北縣最近推動英語活化教學，在正式課程外，用更活潑的方式，引發學童對學英語的興趣，效果不錯。

My comments: Once the flame of passion is ignited, it’s hard to put out.

但他納悶，為何只有課外活動才能「活化」？連正式課程也一起「活化」，甚至國、高中英語課也活化，不是更好嗎？

他指出，台灣傳統的英文教育，過分強調文法規則、死背單字，不重視基本溝通能力，導致許多人學了16年英文，見到外國人仍是鴨子聽雷、啞口無言。

My comments: In class, more emphasis should be put on communication in English.

他說，大家都知道問題所在，幾十年來卻無法解決。

陳超明最近在由聯經出版的新書《英語即戰力》當中提到，中學老師都認為文法很重要，但大考英文卻越來越不考文法，以測驗學生的閱讀理解力與語文的使用能力為主，「考試沒有引導教學」。

My comments: However, when it comes to writing, students, who don’t have sufficient exposure to English, still need grammar.

他舉例，今年學測英語題目，只有1-2題文法題，其他題目大多是理解題，須看上下文語意才能答，即考理解力，這才是真正考綜合語言能力，包括單字掌握、語法邏輯性及大量閱讀。

My comments: I always encourage my students to read extensively. In fact, when I give them something interetsing to read, they want more.

不過，當他告訴高中老師，上課不應該教太多文法，老師往往質問：「不教文法，要教什麼？」、「若我不教，萬一考出來怎麼辦？」

陳超明認為，大考中心未來不太可能考太多文法，老師應該教的，就是大量閱讀，及接觸外國文化的經驗與場景。

此外，英文老師還有個盲點，就是為了因應課綱趕進度，急著「教完」，卻不管學生會不會，即使班上只有兩三成的人懂，仍照樣教下一課。

My comments: Slow down.

陳超明認為，教會比教完重要，而且，建中和後段的高中，不應該教一樣的東西，英語課應該分級教學。

My comments: Placement tests should be given before putting students in the class that suits them best.

●《一生必學的英文單字》暨《英語即戰力》英語學習講座，由陳超明主講，時間：07/31（周六）下午 1:30 入場，地點：政大公企中心 C 701；活動免費參加！詳情請上聯經網站www.linkingbooks.com.tw ，座位有限，歡迎即早報名參加現場抽獎。

http://www.tiec.tp.edu.tw/lifetype/post/1130/25216

http://www.tiec.tp.edu.tw/lifetype/post/1130/25254

The best way to master them is to make sentences with them.

… For example, potato chips were invented because the chef George Crum got angry when a guest __27__ complained Crum’s French fries were too thick refused to have them.  Crum then remade the fries very thin adn crispy so that teh guest would have trouble eating them with a fork.

___27. (A) which   (B) who   (C) X   (D) being

The answer is ________.

The correct answer is (B) who.

Some students chose (C) because to them, the subject “a guest” should naturally be followed by the verb “complained.”  

However, they missed the verb “refused.”  If they had read to the end of the sentence and known ”refused” was the verb of the subect “a guest,” they might have chosen the right answer (B) who.   I told them that matching the verb with the subject is very important in analyzing a long sentence.  The following is how I analyzed the sentence.

For example, potato chips were invented because the chef George Crum got angry when a guest __27__ complained  Crum’s French fries were too thick refused to have them. 

The matching goes like this:
(S1) a guest — (V1) refused
(S2) ______ –(V2) complained
(S3) Crum’s French fries –(V3) were

So, after the noun “a guest,” they need a relative clause to modify the noun. In the relative clause, the verb “complained” needs its subject, and thus the answer should be the relative pronoun “who.”

http://english.nhsh.tp.edu.tw/p21-13.htm