...speakers, I learned these things naturally, but I could not actually explain them to others. Grammar teaching is complicated because there are the questions, how should it be taught, what should be taught, and when should it be taught. Although there is no definite way to answer this, Pinker, Folse, and Ellis give some insight into how to answer these questions by which a reader is able to make their own conclusions. Language is a part of our identity. The moment we open our mouths, people are instantly able to make judgements, whether true or false, about us. This is because we adapt the speech that we are surrounded with, and subconsciously it becomes a part of who we are. The capacity of an infant to develop speech depends on the capability of the child to differentiate between phonemes. They must first decipher the sounds of speech and then words which carry meaning and this whole process before the infant is even one-year old. They are then able to replicate and imitate speech that they hear and are even able to create unique phrases. They show signs of ability to communicate verbally through babbling, single words, and then two-word speech until they are able to speak at a level of fluency. This is inherently different from the process of second language acquisition and as an ESL teacher, being able to differentiate these processes is vital to the success in being able to effectively teach English to non-native...
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...Factors Affecting the Study Habits of Criminology Students of Basc Teaching Grammar What is grammar? ’An abstract system of rules whereby a person’s mastery of their native language can be explained’ (dictionary definition) Different dictionaries define ’grammar’ in different ways, but they all effectively talk about the ’rules of the language’. Grammar does not equal only ’tenses’ or verb forms. Grammar is language and how we use it. What is more important than a definition of the word ’grammar’ is knowing what students need to know when they are learning grammar. And we also need to know different ways to teach grammar. There are many different methods to teach grammar, but the three that might be the most effective in retaining student interest are the following: 1. Situational Presentations 2. Text and Recordings 3. Test Teach Test 1. Teaching grammar via Situational Presentation I. What do students need to know? When presenting new language, the teacher must show following things very clearly: MPF: There are several aspects of a new item: that you need to know and learners need to learn. 1. What it means. They need to understand meaning within the given context. 2. What it sounds like. They need to know the natural pronunciation and spelling of the language. 3. What it looks like. They need to know how to form the language (how it is constructed). 4. How and when it is used. They need to know the function of the language. ...
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...about the grammar teaching approaches and their students' ability to understand grammar. The major findings of the study had showed that there had been several conflicts between teachers’ beliefs and their actual practice inside the classrooms and this congruent with Parajes’ (1992) view that stated beliefs were an unreliable indicator of actual practice. Consequently, many studies suggested the same view before such as Renandya's survey (2001) and Farrell's and Lim's study (2005). Also, this inconsistency between beliefs and practice...
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...A STUDY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR IN LEARNING ENGLISH In India English continues to be the medium of instructions in colleges and universities. It is also the language of the administration. English should be most useful “library language” in higher education and our most significant window on the world. English plays an important role in our national life. It was of great importance in the British India. It plays an important role in various fields. So grammar plays a vital role in the field of learning language. So working knowledge of grammar is required for a sound basis of language- ungrammatical use will create disorder, misunderstanding of ideas, and bad impression among the listener or the reader. In the words of Dr. West, “grammar is not a code of rules like etiquette and table manners, a statement of convention, it summarizes what is done by cultured people, and like etiquette, and it is a state of a constant”. NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The most important ingredient of learning English is grammar. Because, when we come to learn a new language, we need to study its grammar. Grammar is the study of words and the ways words work together. Any person who communicates using a particular language is consciously or unconsciously aware of the grammar of that language. Students usually find difficulties in learning grammar and most of them hate grammar sessions. They do not realize that it is the back bone of language. Pupils at secondary schools also have difficulties...
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...a person made it all the way through college they would have good or excellent writing and grammar skills however, that is not the case. Employers when they are conducting an interview they are more aware of how the person speaks which will be a good indicator that their grammar and writing skills are up to par. Recent College graduates that are pursuing a career in the literary world do not have the writing skills that are need in this profession. According to the National Commission on Writing, they collected data from various large corporations located within the United States. Their finding is that 64 out of 120 corporations which employ’s roughly 8 million people spend over 3.1 billion dollars just to reeducate their employees on their use of grammar and writing skills. Employer’s today whether it is in the literary world or not are looking for individuals that have good grammar and writing skills, the inability to have these skills will result in poor communication and that means businesses will not be able to thrive if they cannot effectively communicate with others. How did this happen that students do not have the proper writing and grammar skills? There are many arguments on this and for decades teachers were using what is known as a rule base or traditional school grammar. In was proven in the 60’s that using the rule base was an ineffective way to teach students especially in writing. In 1985, the rule base approach to teaching students was once...
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...Teaching Grammar What is grammar? ’An abstract system of rules whereby a person’s mastery of their native language can be explained’ (dictionary definition) Different dictionaries define ’grammar’ in different ways, but they all effectively talk about the ’rules of the language’. Grammar does not equal only ’tenses’ or verb forms. Grammar is language and how we use it. What is more important than a definition of the word ’grammar’ is knowing what students need to know when they are learning grammar. And we also need to know different ways to teach grammar. There are many different methods to teach grammar, but the three that might be the most effective in retaining student interest are the following: 1. Situational Presentations 2. Text and Recordings 3. Test Teach Test 1. Teaching grammar via Situational Presentation I. What do students need to know? When presenting new language, the teacher must show following things very clearly: MPF: There are several aspects of a new item: that you need to know and learners need to learn. 1. What it means. They need to understand meaning within the given context. 2. What it sounds like. They need to know the natural pronunciation and spelling of the language. 3. What it looks like. They need to know how to form the language (how it is constructed). 4. How and when it is used. They need to know the function of the language. (This is often referred to as, MPF.) As well as knowing the MPF, students need to use the language...
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...view writing skills as one of the most important qualifications that employees should possess. However, many business employees, including recent college graduates, have serious writing deficiencies, especially in their ability to use standard English. As a result, American businesses spend billions of dollars annually to remediate these writing deficiencies (College Board, the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004). In this article, the authors examine possible reasons for these deficiencies and offer evidence that a modified context-based approach, the glossing approach, and consistent error marking can reduce the number of sentence-level errors students make. Keywords: context-based approach, grammar, punctuation, rules-based approach, writing deficiencies Copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications T hat many employers in the United States are dissatisfied with their employees’ writing skills is not a surprise to individuals who frequently peruse the professional literature in nearly any academic field or discipline (Gray, Emerson, & MacKay, 2005; Wise, 2005). Although the expressions of dismay are frequent and often strong, educators have done little to rectify the situation. Costs of Employees’ Poor Writing Skills material to decipher the intended meaning; and (c) the outcome when an incorrect decision is made because of poorly or ineffectively written material. Employers in the public sector have reported similar writing deficiencies...
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...close to $3.1 billion yearly on the remediation of employees’ writing deficiencies. Consequently, employers are dissatisfied with employees writing skills and even more disappointed in the skills of new college graduates. Traditionally, grammar was taught using a rules-based approach which was also referred to as traditional school grammar (Hillocks & Smith, 2003). Rules-based approach focused on teaching grammar rules with emphasis on form (present, past …). Many educators condemned this type of approach, and research showed that it was an ineffective way to teach grammar. Students were simply taught a set of rules and presented with a set of usage exercises. There was very little teaching of how to use grammar in a communicative manner. Rules-based approach has since been abandoned due to opposition from educators and the decision of the National Council of Teachers of English to discourage its use. Researchers have since proposed the use of new approaches such as, context based approach introduced by Weaver (1996, 1998), and sentence-combining approach technique suggested by Hillocks and smith (2003) to name a few. Currently, the context based approach is the favored means of teaching grammar and punctuation. Grammar instructions are primarily taught using the body of work produced by the student. The idea is that the teacher will be able to identify the...
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...important role in business world for a business writers. This article written by Zane K. Quible and Frances Griffin gives the insight of how a poor writing skills is causing huge damages in business world. “In 2004, The Nation Commission on Writing (NCW) decided to do a research and collected cost data from 64 of 120 large America corporations that were connected with the business world and had employed nearly 8 million people. And when NCW posted the results and it showed how American Firms spend as much as $3.1 billion to improve their employees’ writing deficiencies” ( College board, The NCW for American Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004). It is a shock seeing how poor writing skills are costing us Americans billions to improve employees’ writing skills, when this is something we should have learned during our School years. According to NCW report “The skills of new college graduates are deplorable-across the board: spelling, grammar, sentence structure …I can’t believe people came out of college now not knowing what a sentence is” so employers are not only frustrated with their employees because of writing deficiencies, but also exasperated with the new graduates. In addition, teacher have been using a rule-based method, which are also known as tradition school grammar (Hillocks & Smith, 2003). According to Hillocks, Traditional School Grammar has shown little or no help in students’ progress especially in writing and he backed up his statement with his research on rule-based...
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...observe in our classroom, teachers frequently use the different methods, strategies and approaches in teaching that are applicable to their students need. For example, if the students cannot achieve to fully express their intentions or comprehend the meanings of messages, an approach should be selected that helps the student to understand the language grammar. Conversely, if the students need extra motivation, an approach with frequent changes might be proffered. If a learner does not know how to use the language grammar, he will have to rely on lexis, gestures, intonation or other nonverbal features to express his or her meanings. Thus, in order for the communication to exist, people have to know language and its rules, which we call "grammar". Grammar is fundamental to language, without grammar, language does not exist. All languages have grammar, and each language has its own grammar" (Beverly, 2007 as cited in Williams, 2007). People who speak the same language are able to communicate with each other because they all know the grammar system and structure of that language, that is, the meaningful rules of grammar (Beverly, 2007 as cited in Williams, 2007). It has been defined and...
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...Renee Breznak, an eighth-grade English teacher, and Johnny Scott, a principal, collaborated on their experiences teaching grammar. The two discuss past experiences teaching grammar. One had the nickname of “Lord of the Board” because everything was presented on the chalk board or projector. What they realized was that most students were not listening. A changed had to happen. That change came in the format of working with students individually in writing workshops. However, Breznak and Scott found that students still did not take the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and kept making them. Because the students still were not learning, another change had to be made. The two took what they had learned over their many years of teaching and based their new strategy of teaching on those observations. They...
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...The Grammar of Animacy Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation The Grammar of Animacy 1. What kind of languages does Kimmerer talk about in this essay? Mainly Kimmerer talks about the native language Potawatomi, which was used by Indians in America long before they were assimilated by the colonial masters to English. She also mentions other forms of languages such as scientific language, which she honors as a second tongue to her. However, she notes that this language that is being spoken by scientists, even though may be precise, it is profound with grammar errors. Third, she mentions about English, which she mainly uses to write the essay, but points that as a language, it is primarily composed of nouns than verbs (70% nouns and 30% verbs). This, she notes, contradicts the native languages such as Potawatomi that are mainly composed of verbs. Finally, she talks about the Spanish language that just like the English one, thrived out of the assimilation process and is what most indigenous communities resorted to apart from their extinct native languages. 2. How many fluent speakers are there of Potawatomi? And what does the great-grandmother say will be lost when the language is lost? For the Potawatomi language class that was organized by Kimmerer and others of the indigenous group, only nine (9) fluent speakers of the language were found to be presently alive, globally. In her words, Kimmerer notes that the language, Potawatomi, millennia in the making was contained...
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...child I knew how to speak and read Spanish but, I was lacking grammar skills. I wanted to know my home language fluently in all aspects. Therefore, I want to facilitate my future students to be able to learn a second language. My drive is to pursue a higher education to my students that way they could become successful life. I am going to act like a guide to them and promoting respect to all my students. It is my life aspiration to be an excellent high school teacher who motivates students to achieve the highest level of education. Not only I am pushing myself but also, I want to be a teacher to push my students to excellence. Perseverance is my motto, and I want to pass that on to my students. I want them to see my example: I’ve worked hard and never once gave up on what I wanted to become –their teacher. I believe that my role as a teacher is to give my students the tools necessary to be successful. In order to accomplish this goal, I will find ways to teach each student based on their needs that way all my students will feel capable and successful. Another way that I would help my students is by incorporate themes, projects, group work, to make my students active learners. I want to inspire Spanish and English speakers to ascertain their needs in the Spanish language. I want to improve the student’s lives, so one day they can also pursue my path and hopefully I will inspire their path. The specific courses subjects and courses that I am prepared to teach is any level...
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...elsevier.com/locate/tate Grammar matters: How teachers’ grammatical knowledge impacts on the teaching of writing Debra Myhill a, b, *, Susan Jones a, Annabel Watson a a b University of Exeter, UK University of Wollongong, Australia h i g h l i g h t s Teachers’ grammatical knowledge influences what students learn about writing. Limitations in teachers’ grammatical content knowledge can generate student misconceptions. Teachers’ ‘applied’ knowledge is more significant than declarative knowledge. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Received 27 June 2012 Received in revised form 17 July 2013 Accepted 19 July 2013 Teaching grammar has been mandated in statutory curriculum documents in England since 1988. Yet despite this, research evidence continues to suggest that metalinguistic knowledge is an area of challenge for many teachers. Drawing on data from a larger study, this paper considers the role of teachers’ grammatical knowledge, both content and pedagogical content knowledge, in mediating learning about writing in the classroom. It also illustrates how students’ learning about writing is influenced by teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge. The study highlights that grammatical pedagogical content knowledge is more significant than grammatical content knowledge in supporting meaningful teaching and learning about writing. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Metalinguistic Grammar Writing Content knowledge ...
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...Can Grammar or Phonetics be taught through Games? Table of Contents I. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..……………1 II. What is Grammar?……………………………………………...………………………………2 III. The place of Grammar in the language teaching……………….…………...2-4 IV. Games and Grammar teaching/learning: A.Background of Grammar Games……………………………………………..…..……4 B.The function of Games………………………………………………………………4-5 C.The roles of teachers and learners………………………………….………5-6 D.Factors affecting Grammar Games: Age……………………………………………………………………..………6-7 Ability in the target language…………………………………..7 Motivation…………………………………………………………………..7-8 Size of group…………………………………………………………..8-9 Time…………………………………………………………………………....9 V. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...………10 VI. Appendix……………………………………………………………………………….…11-13 Introduction This paper aims at discussing the issue of teaching grammar through game activities, which derives its importance from the pursuit of excellence in language learning and teaching. At this point it is probably a good idea to start with some definitions of grammar, followed by the place of grammar in language teaching. In this context, researchers speak of the grammars of a language rather than of the grammar. Therefore, different methods of teaching a language will be presented and two of them will be discussed individually; that is to say, structural and communicative. What I would like to take into consideration...
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