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Aversion towards grammar? | ||
Tags: Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 33 of 37 11 December 2010 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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As I said earlier, people are mixing up acquisition of grammar and study of grammar. Call it what you want, if you are to speak a language well you have to learn how to put the words in the correct sequence. That's grammar. It's the same with pronunciation. You may have an aversion to the study of phonetics, but you have to learn how to pronounce correctly.
What is the present debate about? Some people like grammar books. Some people don't. Is this a problem? I don't think so if the results are the same. If someone says to me I hate studying grammar and prefer just to observe and imitate the people around me until I feel comfortable, I say if that works for you, go for it. What counts is the results. I personally like grammar books, dictionaries and studies in the phonetics of my target languages because I have an academic bent. However, I recognize that there are people, including illiterate adult immigrants, who achieve a certain level of fluency (in the technical sense), good pronunciation and a certain level of idiomatic mastery without ever opening a book. Have they learned like children? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is this a "natural approach" to be emulated? I don't know. What I do know is that there are many people who have studied grammar for years and can't hold a basic conversation. My conclusion is stop worrying and do what works for you 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 34 of 37 11 December 2010 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly -- this is about grammar books, not grammar. A grammar book is a reference, not a teaching manual, and sadly too many people forget that. The idea that a verb table is the natural form of a verb is risible -- verb tables are designed around efficient use of paper, not rigorous mental models. But the problem isn't just grammar books, as reference grammars have moved on from the old structuralist formats to "grammars of function". Unfortunately, textbook writers for the most part haven't caught up with them, and as soon as grammar makes its appearance in a textbook, it's in the old structuralist way, where meaning is considered secondary to structure. Hence remembering tables, doing substitutions, transforming sentences into questions, and "answering in sentences" by transforming questions into sentences.
The results are rarely the same. It is self-evident from speaking to a wide enough number of immigrants in any country that most never achieve accurate language without conscious study. The problem is the lack of materials, and you can't turn people on to "good" grammar until there's good grammar to point them to. But at the same time, perpetuating the idea that grammar study is only good for some people kills the demand in the market for better grammar-based courses and resources. I want people to appreciate that the problem with grammar isn't the learner, it's the teacher. I want people to be angry about paying people who fail them. I want people to demand change, not simply to continue to buy into the two established camps of "lots of meaningless grammar" and "lots of meaning, no grammar". I want to see the middle ground catered for: "meaningful grammar".
You can't make a cake out of sugar. You can't make a cake out of flour. You can't make a cake out of eggs. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 35 of 37 11 December 2010 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I disagree totally with Cainntear's position here. The debate is not about grammar books or the teaching of grammar. It is about formal vs informal approaches of acquiring grammar. If you want to explicitly study the grammar of a language, there are all sorts of resources, the grammar book being the most common. But you don't have to study grammar formally. As many people have pointed out here, they prefer to approach the question differently.
I'll repeat for the last time, it is the end results that count. I would certainly agree that to attain a certain level of sophistication, one has to study the written language and preferably in the target language. That is what native speakers do as part of their general education. Before we get there, however, we should use whatever combinations of tools and approaches that give the best results and work with our personality. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5439 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 36 of 37 12 December 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I work in a language school. I see students who cling to their grammar books but revert to the present tense and drop articles left and right when they speak. I also see students who have largely avoided formal study but who have lived in the United States for as long as 5-15 years who have the same issues. Same results... big problem!
I think this gets to the heart of it. We know that memorizing verb tables isn't the same thing as learning a language. But that doesn't mean that not memorizing verb tables is learning a language. Memorizing tables has nothing to do with it one way or the other. But constructing a mental model of the language does. For some people, formal study gives them the tools they need to know what to pay attention to, even though they have to work out the mental model on their own. For other people, there's something that lets them assemble their mental model with a greater degree of independence from formal learning methods. The problem is that just because some people do succeed with formal study and others succeed without it doesn't tell us what to do about the people who don't succeed with either approach. It sounds like Cainntear wants us to look for ways to help people succeed on purpose. That is, he wants us to look for ways to help people construct a mental model of the language that will foster its acquisition. You can call it grammar or you can call it "cheese on toast." The problem is that whatever you call it, it's lacking. Those of us who hang out on forums like these tend to have a couple advantages over the typical language learner: 1) Our job isn't likely to disappear and our shop isn't likely to fold because it takes us a little extra time to figure out what works for us. 2) We're driven by interest in learning, not anxiety about not learning. 3) We tend to have a knack for languages. 4) We are in the habit of approaching language consciously. These things aren't universal, of course. But for most of us, if we're standing in the foreign language section of the bookshop, our emotions will run from curious to excited, not baffled to terrified. We are the market for substandard textbooks - both grammar based and grammar excluding - because we will use them in spite of their flaws. And after we make them work for us, we will swear by them! But in the mean time, for our own convenience, as well to meet the real needs of people who aren't into languages but have to learn them anyway, it would be good to see the creation of more materials with what Cainntear calls "meaningful grammar" - not the stuff that academics use to document languages, but the tips, tricks and explanations that will help beginners and advanced beginners learn to convey the meaning they want to convey through structure as well as vocabulary. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 37 of 37 12 December 2010 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I still don't see what the problem is. I think we can all agree that learning a language implies acquiring grammar. Some people like to study grammar. Some people don't. I'm not saying that studying and not studying grammar will accomplish the same thing. What I'm saying is that however you acquire grammar what really counts is the results.
As everybody here knows, there is a plethora of books, language schools, audio courses, websites, software programs that all purport to teach a language without the usual drudgery of studying grammar. Most claim that you will be speaking like a native in no time. Here is a quote from the website of a famous method that is very well regarded here at HTLAL and that Cainntear knows well: "His approach gives startling results within a remarkably short time, all without the need for books, memorizing, or homework." Does this work for everybody? Of course not. But it seems to work for many people. Can someone come up with a new kind of grammar book that is exciting, effective and fun to use? Certainly. I'm sure a lot of bright people are trying to do just that. Again, I insist, the real proof of the pudding is the results. Can you speak? Can you write? How you get there is your choice. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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