ork is "Teaching Grammar". And the main aim is to clearly recognize how to teach grammar right. В
PART 1 WHAT IS THE GRAMMAR
1.1 The Importance of Grammar in Learning a Foreign Language
To judge by the way some people speak, there is no place for grammar in the language course nowadays; yet it is, in reality, as important as it ever was exercise of correct grammar, if he is to attain any skill of effective use of the language, but he need not know consciously formulated rules to account to him for that he does unconsciously correctly.
In order to understand a language and to express oneself correctly one must assimilate the grammar mechanism of the language studied. Indeed, one may know all the words in a sentence and yet fail to understand it, if one does not see the relation between the words in the given sentence. And vice versa, a sentence may contain one, two, and more unknown words but if one has a good knowledge of the structure of the language one can easily guess the meaning of these words or at least find them in a dictionary.
No speaking is possible without the knowledge of grammar, without the forming of a grammar mechanism.
If learner has acquired such a mechanism, he can produce correct sentences in a foreign language. Paul Roberts writes: "Grammar is something that produces the sentences of a language. By something we mean a speaker of English. If you speak English natively, you have built into you rules of English grammar. In a sense, you are an English grammar. You possess, as an essential part of your being, a very complicated apparatus which enables you to produce infinitely many sentences, all English ones, including many that you have never specifically learned. Furthermore by applying you rule you can easily tell whether a sentence that you hear a grammatical English sentence or not. "
A command of English as is envisaged by the school syllabus cannot be ensured without the study of grammar. Pupils need grammar to be able to aud, speak, read, and write in the target language.
1.2 The Psychological characteristics of grammar skills
To develop one's speech means to acquire essential patterns of speech and grammar patterns in particular. Children must use these items automatically during speech-practice. The automatic use of grammar items in our speech (oral and written) supposes mastering some particular skills - the skills of using grammar items to express one's own thoughts, in other words to make up your sentences.
We must get so-called reproductive or active grammar skills.
A skill is treated as an automatic part of awareness. Automatization of the action is the main feature of a skill.
The nature of Automatization is characterized by that psychological structure of the action which adopts to the conditions of performing the action owing frequent experience. The action becomes more frequent, correct and accurate and the number of the operations is shortened while forming the skill the character of awareness of the action is changing, i.e. fullness of understanding is paid to the conditions and quality of performing to the control over it and regulation. p> To form some skills is necessary to know that the process of the forming skills has some steps:
- Only some definite elements of the action are automatic.
- The Automatization occurs under more difficult conditions, when the child can't concentrate his attention on one element of the action.
- The whole structure of the action is improved and the automatization of its separate components is completed.
What features do the productive grammar skills have?
During our speech the reproductive grammar skills are formed together with lexis and intonation, they must express the speaker's intentions.
The actions in the structural setting of the lexis must be learnt.
The characteristic feature of the reproductive grammar skills is their flexibility. It doesn't depend on the level of Automatization, i.e. on perfection of skill here mean the original action: both the structure of sentence, and forms of the words are reproduced by the speaker using different lexical material. If the child reproduces sentences and different words, which have been learnt by him as "a ready-made thing "he can say that there is no grammar skill. Learning the ready-made forms, word combinations and sentences occurs in the same way as learning lexis.
The grammar skill is based on the general conclusion. The grammar action can and must occur only in the definite lexical limits, on the definite lexical material. If the pupil can make up his sentence frequently, accurately and correctly from the grammatical point of view, he has got the grammar skill.
Teaching grammar at school using the theoretical knowledg...
