Ｇｒａｍｍａｒ ｉｓ ｏｆ Ｉｍｐｏｒｔａｎｃｅ ｉｎ ＥＬＴ

［Abstract］Little attention has been given to grammar in ELT since learners and teachers focus on communicative function of language(here English is taken for an example).Language is a complex system，of which grammar knowledge is considered by many linguists to be the central area.Grammar plays a positive role in improving their language skill as well as language accuracy for the EFL learners，and corresponding proposals are put forward on L2 learning/teaching of grammar in the paper.

［Key words］grammar consciousness grammar grammatical(linguistic)competence proficiency

［中圖分類號］G64 ［文獻標識碼］A ［文章編號］1009－5489(2009)08－0048－04

Ⅰ.Introduction

Prabhu argues that language should be acquired through the involvement of communication.An extreme rejection of grammar has come from theorists，as Krashen(1982)strongly argues that formal instruction of grammar will not contribute to the development of\"acquired\"knowledge-the knowledge needed to participate in authentic communication.He emphasizes that grammar teaching is unnecessary because that knowledge can not be passed on in the forms of stable rules，but can only be acquired unconsciously through exposure to the language.On the whole，these linguists all agree that the goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence and a learner who acquires communicative competence should acquire both the knowledge of TL and the ability to use the language in the context.Alan Davies wrote a paper named Proficiency or the native speaker：what are we trying to achieve in ELT？，in which the author discussed two goals of teaching，one has been mentioned above，the rest is the proficiency goal.

\"We may define proficiency in a number of ways.For example(Elder，forthcoming)：

1.a general type of knowledge of or competence in the use of a language，regardless of how，whether or under what conditions it has been acquired；

2.the ability to do something specific in the language，for example，proficiency in English to study in higher education in the UK，proficiency to work as a foreign language teacher of a particular language in the United States，proficiency in Japanese to act as a tour guide in Australia；

3.performance as measured by a particular testing procedure.Some procedures are so widely used that levels of performance on them(e.g.'superior'，'intermediate'，'novice' on the FSI scales)have become common currency in particular circles as indicators of language proficiency.\"

The definitions is cited from the book 《Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics》 written by Guy Cook，in which he holds this belief-for language teaching what is critical is the definability of partial proficiency.Despite all the favorable claims for the communicative approach，it has not in fact led to a satisfactory level of communicative skill in the vast majority of classes.Harmer argues，\"...for students to have communicative efficiency，they should have a grasp of the major grammatical concepts that are essential for any language user\".Batstone also argues that language without grammar would be chaotic：countless words without the indispensable guidelines for how they can be ordered and modified.Ellis(1992)，has also argued that grammar teaching does aid SAL.Between the two totally different views，grammar is regarded as an important part of proficiency in this paper，in other words，I define it as grammatical proficiency.Many foreign language teachers and language researchers have been researching functions of grammar in FLT，on which，generally speaking，consensus cannot be reached due to the impact by different grammar theories and teaching methodologies held by them.Hu Zhuanglin、Dai Weidong and other prestigious scholars have called on that great importance should be given to grammar in FLT.Meanwhile they also point out that grammar is inextricably connected with language use and language learning.This paper discusses grammar plays a positive role in improving their communicative competence as well as language accuracy for the EFL learners，and corresponding proposals are put forward in learning/teaching grammar.

Ⅱ.Grammar plays a positive role in improving their communicative competence as well as language accuracy for the L2 learners

As is known to all，SLL(second language learning)is an immensely complex phenomenon.Let's look at a typical 'model' of SLL shown in the figure1，which is taken from Spolsky，1989.

Figure1

The model encapsulates this researcher's views on the overall relationship between contextual factors.This paper does not take many of those into consideration.Let's just simplify it and see the process of how grammar plays a positive role in improving their communicative competence as well as language accuracy for the EFL learners.The relation among them is represented in the following figure.

Figure2

Notes of figure2：

The transition between Chinese and English(communicative competence)can be manifested in various forms like listening，speaking，reading，writing and translating.In process 3 and 4，the function of grammar is less emphasized even ignored.While in process 1 and 2，grammar plays an intermediate function in the transition between Chinese and English.Compared with process 3 and 4，it is assumed that the accuracy of transition can be significantly promoted in the transition in the paper.As far as grammar is concerned，it is also a complicated concept as there are many different understandings.So first several types of grammar are listed as following：

a.prescribe grammar-grammar that 'prescribe' what people should say

b.traditional grammar-'school' grammar concerned with labeling sentences with parts of speech

c.structural grammar-grammar that concerned with how words go into phrases，phrases into sentences

d.grammatical(linguistic)competence-the native speaker's knowledge of language communicative competence：the speaker's ability to put language to communicative use

e.pragmatic competence-the speaker's ability to use language for a range of public and private functions，including communication

f.grammar is concerned with the description and analysis of stretches of utterance or stretches of writing，and with grouping and classification of their recurrent elements by virtue of the functional places they occupy and the relations they contract with one another.

The fourth definition is often mentioned in the field of SLA.By competence，Chomsky is referring to the abstract and hidden representation of language knowledge held inside our minds，with its potential to create and understand original utterances in a given language.This view has been influential in much SLL research.All speakers know the grammar of their language in this sense without having to study it.Such as an adult native English speaker knows the ways of making irregular past tenses：go-went，have-had，quit-quit/quitted etc，but for L2 learners，they sometimes make this kind of mistakes.According to a survey conducted in NEDU among the freshmen two years ago，57.89% of the 76 examinees made grammatical mistakes in CET-4 when translating and 67.1% of them were found the similar problem in their compositions.This is a very different type of knowledge from the ability to describe the sentence he can produce in terms of grammar，something only learners who have been taught explicit 'grammar' can do.Viewed from Krashen's output hypothesis，the output ability is up to the internalized language knowledge.So grammar here means the knowledge of language that the speaker possesses in the mind.Judging from the above statistics，a conclusion can be drawn：the more the L2 learner tried to output，the more mistakes can be found，the more sure that much importance should be given to grammar in order to strengthen language accuracy.It is a quite common phenomenon for L2 learners that they make mistakes when listening，speaking，reading，writing and translating.Let's see the following four sentences：

Sentence a：It is five years since I smoked.

Sentence b：It is five years since I began to smoke

Sentence c：It has been five years since I smoked

Sentence d：It has been five years since I began to smoke

In terms of these four sentences，it is quite easy for a L2 learner to make mistakes in the five aspects：listening，speaking，reading，writing and translating.Actually，sentence a，b and c have the same meaning：I have smoked for five years.But sentence a is quite different from the rest，it means\"I have quit smoking for five years\".In most cases，L2 learners misunderstood sentence a for sentence b，c，d and e.Let's check how it happens by analyzing with figure 2.Learners use grammar to analyze its meaning when seeing a sentence.Then meaning is formed in their mind.In this case，the process is like this：input→grammar→idea.But when writing，the process is just reverse.The data in the survey indicates that grammatical proficiency can greatly improve writing.Generally speaking，compositions written by those who have little grammar knowledge is confused，while those with high degree of grammatical proficiency can write logically and clearly.In other words，those that leap over the intermediate-grammar can not write as clearly as those not.Thus it is easy to see that a key reason to account for the reason that they make the mistakes is the lack of explicit grammar for the L2 learners.The ideas will be accurately transferred from the L2 learners if an explicit grammar is available and accessible to them.That is to say，grammar enables L2 learners to write in an academic way，and helps them communicate more skillfully because it minimizes confusion.So that grammar plays a positive role in improving language accuracy for the L2 learners should not be ignored.On the contrary，much more attention should be paid to it.

Traditionally，the outcomes of listening，speaking，reading，writing and translating are specific embodiment of a L2 learner's language skill.Of all the five aspects，listening and speaking which are still the two respects of one's communicative competence，are considered to be more important by those who advocate communicative function.Let's come back to the figure 2 to interpret how grammar plays a positive role in developing listening and speaking.Rivers ever pointed out\"'utterances' do not constitute communication，otherwise，they are understood by others\"，which shows that understanding utterances is key to realize communication.So to speak，listening is boring headache for L2 learners.Sometimes they are familiar with the words they hear but they are not quite confident in themselves.It is because in the process of listening，some phonological rules such as nasalization rule，aspiration rule，velarization rule etc are beyond acquisition.These become the blocks in understanding utterances.What if the speaker had had this kind of knowledge？ It is obvious that communication between them can become much easier.Furthermore，it is inevitable to experience long sentences in communication，which is another barrier to understand the speaker's idea accurately.It is necessary to master basic sentence patterns，in English，there are seven sentence patterns basically：SV，SVO，SVC，SVA SVOO，SVOC and SVOA.It is far from enough to know this，more grammar knowledge on phrases and clauses helps a lot.Take the following sentences for example：

Sentence f：The managers discussed the plan that they would like to see carried out the next year.

Sentence g：The boy found a book on the ground.

All the examinees are required to paraphrase the two sentences in their own words.It is astonishing to find out that 45% of them feel confused about sentence f and 80% of them can not recognize sentence g is ambiguous.The statistics shows that lack of grammar can lead to misunderstanding.In this sense，strengthening grammar can make listening，to some extent，communication，be easier.Chomsky ever said that language is a rule-governed system，learning a language is not to imitate but to master rules，by which people can understand the utterances they never heard of and speak out utterances that were not ever produced.As far as speaking is concerned，the process is quite similar to writing process.It can be rewritten like this idea→grammar→output.Despite difference of forms，the relation between grammar and speaking is nearly the same as that between grammar and writing.No more explanation is given here.

Ⅲ.Proposals on L2 learning/teaching of grammar

It is clear that grammar is knowledge in the mind rather than rules in a book； one crucial end-product of teaching is that students should be able to 'know' language in an unconscious sense so that they can put it good use.Teacher has to pay attention to the internal processes and knowledge the students are building up in their minds.The key to solve it is to raise grammar consciousness in teaching-the drawing of the learner's attention to features of the target language，which requires teachers to often remind students of the standard usage of grammar.Thus，teachers should be professionally trained firstly to acquaint themselves with grammar comprehensively.What can teachers do to help the L2 learners focus on a specific grammar point？ Sharwood-Smith(1988)provides some insights into the teacher guidance in the discovery learning process：

\"the discovery of regularities in the TL，whether blindly intuitive or conscious，or coming in between these two extremes，will always be self-discovery.The question is to what extent that discovery is guided by the teacher.The guidance，where consciousness-raising is involved...can be more or less direct or explicit.\"

As far as the corresponding teaching methodology is concerned，the focus-on-form and focus-on-forms are quite popular.Maybe the mediate way between the two can function better in L2 teaching.That is to combine the two together.L2 teaching can not just focus on either forms or meanings.Correct form should gain priority over confused meaning，which is in a degree similar to PPP(presentation-practice-production)grammar teaching.What's more，Ellis(1993)proposes two kinds of awareness-raising(consciousness-raising)grammar teaching：

1.Awareness- raising for noticing：to focus on learners' attention on the meanings performed by specific grammatical properties and to help learners to intake(a necessary step for internalization of the feature as implicit knowledge).That is，to induce learners to notice and understand features of grammar in the input processing.

2.Awareness- raising for explicit knowledge：to help learners to learn about a particular grammatical feature by developing an explicit representation of how it works in the target language.That is，to supply learners with the data and then they need to discover the rules for themselves.

Accordingly，Maccarthy and Carter(1995)advocate the teaching paradigm III(illustration-interaction-induction).The consciousness-raising approach in grammar teaching can be realized in different ways，and there are numerous techniques.Anyway the claim that formal instruction helps L2 learners to develop L2 grammatical proficiency is strongly supported in this paper，as Ellis said grammar learning through formal instruction could facilitate language acquisition.In addition，a paper named A New Angle on Grammar Teaching：Explicit Consciousness-raising Task Model written by professor DaiWeidong was published in Foreign Language World in 2006.It is strongly recommended to read that paper for teachers.However，it is far more important for L2 learners to be more autonomous and active in learning.For one thing，it is necessary for L2 learners to do more drills after class in order to consolidate what they have learnt，for another thing，L2 learners are seldom linked with opportunities for TL exposure.To get over this adverse situation，L2 learners are required to take initiatives to extend reading，listening and speaking.The similar native context or situation is easy to be realized by artificial efforts，especially today when the whole word is experiencing globalization，and new technologies are adopted in learning.Rich materials manifested in various forms as voice，text，video etc can be found and downloaded from the internet.These materials make SLL learning become more interesting.They can participate in many activities involving native English speakers.It is acceptable to say practice makes perfect.To sum it up，L2 learners should follow the following steps：

a.acquaint themselves with the concept of grammar

b.practice through reading extensively，listening broadly and speaking usually

c.do more drills to check grammatical proficiency

Ⅳ.Conclusion

In the history of SLL/ELT，although the role of grammar is controversial，the pendulum swings from this to that，and no matter what kind of teaching concepts as well as pedagogies，the place of grammar teaching and learning is indispensable and essential.It is assumed that knowing more about grammar is to give learners greater choice and control over the TL as expressive and interpretative medium，and is to empower learners to use grammar as central to the creation of meaning.(Carter，1990)Indeed，SLA is influenced by many factors listed in figure 1.1，of which the paper thinks of grammar is of importance.How grammar plays a positive role in improving their communicative competence as well as language accuracy for the EFL learners is illustrated generally and importance is attached to consciousness-raising approach，what's more，other proposals are given for L2 learners to reach grammatical proficiency.Views on the role of grammarwill still be discrepant among different practitioners.This paper is not to make people reach a consensus on the role of grammar but to call on teachers and learners not to ignore grammar.Also，this paper intends to start further discussion on this issue，hoping that more proposals will be put forward.

［參考文獻］

［1］Andrew D.Cohen.Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2000.

［2］Cook，Vivian.Second Language Learning and Language Teaching Second Edition，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2000.

［3］Diane Larsen-Freeman and Michael H.Long.An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research，London ； New York ：Longman，1991.

［4］Ellis.Implicit and Explicit Learning of Language，Language Teaching Research，1998.

［5］Guy Cook.Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics，Shang Hai Foreign Language Education Press，2008.

［6］Hellen Goodluck.Language Acquisition：A Linguistic Introduction，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2000.

［7］Hymes.D.H.On Communicative Competence，University of Pennsylvania Press，1971.

［8］Krashen.Second Language Acquisition and Second Language learning，Oxford：Pergamon.2004.

［9］Krashen，D.Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition，Pergamon，2002.

［10］R.H.Robins.General Linguistics ，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2007.

［11］Saeed，John I.Semantics，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2001.

［12］Sharwood-Smith，Grammar and Second Language Teaching，Newbury House Pub.，1988.

［13］Schmidt，R.The role of consciousness in second language learning［J］.Applied Linguistics，1990(11).

［14］Widdowson，H.G.Teaching Language as Communication，Oxford University Press，1978.

［15］郝興躍：《20世紀90年代以來國外語法教學的新趨勢》，《外語屆》2004年4月。

［16］戴煒棟、陳莉萍：《二語語法教學理論綜述》，《外語教學與研究》2005年3月。

［17］高遠：《增強語法意識 加強語法教學》，《外國語言文學研究》2006年1月。

［18］晨梅梅：《英語語法習得探析》，《語言研究》2004年2月。

［19］戴煒棟、任慶梅：《語法教學的新視角：外顯意識增強式任務模式》，《外語屆》2006年1月。

［20］顧琦一：《輸出假說剖析》，《外語學刊》2006年2月。

(責任編輯：郭媛媛)