The Approaches to Grammar Teaching

皇麗萍

摘要：Grammar is an important part of language learning. In the development of language teaching， there are a number of grammar teaching approaches. Among them， the more influential methods can be summarizes into the following three types： explicit， implicit and conversational. The first two are considered to be traditional grammar teaching methods， while the last one is advocated by many modern educational researchers.

關鍵詞：Approaches; Grammar teaching

1.Explicit Grammar Teaching

Ellis （1994） believed that explicit grammar teaching is to present grammar rules directly to learners and then let them practice continuously. Winitz （1996） held that explicit grammar teaching uses formal statements to teach grammar. In the practical teaching， explicit grammar teaching usually adopts deductive method. Teachers directly show the grammar rules to learners and then let them do the corresponding exercises to consolidate grammar knowledge. Grammatical knowledge points are generally classified according to the degree of difficulty and frequency off use. The task of learners is to remember these target grammar points and then consolidate them by doing drills. It can be concluded that explicit grammar teaching is inclined to focus on forms.

Although explicit grammar teaching method gives a very clear explanation for grammar knowledge， it has a few shortcomings. First of all， teachers play a negative role in the learning process. Teachers interpret grammatical rules in a boring way and force students to accept grammar rules. There is very little interaction between teachers and learners. Secondly， Shrum and Glisan （2010） considered that explicit grammar teaching method induces learners to pay more attention to grammatical form than to practical meaning and function. Learners are likely to find it is difficult to apply rigid grammatical knowledge to practical communication.

2. Implicit Grammar Teaching

Ellis （1994） maintained that implicit grammar teaching is a grammar teaching method for learners to sum up the target grammar rules from the given examples. Winitz （1996） claimed that implicit grammar teaching is for learners to understand syntax and grammar by means of contacting with language. Contrary to the explicit teaching method， which pays attention to the form， the implicit grammar teaching method advocated that learners should receive enough comprehensible input， which leads to subconscious grammar acquisition. In the practical teaching， implicit grammar teaching usually adopts inductive method. Teachers give learners enough understandable examples to let learners sum up grammar rules by themselves.

The advantage of implicit grammar teaching is that it can make full use of students’ existing experience and knowledge， from concrete to abstract and general. However， implicit teaching method needs a lot of time for sufficient language input and a plenty of appropriate language materials including target grammar points. The content of these materials need to ensure that learners can understand and digest on their own， but it is not easy to achieve in practical teaching.

3. Conversational Grammar Teaching

Conversational grammar teaching approach can be regarded as the combination of explicit grammar teaching approach and implicit grammar teaching approach. PACE teaching is a model of conversational grammar teaching. Conversational grammar teaching emphasizes the integration of grammatical into meaning. Teachers and learners construct an understanding of grammar through interaction. The purpose of conversational grammar teaching approach is to guide leaners to pay attention to the target grammar knowledge in the natural context， while the main goal of teaching is still focused on meaning and communication. Therefore， the conversational grammar teaching approach requires teachers to prepare lessons carefully in order to integrate the target grammar knowledge into the context provided by the classroom. First of all， teachers need to identify the target grammar knowledge and find the language materials that contain the relevant knowledge. These language materials must be completely real and natural， and one of the language materials highly recommended by most educators is the story. Through the teacher’s introduction of the language material， the learners will first pay attention to the meaning of the target grammar knowledge， followed by the language form. Then teacher will use highlight and other methods to make the students pay attention to the target grammar pattern in the language materials. Under the guidance of the teacher step by step， the learners will analyze and understand the comprehensive grammar knowledge points， including meaning， form and function.