| Article Summary: Language is unintelligible without grammar because grammar is the rules used to string words together into units which convey meaning. The issue is not whether or not a student learning English as a second language needs to know grammar. The question is how grammar is best taught. |
I had the great advantage of growing up in a home in which grammatically correct English was spoken. As I progressed through grade school and into high school, my language ability matured as a result of my home and school environments.
In retrospect, I believe this is what happened. For the most part, I used proper sentence structure and pronunciation because that is what I heard in my home. However, when I went to school, I needed to "learn" grammar. I—like probably most of my classmates—did not learn to speak because I studied grammar. Rather, I learned how to do grammar exercises because I already knew how to speak.
Certainly, I learned many important things about my language through grammar study. But the primary value of English grammar came about because I already had language fluency commensurate to my age group. I did not learn to speak English as a result of English grammar lessons.
English grammar was valuable. It gave me a greater understanding of my language. But it was of importance to me only because I had already achieved basic English fluency.
On the other hand, I also took two years of Spanish in high school. We started with basic grammar. We wrote exercises every day. But we almost never heard spoken Spanish, much less spoke it ourselves. (Language instruction in the United States has changed considerably since I was in high school.) After graduation from high school, I could neither speak Spanish, nor did I understand Spanish grammar.
Within 10 years of my high school graduation, I spent a year in Paris studying French. I had the great fortune of enrolling in a French language school that emphasized spoken French to the complete exclusion of written exercises. Not only did I learn French grammar (meaning, that I learned to use sentences that communicated what I intended to say to a French listener), but I began to understand the Spanish grammar which made no sense to me in high school. Because I could read and write in English, I had no difficulty reading French. It was a simple transfer of knowledge from reading in English, to reading in French.
Later I learned another language in Africa. Because school-based language courses were almost non-existent in that country, all of my language training was done with recorded language drills adapted from local radio broadcasts. Yet, I learned how to structure a sentence in that language—which is applied grammar—and how to write much more quickly than had I been studying grammar and writing independently of the spoken language.
ESL has reversed the process for non-English speaking students with poor results. The quickest way to teach international students to read English is to teach them to speak first. The fastest way to teach them sufficient grammar to pass college entrance exams is to build a foundation by teaching them to speak fluent English. Then they will understand English grammar. And finally, it is almost impossible to teach non-English speaking students how to write well before they have mastered basic spoken English. Whenever the process is reversed, it takes an unnecessarily long time to succeed in teaching grammar and writing skills much less spoken language fluency.
But do not misunderstand what I am saying. One cannot speak any language—fluently or otherwise—without knowing the grammar of that language. That is true because grammar is the rules used in that language to string words together as units to convey meaning. (In English we call these units sentences or paragraphs.) In English, we can use a given number of words to make a statement or ask a question by the way in which we order the words and use inflection. Simply stated, placing the words in the correct order is applied grammar.
The issue is not whether or not a student learning English as a second language needs to know grammar. Language is unintelligible without it. The question is how grammar is best taught.
For the answer, we must go back to our model of the three speech functions which are, 1) cognitive learning, 2) motor skill development, and 3) auditory feedback. (See the article, A technical comparison of Spoken English Learned Quickly and ESL courses.) In that article, I said that the most expedient way to teach these three functions is to teach them equally and simultaneously. So when is the best time to introduce the grammar rule that the sentence order "That is a book." is an English statement, and "Is that a book?" is an English question? The best time is when the student simultaneously learns how to speak these two sentences. That would take place while learning a large number of similar sentences so that he or she develops a cognitive sense reinforced by motor skill and auditory feedback that the order and inflection of the one sentence is asking a question, while the other is giving an answer. The sound of the sentence is as much an indicator of its meaning as its written form. Right? Right!
Though a student will never write any grammar exercise in Spoken English Learned Quickly, every lesson—by design—is filled with spoken grammar exercises. (See Spoken English Learned Quickly on www.FreeEnglishNow.com.)
There is also a relationship between good pronunciation and good spelling. I am a poor speller. I understand that some of my problem stems from poor pronunciation of many of the words I misspell. At some point, everyone who will write English well must study spelling. Yet, it will probably be faster for a student to learn good spelling after learning good speech habits than it would be for the same student to learn good spelling in the absence of the ability to speak. (In practice, in a spoken language course such as Spoken English Learned Quickly, the student learns the spelling of each word as it is added to the vocabulary for a new lesson.)
I am not saying that grammar or spelling are unnecessary for the new English learner. Rather, I am saying that grammar can be taught more effectively—and in less time—using audio language drills. Teaching grammar with spoken language has the great advantage of reinforcing the cognitive learning of grammar while using two additional functions found in normal speech—motor skill feedback and auditory feedback. Teaching grammar as a written exercise does develop cognitive learning, but it reinforces it with visual feedback. Though visual feedback is effective, it is outside the context of spoken language. Therefore, while using written grammar exercises, the single reinforcement of visual feedback outside of the spoken language context replaces motor skill feedback and auditory feedback which are both inside the spoken language context. The tradeoff is costly and retards progress. Far more is gained when the student identifies correct grammar by the way a sentence sounds rather than by the way it looks. (Though you would not typically explain it this way, it is also important on a subconscious level that the student learns how correct grammar feels. As a function of the kinesthetic sense, a statement produces a certain sequence of sensory feedback from the mouth, tongue and air passages that feels different than a question. A speech pathologist working with children's speech problems will pay a great deal of attention to this part of speech during retraining.)
It will take considerably longer to teach a non-English speaking student how to manipulate English grammar, and then speak English correctly, than it will to teach the same student to first speak English correctly, and then introduce rules of grammar. This gain will be greatly augmented, however, if the rules of grammar are incorporated into the spoken English lessons themselves.
A year spent exclusively in spoken English study with the Spoken English Learned Quickly course will produce a marked degree of English fluency. With that English fluency, the student will gain a functional understanding of English grammar. The same amount of time spent in English grammar study will produce limited English fluency, with the result that there will also be little practical understanding of English grammar.
Why ESL doesn't work (very well).
A technical comparison of Spoken English Learned Quickly and ESL.
Can beginning and advanced students use the same lessons?
What is ASE (Accelerated Spoken English)?
Socialization versus language instruction.
