Dear FLE 324 members,
You can choose to comment on the article 'Teaching grammar as a liberating force' if you like. Please also consider the following point in your reflection as well:
Do you find grammar as a liberating force for EFL teachers and/or students? In what ways, to what extent and why do you think so? In what ways do you agree or disagree with the author?
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Emine EREN
ReplyDelete'Teaching grammar as a liberating force'
I think grammar has a huge role in communication and also for language learning. It helps conveying the meaning. In tarzanic ways (just using lexical and linguistic item , The) we can express something we want to tell to some extent, however this does not continue for a long time. For effective communication and to make our expression richer, grammar is an inevitable tool.
Grammar is stated as liberating force in the article. According to it three elements which are learner choice, lexis to grammar, comparing texts and noticing gaps, should be in grammar teaching. In addition there are four types of tasks are given as examples which are grammaticization tasks, synthesis tasks, dictogloss and picture composition. As prospective teacher, these examples of tasks would be useful for our long term plans in grammar teaching. With the help of them, the students would have a chance to see the grammar in real life texts (authentic) and this would ease their acquisition.
To sum up, the teacher help the learners in grammar point by showing them grammar as an aid to communication and as a part of the language not as only boring and strict rules, so the fluency in learning a language would be provided.
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Pınar GACAN
ReplyDelete1620079
TEACHING GRAMMAR AS A LIBERATING FORCE
The article named “Teaching grammar as a liberating force” actually gave me some new insights and viewpoints about grammar teaching. Normally, grammar is seen as possessing some restrictions for communicating clearly. It is thought that it represses students rather than gives them choices over their own learning. However, in order to be able to communicate the verbal meaning with shortest lexis, non-verbal features and gestures, grammar is one of the most important features of a language. The writer’s example of “dog eat meat” shows us clearly that a lot of meanings can be inferred from these 3 words. Grammar is the one that allows us to make distinctions and to convey our messages with the use of the article system, number, tense and aspect. According to the writer, grammar is a liberating force in this sense. In addition, grammar allows us to indicate differences in ‘notional and attitudinal meaning’. Especially the notion of grammar as a liberating force takes a central role in communicative language approach and kind of process learning. Another reason for considering grammar as a liberating force is to focus on form and output tasks. Focusing on grammatical points when they arise in the contexts raises students’ acquisition of that structure.
According to the writer, there are three elements in teaching grammar as a liberating force. These are learner choice, lexis to grammar and comparing text and noticing gaps. Learner choice is important for every field of education because having a choice over the structures they want to learn gives students an aim to learn that structure. The second element suggests that when students are required to produce grammar, they are expected to apply grammar rules to simple words in which the grammar has been reduced such as newspaper headlines. Such tasks, according to the writer, involve a progression from lexis to grammar. These tasks help the students to develop the potential meaning in lexical items by applying grammar rules into the words. The third feature is related to task-based approach in that it also focuses on grammatical forms which arise from their communicative needs. There are some noticing gaps in students’ use of grammar and these gaps are noticed in a process of comparing outputs on a language task with others’ outputs. This really helps students to develop sensitivity to the target language.
In the lights of these information, the writes proposes four tasks which are grammaticization tasks, synthesis tasks, dictogloss and picture composition tasks. All of these tasks include the writer’s three important features. In the first type of tasks, the students are given sentences which are grammatically reduced. They are expected to expand the sentences by applying grammar rules. This activity gives a freedom to the students. Learner choice to use certain grammatical structures also gives autonomy over their own learning. The aim of the second type of task is to make students form longer sentences by using shorter sentences. In other words, it is sentence combination. Dictogloss and picture composition are also the variations of grammaticization. Like the other ones, it also requires students to reconstruct an original text by adding more grammar to it.
All of these activities are applicable. They may be good post activities or pre tasks. However, I think they aren’t enough to teach every grammatical feature in a language. Sometimes, we have to preselect some language items. Nevertheless, if these activities could be used in a balanced way and in appropriate classes and levels, they may be enhancing and enjoyable for the students. At least, they can see that grammar also has some fun!
Sahura Ertuğrul
ReplyDeleteThe grammar is, for me, the soil mixture of the language if the lexis is the bricks of the language. That is; grammar keeps the lexis together and help them compose correct meanings. How can the grammar be a liberating force if it serves as a linking power? In this article, I founded some answers for this question and I concluded that grammar gives economic speech freedom and freedom of expression to the speaker while restricting the number and free movement of the lexis. One freedom arises by stepping on the other one.
The lexis is the base of the telegraphic speech. The telegraphic speech well works when looked at the child’s speech. However, a child does not have a complex world understanding; that is, s/he can survive if his/her basic needs are met and it is enough for him/her to give just clue about his/her needs. The child’s speech does not include any detailed information about his/her attitudes, feelings, ideas, or any specific time, characteristics. For example; for a hungry Turkish child, it is enough to just say “mama”. When the child grows up and his/her world becomes complicated, s/he gradually begins to use grammar structure to express himself/herself. The article also supports this point and it suggests following a path like this to teach grammar. If the learners learn the language according to their needs with the freedom to choose the structure, the grammar saves them from long and ambiguous expressions. They do not have to order a lot of words to speak about what they think, how it affects them, when and how often it appears and what kind of thing it is; they can state all of them in just one sentence with correct grammar structure. However, the learner is not obliged to use a preselected structure for his/her thoughts because, in this way, their creativity and fluency are restricted. Let them free to express themselves in a way they want to and the teachers just should show them the functions of these structures, other ways to express the same things and their expression’s correctness without much interference. If the grammar use develops gradually in correlation with language acquisition, it does not prevent learner’s fluency; rather than, it accelerates to improve their speech and give them freedom of correct expression. Language is a tool to communicate and so its parts are too. Therefore, if the learner expresses themselves correctly and communicates well, there is no need to give much importance on the type of the grammar structure or lexis.
The all of the activities in the article to improve the fluency of the grammar use are related to the writing. It is true that the grammar use can be seen well on the writing but in communication the speeches are also very important. Therefore; some video records of free speeches on the same topic can be used or learners can make imprompt speech on the same topic and their speech can be recorded and it can be used as a course material to show liberating power of the grammar.
This point of view for teaching grammar can change the prejudice for grammar and liberate it to be used effectively. In this way, both teachers and learners can enjoy in the grammar class and learners can begin to speak fluently and freely with the good use of grammar.
GRAMMAR as LIBERATING FORCE
ReplyDeleteThere are many people around world claiming that actually there is no need to have grammar in order to communicate. They are right to some degree that without grammar and just relying on lexicon or words people can communicate and convey their messages. A good example might be small kids who are acquiring the language and who try to convey their messages sometimes through one word utterances like “daddy, mama, dog, cat, water”. However those utterances can only be understood by their near interlocutors since they share lots of thing in common, specifically the context. On the other hand, for an outsider those utterances lack preciseness and purpose, because they do not reflect exactly what they want to with those words, how they want it, when they want it or how much/many they want it. As it is mentioned in the article only grammar can help us understand those details. It reduces the burden of sharing the exact context with the speaker, it enables us to understand exact without or less struggle. So, grammar is not restrictive and repressing, rather it is liberating and refreshing.
I believe that grammar is really liberating and it is essential for a well-framed, fully comprehensible and fluent communication. Thus, seeing it as something burden and problem does not help us to enhance and develop our communication skills. As language teacher we should perceive liberating side of grammar and should expose this to our students. We should teach them with the grammar they can do better and more.
Grammar enables us to be fluent, undisturbed and confident during conversations with others. Without any background we can understand the time, the place, and the way the events occur. Also, if grammar was not helpful and we could just do communicate with words, then why did grammar exist while languages developed? So we need it, it is necessary for language like the water for body.
Seeing grammar as liberating in our classes has a lot of advantageous. First of all our students choose the structure they want to express, a way to increase autonomous learner profile. Students move from lexicon to grammar which enables them to express and comprehend more.
The activities or tasks recommended by the author like “grammaticization tasks, synthesis tasks etc. makes our students gain more confidence and strength in their using grammar and accelerating their grammar learning.
I believe that “with the grammar, wor(l)d becomes more meaningful”.
MEHMET DURMAZ / 1620004
In the article teaching grammar as a liberating force, Richard Cullen argued that contrary to the common belief grammar gives the learners freedom to produce and use their own sentences, and make them free from the boundries of their lexical knowledge. I completely share this idea. I imagine that without any knowledge of grammar the learners of a foreign language will be in great trouble. Epecially in the first phases of learning a language, even in our native language, we were dependent mostly on our lexical knowledge, and if we had not gain any grammatical knowledge in the other phases of learning the language our creativity in the language and our communication skills would be significantly lower than it is now. Particularly we, who are exposed to the foreign language in only the classroom environment, have a limited access to the lexicon and context. So the importance of grammar and its "liberating force" as stated in the article are even greater for us.
ReplyDeleteThe author suggests that the grammar is in the learners' choice, that is the learner will choose which structure to use in conveying a message. I believe that this characteristic of grammar is its most important liberating feature. For example; a person who does not know the different grammatical structures that can be used in requesting, could always use the only lexical item that he/she knows or hears for requesting. Lets say this item is the sentence "May I have ...?" As this learners lack of this grammatical knowledge of the language does not allow him/her to know the formality of this utterance, he/she will continue to use it in every situation and context, even with the close friends. This condition may also lead to a misunderstanding. One of the close friends of this person who is aware of the structure may even think that the person does not feel as close to him/her as the friend feels. Thus the lack of grammar knowledge may cause big problems in communication.
I also find te tasks that the author describes in the article quite interesting and beneficial. With the help of such free tasks the students may feel that they have alternatives while using the language they are learning, and also such kind of activities can help the teachers a lot in determining and measuring the level of students in particular grammar structures by looking at the frequencies of their usage and mistakes.
When looked from this perspective, it is clear that learning grammar is actually gives the learners a great amount of freedom.
I have always thought that grammar is the most important aspect of a language. What is language for? To communicate. OK, well but we cannot communicate accurately, send the message we want to send without grammar as the author also suggests by stating that "It is grammar that allows us to make these finer distinctions in
ReplyDeletemeaning". Without grammar, a learner would not understand what a text says (reading), what someone is talking about (listening) and also he won't be able to convey his ideas either via writing or speaking. Grammar is also important, as the author announces and I agree with " communication of meaning—is also deployed in
expressing attitudinalmeanings, such as approval, disapproval, politeness,
abruptness, and social intimacy or distance". He also argues that "As language users, we may wish to be very clear about what we want to say,
or deliberately ambiguous, or non-committal.Wemaywish to sound polite,
distant, direct, or even rude.We maywish to convey formality or informality
according to the context in which we are operating. To do all these things,
speakers use the linguistic resources which the grammar of the language makes available to them"
These are all about communication; the reason of the language itself.
The author identifies three aspects to use in grammar teaching: learners' choice (making a free and conscious choice -of course within the correct choices.), lexis to grammar (a progression from lexis to grammar both in the way language and materials are presented)and lastly comparing texts and noticing gaps (allowing the learners
to focus on grammatical forms which arise from their communicative needs, and in particular as a result of noticing gaps in their own use of
grammar. Making the students free about the structures and meanings they want to convey will surely decrease the common misconceptions about grammar to be a restrictive thing which tells us what to do and what not to do. Lexis to grammar which also helps grammaticization learners experience the process of using
their grammatical resources to develop themeaning potential contained in
the lexical items and express a range of meanings which the words alone
could not convey and thus will learn the importance of the grammar. Last aspect, will help them monitor themselves, reviewing and comparing is a very useful method because students must be able to know and monitor what they know, whether they are behind of the class or not in order to adjust their efforts.Through a sustained programme of comparing and noticing ‘gaps’ and differences, to enable them to develop their proficiency and sensitivity in the target language to increasingly more advanced levels.
Later, he suggests some activities and methods for grammar teaching, all of which I find useful and applicable. I totally agree with the author and hope that misconceptions can be overcome by taking this right steps.
TEACHING GRAMMAR AS A LIBERATING FORCE
ReplyDeleteGrammar is said to be liberating force in the article. I totally agree with this idea because grammar is essential in communication. People can tell very little things without grammar. Thanks to grammar we can see how rich languages are. Grammar is a liberating force as people can tell many ideas by using grammar. Some people find grammar teaching as repressing and restrictive but it is more than that. If people don’t need grammar, every language would not have grammar rules. How can we write a letter or mail quickly without grammar? How can we present our ideas successfully without using grammatical structures? If you think about it, you can find that grammar is liberating, it is not repressing. Grammar also makes easier language learning and it saves us from big trouble.
According to the article, if we wish to present grammar to our learners as something which is liberating and empowering,we should aim to reflect this. In the article it is proposed that an approach to teaching grammar as a liberating force should include the following three elements: learner choice, lexis to grammar, comparing texts and noticing gaps. Furthermore there are four types of tasks are given as examples which are grammaticization tasks, synthesis tasks, dictogloss and picture composition. As prospective teachers we can apply them while teaching grammar and we can accelerate students’ grammar learning.
In conclusion, I found the article really useful and I liked the way of grammar teaching is explained. I agree with the liberating force because grammar gives people the freedom of expressing themselves however they like.
ECE ŞAHİN 1620764
ReplyDeleteTEACHING GRAMMAR AS A LIBERATING FORCE
There is an ongoing debate about whether grammar is necessary to be able to communicate in a different language or not. Some people say that rather than each and every word in a sentence or conversation in the target language to be understood; just the exact of it is enough. It is true that one can communicate, or express what s/he wants to say by using just words, chunks etc. However, some people argue that grammar is important for accuracy. Especially, if the target language is learned for lifelong processes, just being fluent or communicative is never enough, the person will always feel the necessity of grammar accuracy in his/her language activities. Moreover, in the article, the liberating force of the grammar is discussed. The author claims that grammar is a liberating aspect in that it enables the learners to be freer and less districted while producing the language. If a learner knows the basic grammatical points and some necessary basic vocabulary info, that learner is free to compose many sentences in the target language. However, this will not be possible by just knowing some words or chunks. Grammar is always a necessity in this. Also, with the help of grammar, a learner can make more meaningful communicative language learning activities. As I said, just by words or chunks, one can tell what he wants to say, but to be communicative, which is supposed to be between at least two people, grammar is necessary to be produced and understood. Without grammar, the sentences, words, chunks will never be enough to make a real conversation. The user of the language would be much more confident, liberal and comfortable while producing the language with the help of grammar. In the article in which the author interprets the writings of other authors who wrote about this issue, the writer criticizes some of the activities that are proposed by those authors in terms of their being communicative or effective in the classroom context with learners. However, despite the criticism, he is in the same opinion with them in that grammar is a liberating force which provides learners many of possibilities to improve their foreign language while learning. Also, as a future teacher of English, in my classroom, I should always take into consideration the issues such as to which degree I should give importance to grammar teaching, language skills improving. While doing this, I should regard the students’ levels, their interests, abilities and wishes. So, a teacher of English should organize his/her program compatible with the language purposes, grammar, reading, writing etc..
In this article, the writers view grammar from a different point of view. According to Cullen, grammar is a liberating force in teaching language. What does he mean by liberating? I infer that he tries to explain grammar helps language learner to grasp the meaning of a given context. Grammar is not only the structures and tenses etc. in the sentence. However, it conveys more than structural knowledge to us. When we hear a sentence, which does not have any grammar at all, we cannot be sure what message or idea is being conveyed to us. For example, when we look at the example given by Cullen, ‘dog, eat, meat’ we cannot know what the speaker certainly means. The dog might have eaten the meat in the past, or he will eat the meat in the future. When we do not use grammar in such a sentence, the only way we can use will be the use of body language; gestures etc. however, none of them will give us the exact meaning, time of the sentence. So, we need grammar to know what the speaker or message actually tries to convey. That means, grammar is a liberating force for us to interpret the meaning of such a sentence. In this sentence, grammar liberates to make the notional meaning clear. There is another way grammar helps us to make the sentence clear; attitudinal force. When we think about the example in the article ‘argued and argues’, there is a difference between two sentences. The first one is related to past and we infer that it is not valid anymore. It has either been refuted or lost its fame. However, the second sentence gives us the message that the idea is still valid and accepted. Lastly, grammar helps language learners to be creative and develop their awareness by letting them to focus on forms. Research shows us that focus on form is actually beneficent for the learners because it helps them realize their lacking points and improve themselves. Grammar liberates the language learners to get the meaning out of the context by making use of the given structures. Then, we conclude that grammar is more than what people may think it to be.
ReplyDeleteAfter talking about what it means to be a liberating force, we need to talk about how we can succeed this. We can succeed teaching grammar as a liberating force when we incorporate 3 design features in the given contexts. The first one is learner choice. We should let the learners discover the language and apply the rules freely. The second feature is that we need to incorporate lexis into grammar. We should let the learners use their grammatical knowledge to grasp the meaning of the semantic features. Lastly, we need to give texts to the learners so that they will make comparisons between them. After working on a task, we should provide the learners with the correct form of the task and let them compare their products. Besides, we need to be process-oriented to use grammar as a liberating force. We can use grammaticization tasks, synthesis tasks, dictogloss and picture composition.