An Inductive Approach to Young Learner Grammar

Academic Leadership Journal in Student Research, 2013

understanding (Krashen, 2008) or if learners require some explicit knowledge of grammatical rules in order to help compensate for changes in learners' cognitive abilities (Ellis, 2008). Therefore, explicit grammar instruction continues to be a contentious issue in SLA and much attention has been devoted to understanding its effectiveness in developing learners' grammatical competence and performance. The attention this issue continues to receive, despite the prevalence of explicit grammar instruction in many English for academic purposes (EAP) settings, can be attributed in part to the lingering influence of strong versions of communication-based approaches to grammar instruction, which have emphasised attention to communication with little or no attention to grammatical forms (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011). On the one hand, some researchers and practitioners contend that explicit instruction of grammar, which refers to raising awareness of the grammatical rules of the language, is necessary for learners' linguistic development because it leads to learners' noticing of their own errors. Consequently, this causes learners to reconstruct their own understanding about grammatical structures (Batstone & Ellis, 2009). On the other hand, some view explicit instruction of grammar as ineffective as students have shown to be capable of acquiring grammatical structures implicitly through repeated exposures to input, without awareness of the rules (Krashen, 2008). Additionally, this debate is linked to several other issues in SLA, including: explicit vs. implicit knowledge,

2000

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 2004

With the rise of communicative methodology in the late 1970s, the role of grammar instruction in second language learning was downplayed, and it was even suggested that teaching grammar was not only unhelpful but might actually be detrimental. However, recent research has demonstrated the need for formal instruction for learners to attain high levels of accuracy. This has led to a resurgence of grammar teaching, and its role in second language acquisition has become the focus of much current investigation. In this chapter we briefly review the major developments in the research on the teaching of grammar over the past few decades. This review addresses two main issues: (1) whether grammar teaching makes any difference to language learning; and (2) what kinds of grammar teaching have been suggested to facilitate second language learning. To this end, the chapter examines research on the different ways in which formal instruction can be integrated with communicative activities. Continuing in the tradition of more than 2000 years of debate regarding whether grammar should be a primary focus of language instruction, should be eliminated entirely, or should be subordinated to meaning-focused use of the target language (for historical reviews see Howatt, 1984; Kelly, 1969), the need for grammar instruction is once again attracting the attention of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and teachers. We briefly review arguments against and in support of grammar teaching before examining the approaches to grammatical instruction investigated in current research. 1

Foreign Language Annals, 1993

ABSTRACT This article focuses on a reconceptualization of the nature of instruction in grammar for the acquisition-rich, communicative classroom. Beginning with the acknowledgment that comprehensible meaning-bearing input is necessary for second language acquisition, traditional instruction as explanation plus output practice is questioned. It is then suggested that grammar instruction would be more congruent with overall instruction if it were input oriented. The article then outlines a type of input-based instruction in grammar called “processing instruction,” citing empirical evidence for its usefulness in addition to offering suggestions for continued exploration of grammar instruction

Effectiveness of Grammar Instruction in L2 Acquisition, 2018

This literary review reports on the role of grammar teaching in second language acquisition by reviewing several publications on explicit and implicit approaches in language teaching. Findings show that explicit grammar instruction gains advantage over implicit instruction, and certain instructional types are more effective than others. Explicit grammar teaching should be part of a school’s second language curriculum, but it should be considered how and to what extent it should be taught, in order to provide a balanced approach towards language teaching.

Online Submission, 2009

There are many arguments for putting grammar in the foreground in second language teaching. Here are seven of them: 1) The sentence-machine argument Part of the process of language learning must be what is sometimes called item-learningthat is the memorisation of individual items such as words and phrases. However, there is a limit to the number of items a person can both retain and retrieve. Even travellers' phrase books have limited usefulness -good for a three-week holiday, but there comes a point where we need to learn some patterns or rules to enable us to generate new sentences. That is to say, grammar. Grammar, after all, is a description of the regularities in a language, and knowledge of these regularities provides the learner with the means to generate a potentially enormous number of original sentences. The number of possible new sentences is constrained only by the vocabulary at the learner's command and his or her creativity. Grammar is a kind of 'sentence-making machine'. It follows that the teaching of grammar offers the learner the means for potentially limitless linguistic creativity.

2010