English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 193grammar allows them to make mean<strong>in</strong>gs of <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly sophisticated k<strong>in</strong>ds, to escape fromthe tyranny of the here and now, not only to report events and states of affairs, but toeditorialize, and to communicate their own attitudes towards these events and affairs.Unfortunately, many courses fail to make clear the relationship between form and function.Learners are taught about the forms, but not how to use them to communicate mean<strong>in</strong>gFor example, through exercises such as the one referred to <strong>in</strong> the preced<strong>in</strong>g paragraph, theyare taught how to transform sentences from the active voice <strong>in</strong>to the passive, and back <strong>in</strong>tothe active voicc; however, they are not shown that passive forms have evolved to achievecerta<strong>in</strong> communicative ends -to enable the speaker or writer to place the communicativefocus on the action rather than on the performer of the action, to avoid referr<strong>in</strong>g to theperformer of the action. If the communicative value of alternative grammatical forms is notmade clear to learners, they come away from the classroom with the impression that thealternative forms exist merely to make th<strong>in</strong>gs difficult for them. We need an approachthrough which they learn how to form structures correctly, and also how to use them tocommunicate mean<strong>in</strong>g. Such a methodology will show learners how to use grammar to getth<strong>in</strong>gs done, socialize, obta<strong>in</strong> goods and services, and express their personality throughlanguage. In other words, it will show them how to achieve their communicative endsthrough the appropriate deployment of grammatical resources.Some practical implicationsIn the rest of this chapter I shall focus on the implications of an organic approach to languageteach<strong>in</strong>g. Such an approach offers excit<strong>in</strong>g opportunities for teachers and students to lookat language <strong>in</strong> a new way ~ as a vehicle for tak<strong>in</strong>g voyages of pedagogical exploration <strong>in</strong> theclassroom and beyond.There are many different ways of activat<strong>in</strong>g organic learn<strong>in</strong>g, and many ‘traditional’exercise types can, with a slight twist, be brought <strong>in</strong>to harmony with this approach,particularly if they are <strong>in</strong>troduced <strong>in</strong>to the classroom as exploratory and collaborative tasks.(For examples, see Wajnryb’s (1990) ‘grammar dictation’ tasks, and Woods’ (1995) gap andcloze exercises.)In my own classroom, I try to activate an organic approach by:teach<strong>in</strong>g language as a set of choices;provid<strong>in</strong>g opportunities for learners to cxplore grammatical and discoursalrelationships <strong>in</strong> authentic data;teach<strong>in</strong>g language <strong>in</strong> ways that make form/function relationships transparent;encourag<strong>in</strong>g learners to become active explorers of language;encourag<strong>in</strong>g learners to cxplore relationships between grammar and discourse.<strong>Teach<strong>in</strong>g</strong> language as a set of choicesAs <strong>in</strong>dicated <strong>in</strong> the preced<strong>in</strong>g section, one of the reasons why it is difficult to give learnershard-and-fast grammatical rules is that, <strong>in</strong> many <strong>in</strong>stances, once grammar is pressed <strong>in</strong>tocommunicative service, decisions about which forms to use will be determ<strong>in</strong>ed by themean<strong>in</strong>gs learners themselves wish to make. For example, if learners wish to give equalweight to two pieces of <strong>in</strong>formation, they can present the <strong>in</strong>formation <strong>in</strong> a s<strong>in</strong>gle sentence,us<strong>in</strong>g co-ord<strong>in</strong>ation. If they wish to give one of these pieces of <strong>in</strong>formation greater weight,they can use subord<strong>in</strong>ation.In order to help learners see that alternative grammatical realizations exist <strong>in</strong> order to