[etni] Teaching grammar

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The comments of Estelle and Rob have made me want to add something of my 
personal experiences. Apologies if it is a bit long winded.
Among us are teachers in many countries, teaching young and old, in school and 
out, in a variety of settings. While enncouraging communication through 
students' interests is probably the aim of most of us, many teachers have to be 
somewhat "schizophrenic" if they teach teenagers in a school environment. They 
teach so that their students will enjoy talking and more, and at the same time 
they are obliged to teach towards exams. This is nothing new, but affects our 
attitude to teaching. We have to compromise on what we believe is the best way 
to teach. This not only applies to set books and texts, but to grammar in a big 
way. Many exams worldwide today no longer demand so called grammar questions, 
but very many still do. Therefore some rules have to be taught willy nilly. The 
teacher does have to know something about grammar. Students forget grammar 
terminology  because they see no purpose in having learnt it. Teachers are 
different. Some even enjoyed learning grammar when they were young (I did).  
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that made them become language teachers. We 
also have new or non-native teachers who, not feeling so secure in the 
classroom, like to teach grammar rules where they feel on safe ground. We need 
to understand them too. 

I went to school in England a long time ago. I learnt the grammar of my own 
language  as well as that of French and German. This knowledge has always stood 
me in good stead as a language teacher, even when terminology and attitudes 
changed. (I must confess I also studied some linguistics while teaching). 
Sometimes students want to know why things are said in a certain way. One can 
always say: "That's how it is in English", which is often the best answer, but 
sometimes a grammatical  explanation helps. Today, in the post-methodology era, 
we do not stick to any one methodology, which enables us to decide how much of 
each method we think will be effective in our particular environment, and how 
to cope with the dual demands of a school system and one's personal 
inclination.       

 As an EFL teacher for many years I always had to keep the two teaching demands 
in mind. Long before anyone talked about communicative methods, I had organized 
in my municipal high school, an English library, an English newspaper, a drama 
group, a choir, contacts with schools abroad through exchange of tapes and 
albums, exhibitions, visits etc. At the same time I  had to give marks (grades) 
and prepare students for exams. Teachers are fortunate if they are not 
restricted by any school system. Some of you are really lucky.





  

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