Domov | O Zborniku | SDUTSJ
Inter Alia 2, Ljubljana, februar 2011
ISBN: 978-
ISSN:
Slavica Čepon
Grammar – an obligatory ‘optional extra’?
ABSTRACT
This paper first focuses on general English (GE) attrition and its possible consequences
for business English (BE) students at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Economics (FELU). It
then discusses the role of grammar within the areas of foreign language (FL) and
BE teaching/learning as well as various opinions regarding the advantages of explicit
FL/grammar instruction over implicit FL/grammar instruction. The author concludes
that BE learners as economics students at the FELU must be given an opportunity to
continue learning FL uninterruptedly. The author’s suggestion is the introduction
of grammar instruction in BE contexts in the first year at the faculty. By the latter
the author refers to a combination of meaningful uses of a FL and form-
Keywords: business English, language attrition, explicit/implicit grammar instruction,
FonF/FoF approach, form-
“The grammarian has no more
right to decree how people
should speak than the physicist
has to decree how electrons
should move”.
(Cook, 2001: 20)
1. Summary
This paper first focuses on general English (GE) attrition and its possible consequences
for students studying business English (BE) at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Economics (FELU)
-
Based on the findings of a large-
This paper discusses the role of grammar within the areas of FL and BE teaching/learning
as well as various opinions regarding the advantages of explicit FL/grammar instruction
over implicit FL/grammar instruction. Some of the likely benefits of introducing
grammar instruction in BE contexts are combating language attrition of first-
Students’ goals are to communicate in FL/L2. Grammar contributes to that goal, therefore, according to experts, it must be regarded as an obligatory “optional extra” (Cook, 2001: 39).
2. Introduction
2.1 The importance of grammar
During the past 30 years or so we have seen grammar move from a central position in language teaching to positions of lesser importance2, and back, although it has never again reached previous importance. In addition, over the years its concept has also changed from prescribing how a language should be used to grammar focusing on actual language use (Nunan, 1999).
Grammar has held and still holds a central position in language teaching due to the
fact that “there is ample evidence to demonstrate that teaching grammar works” (Ellis,
2006: 102). Grammar has been described as interwoven with meaning, social function
and discourse (Celce-
A new broader, non-
However, despite all this evidence, the role of grammar in contemporary ESL/EFL is
still undefined since nobody is certain in what way, how much and when to teach grammar.
Its place still remains rather controversial since the experts in the field of teaching
grammar have expressed a variety of views on this issue -
The most comprehensive model of grammar has been created by Larsen-
3. Problem difinition
The impetus for the paper developed through the author’s experience teaching BE at the FELU. Therefore, the paper deals with the issue of grammar instruction primarily within BE study, which is extremely important for the future professional life of students at the FELU. In the Slovenian environment, students will undoubtedly use BE for the needs of their profession, job and work place (Čepon 2006).
Due to no organized FL instruction for first-
Admittedly, enabling continuity in FL study is especially important for economics
students at the FELU for at least two reasons: firstly, they are non-
From this perspective, one could easily claim that the onset of GE attrition due
to no FL study in a first-
Although attaining FL/L2 linguistic accuracy via grammar instruction and thus producing genuine bilinguals does not seem like an achievable goal of FL/L2 instruction, lately several experts in the area of FL/L2 teaching/learning (e.g. Dörnyei, 2009) have started arguing in favour of explicit FL/L2 and explicit grammar instruction, or rather, knowing how to combine the two. For the purposes of this article we have devoted our attention to explicit grammar instruction in BE contexts.
The author concludes that possible first-
4. Grammatical instruction
Several books have been published on the place of grammar in the curriculum, most
of them discussing different views on what it means to teach grammar. The problem
with grammatical instruction may not lie in the teaching methodology itself but in
the oversimplified understanding of a connection between L2 learner’s conscious awareness
of a rule and the ability to use it. Grammatical instruction as such seems neither
important nor adequate for learning FL/L29 since teaching grammar does not enable
learners to communicate effectively in real-
Knowing the grammar of a FL/L2 is important since it is a means of achieving linguistic
accuracy -
As expected, there are opponents (e.g., Krashen, 1985) as well as proponents of grammar instruction (e.g., White, 1987; Dörnyei, 2009). Lightbown and Spada (2006) are for instance confident that exposure to meaning in comprehensible input and mere reliance on communication do not lead to FL/L2 acquisition automatically. In a similar vein, Cunningsworth (1984: 18) claims that “any teaching programme which omits grammar is not really teaching language in the full sense of the word”. To him, it is the effective teaching of grammar that distinguishes a true language course form a phrasebook (Cunningsworth, 1995).
The long-
To sum up, there is no simple answer to a continuing controversy whether grammar
should be taught. In the words of Dörnyei (2009: 270), implicit learning that “does
do such a great job in generating native-
4.1 Explicit versus implicit grammatical instruction
Trying to clarify the role of grammar in FL/L2 study, many experts (e.g. Ellis, 1997)
have pointed out that FL/L2 learners cannot be realistically expected to master the
grammar system of the FL unassisted, on their own, mainly due to radical differences
in the way L1 and non-
Although some experts still deny the role of explicit instruction in teaching/learning
(e.g., Krashen, 1991, as cited in Lyster, 2004: 321; Long, 1996, as cited in Lyster,
2004: 321), there are other FL/L2 theorists who are clearly convinced that implicit,
incidental L2 learning11 could not be more effective when it comes to improving learners’
inter-
Consequently, as Dörnyei concludes (2009: 272), “we need explicit learning procedures
-
Apparently, the advantage of explicit over implicit instruction is the most clearly documented method effect in empirical literature on types of instruction (Schumann, 1978, as cited in Fotos and Ellis, 1991: 607; Ellis, 1984, as cited in Fotos and Ellis, 1991: 607; Kadia, 1988, as cited in Fotos and Ellis, 1991: 607; Pienemann, 1984, as cited in Fotos and Ellis, 1991: 607; Ellis, 1990, as cited in Fotos and Ellis, 1991: 607). Dörnyei (2009), for instance, emphasizes that there are two strong sources of evidence available to support explicit teaching, namely reviews of empirical studies that specifically compare implicit and explicit instruction12, and secondly, educational experiences from immersion programmes that provide optimal conditions for implicit learning. Explicit grammar instruction, instead of an implicit one, slowly introduced via a deductive approach, is expected to help FL/L2 learners at higher levels to internalize the grammatical rules and learn a FL/L2 in a more natural, subconscious way (Norris and Ortega, 2000).
In conclusion, research has shown that children are better than adults at implicit language acquisition processes13 and adults, due to their greater cognitive maturity, are better at explicit learning processes (DeKeyser, 2000). Thus, it can be concluded that certain Slovenian tertiary institutions’ FL teaching/learning policies that deprive analytically capable adults of the opportunities to implement such abilities should be considered as essentially flawed.
4.2 The meaning/form continuum
Various studies of FL/L2 instructional effectiveness have proposed different instructional
options; however, they are all to do with the major issue of the field of FL/L2 teaching/learning
-
To illustrate the meaning/form continuum, Long and Robinson (1998, as cited in Norris
and Ortega, 2000: 420) have suggested a tripartite distinction among focus on meaning,
focus on forms and focus on form. Namely, the reference is to three types of FL/L2
instruction -
FonF/FoF is an approach to redirecting learner attention during input processing
since learners need to notice varying aspects of the FL/L2 input.16 However, a guiding
principle is to engage perception and noticing processes in FL/L2 input during implicit
learning, rather than accumulate meta-
FonF/FoF activities have been defined by Williams (2005) in terms of three features,
the first being an essential feature and the other two being less obligatory. These
are namely, problematicity,17 targetness/planning, and obtrusiveness.18 According
to Williams (ibid), a major role for FonF/FoF appears to be in the following three
areas: initially, in the area of noticing a form for the first time in the input,
secondly, in recognizing that a learner’s inter-
Similarly, Nassaji (2000) has also proposed an integrative approach to FonF/FoF -
The overall feeling that one may get is that the principal question of the FonF/FoF argument is neither whether or not to teach grammar nor whether to teach it explicitly or implicitly, but how to draw the students’ attention to form/grammar without giving explicit grammatical explanations.
4.2.1 Form-
Form-
Today, there are still no consistent answers to key questions about FL/L2 instructional
effectiveness. Surprisingly, Garrett (1991) claims that the proponents and the opponents
of the relative value of focus on form in SLA are really on the same side -
Therefore, we should not separate communicative competence from grammatical competence, i.e., meaning from form/grammar, since it is not possible to speak a language meaningfully without grammar. The fact that students do not learn to communicate on the basis of learning grammar cannot be the reason for rejecting formal classroom instruction of the concepts of grammaticality, i.e., the interconnectedness of meaning and form: “We cannot assume that when grammar is not mentioned in class learners will automatically, successfully, induce the foreign language’s grammatical concepts from the input” (ibid: 83).
4.3 Grammar within BE teaching/learning contexts
Let us now turn our attention to the key question -
With the emergence of BE in the late seventies of the previous century the issue
of teaching grammar was even further complicated. Although BE seems to be approaching
the problem of teaching grammar from an entirely opposing point of view, the dilemma
and the complexity of the issue stay the same. With regard to the question about
the existence of grammar in BE, experts (e.g. Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Dudley-
Essentially, the experts claim that in GE there should be more emphasis on the selection
of a right methodological approach to grammar teaching (i.e., a pedagogical sequence
of grammatical structures) (Larsen-
Despite all this, the author concludes there are compelling reasons to treat grammar
in BE classes at the FELU from a different approach. Firstly, due to a lack of first-
Secondly, just before the start of BE instruction in second year, BE students at
the FELU already feel the consequences of GE attrition. According to the analysis
of the FELU’s BE students’ language learning needs (Čepon 2006), the great majority
of the participants felt they were forgetting English during their first-
The effects of GE attrition, directly and indirectly triggered by a slowly dwindling
logical structure of GE, are known to cause a lack of real internal and external
motivation for further FL learning. A lack of motivation for FL learning is in language
attrition literature even reported as a direct indicator of the underlying and ongoing
language attrition processes (Weltens, 1989; Gardner et al, 1987, as cited in Hansen
and Retz-
Thirdly, BE students at the FELU do not simply continue learning GE from before but
start learning BE in the second year. In the author's opinion, the disappearance
of the main factor for successful BE learning -
The next possible reason for the introduction of first-
More advanced FL learners, a category that by definition should include most BE learners, require less grammar because the assumption is they have already internalized it. Consequently, experts in the field of BE advocate very little treatment of grammar in BE classes and certainly no overt explanation of grammar. Most experienced BE teachers have realized that the students will not be able to automatically transform explicit grammar input into productive communicative output, so they resort to explicit grammar explanations only as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
4.3.1 New instructional approach to BE grammar teaching/learning
First-
Such an instructional approach is undoubtedly more suited to proverbially quite proficient FL learners with an internalized knowledge of grammar than the deliberate discussion of grammatical forms. An incidental discussion of grammar arising from classroom communication appears especially appropriate for BE instructional contexts since FFI is the approach with a strong communicative quality but a lesser interest in structural and formal properties of language. Put shortly, it implies that the learner’s engagement in situational meaning is primary and their attention to linguistic form secondary.
The principles that the author proposes for first-
In practice, FFI involves a number of approaches and techniques under its umbrella since there are several other ways of bringing the students’ attention to grammar without giving explicit explanation24, all of which is sound classroom practice and not new to seasoned teachers25. According to Doughty (2001), the most beneficial kind of pedagogical intervention is an immediate contingent recast26 which fits into a learner’s working memory along with the original utterance with which it is compared27.
Put simply, attention-
The purpose of FFI practice should be clearly explained to BE learners. There should be enough declarative input, i.e., explicit initial grammatical input components, offered in several creative ways28, as well as a guiding principle to avoid accumulation of metalinguistic knowledge.
Eventually, in order to stir implicit learning there should be plenty of opportunities
to partake in genuine FL/L2 interaction. Such a combination of FFI and meaning-
Another, not so desirable consequence of BE adult learners’ greater cognitive maturity
is that BE teachers must take into account their inability to pay attention to cues
in FL/L2 input due to their reliance on the already existing L1-
One of the major deficiencies of the change proposed is that is impossible to expect
pre-
In reality; however, any FL instruction would be much more beneficial to the students
of economics at the FELU than no instruction at all. In addition, the instructors
of other specialized subjects and the faculty management at the FELU should also
contribute their share to facilitating the transition from GE to BE learning after
the hiatus of one or more years -
5 Conclusion
All the above mentioned evidence has led many experts (e.g. de Bot et al, 2005) to accept the value of explicit teaching without any doubt and only focus on the search for the most effective type of explicit teaching. It appears that the real challenge in fact is knowing how to combine implicit and explicit teaching/learning.
In the light of BE instruction at the FELU, it can be concluded that in the first
year at the FELU when students are left to their own self-
To gather some of the threads about FL teaching/learning in the tertiary context
at the FELU, we conclude that BE learners as economics students at the FELU must
be given an opportunity to continue learning a FL uninterruptedly. Instead of a year-
Grammar may be labelled ‘an optional extra’ (Cook, 2001: 39) in BE contexts where there is an uninterrupted continuation of FL learning and a natural conversion from GE to BE instruction. However, in the specific BE teaching/learning contexts at the FELU, we should perhaps label its function as an obligatory ‘optional extra’.
All of the preceding entails that current FL teaching/learning policies of the academic
institutions in Slovenia that do not offer FL instruction at all or not at periods
crucial for FL learning of non-
1 Rižnar (2010) states that a hefty percentage of tertiary institutions in Slovenia (14.5 %) do not offer FL at all or provide only English instruction.
2 Despite the fact that the zero grammar approach was popular it never really took hold (Ellis, 2006).
3 During this period, the students make insufficient use of additional opportunities
to retain their FL knowledge, so this period results in almost complete non-
4 The period of FL disuse may even extend to almost two years due to failed classes.
5 Klapper (2006) remarks that “advanced learners entering university often experience quite a culture shock where grammar is concerned” (ibid: 397).
6 Expert literature consistently emphasizes the extreme importance of gaining new knowledge on the basis of already internalized, existing prior knowledge (e.g.. Ausubel, 1963, as cited in Marentič – Požarnik, 2000: 44).
7 Formally, faculty management does not demand evaluation of prior GE knowledge before the start of BE lectures in the second year and BE instructors therefore do not perform such tests.
8 Apparently, little FL/L2 knowledge is a dangerous thing. According to a study
of 2000 small and medium-
9 Studies by Dulay et al (1973, as cited in Nunan, 1988: 32) and Bailey et al (1974, as cited in Nunan, 1988: 32) showed that formal instruction had no effect on the order of learning of certain grammatical items. Research by Pienemann et al (1987, as cited in Nunan, 1988: 33) has led them to conclude that the acquisition of grammatical structures will be determined by how difficult the specific grammatical items are psycholinguistically, rather than how difficult or simple they are grammatically.
10 Systematic exposure to grammatical instruction with a view to enhancing subsequent
noticing of the discrepancies between native speakers’ input and learners’ interlanguage
(Schmid and Frota, 1986, as cited in Nunan, 1991: 150; Peckham, 2000, as cited in
DeKeyser, 2003: 331) has been referred to as consciousness-
11 It is not likely that the terms ‘incidental’ and ‘intentional’ will soon receive
a strong theoretical meaning in SLA theory. So far, ‘incidental learning' has been
used as a non-
12 Reviews of empirical studies that specifically compared implicit and explicit instruction mentioned in the article are Norris and Ortega (2000) and DeKeyser and Juffs (2005).
13 DeKeyser and Juffs (2005) summarize the issue about implicit language acquisition processes by saying that “nobody doubts that implicitly acquired procedural knowledge would be useful; the main question is to what extent it exists” (ibid: 441).
14 The term Focus on Form (FonF/FoF) was first coined by Long (1988, 1991, as cited in Williams, 2005: 671).
15 Caution is necessary because of a potential source of confusion due to quite a number of rather similar terms and varied interpretations. According to Doughty (2001), FonF/FoF encompasses FormS/ FonFS, but the reverse is not true.
16 Why do L2 learners need to notice aspects of L2 input? According to Doughty (2003),
research has shown that adults stop relying upon signals in the FL/L2 input. Instead,
due to a process called developmental sharpening, i.e., a prerequisite to L1 listening
ability, they normally start using their existing L1-
17 Problematicity refers to a fact that FonF/FoF should arise out of a real-
18 Obtrusiveness refers to the degree to which an activity/technique interrupts the flow of communication.
19 FFI and FonF/FoF mean different things to different people and, in addition, their apparent similarity is potentially confusing.
20 FFI was proposed by Spada (1997, as cited in Norris and Ortega, 2000: 420).
21 FFI contributes to the acquisition of implicit knowledge only if two factors are given: the choice of the target structure and its extent. Namely, extensive instruction directed at simple structures was more effective than limited instruction directed at difficult structures.
22 Certain grammatical forms can be more or less prevalent in certain types of BE discourse and genre.
23 In 2006 the most important European association of business schools, the European
Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), awarded the FELU its global EQUIS (European
Quality Improvement System) quality accreditation status -
24 To mention but a few; printing the grammatical items in question in italic or
bold-
25 However, convincing as these claims may be and given that grammatical form is there to serve meaning, Cook (2001) even questions if those other ways of bringing the students’ attention to grammar without giving explicit explanation have anything to do with form. He goes on to suggest that they may in fact be a way of focusing on meaning. In his opinion, meaning and form should not be separated.
26 Recasting is the use of implicit unobtrusive exchanges between students and teacher instead of a direct correction. According to Doughty (2003), studies of visual input enhancements such as font manipulations or colour coding, have not proven important or visible enough for the students to notice, whereas auditory recasts, one of the more implicit of FonF pedagogical procedures, have been found to be quite effective in raising students' attention. For example: Student: I buyed it. Teacher: Aha, you bought it. Student: Yes, I bought it (ibid).
27 Psycholinguistic studies have suggested that the size of the cognitive window of opportunity for pedagogical intervention is well under one minute (Doughty, 2001).
28 To achieve subsequent automatization and internalization of declarative knowledge,
BE teachers must not underestimate the value of rote-
29 According to Čok et al (1999), it is useful and necessary for older and more proficient FL/L2 students to study/learn FL grammar.
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