One Checklist That You Should Keep In Mind Before Attending Teaching English As Foreign Language (TEFL): Teaching of English Grammar

"I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose."

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

U.S. physician and writer.

Medical Essays (1842-1882), "Scholastic and Bedside Teaching"

Learning or teaching of English grammar in the class is quite contrary to the way the child learns grammar in their mother tongue. A child at the age of 4 or 5 can speak his mother tongue fluently without knowing the rules of language. Read More Teaching English Research into grammar by academics at different stages suggests that a significant proportion of language speakers are unable to understand some basic sentences.   Regardless of educational attainment or dialect we are all supposed to be equally good at grammar, in the sense of being able to use grammatical cues to understand the meaning of sentences. The target language can easily be understood through social sphere if it is a mother tongue but English for TEFL Students can be rather misunderstood without the knowledge-base of grammar.

But just the contrary, happens in the English classroom of TEFL Students. Here emphasis is laid upon knowing the language with the expectation that accuracy would develop fluency through grammar. Compared with Bengali, English grammar is much easier. However, this does not mean that learners meet no difficulties in learning it. It took students a long time to learn how to master the tenses in English grammar, to endeavor to do as many grammar exercises as possible and read various grammar books.

In writing English, English language has its own style. Read More Teaching English In order to drill writing skills, the teacher should have to try to read famous novels of distinguished America and English writers for upper classes. The students have to encourage enjoying the humorous style of writing in Mark Twain’s masterpieces, the elaborate and polished style of George Eliot and the sentimental and lyrical style of John Keats.

But for elementary classes Grammar should be taught in a contextualized way. The table below exemplifies that

I, We  go to school

You go     to school

They, students  go to school

He, she, Rajat     goes to school

This task will make them understand subject-verb agreement as well as the basic structure of the sentence. Students will be asked to notice the difference between the three structures and then the teacher will explain them the rules. Teacher will then ask them to write more such examples. Learners should be helped to maintain accuracy, inaccuracy of their production.

The Principles of learner-centered grammar are

(I) the learner has to do the learning, just teaching grammar does not make it happen.

(II) Grammar learning can work outward from participation in learning vocabulary and from learnt language.

(lll) Learner’s errors can give teachers useful information about their learning  process and their internal grammar.

Previously, in primary classes English language was taught mainly from grammar Translation Method. There was no effort to practice spoken language in the classroom. Read More Teaching English Great emphasis was there upon remembering skill. Students were not exposed to real life situations or events to use the language. Accuracy rather than fluency was invalid. But none it is not the same. A child internationalizes grammar or understanding of grammar while acquiring his mother tongue in home is in conflict. He always listens to the language. Thus, he can internalize the rules of language.

The teacher can similarly create such natural situation in the class by saying that.

“I will teach you a poem”

Or. I am teaching you a poem

Or, Yesterday I taught you poem.

These kind of expressions should be repeated in the class so that the students can develop a fair idea about the relation between experience and expression and ultimately deduce the rules. This method/step insists on lot of examples. First, formulation of the rule , later mind more examples.

Apart from a good knowledge of English grammar, one needs to demonstrate a broad lexical knowledge in a good piece of writing. There is an element of truth in the fact that grammar rules help to generate sentences. Read More Teaching English However, if the writer has no real understanding of the lexis of the English language and just applies the grammatical rules mechanically, he will run the risk of producing grammatically correct but semantically inappropriate or anomalous sentences. To use the English language with clarity and precision, he needs to know what words mean literally and figuratively, what words can collocate and how words, though synonymous, are different from each other in subtle ways. Read More Teaching English Therefore, the writer’s ability to manipulate structures and his word choice are both needed for the appropriate use of language? For example, while one can write ‘Sorry, I can’t make it’ in response to a friend’s invitation he must formulate his refusal to a business partner more formally ‘I apologize I will not be able to be there.’ In other words, structural accuracy is just as important as vocabulary selection in effective writing.

Ardhendu De