Knowledge of English Grammar for EFL teacher

Knowledge of English Grammar for EFL teacher

Overview
The English language plays a very important role in English language teaching .Grammar for
English Language Teachers provides invaluable support to teachers in training and those with
more experience. As well as clearly explaining and illustrating the grammar, it examines
difficulties learners often encounter, and provides help and advice in planning lessons. It
explores the complexity of grammatical choices in an accessible way, and raises awareness of
how these differ from the 'rules of thumb' often presented to learners.
According to Hudson and Walmsley , most English teachers have received limited linguistic
training at teacher training college.
Most younger teachers know very little grammar and are suspicious of explicit grammar
teaching. Not surprisingly, therefore, new recruits entering teacher-training courses typically
either know very little grammar (Williamson & Hardman 1995) or have no confidence in their
knowledge, presumably because they have picked it up in an unsystematic way (Cajkler &
Hislam 2002). This situation raises obvious problems for the implementation of the official
programme.
Importance of English Grammar as an EFL teacher

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Knowledge of English Grammar for EFL teacher

Teaching grammar plays a central role in every EFL/ ESL class. The important question that
needs to be answered is how to teach grammar. In many parts of the world; pre-service and inservice training of English Language teachers and the course books on the market have
encouraged teachers to change their grammar teaching from traditional grammar rule teaching to
a more communicative and interactive ways which focus on how to make use
of grammar rather than a pure knowledge of grammar. But in practice, teachers keep their beliefs
on the benefits of explicit grammar teaching as opposed to implicitness .As an EFL teacher it is
extremely important to teach grammar .
Attitudes towards grammar instruction
Pupils at secondary schools also have difficulties with learning complex grammatical concepts.
Typically invented examples are used in the tradition of grammar teaching. These examples are
often simple but unrealistic. They find these difficult to relate to real linguistic settings and
almost impossible to apply to their own language production.
In teaching grammar, three areas have to be considered: grammar as rules,
grammar as form, and grammar as resource. For many L2 learners, learning
grammar often means learning the rules of grammar and having an intellectual
knowledge of grammar. Teachers often believe that this will provide the
generative basis on which learners can build their knowledge and will be able to
use the language eventually. For them, prescribed rules give a kind of security.

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Many learners and teachers tend to view grammar as a set of restrictions on what is allowed
and disallowed .
According to Morelli (2003), students perceived themselves as having a better
attitude towards grammar instruction in context, while performing slightly
better after having experienced the traditional grammar instruction. Elkilic and
Akca (2008) reported generally positive attitudes of students studying English
grammar at a private primary EFL classroom towards studying grammar. In
particular, however, a little over 50% of their subjects claimed to enjoy
grammar very much and only about 10% reported finding some difficulty in
learning and remembering grammar.
Importance of knowledge of students language
For teachers learning L1 grammar from students point of view is not very feasible .As grammar
is taught in different types of ways ,it is unimportant whether the teacher is familiar with the
students first language.
The study of teachers mental lives is now acknowledged as a central concern in the study of
language teaching, and recent years have seen the development of a significant body of work
examining teacher cognitionwhat language teachers think, know and believe and its
relationship to instructional decisions (Borg, 2005).
Since the 1970s, attention has shifted from ways of teaching grammar to ways
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of getting learners to communicate, but grammar has been seen to be a powerful
undermining and demotivating force among L2 learners. In terms of motivation
and learner success with languages, grammar has been seen to be a problem and
to stand in the way of helping learners to communicate fluently. The hard fact
that most teachers face is that learners often find it difficult to make flexible use
of the rules of grammar taught in the classroom. They may know the rules
perfectly, but are incapable of applying them in their own use of the language.
However, the question whether grammar acquisition leads to L2 acquisition is still under
investigation. Therefore, as Rothstein states, language teachers need to think How do we make
grammar fun to learn, really, really fun, and memorable and meaningful?

Sources:
Articles on the following websites were referred:
http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_2_No_5_March_2012/12.pdf
http://jetuki.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/5-students-view-on-grammar-teaching-pp-57-69.pdf
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f03/web2/mtucker.html
http://www.e-iji.net/dosyalar/iji_2011_2_5.pdf

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