The Grammar Joke

"Grammar is the biggest joke in language education" -- Jerry Dai

Wow. I love that quote. It's from a speech by Jerry Dai, that I found on
Tony's blog. Jerry is a Chinese immigrant who lives in Toronto. He speaks
near perfect English and sounds like a native speaker (though
mispronounces the word "pronunciation" ;) Before mastering the language,
Jerry, like most foreign language learners, suffered through years of
traditional language education. As in most countries, Chinese educators are
obsessed with grammar. As a result, so are the students. Jerry arrived in
Canada at the age of twenty with years of English study under his belt,
but he could not communicate effectively. Frustrated, he embarked on an
intense two year period of self study.

What did he do during that time? He did not study grammar or vocabulary
word lists. He focused on listening & reading & pronunciation.

David Long, director of AUA's Thai language program, by all accounts

speaks excellent Thai. Though I can't judge this directly, I've been told by
many Thais that his speech sounds natural, effortless, and fluent. How did
he learn Thai? By listening intensely for one year. In fact, David did not
speak Thai during this entire "silent period". His Thai language program
uses the same approach-- students listen first. There is absolutely no
grammar instruction in the program.

And then there's me :) By all accounts, I seem to have mastered English ;)

How did I do this? When I was a child, did my parents teach me grammar?
Did I learn about the past perfect progressive tense in elementary school?
No. In fact, I never knew what the "past perfect" was until I became an
English teacher. Walk around SF (San Francisco) and ask any native
speaker "what is the present progressive tense" and they will give you a
confused look. Of course, any native speaker of any language (unless they
are a language teacher :( will usually give you just such a response if you
ask them grammar questions.

Grammar, especially the obtuse, analytical, incredibly complex mish-mash

of "rules" used in English language education, is not only useless-- it is
harmful. Grammar, you must understand, is an artificial construct.
Grammar is a model. It's a model developed by academics to analyze
languages. If your goal is to get a Phd. in Linguistics, and become the next
Noam Chomsky, grammar is indeed something you should study intensely.

But if you actually want to master English, or any foreign language,

grammar is not very useful. Grammar study ingrains a lot of very bad
habits. The worst is a tendency to analyze the language rather than acquire
it. I see this all the time with students-- they'd rather analyze and debate
minute grammar points than truly understand, acquire, and use the
language in a natural and intuitive way. Grammar study causes them to
analyze and translate every utterance producing stilted, unnatural, painful
speech (painful for them and painful to the person they are trying to talk
to).

As Steve Kaufman, Jerry Dai, David Long and others have noted, the
language education field is filled with teachers and researchers who have
never actually mastered a foreign language. They also note that much of
what passes for "language education" is counter productive, and serves
mostly to prop up the perceived authority of the teacher and school.

I have not mastered a foreign language. But I'm determined to master

Spanish. As I reviewed my learning plan, I realized I had a very clear
choice. I could follow the advice of traditional educators-- people who
sound very authoritative, but who have rarely mastered a foreign language
themselves. Or I could follow the advice of people who have actually
mastered another language-- who did so as adults, and who speak the
language fluently, naturally, intuitively, and without hesitation. Since my
goal is to speak Spanish, not obtain a Phd. in Linguistics, I've chosen to
follow the advice of the latter group.

We can all judge the end results for ourselves, in a couple of years. But I'm
already convinced. Already, I'm experiencing great benefits. I'm thoroughly
enjoying the process of learning Spanish. My motivation is growing week
by week. I can feel my comprehension improving, even though I'm still not
able to communicate much. Perhaps most importantly, I can imagine myself
as a fluent speaker. These things never happened when I followed the
grammar-analysis approach.
The tragic part about this is that so many students blame themselves. They
think there is something wrong with them. They think, as I used to, that
they don't have a talent for languages. They think that mastering English
(or another language) is impossible. They think the teachers and schools are
right, and therefore they must simply be bad students.

In the end, I agree with Jerry: Grammar is the biggest joke in language
education.It's a cruel joke.