Students’ View on Grammar Teaching

Abstract

The focal point of this paper is on the view of the fifth semester students of FKIP UKI on the teaching of English grammar which was gauged through a study conducted in November 2010. The findings of the study, obtained via quantitative and qualitative approaches, revealed that a majority of the respondents basically viewed grammar is important in their study of English. They also viewed knowledge of grammar plays an important role in writing, but has no significant role in speaking. In addition, the respondents seemed to prefer explicit than implicit teaching in their trial to master English grammar. The paper concludes by suggesting the need to explore new approaches to the teaching of grammar to enhance students’ autonomy in learning grammar.

Pedagogical Grammar: Learners’ Beliefs Do Matter

“…All these assertions are conducive to a communicative take to grammar teaching. Although the findings correspond with some related studies (Incecay & Dollar, 2011) in which the respondents were in favor of learning grammar communicatively, Male (2011), reported that learners preferred formal presentation of grammar structures. The participants in Male"s study "viewed knowledge of grammar to play an important role in writing, but has no significant role in speaking" (Male, 2011, p. 58).…”

“…This was also supported by exploration on learners" beliefs. Male (2011) reported that the majority of participants in his study favored explicit to implicit teaching to grammar. The findings as for an explicit or implicit grammar teaching mode reflect the controversy on this issue and call for a mediation, balancing implicitness and explicitness takes.…”

“…More specifically, there is a gap between "what should exist" and "what does exist" as one of the central problems of an ESL program (Nunan, 1988). InL2 context, considerable amount of research (Yang, 1992;Mori, 1999;Schulz, 2001;Davis, 2003;Kalaja & Barcelos 2003;Loewen, Thompson, Nakatsukasa, Ahn, & Chen, 2009;Male, 2011;Incecay & Dollar, 2011) revealed correlation between learners" beliefs and their learning behaviors, styles, and linguistic achievement. At the behavior level, Yang (1992) found a strong correlation between learners" beliefs and anxiety.…”

“…Although Chomsky"s UG is meant to explicate the mechanisms underpinning L1 acquisition, his model has been widely adopted by second language acquisition (SLA) researchers (Clahsen & Muysken, 1986;Schachter 1988;Hawkins, 2002), who seem to focus on learning not teaching grammar. With the advent of the sociolinguistics enterprise in the late 1960s and systemic linguistics (Halliday, 1973), the role of grammar teaching was downplayed (Male, 2011), due to the vogue of the communicative approach to language under the newly growing fields. Unlike Chomsky, Krashen (1981) proposes an input-based model, yet (like Chomsky) highlighted learning rather than teaching grammar.…”

Learning Grammar Through Physical Games

“…Some teachers teach grammar explicitly while others do implicitly (Ellis 2014;Ellis et al 2009;Nazari 2013). In Indonesia, where English is still considered as a foreign language, grammar holds a quite important role (Male 2011), especially for Junior High School and Senior High School students, since the high-stake English National Examination (Umam 2011;Sutari 2017) covers grammar-related questions. The high-stake test leads to negative washback effect, as English teachers are pushed to devote most of the teaching times for test preparations and strategies (Sukyadi and Mardiani 2011;Sutari 2017).…”