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kevinran
Joined: 02 Oct 2003
Posts: 5
Location: dallas,tx
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 Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:35 pm Post subject: grammar |
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I am new to this so forgive my question, it seems that grammar is the main thrust of things, do your students already speak english?
Last edited by kevinran on Wed Nov 05, 2003 10:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Lynn
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 696
Location: in between
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| Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:49 pm Post subject: Re: grammer |
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| kevinran wrote: |
| I am new to this so forgive my question, it seems that grammer is the main thrust of things, do your students already speak english? |
I would love to help you, but I'm not sure I understand you. Do you mean how do we teach grammar if the students don't speak any English? Yes, we do. It's part of communication. I teach beginner level students. The first week we study only 3 phrases: name, coutry, greeting. Grammar is part of this. They learn, "I am from Ecuador" as opposed to, "My is from Ecuador". We do it through drills and role playing. So, I don't point out that the sentence should be subj. + be verb + action verb....etc. That would only confuse the students.
I hope this helps. And "grammar" itself can be a tricky word it spell.  |
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kevinran
Joined: 02 Oct 2003
Posts: 5
Location: dallas,tx
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| Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| thanks for the correction, I'm just a little bit coutry (country) |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| it seems that grammar is the main thrust of things, do your students already speak english? |
It depends on the situation. Some conversation schools teach just conversational English where students just want to know greetings or travel phrases, not strict grammar. With some higher level conversation courses or even in private lessons, advanced students sometimes want just practice using what they already know to keep in "tone" with speaking and listening. I have even taught debate and science topics discussions classes in Japan, so no grammar was involved.
Even in high school situations, grammar is taught by the JTEs, not the foreign teachers. Foreign teachers more often provide supplemental lessons to offer oral communication activities, sometimes writing lessons, too. And, at the kindergarten and elementary school stage, you can't really teach grammar, so you rely on songs and games to get kids started. |
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leeroy
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Posts: 777
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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It's always seemed odd to me, that grammar can be considered in its singularity...
Almost inherently, any grammatical structure will have a functional element attached to it;
2nd conditional sentences might be used for hypothesizing
The passive might be used to state rules and regulations
The past tenses, well...
Thus, the idea of "teaching grammar" seems a little odd - as even despite a teacher's efforts to make grammar context-less, some will filter in. By sheer demonstration of how grammatical structures are formed - some "functional English" will come into play - almost in defiance of whoever teaches it. |
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