Session 3: language
Monday, October 19, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Preparation
Grammar, about which most of the students generally tend to think as a highly complex area, is currently taught deductively that is the learners try to memorize the tough rules without knowing at first how to utilize it communicatively. So it turns out to be difficult to learn grammar. But basically the response to this question is over my avid mind that why we ourselves, as learners have learnt grammar in isolation with communication or even vocabulary. What is grammar? And how it should be learnt? On what bases the teaching of grammar should be? These kinds of questions are being dealt with in the chapters that we were supposed to cover. Widdowson holds an interesting look over grammar. Grammar can change meaning, and teachers should make students informed of this ability of grammar and this is what each teacher should focus on. Having presented an appropriate context, the teacher can present the vocabulary and the way they come together. Grammar limits the number of possible inferences, but the final meaning inferred depends on semantics as well as pragmatics. Widdowson says that we should start with lexical approach then we can show the changes that grammar can bring.
Assistance
It is generally believed that language as a means for communication consists of vocabularies and a set of rules used to combine these words and vocabularies but technically there are two kinds of insight regarding language:
1. One comes from theory, and has to do with the nature of language in general as a psychological & social phenomenon, internalized in the mind, externalized in social life.
2. One comes from description, and provides information about the properties of particular languages as formal abstractions and as actualized in use.
For a teacher, both of these must be at the same importance. As a matter of fact, the influence of linguistics on language teaching should be mediated through descriptions which are informed by theory and every teacher should have a theoretical basis to turn to when teaching something in the class. Linguists provide this theoretical knowledge and according to Corder (1973) pedagogy draws selectively from descriptions of language provided by linguistics. The description of a language accounts for two types of categories:
1. The type descriptions which consider language as abstract knowledge.
2. The token descriptions which consider language as actual behavior.
Widdowson, however, argues that “the abstractions of a type description may be preferred on occasions in that they activate more effectively the process of learning.
It often seems to be supposed that a concern for grammar is inconsistent with principles of communicative language teaching. This supposition is, Widdowson believes, based on an impoverished concept of the nature of grammar, one which does not account for the complementary functioning of lexis & syntax as an essential resource for the negotiation of meaning in context.
Lexis and grammar are essential parts of any language which are both interrelated and often interdependent. They both act upon each other in the determination of meaning. In fact they have a reciprocal relationship. Widdowson believes we should begin with lexical items & show how they need to be grammatically modified to be communicatively effective. This view toward grammar is compatible with the concept of CR- conscious raising, a technique that encourage learners to consider the language form, believing that awareness of form will be related with language acquisition. Such techniques include, for instance, having students infer the grammatical rules from examples and compare differences between two or more different ways of saying something. This is the method suggested by R. Ellis and is in contrast with the traditional approach in which students focus only on the form.
In order for people to understand each other, two kinds of knowledge are of crucial significance: schematic knowledge & systemic knowledge, the former refers to the common knowledge of shared experience and reality which is a necessary source of reference in use whereby linguistic symbols are converted to indices in the process of interpretation and the latter refers to linguistic knowledge, which is the internalization of the symbolic function of signs. Systemic knowledge changes to schematic knowledge by manufacturing meaningfulness and by negotiation. Negotiation is relating the thing to the systemic knowledge we already possess. An absolutely essential process in order for the schematic knowledge to be either activated or formed is negotiation of meaning. Being affective in negotiation refers to what we see as mutual respect, and being effective refers to cooperative principles and maxims. Mutual respect and cooperation are both demanded in negotiation. If the speaker is present, this negotiation of meaning is called reciprocal otherwise non-reciprocal. In case of non-reciprocal negotiation, the addressee may move from systemic knowledge to schematic knowledge on any particular occasion of meaning negotiation, the more familiar the schematic knowledge, the less reliance needs to be placed on systemic knowledge & vice versa.
Application
Following widdowson's ideas I generally tend to believe that in order to be an effective teacher regarding teaching grammar, at first it is wise to provide my students with an appropriate context within which my vocabularies will be utilized, and then I can make my students aware of how to put the sequences of words together and produce meaningful sentences. The learners must be cognizant of the fact that grammar is an area of utmost importance & I, as a teacher have the responsibility for presenting the grammar rules in an enjoyable manner.
Grammar, about which most of the students generally tend to think as a highly complex area, is currently taught deductively that is the learners try to memorize the tough rules without knowing at first how to utilize it communicatively. So it turns out to be difficult to learn grammar. But basically the response to this question is over my avid mind that why we ourselves, as learners have learnt grammar in isolation with communication or even vocabulary. What is grammar? And how it should be learnt? On what bases the teaching of grammar should be? These kinds of questions are being dealt with in the chapters that we were supposed to cover. Widdowson holds an interesting look over grammar. Grammar can change meaning, and teachers should make students informed of this ability of grammar and this is what each teacher should focus on. Having presented an appropriate context, the teacher can present the vocabulary and the way they come together. Grammar limits the number of possible inferences, but the final meaning inferred depends on semantics as well as pragmatics. Widdowson says that we should start with lexical approach then we can show the changes that grammar can bring.
Assistance
It is generally believed that language as a means for communication consists of vocabularies and a set of rules used to combine these words and vocabularies but technically there are two kinds of insight regarding language:
1. One comes from theory, and has to do with the nature of language in general as a psychological & social phenomenon, internalized in the mind, externalized in social life.
2. One comes from description, and provides information about the properties of particular languages as formal abstractions and as actualized in use.
For a teacher, both of these must be at the same importance. As a matter of fact, the influence of linguistics on language teaching should be mediated through descriptions which are informed by theory and every teacher should have a theoretical basis to turn to when teaching something in the class. Linguists provide this theoretical knowledge and according to Corder (1973) pedagogy draws selectively from descriptions of language provided by linguistics. The description of a language accounts for two types of categories:
1. The type descriptions which consider language as abstract knowledge.
2. The token descriptions which consider language as actual behavior.
Widdowson, however, argues that “the abstractions of a type description may be preferred on occasions in that they activate more effectively the process of learning.
It often seems to be supposed that a concern for grammar is inconsistent with principles of communicative language teaching. This supposition is, Widdowson believes, based on an impoverished concept of the nature of grammar, one which does not account for the complementary functioning of lexis & syntax as an essential resource for the negotiation of meaning in context.
Lexis and grammar are essential parts of any language which are both interrelated and often interdependent. They both act upon each other in the determination of meaning. In fact they have a reciprocal relationship. Widdowson believes we should begin with lexical items & show how they need to be grammatically modified to be communicatively effective. This view toward grammar is compatible with the concept of CR- conscious raising, a technique that encourage learners to consider the language form, believing that awareness of form will be related with language acquisition. Such techniques include, for instance, having students infer the grammatical rules from examples and compare differences between two or more different ways of saying something. This is the method suggested by R. Ellis and is in contrast with the traditional approach in which students focus only on the form.
In order for people to understand each other, two kinds of knowledge are of crucial significance: schematic knowledge & systemic knowledge, the former refers to the common knowledge of shared experience and reality which is a necessary source of reference in use whereby linguistic symbols are converted to indices in the process of interpretation and the latter refers to linguistic knowledge, which is the internalization of the symbolic function of signs. Systemic knowledge changes to schematic knowledge by manufacturing meaningfulness and by negotiation. Negotiation is relating the thing to the systemic knowledge we already possess. An absolutely essential process in order for the schematic knowledge to be either activated or formed is negotiation of meaning. Being affective in negotiation refers to what we see as mutual respect, and being effective refers to cooperative principles and maxims. Mutual respect and cooperation are both demanded in negotiation. If the speaker is present, this negotiation of meaning is called reciprocal otherwise non-reciprocal. In case of non-reciprocal negotiation, the addressee may move from systemic knowledge to schematic knowledge on any particular occasion of meaning negotiation, the more familiar the schematic knowledge, the less reliance needs to be placed on systemic knowledge & vice versa.
Application
Following widdowson's ideas I generally tend to believe that in order to be an effective teacher regarding teaching grammar, at first it is wise to provide my students with an appropriate context within which my vocabularies will be utilized, and then I can make my students aware of how to put the sequences of words together and produce meaningful sentences. The learners must be cognizant of the fact that grammar is an area of utmost importance & I, as a teacher have the responsibility for presenting the grammar rules in an enjoyable manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment