Grammar in the Language Classroom: Changing Approaches and Practices (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Grammar in the Language Classroom: Changing Approaches and Practices Ellen Cray James, Joyce E. (Ed.). (2003). Grammar in the Language Classroom: Changing Approaches and Practices. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Pp. 357, $16.00 US (paper). Grammar in the Language Classroom: Changing Approaches and Practices is an anthology of papers selected from the 2001 RELC International Seminar. Ideally a book like this would offer a range of perspectives on a central theme. This volume is meant to offer that type of survey; but, as is often the case, this ideal is not realized. The papers included cover such a range of topics and approaches that it is difficult for the reader to gain a sense of any unifying theme. The titles give a sense of the difficulty: they include 'The New Englishes and the Teaching of Grammar'; 'Lexicogrammar and Language Teaching Materials: A Social Semiotic and Discourse Perspective'; and 'Grammar and the Study of Poetry.' Given this diversity, it is a challenge to understand what the volume is about. There is a more serious problem with what is offered here. In spite of the range of topics covered, very little attention is given to current debates about and approaches to the teaching of grammar. While academics and methodologists are discussing such things as the place of focus-on-form (FonF) activities in the language classroom and the possible place of discourse grammars and language corpora, the only paper that addresses these issues is Tony T.N. Hung's chapter, 'How Linguistics Can Contribute to the Teaching of Grammar.' This paper provides a good summary of the ways in which such areas as corpus linguistics, descriptive grammars, theoretical grammars, and interlanguage analysis have contributed to second language teaching. The author does make an important point in the conclusion when he argues that linguistics, in its diverse forms, can serve to encourage the understanding that spoken language is not an inferior variety of language and [End Page 283] that variation in language is both natural and desirable; but he does not explain how linguistics can help teachers to accept these propositions. Many of the papers in this volume are grounded in traditional notions of pedagogical grammars and language learning. Jason Lim Min Hwa's paper on acquisition of the past tense uses contrastive analysis to explain problems that speakers of Bahasa Melayu have in judging the acceptability of sentences with simple past tense verbs and time adverbials. He then outlines an approach to teaching the simple past + adverbials based on a sequencing of rules. While it is clear that a great deal of thought has gone into this paper, it does not seem relevant to current discussions in the field of pedagogical grammar and explicit instruction. That said, there are two topics addressed in more than one paper that are relevant and interesting. The first is the issue of grammar and the new Englishes. In her paper 'Grammar and Identity in Malaysian Discourse,' Azirah Hashim explores how English-speaking Bahasa Melayu speakers vary their English production on the basis of context. She concludes that English speakers develop the ability to use the resources of both Bahasa Melayu and English to produce a variety of English that accommodates the particular context in which they are speaking and writing. Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista, writing about Philippine English, concludes that teachers need to be aware that there is a place for both exonormative and endonormative varieties of the language, noting that it important for teachers to recognize the value and importance of local varieties of English. Two authors attempt to move grammar away from sentence-level considerations to the discourse level. David Butt, in his paper 'Investigating Experience through Grammars: From Personal to Cultural Perspectives on the Evolution of School Knowledge,' argues that in order to learn language one must learn how to produce and communicate meaning and that grammar is a tool that allows investigation of text. Peter Mickan's very brief article is based on a similar argument - that the study of texts allows teachers to integrate form and meaning and that grammar is one of the tools that makes this study of texts possible. When read carefully and critically, the...