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Abstract: Grammar consciousness is of great importance to the development of students’ EFL ability.The passage explores the relationship between grammar consciousness and English learning and suggests that teachers attach great importance to the overall increase in students’ language sensitivity and grammar awareness.
Key Words: necessity grammar consciousness EFL teaching
If we look upon vocabulary as the material of building sentences, we can regard grammar as the design of the materials.It is very important in language learning.People give the external summary of the structural rules of language by using language for a long time.It cannot be imagined that people are able to understand language correctly and use language fluently without learning grammar and without having any grammar consciousness of a language.As the equipment of communication, the structure of language must follow the established and accepted rules.As grammar plays an important role in English learning, it is necessary to develop students’grammar consciousness, which is considered as “a preliminary to English learning”.
For Chinese students who are learning English, it is common to find that their native language often interferes with their learning of English.They may not understand English correctly or they may speak “Chinese-English”.Teachers always find that sometimes students can master what they have learned quickly, sometimes a little slowly during the teaching of English.It is often found that students from the west counties, for example, Germany, learn English much more easily than Chinese students.What Chinese students feel difficult, such as prepositions,articles, are not difficult for them at all.One of the important reasons is that Chinese grammar interferes with English learning.Vivian Cook (2002) has pointed out that “One view of second language learning sees its crucial element as the transfer of aspects of the first onto the second language.” The knowledge of the Chinese grammar helps Chinese learners when it has elements in common with English and hinders them when the elements differ.In order to find an easier and better way to help students learn English, teachers should find out the similarities and the differences between Chinese grammar and English grammar.
It is easy for an English learner to find out the similarities between English grammar and Chinese grammar.For example, when speaking to category conception, there are assertive sentences and negative sentences, simple sentences and multiple sentences, interrogative sentences, etc., both in Chinese and English.When speaking to syntax phenomenon, English and Chinese both have “subject+verb+object” pattern, and have the same composition of coordinate and some subordinate structure.
With some similarities in grammar, Chinese students can learn English grammar better.However, students should also understand that there are only a few similarities between Chinese and English grammar and they need to learn English grammar well in order to produce comprehensive, well-organized English sentences.
English and Chinese are different in many ways in terms of category conception, word form,and syntax structure.Take “Syntax Phenomenon” for example.English has articles “an” and “a”to express “one” and plural forms to indicate “many”.There are also the degree of adjectives,the verb tense and participles in English.All the above do not exist in Chinese.English and Chinese are also different in sentence structures, such as negative and interrogative sentences.The differences in grammar between the two languages often confuse Chinese students.More differences between them, more barriers students come across.An English teacher, therefore,needs to spend more time teaching grammar and improving students’ grammar consciousness,which in turn helps students master the English language.
Generally speaking, deductive method is more suitable for teaching new grammar rules or those that do not exist in Chinese.When teachers adopt this method, it is easier to control the course of teaching because it conforms to the common habits of both learning and teaching English in China.
The general teaching pattern is as follows:
Explaining rules→Example analysis→Reading text or Doing grammar exercises.
The following is an example of teaching “figurative speech” with the deductive method.
Teachers can write the example sentences on the blackboard or use a projector to help learners get a brief idea of the figurative language.Teachers may begin by saying: “In figurative language, words are given unusual or exaggerated meanings.Two things that seem unlike each other are compared and the reader suddenly sees the similarity between them.Figurative language is composed of figures of speech.” Then the following should be written on the board.
Figurative Language Definition
Simile A comparison between essentially different things to bring out the striking similarity beneath the surface of a contrast.
Metaphor An indirect or implied comparison between two essentially different things to bring out the striking similarity beneath the surface of a contrast.
Personification Give non-human objects the characteristic of man
Hyperbole Exaggeration or a statement exaggerated imaginatively, for effect.
Providing examples of different figures of speech, asking learners to identify the figures of speech the sentences contain, and then explain the sentences.
Rainford’s impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther.(Simile)
He leaped back with the agility of an ape.(Metaphor)
He was as soft as the marshmallow sundaes he loved.(Simile)
The wave murmured and the moon wept silver tears.(Personification)
Rainford lived a year in a minute.(Hyperbole)
During this stage, the main function of the teacher is to help the learners analyze the sentences successfully.If the teacher gives examples and then sits back while the learners flounder—make random uninformed guess—he/she is not helpful; if he/she assists them, he/she thereby helps them understand the figures of speech.
From the examples above, the teacher has led the learners to have a clear and overall understanding of the figurative language.At this stage, it is necessary to summarize the respective characteristic of different figures of speech.For example, teachers may ask students to tell the similarities between sentences in the class of simile.This is a stage of enlightening and students are allowed to fully use their imagination and ingenuity.Students then can conclude that a simile usually expresses a similarity by using the words like , as , and as if .Teachers should also tell students that although figurative language can add vigor and effectiveness, however, a direct simple statement is often preferable, and always so when the figures are artificial.He can advise students to “avoid using such worn-out similes as happy as a lark, cool as a cucumber, busy as a bee, quick as a wink, sweet as sugar, and right as rain.”
The inductive method is a method to introduce new things from concrete to abstract, from specific to general.Teachers can give examples first, then analyze the examples together with students.Finally, teachers generalize the definition and rules.When teachers adopt the inductive method, they should spend more time on teaching preparation and pay more attention to the organization of the teaching procedure.For example, when teachers prepare their lessons, they must think carefully: What examples should be given; how to ask related questions and how to enlighten students; how to lead students to better understanding when they give right answers,and how to correct and instruct them when they make mistakes.By doing so, the teacher can handle any question freely in classes.
The general teaching pattern is as follows:
Example analysis→Explaining rules→Reading text or Practicing.
The following is the example of teaching the attributive clause with the inductive method.
The teacher first gives some sentences with the attributive clause, and writes them on the blackboard.The teacher can show them by reciting sentences or by projecting apparatus.One attributive clause in a sentence is often enough.
Can you see a man with a dog that is crossing the bridge?
There is great disorder, as the newspaper will have told you.
He is the only person that I know in the new school.
The teacher and students then analyze these sentences together and generalize the definition by conversation.
T: Can you pick out the object of the first sentence?
Ss: “a man with his dog”.(Teachers underline these words.)
T: What do you know about them from the sentence?
Ss: “They are crossing the bridge.”
T:Then, here in the first sentence, “ that is crossing the bridge” is used to modify “a man with his dog”.(Continuing with other sentences…)
Students may then come to realize what the attributive clause is, though they may not be able to give the exact definition.With the continuous analysis of other sentences, teachers and students draw a conclusion together: the attributive clause is a sentence used to modify nouns or pronouns.The relative pronouns and adverbs join the attributive clause with the main sentence,and the nouns or pronouns modified by the attributive clause are antecedents.
Then the teacher leads the students to know the classification of the attributive clause with example-analysis.The two kinds are traditionally called restrictive and non-restrictive attributive clauses.Two examples are as the follows:
He walked to the garage that he liked best .(Restrictive)
He walked to the garage, which was a mile away. (Non-restrictive)
The teacher can then explain to the students that the first sentence points out one garage among many and he walked to the particular one he preferred.The underlined part is called a defining clause.In the second sentence, there is only one garage, and the underlined part is called a non-restrictive clause, which gives additional information that the garage is a mile away.The clause can also be called a commenting clause.In short, the restrictive clause restricts the meaning to part of the total, while the non-restrictive clause makes no such limitation.The teacher and students finally draw a conclusion together: if the proceeding word is followed by a terminal juncture, the clause is non-restrictive, as in the first example above.If no terminal juncture is present at this point, the clause is restrictive, as in the second example.
Now the teacher goes on giving some special hints:
—A that clause is always restrictive;
—A clause with zero relative is restrictive;
—If you can substitute that for who, whom or which, the clause is restrictive;
—After a personal or geographical name, the clause is usually restrictive.
After the analysis, students would understand the definition of the attributive clause.Then the teacher should give the special usage of certain relative pronouns or adverbs, such as “that”, “as”.The teacher can first give incorrect sentences and then analyze them with students.For example, the teacher can ask students to think under what circumstances only “that” can be used to introduce an attributive clause.He writes on the blackboard the wrong sentence (W.S.) first:
He is the only person whom I know in the new class.
The teacher then analyzes (A.) the sentence and tells his students that when the antecedents are “ all, nothing, everything, something, anything, little, the only, the last, any, every”, only “that”can be used.The above sentence should be changed to:
He is the only person that I know in the new class.
More such examples are as follows:
W.S: Can you see a man with a dog who is crossing the bridge?
A: When there are both persons and things in the antecedents, only “that” can be used.
R.S: Can you see a man with a dog that is crossing the bridge?
W.S: He is the best student who finishes the task.
A: When the antecedents are modified by the superlative degree of adjectives, only “that” can be used.
R.S: He is the best student that finishes the task.
Of course, it is not suggested that such sequences be rigidly followed in English teaching.If you know that a certain structure is particularly difficult to produce without mistakes, you as a teacher may try to invest more time and effort for the next time you present it.Learners who like to think analytically may appreciate your sharing the problem with them frankly at an early stage.Conversely, if you know that the learners’ use of another structure is usually mistake-free, maybe you can afford to teach it more briefly, and skip lengthy explanations.
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