Log 004 - Should students memorize grammar rules?
- Oct 12, 2017
- 2 min read
(SCT Session #05)
Should there even be a model answer for this when every learner has a different mode of learning? I myself is a kinesthetic and visual learner; acquisition therefore takes the shape of repeated practice and use, aided by text or graphic organizers.
Should we memorize grammar rules? Well, it really depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?
A professor of Grammar once told the class that all those grammar rules we learned in secondary school - things like “we use the indefinite article ‘a/an’ when we talk about a noun for the first time” etc. - are wrong; there are always exceptions to grammar rules.
However, we as teachers of English were only able to comprehend the exceptions when we are aware of the rules. It is only when we are familiar enough with the basic grammatical structure can we “play” with English to produce our own utterances.
We need to be aware of the rules, but memorizing rules alone, without examples of its usage and ample practice is rather meaningless.
Fundamentally, we speakers of English seek to be able to communicate with English; “perfect grammar” may or may not serve a function - or even serve a different function than originally intended- depending on the discourse or situation.
So personally, we should still offer an explanation of how certain language items are formed, but we should also allow students to practice creating meaningful English dialogues or utterances. This not only caters for different learning styles, but also covers the different aspects of the English language - its form and meaning.
I wonder, though, if teachers in Hong Kong feel safer to teach form and accuracy because they are more conforming than to teach meaning and fluency, which are essentially more creative in nature....
(But what am I talking about? I myself understand that learning a language should be a gradual process - learn the basics first, then we can tackle the more creative and messy exceptions...)
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