Article+Reflection+by+BÜŞRA+ELMAS


 * ARTICLE REFLECTION BY BÜŞRA ELMAS**


 * NAME OF THE ARTICLE**: APPROACHES AND PROCEDURES FOR TEACHING

GRAMMAR

The English Program, Politeknik Negeri Jember (State Polytechnic of Jember) East Java, Indonesia
 * NAME OF THE AUTHOR**: HANDOYO PUJI WIDODO


 * ABSTRACT OF THE ARTICLE:**

The article is about the teaching grammar. It has been regarded as crucial to the ability to use language. For this reason, this article introduces a five-step procedure for teaching grammar. This five step procedure incorporates the notions of practice, and consciousness-raising, explicit and implicit knowledge, and deductive and inductive approaches for teaching grammar. The proposed steps are expected to be an alternative pathway for English teachers to teach grammar, particularly teaching tenses and modals at college-university levels or even in secondary schools.


 * GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE ARTICLE:**

Grammar is thought to furnish the basis for a set of language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In listening and speaking, grammar plays a crucial part in grasping and expressing spoken language since learning the grammar of a language is considered necessary to acquire the capability of producing grammatically acceptable utterances in the language (Corder, 1988; Widodo, 2004). Moreover, according to Doff (2000) by learning grammar students can express meanings in the form of phrases, clauses and sentences. So it cannot be ignored that grammar plays a central role in the four language skills and vocabulary to establish communicative tasks.

In accordance with the article, teaching grammar has traditionally been dominated by grammar-translation method in such a method learners are required to learn about grammar rules and vocabulary of the target language. In the case of grammar, it is deductively taught; in that learners are provided the grammar rules and examples, are told to memorize them, and then are asked to apply the rules to other examples. On the other hand helping to learners apply grammatical rules into communicative tasks is very challenging. Therefore, teachers, especially in the context of EFL, could benefit from learning some alternative teaching approaches for teaching grammar so that they can integrate grammar or structure into other language skills in such a way that the goal of learning language is ultimately achieved. That’s why this article proposes five- step procedure. This procedure incorporates the notions of practice and consciousness-raising, explicit and implicit knowledge, and deductive and inductive approaches for teaching grammar.

Firstly, It is generally accepted that practice can facilitate accuracy and fluency. In this regard, accuracy focuses on correct use of language. This can be achieved through controlled and semi-controlled activities or practice of grammar.

Secondly, in consciousness-raising, learners are required to notice a certain feature of language but there is no requirement to produce or communicate the certain sentence patterns taught.

Thirdly, in a practical definition, explicit knowledge deals with language and the uses to which language can be put. Explicit knowledge is generally accessible through controlled processing. In short, it is conscious knowledge of grammatical rules learned through formal classroom instruction. On the other hand, implicit knowledge is automatic and easily accessed and provides a great contribution to building communicative skills. Implicit knowledge is unconscious, internalized knowledge of language that is easily accessed during spontaneous language tasks, written or spoken.

Lastly, Broadly speaking, in teaching grammar, there are two approaches that can be applied; deductive and inductive. A deductive approach is derived from the notion that deductive reasoning works from the general to the specific. In this case, rules, principles, concepts, or theories are presented first, and then their applications are treated. However, An inductive approach comes from inductive reasoning stating that a reasoning progression proceeds from particulars to generalities. In short, when we use deduction, we reason from general to specific principles while when we use induction, we observe a number of specific instances and from them infer a general principle or concept.

In a nut shell, all of the above implies the five step procedure and five- step procedure compose of building up students’ knowledge of the rule or rule initiation, eliciting functions of the rule or rule elicitation, familiarizing students with the rule in use through exercises or rule practice, checking students’ comprehension or rule activation, and expanding students’ knowledge or rule enrichment.


 * EVALUATION**

Alongside the procedures mentioned above we can realize that there are some advantages and disadvantages of the procedure. For example, the procedure tries to encourage the students’ involvement in communicative tasks; however, it is an intense activity that is time and energy consuming, but the ultimate goal of teaching grammar is to provide the students with knowledge of the way language is constructed so that when they listen, speak, read and write, they have no trouble applying the language that they are learning. As a consequence, whatever exercises are given, the most crucial thing is that the teacher provides the students with an opportunity to be able to produce the grammatical item making use of syntactically and semantically correct examples of sentences comprised of appropriate and relevant vocabulary and five-step procedure for teaching grammar described in this article achieves this end.