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Importance of grammar

Importance of grammar

Posted: 28 Feb 2022

Grammar is an important part of language learning. We use it at home, in school, at work, and to communicate effectively. How we communicate is important to be successful in society today - being able to communicate in writing and orally requires an understanding of grammar. 

While modern technology and social media have fewer formal forms of communication, grammar is the most important skill for students entering college. Colleges want to ensure that their students are well-rounded and capable of effective communication. Communication in the workforce can also be a motivating factor in mastering grammar. Being able to write professionally and expressively proves to be a desired talent in potential employees. Some companies will not hire people with poor grammar skills. ("The Importance of Grammar in Schools Today | The Classroom") 

Grammatical structure supplies the basis for speech, widens one’s vocabulary and gives language users control of expression and communication in everyday life. Grammar names the words and word groups that make up sentences and help people communicate their emotions and purpose more effectively. Written communication skills with grammatical precision proves competence, and understanding basic principles of word, sentence and paragraph structures gives people the flexibility to plan how they communicate a message, from a plain text to a presentation. If people cannot speak or write to one another successfully , they cannot share their thoughts with each other. ("The Importance of Grammar in Schools Today | The Classroom") 

In the English language, standards are related to grammar, including subject-verb agreement, punctuation, verb tense and parallel sentence structure and students are assessed by showing evidence of substantial knowledge of spelling, grammar, usage, capitalisation, and punctuation. 

Grammar plays a vital role in how effectively a teacher conveys a lesson. 

"Teaching grammar in context"
is a method and approach for teaching grammar

("Teaching grammar in context | Englicious.org")

Why?

A contextualised grammar pedagogy is a more unified approach, which integrates aspects of language and literature, rather than seeing them as two distinct parts of English. It relates ‘effects’ (i.e., a reader’s feelings and responses) to ‘structures’ (i.e., the grammatical patterns of a text). Grammatical structures of a text empower students to conduct systematic and rigorous interpretations of a text, moving away from the vague, impressionistic, and superficial analyses which characterise much of the traditional literary criticism. Research shows that contextualised grammar teaching can have a positive impact on creative writing and analytical reading.

What?

A contextualised grammar pedagogy construes grammar as a series of consciously chosen meaning-making patterns, not an arbitrary list of rules and constraints. It foregrounds the idea that grammar is about choice, that writers (and speakers) make conscious choices about the linguistic patterns they use. Teaching grammar in context involves making connections between grammatical patterns and the meaning of texts; wider contextual aspects such as genre, audience, subject and purpose; a reader’s feelings and responses to a text; potential authorial motivations for making decisions about language choices. It avoids both ‘feature spotting’ and ‘formulaic’ grammar teaching, i.e., the falsehood that ‘descriptive writing is full of adjectives’ and ‘verbs are doing words’ for example. 

How?

A contextualised grammar pedagogy leads with concepts and ideas, rather than the grammar itself. For example, a teaching activity might begin with students discussing their feelings and responses to a text, and then going back to the text to explore ‘why’ the grammatical patterns made them feel and think the way they did. Readers' responses must hold the text to account: i.e., they must be able to explore the grammatical patterns of a text and use those patterns to help explain their responses. The use of metalanguage (grammatical terminology) is important because it provides a common, shared language which allows students (and teachers) to be more correct, precise and efficient in the way they talk about language itself. 

Citation:

http://www.englicious.org/lesson/teaching-grammar-context

https://www.theclassroom.com

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