Grammar

[Iris]

Some of my workmates think an exhaustive study of grammar()is essential to learn a foreign language, but I disagree. What about you?

[poli]

You, as a teacher would know. Have your students had success without
extensive grammar?
I certainly think knowing the function and how to identify difference between nouns, verbs, pronouns,abverbs adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, direct objects, and indirect objects would help. I do think that learning a second language requires the drudgery of memorization.

[Rusty]

Most people who speak only one language don't really know its grammar. They may think they do, but a deeper understanding of grammar really begins when you are forced to apply the rules you know to a foreign tongue. All of a sudden, you start to pay a lot of attention to sentence structure. Learning a foreign tongue is a good grammar refresher course, to say the least.

[poli]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Most people who speak only one language don't really know its grammar. They may think they do, but a deeper understanding of grammar really begins when you are forced to apply the rules you know to a foreign tongue. All of a sudden, you start to pay a lot of attention to sentence structure. Learning a foreign tongue is a good grammar refresher course, to say the least.

That is so true, Rusty. When I studied grammar in school, it just seemed like a dull excercise. It was only when I studied a foreign language that I realised what a phenominal machine language is. It's a grid that's largely transferable from one language to another.It's almost like a map of how our brains work. You learn your own language better by studying another tongue. Moreover, you learn more about your own country by spending time in another.

[Tomisimo]

Foreign language teachers really need to study language acquisition theory from a linguistic perspective. What things aid language acquisition/learning and what things don't. When you teach language, you're always teaching grammar, period. The question is, should you teach it explicitly or not? My opinion is that the explicit teaching of grammar rules actually hinders language learning for the majority of people. Why? Most people's knowledge of grammar doesn't go much beyond noun, verb and adjective. If you start throwing around terms like gender, declination, case, accusative, nominative, conjugation-- people's minds actually close off to what you're saying, since you've already alienated them. I've found for example when teaching Spanish I don't even mention the term gender. I say Spanish has four words for the word "the", and which one you use is determined by the word that follows it. La goes with casa, and el goes with perro etc. And after giving out lots of examples, someone will ask if la goes with all words that end in 'a' etc. and it gets a discussion going. But the important thing is to not mention gender, determiner, article, definite article, number, noun and all the "grammar" terms. On the other hand, if someone is comfortable with grammar and grammar terms, then an explicit study of grammar can be used as a shortcut to assimilate language. But it is no replacement for practice.

[Alfonso]

I agree what you say, David. I would add that when you are teaching a language you should realise that the student doesn't need to learn grammar, but to acquire communication skills.
Nowadays, to focus on grammar is a very old fashioned teaching style, appropriate to teach Latin or ancient Greek, but useless to teach English, Spanish or a living language. Fortunately, things have changed a lot since the sixties, when enfoques comunicativos and enfoques nocio-funcionales started to spread out the world.

I would really appreciate some help with the phrases I highlighted in black. How do you say this in English? They are technical terms. I don't think it will be enough to attempt a literal translation. What I'm looking for are the current terms used in language teaching.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Rusty]

I'm not a teacher, but I think some of the information below is helpful. Perhaps you can use the translations alone in your further research.

Enfoque Comunicativo
The communicative approach has its origins in a view of language and of grammar as descriptive rather than prescriptive. In other words, a view which sees language as continuously evolving, with the consequent freeing up of judgmental attitudes about what is "wrong" and "right."

Enfoque Socio-funcional
A socio-functional approach to 'acquiring' a language deals in learning how society functions and how to function in it.

[Tomisimo]

Excellent translations Rusty, I think those are the correct terms.

Originally Posted by Alfonso

... or an alive language.

... or a living language.
... or a language that is alive.

I agree with what you say Alfonso. Acquiring communication skills is the goal of language learning/teaching, not a theoretical understanding of grammar. Have you read any of Steven Krashen's work-- the Monitor theory, the i+1 theory and his view on language acquisition? If you haven't, you'd probably find him quite intriguing.

[Alfonso]

Thanks a lot, Rusty and David, for your answers.

Of course, Krashem is one of the greats. I think his theory that distinguish acquisition from learning is in the root of communicative approach.

Thanks a lot for your translations, Rusty. I gather that communicative approach is exactly the term I was looking for. But the other one you say is more in the field of pragmatics that in the nuance of the enfoque nocio-funcional. It's not socio-funcional but nocio-funcional what I meant. I'll try to find something similar.

Thanks a lot.

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by Alfonso

Thanks a lot, Rusty and David, for your answers.

Of course, Krashem is one of the greats. I think his theory that distinguishes acquisition from learning is in the root of the communicative approach.

Thanks a lot for your translations, Rusty. I gather that communicative approach is exactly the term I was looking for. But the other one you say is more in the field of pragmatics that in the nuance of the enfoque nocio-funcional. It's not socio-funcional but nocio-funcional what I meant. I'll try to find something similar.

Thanks a lot.

enfoque nocio-funcional = notional functional approach

[Alfonso]

Originally Posted by Tomisimo

enfoque nocio-funcional = notional functional approach

Thanks a lot, David. I've been researching the term, and this is exactly what I meant. Anyway, it's not clear that it's an approach, but a syllabus, that's to say, a way to organise the topics the learner must take. Nevertheless, this last idea is a questioned one, or, at least, an objection that some people do to the fact that it was formerly considered an approach to language learning theory. This debate hasn't been held in the Spanish environment, although it's quite clear that un enfoque comunicativo y un enfoque nocio-funcional are not synonymous nor equivalents.

[Tomisimo]

Yes, you're right. When I was looking around to find the term, I found that the notional functional method is a way to organize a course, not really a teaching method.

[poli]

No quiero estar de desacuerdo con vds. que dicen que uno puede aprender un segundo idioma sin aprender las leyes gramáticas, pero no entiendo como. Segun mi conocimiento, las reglas gramaticas son los
herramientos (o miembros) del idioma. Cuando uno aprende como
funciona in coche tiene que entender la diferencia entre la sordina, la
llanta, y bujia. Es cierto que un cirujano tiene que saber como funciona el higado y riñon. Me parece igual en el estudio de la lengua.

Quiero saber como puede aprender un idioma sin entender como
funciona sus partes.

Gracias

Ruego que me corrija.

[Alfonso]

Originally Posted by poli

No quiero estar en desacuerdo con vds. que dicen que uno puede aprender un segundo idioma sin aprender las leyes gramaticales, pero no entiendo cómo. Según mi conocimiento, las reglas gramaticales son las herramientas (o miembros) del idioma. Cuando uno aprende cómo funciona un coche tiene que entender la diferencia entre la sordina, la llanta, y la bujía. Es cierto que un cirujano tiene que saber cómo funciona el higado y el riñon. Me parece igual en el estudio de la lengua.

Quiero saber cómo se puede aprender un idioma sin entender cómo funcionan sus partes.

Gracias

Ruego que me corrija.

Actually, neither David nor I did say that one can learn a second language without learning its grammar, but, of course, it's possible, as many non alphabetised people do when migrating to other countries.
There are also people who never go to a school of languages and, however, they learn a second language. It's been so most of the time of the History. The emphasis in learning grammar to acquire a second language is a consequence of the structuralism studies on the 50's, and, more ancient, from the beginning of classical philology, when Latin and ancient Greek started to be studied as dead objects.

It's so deep inside the mind of any learner that most of the people even don't conceive the possibility of acquiring a language without learning its grammar.

Anyway, notio-functional and communicative approaches are in the middle of the term. They don't rule out grammar. Neither they start by grammar for the learner to be able to speak, but they start by speaking for the learner to guess some very simple grammar rules. This difference is said to be between a deductive approach (grammar, traditional) and an inductive (communication, modern) approach to language learning.

[Iris]

Originally Posted by Alfonso

Actually, neither David nor I did say that one can learn a second language without learning its grammar, but, of course, it's possible, as many non alphabetised(illiterate) people do when migrating to other countries.
There are also people who never go to a school of languages and, however, they learn a second language. It's been so most of the time through (in) History. The emphasis on learning grammar to acquire a second language is a consequence of the structuralist studies of the 50's, and, before that (previously), from the beginning of classical philology, when Latin and ancient Greek started to be studied as dead objects.

It's so deep inside the mind of any learner that most people don't even conceive the possibility of acquiring a language without learning its grammar.

Anyway, notio-functional and communicative approaches are in the middle of the term. They don't rule out grammar. Neither do they start with grammar for the learner to be able to speak, but they start by speaking for the learner to guess some very simple grammar rules. This difference is said to be between a deductive approach (grammar, traditional) and an inductive (communication, modern) approach to language learning.

En rojo para fastidiar.

[Alfonso]

Thanks a lot, Iris, for your superb corrections.

[poli]

Bueno, lo accepto. El matriz de idioma es innata en todos los seres humanos. Pero, cuando comencé a aprender español, nos enseñaba diálogos sin enseñar nada mas. El curso consistía en memorización y repetición. Francamente lo odiaba porque casi no entendía lo que repetía. Además los dialogos eran malos. Por ejemplo (todavía recuerdo): "Mi tocadisco es descompuesto" Sentía mas seguro cuando aprendí las palabras individuals y sus funciones en la frase.

[Alfonso]

Poli, your are describing an even worse method of teaching based upon memory and repetition. I think nowadays very few people use that method. In Spain a lot of people started learning English with the following sentence: My tailor is rich; and, after that: My tailor is not rich. As you can see, very productive and helpful sentences.

[Alfonso]

Originally Posted by poli

Bueno, lo acepto. El matriz del idioma es innato en todos los seres humanos. Pero, cuando comencé a aprender español, nos enseñaban diálogos sin enseñar nada mas. El curso consistía en memorización y repetición. Francamente lo odiaba porque casi no entendía lo que repetía. Además los dialogos eran malos. Por ejemplo (todavía recuerdo): "Mi tocadiscos está descompuesto" Me sentí más seguro cuando aprendí las palabras individuales y sus funciones en la frase.

Nunca he escuchado el matriz o la matriz del idioma, pero me imagino lo que quieres decir. Yo diría: la capacidad para hablar / para usar el lenguaje.

[poli]

Si, capacidad es correcto, pero escogí matriz porque sorspecho que esa capacidad es algo mecánico en nuestros cerebros con reglas y funciones básicas aplicable a todos los idiomas.