| "Grammar and exercises are only requirements of the syllabus,
not of learning a language. Did you learn the grammar of your
mother-tongue when you were acquiring it? Most of you may still not
know the grammar of your mother-tongue but you speak it effortlessly." |
|
If grammar means identifying the names of parts of speech, the names of
the tenses, and that sort of knowledge of terminology (Past Perfect
Progressive), then this is certainly not a requirement of learning a
language.
If grammar means the knowledge of which words and word-forms go
together to make coherent communications within a language, even if
instinctively applied, then I think we'd have to say that grammar is a
requirement of some kind.
I agree that I did not learn the grammar of my mother-tongue when I was acquiring it -- in the first sense of 'grammar'.
I do think, however, that I "learned"/acquired the grammar of my
mother-tongue when I was acquiring it -- in the second sense of 'grammar'. In
fact, except for vocabulary, which is a simple matter of
stimulus-response, it seems to me that the acquistion of a language IS
the acquisition of its grammar.
It is believed that between the ages of six and ten, the cells in the
language acquistion portion of the brain die off or take on a different
function, so that it is impossible to
acquire language after approximately age 10, certainly after puberty. Remember that the
acquistion
of language is like birds "learning" to fly. They don't exactly
study a flight manual before taking off on their first flight!
Nevertheless, though the language acquisition window closes around puberty, most
likely for biological reasons, and we may no longer be able to
acquire a new language, we can certainly still
learn
one. At this point, we are usually forced to use a lot of artificial
techniques to help us. The logic of a language is no longer as
easily grasped instinctively, but must be, we might almost say,
'computed', at least in the beginning stages. The rules for these 'computations' are called grammar. The 'computation'
is not thinking
within language but thinking
about
language, examining language somewhat more objectively than is typical
within the language we first acquired. Sometimes the
computational aspect is presented very formally to the learner.
In such systems there is an underlying belief (in the mind of the
instuctors) that the terminology is so useful in explaining the
grammatical machinery that it cannot be dispensed with. In other
methodologies a more flexible approach is used, sometimes out of fear
of the very real possibility (I think) that knowledge of the
terminology will be seen as more important than the ability to express
oneself in the target language.
Regardless of how formal or informal, or how rigid or flexible the
presentation, I don't see how anyone can
learn a language without exercises, despite the obvious fact that we all
acquired
one without exercises. We can't expect our muscles to grow strong
without exercise, and the failure of some to see the analogy with
mental activity is quite puzzling. And the exercises that are
needed are language exercises (practicing using the language), not
grammar exercises (practicing using the terminology of grammar).
I find it disheartening to see questions on this very forum in which it
is obvious that students must negotiate the fine points of the
terminology: Is this a participle acting as a noun acting as an
adverbial complement of a phrasal verb used idiomatically or is this a
progressive tense in the passive voice accompanied by an adverbial
dependent clause of concession? Apparently, within the
educational system of such students these matters pass as learning
English. So in that sense, I'm against 'exercises'!
In any case, the struggle for the
learner is always making the conversion from 'computing' utterances
(assembling them by applying grammatical rules) to
generating meaningful utterances spontaneously. The more role
models the learners have, whether in terms of number of speakers they
have contact with or in terms of the number of written and spoken
resources they have available, the smoother the transition. At
the extreme, if the learner is thrown into a sink-or-swim situation --
immersion -- it may be possible to shortcut the 'computational' period
considerably. The final goal is the same in any case:
meaningful language that is automatically produced and instinctively
felt without any further consciousness of or need for the
'computational' (grammatical) aspects which were so prominent and
necessary in the learning stages.
In summary, I believe the author of the quote above is taking
grammar to mean excessive preoccupation with terminology and exercises
to mean exercises designed to learn the terminology of grammar.
Taken in this way, I must agree with the author. Of course, it is
possible to interpret those words differently, which is why the
statement has generated so many comments. I prefer to give the
author the benefit of the doubt and say that he or she was merely
describing an approach which concentrates more on the target language
and less on the terminology.
CJ