Article+Reflection+by+Gökhan+Bozkurt

Teaching grammar has been seen as crucial to the ability to use language and so in language teaching grammar is very important as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL), because without a good knowledge of grammar, learners’ language development will be restricted. Especially, in the teaching of grammar, learners are taught rules of language commonly known as sentence patterns. Moreover, grammatical rules enable learners to know and apply how such sentence patterns should be put together. In other words, teaching grammar should encircle language structure or sentence patterns, meaning and use. Further, grammar is thought to be keystone for a set of language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In listening and speaking, grammar plays a crucial role, since learning the grammar of a language is considered necessary to produce grammatically true utterances in the language. Also, in reading, grammar enables learners to comprehend. In the context of writing, grammar allows the learners to put their ideas into sentences so that they can successfully communicate in a written form. Lastly, in the case of vocabulary, grammar provides learners an ability to form meaningful and communicative statements or expressions. Although many teachers think that teaching grammar separately isn’t beneficial for the learners, because they only learn the structure and rules; when they are expected to write or speak, they make grammatical mistakes. So, teacher should integrate the grammar into different language skills like writing and speaking for a complete learning of a language. For teaching grammar effectively, we need to apply five steps; the notions of practice and consciousness-raising, explicit and implicit knowledge, and deductive and inductive approaches for teaching grammar.
 * Reflection on Approaches and Procedures for Teaching Grammar **


 * Practice **

For many of the teachers, it is generally accepted that practice can facilitate the students’ accuracy and fluency in a language. In this view, accuracy focuses on correct use of language. After learners have learned the rules of language, they are supposed to apply the rules of language in the form of spoken or written language. Moreover, while students are practicing, they can make mistakes. But, teacher should tolerate to these mistakes, because errors and mistakes are quite natural in practice.


 * Consciousness-raising **

Learners are expected to notice a certain feature of language like sentence patterns in consciousness-raising, but there is no requirement to produce or to communicate. That is to say, while practice is directed at the acquisition of implicit knowledge of a grammatical structure, consciousness-raising is adjust for the formation of explicit knowledge which is a kind of intellectual knowledge about any subject.

** Explicit knowledge ** Explicit knowledge is the conscious knowledge of grammatical rules learned through formal classroom instruction. For example, Ali knows every rule about present tense, but he frequently makes mistakes in speaking and writing. However, such knowledge is easy for him while having time to think of the rule and apply it (that is, in the context of a grammar exercise or a writing assignment). Thus, in this case, explicit knowledge is learnable. **Implicit knowledge**

Implicit knowledge is unconscious, internalized knowledge of language that is easily accessed during spontaneous language tasks, written or spoken. It has been seen that implicit knowledge is gained in the natural language learning process. That is to say, a person applies a certain grammatical rule in the same way as a child who acquires her/his first language such as mother tongue.


 * Deductive approach **

A deductive approach is based on the notion that works from the general to the specific. So, rules, principles, concepts, or theories are presented first, and then their applications are treated. The deductive approach can also be called ruledriven learning. In such an approach, a grammar rule is explicitly presented to students and followed by practice applying the rule.


 * Inductive approach **

An inductive approach comes from inductive reasoning stating that a reasoning progression proceeds from particulars (that is, observations, measurements, or data) to generalities (for example, rules, laws, concepts or theories). In short, when we use induction, we observe a number of specific instances and from them infer a general principle or concept.


 * Conclusıon **

I think that the most important point 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 shouldn’t have trouble applying the language that they are learning. Language teachers should, therefore, try to use creative and innovative attempts to teach grammar so that such a complete language learning can successfully be achieved.