Teaching English grammar
is a waste of time

First, examine what grammar is, whether it be Latin, Pali, French, German or English grammar. Grammar is the study of how the preferred or prescribed forms that the spoken or written sentences of a language are constructed; their morphology and their syntax. There are various ways of describing a language, so there can be more than one grammar for the same language.

Since living languages change, it is necessary to update the grammar. This seldom happens. In the case of English, there is the grammar from the nineteenth century, which was simply a translation of the Latin grammar of Priscan and Donatus into English. There, the grammar fit Latin quite well but it did not fit English very well.

English grammar vs English

Then there is the more modern approach developed by the linguist Noam Chomsky, called Transformational Generative Grammar. Grammar is a description and nothing more; it is not the language. This is an important distinction to make. People should not confuse learning English grammar with learning English.

I say this because Thai English Workbooks are filled with grammar lessons and grammar is overly stressed. I have spent many hours in the English class listening to a teacher explain to the students - in Thai - the English grammar lesson for the day.

Prathom students can hardly be expected to learn English if most of what they hear is Thai, and the textbooks often contain errors. The answer is simple: for the most part, they don't.

Consider this; for thousands of years in early humanity all language was spoken. Knowledge was passed on in an oral tradition from one generation to the next. In order to facilitate trade, writing was developed. In some cases symbols were used to represent sounds and in others, pictures were used to represent ideas. Either way, the process is one of going from the grapheme representation back to the sound. The spoken language stays primary. This has important implications for the teaching of reading.

To teach reading in English there are two considerations. One is for the student to be able to pronounce the words being read correctly; and the second is for them to be able to understand what they have read. Phonics is good and necessary but it is not an end in itself any more than teaching grammar is. I have known students who could pick up a book in English and read aloud beautifully. Unfortunately, they didn't understand a thing they had read. For the student to read with understanding, most of the words must be a part of his vocabulary.

Similarly, there is no point in teaching English grammar until the student knows English. Even then, there's not much point in teaching grammar. It is a useful tool for the teacher but is not necessary for the student.

Language as sound

After examining the English entrance exam for the university, I came to a number of conclusions. One is that the people who put the exam together did not know English all that well themselves; and secondly, they had a penchant for being redundant. If the student has a good ear for what is standard English, he will recognise what sounds "un-English" as opposed to what sounds right.

The key idea is "sounds." Unless you are signing, language is a sound. Consider how babies learn language. They first of all have to hear it. Then they begin to mutter it. They are imitating the sounds they hear. They imitate them in the context that they hear them. Children have a marvelous capacity for learning language. Now switch back to the Thai English classroom. What are their opportunities for hearing English and imitating the sounds; what are their chances to correctly speak and use the language? Precious few, if any. And like reading, if they do not know the language, teaching them the grammar of a language they don't know is not the best utilisation of time and resources. Once you know the language, learning the grammar is no problem. But why learn it?

If those learning English learn to use well-formed sentences, then they will be able to write well-formed sentences. However, if they learn an incorrect sentence pattern or use words improperly, then they will have formed a speech habit that is difficult to break. The emphasis should be on giving students good models to imitate and on the correct pronunciation of the words they use.

Many native speakers of English consistently use good grammar but they don't "know" grammar. They may not be able to diagram a sentence or conjugate complex verbs. However, they do "know" English.

My advice to the Thai Ministry of Education, have your teachers teach English; and don't waste a lot of time on grammar.

Dr Donart has his PhD in English Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign / Urbana and is co-author of The Student Speaks Out: A Rhetorical View of Freshman Compositions. Recently he taught in a Thai public school as part of the Nonthaburi Teachers Project through the Ramkhamhaeng Institute of Languages.

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