Who should teach grammar in EFL and ESL zones? A native teacher of English or a bilingual teacher?

It is worth looking at some definitions given in various ELT books on grammar before making any attempt to talk about it in details from the point of language teaching and learning view.

What is grammar?
Grammar describes how we combine, organize and change words to make meaning. We use rules for this description.
(Spratt,M Pulverness, A Williams, M (2005)

Grammar is sometimes defined as ’the way words are put together to
make correct sentences.
(Ur, Penny, (1991) P-75

Although the above two definitions give us a clear idea about what grammar is, it is further necessary for us to pay attention to other detailed definitions given by Thornburry,S and Widoson, H.G, (1990)who give broader definitions about grammar respectively.

Grammar is a description of rules for forming sentences, including an
Account of the meanings that these forms convey that grammar adds
Meanings that are not easily inferable from the immediate context.

‘A systematic description of a language; ‘the way words and their
components parts, combine to form sentences; a device for
generating a finite specification of the sentences of language’

Now we are fairly convinced what grammar and its role in a language is. Next, certain questions of broader scope arise such as “What role does grammar play in language learning? Why do we need to know grammar? Can’t we communicate without grammar? How grammar is taught and an important question is; how much attention should be give to explicit grammar instruction? Pica,T (1994)

Since we are going to talk about grammar, it would be interesting to throw some light on the history of grammar.
It is reported that the first attempts to study grammar began in about
4th centaury. B.C. In India with Panini’s grammar of Sanskrith and
Greece with Plato’s dialogues Cratylus. The Greeks, and later the
Romans approached the study of grammar through Philosophy.
Concerned only with the study of their own language and not with
Foreign languages, early Greek and Latin grammars were devoted Primarily to defining the parts of speech. The biblical Commentator Rashi attempted to decipher the rules of Ancient Hebrew grammar. It was not until the Middle Ages that Grammarians became interested in languages other than their own.
The scientific grammatical analysis of language began in the 19th Century with the realization that languages have a history; this led to
attempts at the genealogical classification of languages through
comparative linguistics. Grammatical analysis was further developed
in the 20th century and was greatly advanced by theories of structural
Linguistics and transformational-generative grammar.
(All Refer-com reference –website)

If we pay our attention to the research studies that have been conducted so far into the question of how much attention should be given to explicit grammar instruction, it is apparent that they have been able to bring out some guiding principles for selection and sequencing decisions.

Teaching grammar has undoubtedly been a controversial issue since the time when CLT was introduced with more emphasis on functions rather than grammar instruction. This led to the negligence of both teaching and learning grammar in L2 classroom situations.

It has been noted that although L2 learners are provided with comprehensive input in the classroom, it is not enough for individual learners. So the learners may need more efficient ways of learning grammar rules of L2.

Pienemann (1984a, 1984b) says that there are constraints on L2 learning that affect its teachability and learnability. He has shown word order in German are acquired under two conditions: first in an order of increasing linguistic and psycholinguistic complexity and second with respect to learner readiness. i.e. learners must be at an appropriate developmental stage in their L2 learning. He identified 4 stages of word order through which learners proceed sequentially without skipping stage.

Stage 1. Subject-verb-object word order
Stage 2. Movement of constituents from final to initial position.
Stage 3. Movement of constituents from initial to final position.
Stage 4. Movement of constituents from one to another internal position, as in the formation of question

To illustrate the above stages, Pienemann gives an example of each as below.

1. He must study the book tomorrow.
2. Tomorrow he must study the book.
3. Tomorrow he must the book study
4. Tomorrow must he the book study?

He found that role of instruction accelerated the learner’s movement across the stages. But we find that many problems remain with Pienemanne’s research. Hudson (1993) argues that Pienemanne’s research is of limited value to language pedagogy because of it focuses on a narrow set of linguistic forms and thus does not address the main concern of teachers- how they develop communicative proficiency.

Doughty (1991) and Gass (1982) have shown a positive effect for grammar instructions. They found that the range of relative clause constructions in English could be learned faster if instruction began with most difficult types of relative clause. (Object of preposition) rather than the easiest. (Subject). Thus teaching the more difficult relative clause assisted the learning of less difficult structures. The same study suggests that teaching subject relative assisted the learning of this structure but no impact on the other more difficult structures in the hierarchy.

Pica (1985), who compared instructed learners of English with those who never received classroom instruction, found that for plural –s the instructed learners were more accurate than the uninstructed learners. The latter often used the strategy of attaching quantifies rather than – s to their nouns such as three book, a few house etc. For progressive- ing, the results were less positive for either group. The instructed learners tended to over generalize such as I liking the movie, everyday I going home for lunch etc. The uninstructed learners, on the other hand, often omitted -ing altogether from their verb production. For article a, both group of learners tended to follow similar development sequence.

It is reported that explicit grammar instruction appears to work well with those L2
grammatical features which are so close to the learner’s L1 structures and or so rare in the L2 input that is difficult for them to notice the difference between the two. In a series of studies, on French immersion students, it was found that French L2/English L2 learners who received focused instruction on English adverb placement and question formation achieved and sustained correct production of these structures to a greater degree than learners in classrooms in which activities were solely communicative or of drill and practice type. (Lightbown & Spada 1990, Lightbown, Spada &Ranta, 1991, White 1991).

Montgomery and Eisenstein (1986) found that the strongest gains in grammar learning were not among the learners who attended coursework in grammar instruction, but in both grammar-based course and a course, which included L2 communicative experiences ranging from classroom discussion to community trips.

It is useful for us to see what has been suggested in this regard. It is said that the effectiveness of grammar instruction appears largely to depend on selection and sequencing of grammar rules and careful assessment of learner readiness. Some items are better off not taught, while the learning of others is enhanced, indeed accelerated, through instruction.

It seems that the pre-conceived idea about grammar in most learners as well as teachers whether they be native or non-native is rather negative on the ground that many tend to regard and believe that English grammar is such a difficult component that they can never master (students) it however much they learn it and teacher may think that their learners can not be conceived grammar aspects however much he or she takes pains to teach it. This may be due to its complex rules in one hand and on the other hand how it is dealt with in classroom teaching.

This view is further confirmed by (Widdowson 1990) who asserts that importance of grammar remains unchallenged and says, “Grammar is clearly central to the working of language. But it is equally clear that its nature cannot be accounted for any lexical items that come to mind. I have suggested that it enters into some kind of relationship with words and contents. Grammar is not just a collection of sentence patterns signifying nonsense, something for the learners’ brain to puzzle over”

It should be further noted here that we have a teaching called ‘Grammar Translation method’ of which the main purpose was to train the learner to be able to read its literature especially to pursue one’s higher education. The emphasis was on only reading and writing skills so little or no attention was given to speaking and listening. Despite its shortcomings, it is surprising to mention that this method has survived right up until today alongside a host of more modern and more “enlightened” methods.

Harmer,J (1987) speaks about two methods of grammar teaching i.e Covert and Overt. Covert grammar teaching is where grammatical facts are hidden from the students- even though they are learning the language. With Covert grammar, teacher helps students to acquire and/ or practice the language, but they do not draw conscious attention to any of the grammatical facts of the language. Describing the nature of overt grammar, he points out that the teacher actually provides the students with grammatical rules and explanations.

It is worthwhile considering here what Larsen-Freeman (1997) has to say about grammar learning. According to her, grammar is not uni-dimentional and not meaningless, it embodies the three dimensions of Morph syntax (form), Semantics (meaning) and Pragmatics (use). These dimensions are interdependent; a change in one results in change in another.

Form Meaning
(Accuracy) (Meaningfullnes)

Use
(appropriateness)

She further mentions that to use the English passive voice accurately, meaningfully and appropriately, English as a second language, students must master all three dimensions.

From Graham Lock’s (1996) point of view, to communicate, we need to be able to
1. Represent what it is we want to talk about and to locate it in time.
2. Make the content interpersonally relevant and appropriate.
3. Make the whole message relevant to what has been said previously and to the situational context. Seen from this perspective, grammar is not an optional add-on to communication. It lies at the very heart of communication.

It is interesting to note here that a number of research studies conducted by many researchers into the role of explicit grammar instruction have proved that explicit grammar instruction is necessary for the L2 learners to master the grammar rules of L2
Now the question before us is not really about the grammar but who should teach it either by native teachers of English or bilingual teachers. When this question is analyzed, it is apparent that the term of teacher of English refers to someone who is qualified in his/her field whether it is native or bilingual. In most universities and Teacher Training Colleges around the world offer teacher-training courses in respect of many subjects and fields last two to three years. It is common to expose teacher trainees to teaching methods, classroom management, psychology, skills development etc in depth with observed classroom teaching practice and on successful completion of the course, they are awarded a teaching certificate or license in accordance with the accepted rules and regulations pertaining to national or government educational policies of that particular country.

Therefore, we can assume that a well-trained teacher without any discrimination i.e. native or bilingual should be able to help students to achieve their goals in language learning. He/she should know the constructs like learning and teaching very well .As Brown, H.D. (2000) p-7 mentions, learning is acquisition, learning is retention of information or skill, learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism, learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting, learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice and learning is a change in behavior while teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learner, setting the conditions for learning. But we can not rest upon the premise that all trained teachers of both category can teach a language like English successfully and effectively to a group of ESL or EFL learners unless he/she is someone who is dynamic, skilled, innovative, aware of all the roles related to a teacher, able to identify learner’s needs and potentialities, constantly updating his/her knowledge and wishing to engage in professional development activities and so on. From this point, it could be argued that teaching grammar in EFL or ESL zones can be tackled by both native teachers of English and bilingual teachers. However, we need to add something here on the part of bilingual teachers because they are at the advantages of using the mother tongue of a particular group of students who sometimes find it hard to understand some language concepts. We are very well aware that our lives are mostly controlled by the time factor. You have a limited time to do all maneuvers in a classroom. If you waste 10 or 15 minutes out of 45 or 50 minutes to explain the meaning of a word or any other feature, it will be an utter waste of time on the part of students’ education. It is true that some teachers spend more time to explain the meaning of some lexical items.

As Lock, G (1996) points out that many, particularly Non-Indo-European Languages do not have a regular distinction between finite and non-finite verb forms in the way English does. However, mastering the functions of subject and Finite form the beginning is important for second language learners. Without such mastery, they are likely to have many problems with the basic sentence structure, with the formation of questions and negatives, and with the making of tense and of number agreement.etc. Certain areas where many L2 learners find them problematic are cited below.

Aspects- progressive and perfect
Sentence structure- SVO but many Asian languages do not follow this structure instead they have SOV
Time and Tense
Present tense with future reference- Eg: she is flying to Australia tomorrow.
Present tense with past reference- Eg: Have you ever been to USA?
Past tense with present reference- Eg: Could you open the door, please?
Past tense with future reference- Eg: If no one gave you any presents for your Birthday, what would you do?
Modality – In some languages, we don’t find a number of modal verbs as we
encounter in English.
Futurity- In English, we have several ways of expressing future but in many
Languages, one may find one way or perhaps not a single structured
way.
Conditionals – In English we have two types of conditionals namely
real/unreal but this distinction cannot be found in some languages.

Although the above-mentioned features vary or are not present in some languages, they have some other ways to express the said ideas using their own ways and means. Eg. If we consider Thai, it is a tonal language because tones are not used the same as in English to designate meaning only. Thus by employing different ‘tones’, they express different meaning. Further, one can see that Thai has syntactical, semantical, morphological and phonological differences so teaching L2 grammar to Thai students may pose a big challenge especially to a foreign teacher.

If the above situation is taken into consideration, it is obvious that a native teacher of English will find it rather hard to deal with some aspects of grammar than a bilingual teacher who is generally well versed with grammar since in many countries where English is used as a second language, it has been customary to place a lot of emphasis on grammar teaching and learning. Medgyes, P (1994) P-34 supports this view

‘Unlike vocabulary, grammar is the Non-NESTS’ (Non-Native speaking
Teachers of English) favorite hunting. If there is one area where we claim
to be at home, it is grammar. The reason is that it is far more concrete than
vocabulary. Its gist can be compressed into a book of 2-300 pages and is
therefore, ‘learnable, include, most Non-NESTS successfully swatted up
grammar during their college years’

Non-native teacher has another advantage. i.e. Mostly non-native teacher is someone who studies English as a second language/foreign language where he/she becomes familiar with the process of L2 acquisition first by learning it whereas a native speaker unless he formally learns it, it is unlikely that he/she will get such a first hand experience. Therefore, bilingual teacher is in a position to identify the obstacles and challenges which the L2 learners encounter in the process of L2 acquisition. So it can be assumed that a bilingual teacher may be better at teaching grammar to L2 learners than a native teacher of English.

Edge, J (1993) mentions, “the great majority of English teachers have learnt English as a second language or foreign language. As such, and given the appropriate level of ability, they serve as the best possible models for their learners”.

Although the existing situation is like the one explained above, when considering English, we can clearly express that English is not a highly inflected language that does not have a complex system of verb or noun endings. Further we can suggest that there is not much grammar in English and, therefore, not much difficulty in teaching or learning. So I wish to conclude this with the following information. EFL or ESL teacher whether native or bilingual should remember the fact that teaching grammar demands an innovative ways and means i.e. a good preparation, sound knowledge of rules, how to present them how to deal with errors, how to test grammar, how to integrate grammar and how not to teach grammar as has been very well explained in details by Thornbury, S (1999).

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All Refer-com reference - Website Brown, H.D (2000) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Longman Edge, J (1993) Essentials of English language Teaching, Longman. Harmer, J (1987) Teaching and Learning Grammar, Longman Larsen-Freeman, D (1997) Grammar and its teaching: Challenging the Myths-Digest March 1997. Lock,G (1996) Functional English Grammar, Cambridge University Press. Marckwardt, A.J The Place of Literature in the teaching Medgyes, P (1994) The Non- Native Teacher, Macmillan. Pica, T (1994) Questions from the language classroom: Research prospective, TESOL Quarterly Vol 28 .No 1 Thornbury,S (1991) How to teach Grammar, Longman. Widdowson, H.G (1990) Aspects of Language Teaching, Oxford University Press

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