To sum it up, I would like to say that it may be possible to learn a language without learning its grammar, but to speak this language properly without any grammar knowledge is impossible.
Did you start to learn grammar when you were a toddler? I didn’t do that but maybe it’s differant in Australia.
Maybe I made many mistakes when I spoke Swedish when I was a child but I learnt to communicate without studying grammer rules. I couln’t read before I was 8 years old. I know some children who know how to read before 5 years old.
/Maria
I mentioned “to speak PROPERLY”. And normally, when you are eight years old, there is still a lot to learn.:) Children do not sound as good as educated adults:) No, I did not learn grammar when I was a child, but I spent years in school and university:) and still learning…
Maria, kids come to the world ready to acquire language. They do that unconsciously. They have certain capacities that play a pivotal role in language acquisition. Those capacities “vanish” after a certain age. So they are not available to adults. Thus, adults cannot learn grammar the same way kids do.
There is a very interesting stage of language acquisition in which a kid utters sounds that are not used in his/her mother tongue! It is either the cooing stage or the babbling stage, I don’t remember exactly. But the interesting thing is that after some twenty years, that same kid may have trouble pronouncing those sounds he uttered easily as a kid! This is evidence that kids have certain abilities that are not available after a certain age.
Any adult can learn almost any language unconsciously too provided they are ready and willing to change some of their habits consciously. The reason why so many adults struggle to learn a second language is not because their ‘language learning capacities have vanished’. It’s because they are not aware of the fact that they need to change their habits.[YSaerTTEW443543]
[quote=“Happytofita”]
Maria, kids come to the world ready to acquire language. They do that unconsciously. They have certain capacities that play a pivotal role in language acquisition. Those capacities “vanished” after a certain age. So they are not available to adults. Thus, adults cannot But the interesting thing is that after some twenty years, that same kid may have trouble pronouncing those sounds he uttered easily as a kid! This is evidence that kids have certain abilities that are not available after a certain age.
Yes I know. That age are about three years old. I think you are a native speaker of English as you use too many difficult words but I have a good dictionary so I can check the words I don’t know.
/Maria
I just meant that adults don’t have a full access to those capacities. Kids acquire language effortlessly because of those capacities. If adults had access to those abilities, they would learn the second language effortlessly, which is not the case. They have to make an effort to change their habits as you say. The difference between the two is that kids acquire language effortlessly while adults must make an effort to learn.
My dear friend Natasha81,
thanks a lot for your full Explanations and expansion in the topic. I agree with you 100% in that, grammar is very important in any language. People always afraid from studying any language, even their native language, maybe because few teachers know how to teach grammar. This makes bad reaction inside their hearts towards the word grammar. Therefore, and as I believe, the right way in teaching grammar is that by teaching it indirectly. We teach people conversations, reading passages, make jokes, drills or even to let them watching movies and listening to different songs. We have to know people’s background, in order to know what the topics that attract their attention most are. We must help them use the language correctly in its suitable context. One day a young man came to me. He said that he wanted to learn to speak the English language without learning the grammar of that language. I immediately answered him “I won’t teach you grammar. I myself didn’t like grammar”. Then I started using different techniques of teaching. He started to be activated. I used different sheet of papers containing questions and other sheets, which were containing answers to those questions, I used movies, songs, and sometimes I made plays. All these techniques were new and had their influence on him. Then and after one month only, I discovered that he himself was searching in grammar books. I asked him about what was he doing? , he said; I realized that I was wrong. I have to learn grammar in order to know how to build the sentences correctly.
Dear Torsten,
You emphasis “you need to change your habits if you want to learn the foreign language” all the time. What exactly do you mean by “changing the habits” here? Is it “the desire, intentions, willingness, or it is something else?
In my tenet, the best English learners are children, of course. Why? In fact, it’s because they don’t study grammar and they don’t learn from textbooks. They use very specific methods and “rules” for learning. Students must learn grammar intuitively. They must learn grammar subconsciously. They must learn grammar naturally. English grammar is easy, but only if they learn it correctly. And the correct way is not studying grammar rules. People can learn English in a relaxing way by listening to real English articles. Besides, I do agree with Happytofita, “Exposure is of paramount importance in leaning languages”!
Dear Zeinab
The modern methods in communicative approach invent new techniques in teaching the foreign language and precisely in teaching the English language. Language has been taught not as letters, words, or structures. Student started learning the language in relation to context. Nowadays, students are fully aware about the reasons behind learning the language. Teachers nowadays, depended on different types of authentic materials in order to facilitate the process of learning. Students can watch movies, films, hear many songs related to the students’ lecture, they could make jokes, drills, or even say proverbs. Such activity can activate the students’ minds and increase their willingness to learn the language, regardless to the sex, gender, social background or even the culture of those students.
What you say is so true, learning phrases used by native speakers. However, it is so difficult to know which is correct and incorrect to learn from native speakers’ speaking because I have seen many of them using incorrect grammar and structure (as per my knowledge and experience). Many times I am not sure if those ones or the dictionary and grammar books are correct.
Dear Be.emily,
What I did to my students is that I ask them to prepare some drills, jokes, certain phrases used for greetings or to be used in certain occasions, songs that are written on papers and also some important proverbs; all of them should be written in the English language. My students started gathering these materials. In doing so, they started learning these things by heart. Therefore, they started learning a lot of vocabularies and phrases with correct grammar. They learned all these things without realizing that they are learning the grammar of the English language also. In fact, I find that this process is very useful and can activate all my students in the classroom.
Children do not sound as good as educated adults:) No, I did not learn grammar when I was a child, but I spent years in school and university:) and still learning…