Grammar: how to tame the unruly beast
¡°Grammar, which knows how to control even kings¡±?- ²Ñ´Ç±ô¾±¨¨°ù±ð
When you think of grammar, ¡°rule¡± is probably the first word that pops into your mind. Certainly the traditional view of grammar is that it¡¯s about the ¡°rules of language¡±. Indeed, not so long ago, teaching a language meant just teaching grammatical rules, plus perhaps a few vocabulary lists. However, I¡¯m going to suggest that there¡¯s actually no such thing as a grammatical rule.
To show you what I mean, let¡¯s take the comparative of adjectives: ¡°bigger¡±, ¡°smaller¡±, ¡°more useful¡±, ¡°more interesting¡±, etc. We might start with a simple rule: for adjectives with one syllable, add -er, and for adjectives with two or more syllables, use more + adjective.
But this doesn¡¯t quite work: yes, we say ¡°more useful¡±, but we also say ¡°cleverer¡±, and ¡°prettier¡±. OK then, suppose we modify the rule. Let¡¯s also say that for two-syllable adjectives ending in -y or -er you add -er.
Unfortunately, this doesn¡¯t quite work either: we do say ¡°cleverer¡±, but we also say ¡°more sober¡± and ¡°more proper¡±. And there are problems with some of the one-syllable adjectives too: we say ¡°more real¡± and ¡°more whole¡± rather than ¡°realer¡± or ¡°wholer¡±. If we modify the rule to fit these exceptions, it will be half a page long, and anyway, if we keep looking we¡¯ll find yet more exceptions. This happens repeatedly in English grammar. Very often, rules seem so full of exceptions that they¡¯re just not all that helpful.
And there¡¯s another big problem with the ¡°rule approach¡±: it doesn¡¯t tell you what the structure is actually used for, even with something as obvious as the comparative of adjectives. You might assume that it¡¯s used for comparing things: ¡°My house is smaller than Mary¡¯s¡±; ¡°John is more attractive than Stephen¡±. But look at this: ¡°The harder you work, the more money you make.¡± Or this: ¡°London is getting more and more crowded.¡± Both sentences use comparative adjectives, but they¡¯re not directly comparing two things.
What we¡¯re actually looking at here is not a rule but several overlapping patterns, or paradigms to use the correct technical term:
- adjective + -er + than
- more + adjective + than
- parallel comparative adjectives: the + comparative adjective 1 ¡ the + comparative adjective 2
- repeated comparative adjective: adjective + -er + and + adjective + -er/more and more + adjective
This picture is more accurate, but it looks abstract and technical. It¡¯s a long way from what we actually teach these days and the way we teach it, which tends to be organized around learning objectives and measurable outcomes, such as: ¡°By the end of this lesson (or module) my students should be able to compare their own possessions with someone else¡¯s possessions¡±. So we¡¯re not teaching our students to memorize a rule or even to manipulate a pattern; we¡¯re teaching them to actually do something in the real world. And, of course, we¡¯re teaching it at a level appropriate for the student¡¯s level.
So, to come back to grammar, once we¡¯ve established our overall lesson or module objective, here are some of the things we¡¯re going to need to know.
- What grammatical forms (patterns) can be used to express this objective?
- Which ones are appropriate for the level of my students? Are there some that they should already know, or should I teach them in this lesson?
- What do the forms look like in practice? What would be some good examples?
Existing grammar textbooks generally don¡¯t provide all this information; in particular, they¡¯re very vague about level. Often they don¡¯t even put grammar structures into specific CEFR levels but into a range, e.g. A1/A2 or A2/B1, and none fully integrates grammar with overall learning objectives.
At ÃÛÌÒapp, we¡¯ve set ourselves the goal of addressing these issues by developing a new type of grammar resource for English teachers and learners that:
- Is based on the Global Scale of English with its precise gradation of developing learner proficiency
- Is built on the Council of Europe language syllabuses, linking grammar to CEFR level and to language functions
- Uses international teams of language experts to review the structures and assess their levels
We include grammar in the GSE Teacher Toolkit, and you can use it to:
- Search for grammar structures either by GSE or CEFR level
- Search for grammar structures by keyword or grammatical category/part of speech
- Find out at which level a given grammar structure should be taught
- Find out which grammar structures support a given learning objective
- Find out which learning objectives are related to a given grammar structure
- Get examples for any given grammar structure
- Get free teaching materials for many of the grammar structures
Think of it as an open-access resource for anyone teaching English and designing a curriculum.
