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The English-Learning and Languages Review Æ Homepage Should
Language Teachers Correct Grammar Mistakes? Behaviourism
in the global English-teaching industry Amorey Gethin The English-Learning and Languages Review and its
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In the Internet TESL
Journal, 10, 1–18 (Gray 2004), Ronald Gray argues that in the
teaching of foreign languages, correcting grammar mistakes in students’
writing is useless. In support of his case he cites many studies of the effect
on students’ grammatical accuracy of various methods of correcting, or of
no correcting at all. In an article which Gray calls seminal, John Truscott
wrote “Often a student will repeat the same mistake over and over again,
even after being corrected many times… the teacher should conclude
that correction simply is not effective.” (Truscott 1996, p.341) This is
true, as I know from several decades of experience. True, that is, and only, if
the teacher does nothing about it.
Gray and the authors he quotes
discuss at some length what teachers do, or should or should not do, but not
what students should do. This is a sort of behaviourism: provide a stimulus and
see what response you get. It is the fault at the heart of the whole world-wide
teaching of English and other languages. The emphasis is all on teaching, and the
academic research is into the effects of various pedagogies, when we should be
concerned instead with learning.
Whenever I had a new class, the
first thing I told them was that they had to learn how to learn for themselves.
I spoke about the basic principles of how languages work. I warned of the
dangers of the translation mentality. I offered them the maxims: Remembering the answer is not the problem;
the problem is remembering the problem and Never assume the language works in the same way as your own; assume it
is different until you discover otherwise. I corrected every mistake in
their written work, with full explanations. I told them only to write what they
were certain was correct, or, if they were not certain, to insert a mark to
show this. I told them to make a loose-leaf list of their mistakes, note
against each mistake how many times they made it, and consult the list when
they wrote. And I insisted that if they were not constantly asking me
questions, they were not learning properly. By getting students to work like
this I had exceptional success in helping them to pass their EFL exams. I have
written at some length on all these matters in Gethin & Gunnemark 1996
(pp.10-11, 17-24, 149-56, 198-99, 201).
Truscott does indeed go on to
discuss the behaviour of students: “…much of L2 grammatical
learning follows natural orders…problems can arise when instructional
sequences are inconsistent with those orders” (p.344) and
“syntactic, morphological and lexical knowledge are acquired in different
manners” (p.343). Thus, although we are not discussing children learning
a foreign language ‘naturally’, Truscott persists in treating
students like Pavlovian dogs, objects to be manipulated according to very
uncertain psychological findings, rather than free agents who can deliberately
control their learning themselves.
Truscott also complains that in
any case we don’t know what English grammar really looks like. “The
best understanding of grammar now available is provided by current linguistic
theories. But even the best theories are …incomplete …changing
…inconsistent with one another.” (p.350) How right he is on that
last point. And the academic accounts of the grammar of English are full of
bizarreries. To mention just a few: that of Pullum, who denies that the suffix –ing has any meaning, which would
signify that “He is asking questions” could mean the same as
“He is asked questions” (Geoffrey Pullum in a letter to me of April
9, 1992: “…I claim that –ing
has no meaning at all, it is just a meaningless ending used for a number of
different grammatical purposes in English inflection and
derivation…”; or Smith and Wilson, whose faith in the Chomskyan
linguistics fairy-tale of wh- movement
led them to concoct a fanciful fiction as a rule for the contraction of is (Gethin 1990, pp.44-48, Gethin 1999,
pp.12-14, and ゲッシン2004, pp.38-42); or Quirk et al, whose accounts of the definite
article and of some and any are a mass of convoluted error
(Gethin 1990, pp.78-89 and at www.lingua.org.uk/sa.html)
It is unlikely that many of the academic grammars of English will be of any
practical use to anyone. Meanwhile, though, there are plenty of less
pretentious descriptions of English grammar that are adequate for practical purposes.
Mistakes still tend to be repeated in these grammars, it is true, and I have
tried to correct a few of these.
Truscott and Gray emphasize that
students want and expect to be corrected, yet maintain that correction can
actually be harmful. People do not like being told repeatedly that they are
making mistakes; their motivation is weakened. The proper response to this
self-contradiction would be to gently confront students with their
irrationality and explain that they must take responsibility for their own
improvement. But Truscott and Gray say that time spent on grammar corrections
is time not spent on “more important matters” such as the content,
organization and logical development of arguments, of compositions.
I believe following such advice would
be doing a great disservice to students. No training in essay construction
is going to stop students writing
“I am here since ten days” or “I look forward to see
you”. To see how absurd the anti-correction argument is, simply consider
that no polyglot would ever ask for their mistakes not to be corrected.
Moreover, I have always deplored the inclusion of essay construction as one of
the criteria for judging examinees’ compositions. It is very unfair.
Essay writing and mastering a foreign language are two totally different
skills.
If teachers really want to help
their students, they will say to them: only come to one lesson a week instead
of fifteen or twenty, and come one by one, and spend most of your time doing
real learning on your own. But this is in practice virtually impossible for
teachers to say. The global English-teaching industry is an unspoken collusion
between teaching institutions, university language departments and course book
publishers to avoid any honest and open debate on the subject. That would be a
serious threat to the interests of all three. (Gethin 1997, and at www.lingua.org.uk/geifr.html )
References:
Gethin, A. (1990). Antilinguistics:
a critical assessment of modern
linguistic
theory and practice.
Gethin, A. & Gunnemark, E.V. (1996). The art and science of learning
languages.
Gethin, A. (1997). Learning the world language: today and
tomorrow.
English Today, 49, 42-46.
Gethin, A. (1999). Language
and thought: a rational enquiry into their
nature
and relationship.
ゲッシン, エイモリー (2004). 言語 思考 権威. 未知谷
Gray, R. (2004). Grammar correction in ESL/EFL writing
classes may
not
be effective. Internet TESL
Journal, 10, 1–18.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G.
& Svartvik, J. (1985). A
comprehensive
grammar
of the English language. Longman
Smith, N. & Wilson, D. (1979). Modern linguistics: the results of
Chomsky’s
revolution. Penguin Books
Truscott, John. (1996). The case against grammar
correction in L2
writing
classes. Language Learning, 46:2,
327-369.
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