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The role of context in the presentation of grammar

Walter Petrovitz

Although the need for contextualization in ESL grammar instruction has long been recognized, a great deal of traditional teaching methodology in this area still persists. Standard texts, which are adequate for certain grammatical rules, have often misrepresented other rules, usually at the expense of semantic factors crucial for correct application. While the misrepresented rule is sufficient for the student to provide correct responses in carefully contrived exercises, it often fails in real-language situations. The argument is made here that no single approach is satisfactory for teaching all grammatical rules; rules must first be distinguished on the basis of certain linguistic criteria before pedagogical strategies can be considered.

Introduction

No materials used in ESL instruction have evidenced as much conservatism as those used in the teaching of grammar. The model of the traditional textbook, in which every rule is presented by means of a general explanation followed by an exercise consisting of a series of noncontextualized sentences, is still found to a greater or lesser degree in most grammar materials. Some recent approaches have attempted to supplement or replace the traditional approach with models of correct usage and exercises which provide a greater degree of contextualization, While this development is welcome it presents certain difficulties since it fails to distinguish among types of grammatical rules. First, contextualization is more important for some grammatical items than for others: discourse factors seem much more crucial for tense usage, for example, than for irregular plurals. Second, many of the more traditional exercises do seem to be useful in highlighting certain grammatical points.
of

Types
grammatical information

I would like to suggest that there are linguistic principles which help to determine the manner in which grammar is presented. An important and overlooked consideration is the kind of grammatical information upon which the operation of a particular rule relies. Based on the differences among grammatical components familiar to linguists, these types of information can be distinguished as lexical, syntactic, or semantic. (Since pronunciation is usually taught separately, the phonological component will not be discussed here.) I am, by the way, drawing the divisions rather broadly. Thus morphological rules, depending on the type, will fall into either the lexical or the syntactic component, and the term semantic as used here will include pragmatics and discourse factors.
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The following are a few examples of how rules may differ according to the kind of information they use. Lexical information provides the basis for rules in which the operation is crucially dependent upon the properties of individual words. Non-productive inflectional morphology, verb complementation, and collocations involve rules of this sort. Rules relying chiefly on syntactic information depend on the presence of elements of a particular structural description. Once the requisite conditions are met, the rule operates without exception. These rules include yes/no question formation, the placement of complementizers, and subject-verb agreement. Rules depending on semantic information are distinguished by the fact that it is often impossible to decide on their applicability in a given sentence apart from considerations of meaning, context, and knowledge of the world and the ways in which language is used. The selection of verb tenses, article usage, and the determination of pronominal reference are examples of rules of this last type. It should be noted that a distinction is maintained above between form and use, different types of grammatical information being employed for each. While it may at first seem that these distinctions are obvious, I will suggest that a lack of differentiation among these rule types can result in misleading teaching strategies, which cause students to formulate incorrect hypotheses concerning the ways in which grammatical rules operate. Problems
with grammar exercises

The main shortcoming of traditional grammar materials is a lack of context, and in recent years the need to correct this has been recognized. One unfortunate tendency is that certain buzz-words, such as communication, use, and context, have been used to promote certain materials which, while employing a more discourse-oriented approach, have repeated many of the errors of the past. Let us consider how two very common exercises, found both in traditional materials and those claiming to be more progressive, misrepresent grammatical information. The error of mistaking one kind of grammatical rule for another is nowhere more evident than in the treatment given to verb tenses. While there are occasionally explanations which are wrong or misleading, the problem more often lies in the examples and exercises. In the common verb tense exercise, the student is provided with an uninflected verb and is asked to supply the correct form in a given sentence. The following are typical examples: 1 a. The Chancellor constantly (receive) suggestions for simplifying the tax system. These on occasion (be) quite sensible. (Graver 1986: 77) b. John and I went for a walk. I had difficulty keeping up with him because he (walk) so fast. (Murphy 1994: 33) The expected responses are the simple present in la and the past continuous in lb, and these are, of course, responses a native speaker might spontaneously give. These answers are elicited by cueing, i.e.,

The use of cues

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providing a certain expression or grammatical form in each sentence as a cue for the desired response. If students are repeatedly exposed to models of this type, they may develop the impression that the use of a particular verb tense is dependent not upon the intended meaning of the speaker, but rather upon a purely formal co-occurrence relationship between certain verb tenses and certain expressions or grammatical forms. Thus tense usage is perceived as a system of rules dependent on lexical or syntactic parameters, rather than on semantic considerations. Were this true, learning tense usage could be reduced to memorizing lists of expressions, each with its corresponding tense (1a), or mechanically applying tense-harmony rules (1b). In the course of hypothesis testing, students understandably come to this conclusion since the sentences presented are taken out of context, and instructions lead them to believe that the range of choice given will provide a form which is invariably correct. Other tenses could, of course, be demanded by particular contexts, For example, the simple past could be used in (1a) if a former situation is being referred to; the simple present could be used in (1b) if John is by nature a fast walker. Thus, while it is possible for students to do well in exercises in which the expected verb form is cued for each sentence, this does not indicate that they have mastered tense usage. Such activities can further handicap students in that they come to believe that the imagined co-occurrence restrictions are uniquely defined. They may therefore judge many acceptable sentences as incorrect.
Transformation

exercises

Exercises in which sentences undergo grammatical transformation are another common feature of many grammar materials. The formation of the passive is often practised in this manner. The problem in this case is that the passive is represented merely as a structural variant of the active with no independent meaning or use. While the result is structurally correct, certain discourse-related considerations are not taken into account. The example below is typical of such exercises: 2 a. The chambermaid hasnt cleaned my room. (Jones 1985: 59) b. My room hasnt been cleaned by the chambermaid. Since new or important information tends to be put at the end of an English sentence, the inclusion of an agent in a passive sentence suggests that the agent is especially significant for the discourse or is the focus of contrast. While assuming normal intonation, 2a simply comments on the condition of the room; 2b is more open to the interpretation that the room was cleaned, but by someone other than the chambermaid. Exercises used to elicit restrictive relative clauses illustrate a similar problem. Consider the following sentence-combining exercise: 3 a. I saw the man. He closed the door. (Azar 1989: 239) b. I saw the man who closed the door.
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Again, while the result is structurally correct, it leaves an incorrect impression of the grammar, in this case that the meaning of the sentence containing the relative clause is equivalent to the combined meanings of the two sentences it was supposedly derived from. In the first sentence in 3a, however, the use of the definite article would be appropriate only if the man in question were familiar or unique in the context, for example, if he had been mentioned before or if he were in a room which otherwise contained only women. In 3b, on the other hand, the definite article is used because the noun it modifies obtains its unique reference through the restrictive relative clause. Such sentence-combining exercises thus fail to provide, as Zamel (1980) argues, an appreciation of the general rhetorical features of writing.
The loss of semantic parameters

The misrepresentations in the examples above all involve an undervaluation of the semantic dimension of a given rule, a very common type of error. Those linguistic elements which are dependent on parameters such as meaning, discourse, and pragmatics are conceptually difficult and require a considerable degree of familiarity with the language. There is a great deal of cross-linguistic variation with regard to the ways in which grammatical systems employ these features, and explanations which satisfy a native speaker might not be meaningful to a language learner, as argued in Hinkel(1992). The temptation for the teacher is to provide rules and examples which involve simple concepts, since such formulations do not demand a sophisticated understanding of the nuances of the target language. The student, of course, appreciates these simplified rules as they are much more concrete, and easier to internalize. A difficulty often arises with students at intermediate levels who have already formed incorrect hypotheses about grammatical rules. In such cases, specific measures might be taken to rectify this. To counter the effects of cueing, for example, an exercise can be constructed containing a miscue, i.e., a form which seems to call for a particular response, the use of which is countermanded by the broader context. In sentences such as the following, students frequently supply the simple present: 4 a. In her last job, she often (criticize) the companys policies. b They (give) me an award. Its on the desk. The adverb in 4a and the tense of the second verb in 4b serve as miscues: in order to produce an acceptable response, the student would have to look past the misleading indicator in each case and consider the meaning of the sentence as a whole and the context in which it might appear. Exercises in which the same adverb is shown to occur with a variety of tenses, or in which different tenses are used and the resulting changes in meaning explained, are also useful. While considerations of rule type are helpful in recognizing errors in existing materials and guiding remediation, the analysis outlined above would be of greatest value if it could suggest more appropriate strategies for the presentation of grammar. The challenge is to match materials to the type of information upon which a particular rule depends.

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Semantics

Ideally the instructor should use a wide variety of classroom activities to help provide illustrative contexts for the teaching of semantically based rules - no easy task given the inadequacies of many grammar materials in this regard. Practice books which accompany some of the materials mentioned above have made up for certain deficiencies in the originals. (See, for example, Hashemi and Murphy (1995) on verb tenses and Azar (1992) on modal auxiliaries for good examples of contextualization.) The brevity of exposition generally found in grammar materials also poorly serves semantically-based rules, which require a more detailed explanation and a greater number of examples to be fully comprehended. While such simplicity may be necessary at lower levels, the need for greater elaboration is especially felt when learners begin to express fairly complex and subtle meanings, precisely at the point when they begin to pass beyond intensive ESL instruction and are expected to work more independently. Advanced students should therefore make use of appropriate reference grammars, such as Eastwood (1994) or Thomson and Martinet (1986), much in the way that they use dictionaries. In addition to the use of specifically grammar-oriented materials, the working of semantically-based rules could be pointed out and discussed in reading or listening activities in which an extended context is present. Such an approach is especially useful when the rules governing a particular grammatical phenomenon are numerous and complex, as in the case of article usage.

Syntax

Rules relying primarily on structural features differ from those based on semantic parameters in that they operate at sentence level. There are two main goals with regard to teaching syntax. The first is grammatical consciousness-raising to make students aware of syntactic structure, as proposed in Rutherford and Sharwood Smith (1985). This is important for both passive and active language skills since comprehension and the ability to manipulate structures depend on a clear understanding of the relations among the constituents of a sentence. The second is for students to be able to spontaneously perform operations. It is precisely in the case of the structure-dependent rules that habit formation is important, and other considerations are lessened. Subject-auxiliary inversion in questions, for example, is not crucial for communicative purposes, intonation being sufficient to convey the intention of inquiry. It is perhaps for this reason that uninverted questions so often become a fossilized form in the speech of even very advanced learners, and it is precisely this type of error which is most difficult to eradicate. Activities which emphasize accuracy even at the early levels are therefore necessary. Traditional textbooks, with their extensive practice in manipulating structures, are most effective in focusing on rules of this type. Although recommending drills may seem like a step backward, it should be kept in mind that this is intended only for some grammatical rules. Such exercises will also be more interesting and useful if they are eventually
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incorporated into activities with a communicative component. Fotos and Ellis (1993), Omaggio Hadley (1993), and Terrell (1991) provide examples of this.
The lexicon

Rules relying on lexical features are in some ways the most difficult to deal with. Although considerations of meaning and structure play a role in determining the idiosyncratic patterns of a few lexical items (e.g. the alternative principal parts of verbs such as hang and shine), such patterns generally do not fall under any broad principles. The acquisition of such rules depends on frequent exposure to the words involved. Thus there must be a conscious attempt to present and bring attention to aspects of certain lexical items again and again in every skill area within a course of instruction. Demonstrating specific lexical properties which are maintained across derived forms (see Rutherford 1987: 89-90), and the grouping of semantically related words while comparing their syntactic properties (see Little 1994: 120), would both be useful approaches. Even if the presentation of grammatical rules is simplified for pedagogical purposes, it must accurately reflect what we know about the grammar of the target language. As Berman (1979) argues, there is no reason why a rule of thumb should not be a correct rule of grammar. Consideration of the linguistic distinctions among rules allows the instructor to avoid the errors frequently made in textbooks, and to use contextualized materials and other strategies for the teaching of grammar to their greatest advantage.
Received November 1996

Conclusion

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References

Azar, B. 1989. Understanding and Using English Grammar. (2nd edn.) Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Azar, B. 1992. Understanding and Using English Grammar (Workbooks A and B). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Berman, R. 1979. Rule of grammar or rule of thumb? IRAL 17: 279-302. Eastwood, J. 1994. Oxford Guide to English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fotos, S. and R. Ellis. 1993. Communicating about grammar: a task-based approach.
TESOL Quarterly 25: 605-28.

Murphy, R. 1994. English Grammar in Use. (2nd edn.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Omaggio Hadley, A. 1993. Teaching Language in Context. (2nd edn.) Boston: Heinle and Heinle. Rutherford, W. 1987. Second Language Grammar: Learning and Teaching. London: Longman. Rutherford, W. and M. Sharwood Smith. 1985. Consciousness raising and universal grammar.
Applied Linguistics 6: 274-282.

Terrell, T. 1991. The role of grammar instruction in a communicative approach. The Modern
Language Journal 75: 52-63.

Thomson,

Graver, B. D. 1986. Advanced English Practice. (3rd edn.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hashemi, L. and R. Murphy. 1995. English
Grammar in Use: Supplementary Exercises.

A. J. and A. V. Martinet. 1986. A Practical English Grammar. (4th edn.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zamel, V. 1980. Re-evaluating sentence-combining practice. TESOL Quarterly 14: 81-90.
The author

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hinkel, E. 1992. L2 tense and time reference.
TESOL Quarterly 26: 557-72.

Jones, L. 1985. Use of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Little, D. 1994. Words and their properties.
Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar. T.

Odlin (ed.). Cambridge: Press.

Cambridge

University

Walter Petrovitz is Assistant Professor of ESL at St. Johns University in New York City. He completed his doctoral work in theoretical linguistics at the City University of New York and has taught courses in linguistics and ESL for a number of years. His current research interests involve the role of context in the determination of grammaticality judgments.

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