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Should Beginners Learn Grammar?

Hello, everyone. How are you? Alessandro and I were talking about whether English students should learn Grammar or not… Well, I think that when you first start learning a language, you should concentrate on learning communicative sentences.

I suggest that you go to sharedtalk to talk with native speakers in the English room. Notice the sentences they use to talk to each other. Then write down the sentences that you want to use yourself in a chat. Since native speakers said them, they will be grammatically correct and you can just plug them in to your own conversation. We can learn a new language like a child learns.

If a child makes a mistake and says , “Mommie, I goed outside!” the mother does not say, “No, sweetheart, you can’t say, “I goed outside because the verb “to go” is irregular and the past tense of ‘to go’ is I went”. Mommie will just correct her and say, “No, honey, you went outside.” “Oh yeah, I went outside, Mommie.” Using grammar can come later, when you reach an intermediate stage. Native speakers at sharedtalk will correct you if you want, and if they do not understand you, they will try to help you be clearer. For beginners, it may be helpful for the speaker to translate the sentences you do not understand, typing bilingually.

I hope this helps.

8.jpg Autora: I'm Mary. I tutor ESL at the IHM Lteracy Center in Philadelphia. I lived a year in Brazil where I became certified to teach English as a Foreign language. Outros textos da autora.


Comentários (9)

1 21/02/08

Mairo Vergara disse:

I think your are absolutely right! Beginners should not learn grammar, just learn words and frases and how to use these words and frases. When you reach an intermidiate level you can study grammar, read grammar, etc., in order to improve your skills. But the language study should focus more on comunication, which is done usuing words and frases, than on grammar rules. Great post!

2 21/02/08

Rafael Arcanjo disse:

I’ve been in Shared Talk and it will be helpfull to me learn a new language. Thanks for the Tip.

About your text: I believe that grammar can be used Parallel with the speak, but we need to improve this last more.

I think that’s it.

If my litle text need some adjusts, please, tell me :)

3 22/02/08

Marco Antonio disse:

Great! you could say(write) that again!
This post was awsome!
I totally agree with you. Grammar is of great help for people who are in a higher level. When teachers focus on that point at the beginning it often is very boring and also extremely disapponting.
So let’s SPEAK ENGLISH, shall we?

4 22/02/08

Harlley disse:

Very cool these posts with audio. Please notice us by the rss feeds that the post has audio. I found out it by chance when I went to read the comments.

5 02/03/08

Denilso (colaborador) disse:

This is one of the basis in the Lexical Approach! In my first book - Inglês na Ponta da Língua - this topic is also discussed! People have to understand that there are different categories of grammar. There is the Prescriptive Grammar which is the well-known one and there is the Internalized Grammar, the one people use it without knowing about the rules and all the metalinguistic terms to describe the functions and forms.

The day book authors, school owners, teacher and students understand that, learning English will be easier and faster!

For those interesting in reading more, just go for theories like The Communicative Approach and The Lexical Approach on the web! Such discussion has been around since the 1960s and it’s really wonderful!

6 02/03/08

Mary disse:

Thank you Denilso for your valuable comment!

7 02/03/08

Mairo Vergara disse:

Is there relations between those theories and Stephen Krashen’s theories about language learning? I am a great fan of Krashen xD

8 01/04/09

viviana disse:

eu não estou conseguindo me casdastrar no sharesdtalk. =((

9 06/04/09

Tereza disse:

Infelizmente também não estou conseguindo me cadastrar no sharedtalk. Alguém tem alguma dica?

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