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作者maximus1523 (麥西幕士)
看板CS_TEACHER
標題[心情] What will be left if we strip grammar from language?
時間Tue Jul 21 17:53:51 2009
Not having taken English as my college major, I became an English teacher two years ago unexpectedly, which automatically established a strong reminder of just how important English grammar really is to me whenever I am in session of an English class. I have to confess that an English class without teaching anything related to grammar would save me a lot of troubles. However, what would an English class without teaching grammar look like? Or to be more specific, what is the point to learn grammar? In what follows, I will try to answer these two questions, and I hope the process of my explanation will at least reiterate the importance why the connection between learning English and acquiring grammar are so inextricably bound. Yesterday, I found myself painfully confused by a message posted on Bulletin Board System in cram teacher section. The message irresponsibly propagandized the following "High school students in Taiwan don't require as much grammar as some of us expect it should". Yes, in term of its goal, the statement is absolutely logic and making sense. But is it really true that learning English is all about memorizing as many vocabularies as possible? I think not. English as a language requires vocabularies and grammar to bestow itself simultaneously, and a lack of either would be futile for anyone who tries to master the language. Metaphorically, grammar serves as language's root whereas vocabularies serve as its branches and leaves; they are each in charge of different duties which involve a regulation to categorize human beings' needs to express, and the abstract and concrete references to various concepts. Simply imagine, without either of them, what could happen in our daily exchange of words with well educated foreigners? Initially, you probably won't encounter too many troubles in your fluency to engage in a normal chat because your vocabularies may be ample enough for you to blur focus of the topics you are talking about and allow you to escape from original topic to hide your superficiality and your intellectual inertia to systematically organize expressions. However, what if all of a sudden, the foreigner decides to further the topic and hope that you could share some of your own reflection toward the topic in depth, wouldn't it be awkward for anyone to keep rambling on and on with tons of synonyms that one knows that are almost identical in their semantic? On the other hand, the sole mastery of grammar alone also often results in a similar embarrassment; let us suppose that the foreigners know that you understand the grammar and presuppose that you are able to decipher the complication embedded within his/her hypothetical sentences with which he/she wishes to establish a regrettable tone of what he could have achieved in the past; limited by insufficient vocabularies, you don't know what appropriate words to be used to respond to his or her regret; to me that is like a man full of knowledge in finance who sadly lacks capital to actualize and substantiate his financial knowledge. But the biggest problem is that too many of us acquiesce a convenient way of treating English as a simple word-puzzle game, which later leads to an inconvenient consequence to frustrate us in reading and writing when we are actually asked to use these skills academically or vocationally. So, as an English teacher(at least that's what I'm doing now), I think that the reason to learn grammar has never meant to fulfill our need to win in tests but to truthfully and logically express thoughts in writing and to perceive other's feeling by reading them. -- ※ 發ꬊXH站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 211.20.146.172 ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.138.73 (07/21 23:12) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.138.73 (07/21 23:15) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.138.73 (07/21 23:24)
→ sweeties:看完您的文章了 有幾個問題: 1)vocabulary是否不需要加 07/21 23:43
→ sweeties:複數? vocabulary 已經是指"the words that make up a 07/21 23:44
→ sweeties:language" 除非是指許多種語言的不同字彙才需要加複數? 07/21 23:45
→ sweeties:2)您是否沒有看懂那位老師的文章? 沒有人說"不需要文法與 07/21 23:46
→ sweeties:字彙" 所以您這篇義憤填膺要指責某位老師"不負責任"的文 07/21 23:48
※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.138.73 (07/21 23:53)
→ sweeties:在下看來 有些邏輯上的不合理 07/21 23:48
→ sweeties:通篇文章內 闡述的是文法與單字對於語言的重要性 07/21 23:49
→ sweeties:還做了比喻及舉了例子 讓大家容易理解...可是從頭到尾 07/21 23:50
→ sweeties:沒有人說"不需要教文法"或是"單字量不重要"之類的言論 07/21 23:50
→ sweeties:該位老師令另一位老師覺得有爭議的點是 她認為不需要用 07/21 23:52
→ sweeties:很專業或是深奧的文法術語來教學生 她致力的是用簡單的 07/21 23:53
→ sweeties:方式 讓學生了解深奧的文法 <-- 以上不等於不用教文法喔 07/21 23:54
→ maximus1523:等我等我一下 下午一時想發表 沒時間整理文法 07/21 23:56
→ maximus1523:現在正修正中 註 我只是想說我對於"高中文法不用教 07/21 23:57
→ sweeties:老師 跟您的文法無關 我也沒有去仔細挑您文法的錯誤 07/21 23:58
→ maximus1523:國中就教過了"提出我的很不以為然而已 07/21 23:58
→ sweeties:請問這一點是哪一位老師提出的? 07/21 23:59
→ maximus1523:註: 是已刪掉的推文說的 07/22 00:00
→ maximus1523:interrogating? 07/22 00:01
推 tomoe:小聲說：我的印象是原文 但不確定 不過兩位老師已經希望大 07/22 00:01
→ sweeties:那位是英文老師嗎?還是別科老師 以自身學習經驗發表的? 07/22 00:01
→ tomoe:家不要討論了樣子是嗎？ 不好意思狀況外 07/22 00:01
→ maximus1523:我記得是PO的第一還是第二篇推文吧? 07/22 00:03
→ maximus1523:我壓根兒對原PO跟另一老師根本不認識 我也很欣賞 07/22 00:05
→ maximus1523:一位對文法教學精確的追求 跟一位能以學生角度思索 07/22 00:06
→ maximus1523:如何才能讓你最簡易的明瞭" 的態度看待教學 07/22 00:08
→ maximus1523:但要我對那幾句噓/推文視而不見 07/22 00:08
→ maximus1523:我做不到... 07/22 00:09
→ sweeties:大家角度不同、教學理念也不同 所以我才會在上一篇推文中 07/22 00:09
→ sweeties:提到:反正就是大家互相交流 也不需一定要說服對方接受 07/22 00:10
→ sweeties:至於底下的推/噓文 如果不是"英文老師"發表的 07/22 00:11
→ sweeties:maximus老師倒也不用這麼介意 反正他們不會去教英文 XD 07/22 00:12
→ maximus1523:所以如果好發議論的我造成妳/你的困擾 07/22 00:13
→ sweeties:試想 如果是一位烹飪老師說"我覺得文法不用教耶 國中高中 07/22 00:13
→ maximus1523:真的不好意思了 07/22 00:14
→ sweeties:文法不都一樣嗎?" 是不是不需要對他的言論這麼生氣呢? 07/22 00:14
→ maximus1523:也對啦 07/22 00:15
→ sweeties:因為maximus老師不是把這篇發在自己網誌 而是貼在板上 07/22 00:15
→ sweeties:所以我很認真的看完了 也很認真的給了回應麻 XD 07/22 00:15
→ maximus1523:只能說"辛苦您了" 我猜 07/22 00:18
→ sweeties:不好意思 剛剛回頭看推文 才看到您問我是否在質詢你? 07/22 00:20
→ sweeties:不是的 我只是想問說 到底說出 令你這麼生氣的發這篇文 07/22 00:20
→ sweeties:的那句話到底在哪裡?是誰發的?(因為我真的沒看到) 07/22 00:21
→ sweeties:另外一點也就是 如果說這句話的老師不是英文老師 07/22 00:21
→ sweeties:可以不用這麼在意他的言論 畢竟他不是在英語教學前線 07/22 00:22
※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.138.73 (07/22 00:26)
→ sweeties:我並沒有任何interrogating質詢你的意思 網路文字無法表 07/22 00:23
→ sweeties:達語氣 如有冒犯請見諒 07/22 00:24
→ maximus1523:okokokokokok 07/22 00:28
→ maximus1523:我喜歡跟認真的人討論認真的問題 07/22 00:29
→ maximus1523:我只是那種心裡有話就非講不可的一個農夫 07/22 00:30
推 gracia76:我遵守我的承諾把文章刪除了。事實上我一向很討厭在網路 07/22 01:38
→ gracia76:世界發表什麼個人見解，就像S老師說的，因為網路文字無法 07/22 01:39
→ gracia76:表達語氣，所以容易造成誤會。這次純粹是因為個人因素， 07/22 01:41
→ gracia76:教英文教了這麼久，第一次覺得很難受，所以跳出來!我相信 07/22 01:43
→ gracia76:只要是教英文的老師，沒有人覺得文法不重要吧!講白了!要 07/22 01:43
→ gracia76:不然我們靠什麼吃飯呀XD 單字學生可以自己背，文章可以 07/22 01:44
→ gracia76:自己看，唯讀文法、寫作這一塊，有老師帶，的確會容易的 07/22 01:44
→ gracia76:多!這也不就是我們老師存在的價值所在嗎? 07/22 01:47
→ gracia76:從這一連串的文章討論，其實也更證明了面對面溝通的重要 07/22 01:48
→ gracia76:性!Language cannot truly reveal itself w/o contact, 07/22 01:50
→ gracia76:context, 'n most importantly sincere open-mindedness. 07/22 01:51
推 BOYISH:我看完只能說多辦一點英文交流團吧 大家的意見都很好唷 07/22 09:11
※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 220.140.48.32 (07/22 10:33) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 220.140.48.32 (07/22 10:33) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.139.1 (08/07 17:55) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.141.71 (08/13 01:44)