Perspectives on spoken grammar

Goh, C. (2009). Perspectives on spoken grammar. English Language Teachers Journal, 63(4), 303-312.

Background

The opinions of the English language teachers in East Asia concerning spoken grammar are rarely expressed. It is thus unclear whether these teachers find spoken grammar based on the spontaneous speech of British speakers useful for their learners.

Aims

The purpose of the paper was to report on the opinions of English language teachers in East Asia regarding the pedagogic relevance of spoken grammar.

Sample

The participants in this study were 38 teachers from Singapore primary and secondary schools, and 37 teachers from secondary schools in China.

Method

The teachers were asked to discuss two questions in an online forum: (a) Is linguistic information from British English data revealed in the CANCODE project useful for teaching learners about spoken language? and (b) Can knowledge of spoken grammar forms improve learners’ spoken language performance? First, each teacher's first posting in response to the two questions was examined and categorized. Second, these first postings and the teachers' subsequent responses to other group members' views were examined for specific issues concerning the teaching and learning of spoken grammar.

Findings

Of the English language teachers from China, 87% thought that a native speaker spoken grammar model is needed so that their students can speak more naturally. In contrast, more than 60% of teachers from Singapore did not find spoken grammar based on British English to be directly useful. More than half of the Singaporean teachers believed that the British model could be introduced to students only for comparison purposes. All teachers thought that knowledge about spoken grammar forms can promote language awareness about the differences between spoken and written language. However, the opinions were divided as to whether it could improve students' spoken output. One criticism against teaching spoken grammar was that teachers perceived it as casual speech and not appropriate for instruction. Some Singaporean teachers were concerned that teaching spoken grammar might have a detrimental effect on students' written grammar. A number were concerned that some of the spoken forms would be penalized in the national examinations.

Implications

Teacher educators can help teachers to understand the grammar of spoken English so that these teachers can help their students use the spoken language more effectively to express their communicative needs and to understand their oral interactions better.

Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.