[轉] Grammar Rules!?

這篇文章對我學英文幫助很大，所以介紹給你：連結:Grammar Rules!?

Grammar Rules!?

The following is my humble opinion after reading Stemfax's and Philo's Chinese articles on English grammar. My Chinese is not as good as theirs, so here I post it in English.

The English language education in Taiwan obviously has set the emphasis on grammar for a long time. What has been the outcome so far? Well, same old same old! Or, we wouldn't have had this discussion here. It's really not much different from many years ago when I first started teaching in Taiwan. I am tired of people giving me a simple answer for the setback of their language competency- 「Maybe, we are just too shy.」 That's bull! From what I have seen, many Taiwanese nowadays, young or old, are quite 「bold」 in my view. The truth is that you can not be too shy if you truly want to master in all four competencies (speaking, listening, reading and writing) of a language.

I don't think it should be a simple dichotomy of 「either or」 when it comes to the learning/teaching of English grammar. The grammatical rules are important, and so do the other language areas such as pronunciation, vocabulary, and the list will go on. Generally speaking, the population of Taiwanese English learners tend to focus mainly on the mechanical skills since grammar, the scaffold of a language, has been weighed heavily in an exam-driven education system.

The result is that many English learners, who are able to write adequately to communicate 「on paper」, are unable to orally convey a simple message, let alone getting into a serious debate or discussion. Some of my friends, who have been living in North America for more than a decade or two, are still struggling to conduct an in-depth communication with others in English. Most of them can write adequately in English to communicate though. When I say 「in-depth」 oral language, I am not referring to making 「small talks」 or little chit-chatting on ET2 at all.

It is easier for the language learners to focus on grammar in writing because of the time lag- we have more time to think about what we want to write. We can PLAN for writing! However, speaking appears to be more difficult for a second language learner because it is an instantaneous two-way communication. We have very little time to figure out the grammar or check a dictionary for vocabulary when we talk. We have to apply the grammar that we haveinternalized to improvise the conversation and make it an innate knee-jerk reaction in oral language, which also involves the listening and comprehension skills.

We can continue to argue about the importance of grammar till the cows come home, but the fact is people are still going to blame it on 「being too shy」. So, what's the fix? How can we internalize the rules so that we can simultaneously retrieve the grammar scaffold to form our thoughts in a conversation? How about the trial-and-error approach! Just clear your ears and open the mouth! Spit the words and try it out. If mistakes happen, try again! We learned from the failure of our experiences.

We all have different learning styles. Some are visual learners, but some are audital learners. One person's learning path may not fit another's. There is no one size fits all in learning English but, unfortunately, that's exactly what we do for education no matter where we are around the world. It is simply too costly to prescribe to each individual needs within the public education system. Therefore, we have made English a big commodity in Taiwan (as well as elsewhere in Asia). The language business in the private sector will continue to boom as long as we remain on the same course to learning the language.

So, what do we do to solve the problem? Not much we can do! If I have the solution for you, I wouldn't be sitting here in front my computer. I probably would be sitting under an umbrella on a remote island somewhere and calling Roy to count the money for me. However, my humble suggestion to you is- there is no shortcut. You just have to find different approaches that suit your learning best for your own learning needs, and make grammar an innate ability of yours.

No more 二分法!

PS, What do I know, really? Hahaha….. Remember, you are taking the advice from me, a nobody, who happened to have too much 「American Time」 (I blame it on Americans) on Friday night to post the article here for you to read. Now, wrap it up and take it from here!!