Grammars in Context: Advantages, Disadvantages and Correlation

This article aims to demonstrate grammar across various contexts from the perspective of a learner. This paper is written in a narrative format. In this paper, I attempted to write about my peer Sadia Tasnim’s personal experiences and grammar thoughts. She discussed different teaching grammar methods that she had encountered, the benefits and drawbacks of teaching grammar, and the relationship between Bengali and English grammar. I conducted an interview with my colleague Sadia Tasnim in order to write this paper. I prepared some questionnaires to conduct the interview. After gathering all of the details she provided, I wrote this paper in a narrative style. Before completing the final document, I sent a draft to Sadia Tasnim to double-check the facts. I believe this paper will be a good read since everybody experiences grammar from a different angle. Again, Bengali and English grammar share some principles in common as well as some distinctions. This document can assist readers in clarifying these differences.

At the start of the interview, I asked my colleague Sadia Tasnim how she learned grammar from childhood to this point in her life. In addition, I inquire about the different methods and techniques used by her teachers to teach grammar. She was introduced to English language in her childhood by her mother. At that time, she had only learned a few simple words and English rhymes for the children. She had no knowledge of English grammar at that age. However, I assume she was already exposed to English grammar because vocabulary is one of the components of grammar. Nonetheless, she was unaware of it at that time. Sadia’s first exposure to English grammar came from her primary school teacher. She acquired some basic article rules. It was her first encounter with English grammar. She believes that learning grammar is a lifelong practice. As a result, her grammar learning process is still ongoing. As she grows older, she learns new grammatical terms and theories. She considers grammar to be a huge area to examine. In fact, it requires thorough research since each era introduces new grammatical concepts.

Meanwhile, she told me about her teachers’ different ways and methods of teaching grammar. From her childhood to the present, she has been taught grammar in a variety of ways. At a young age, she used to recite English vocabulary and grammatical rules. She did not even know what some of the words meant. Furthermore, she was not fully aware of the implications of these rules. She was simply in the habit of memorizing grammar because her school curriculum demanded it. Some of her teachers had also pushed her to do so in order to get a higher grade on the test. However, remembering grammatical rules and vocabulary was extremely difficult for her at that young age. She used to dislike memorizing words and rules. I am assuming it made her lose interest in grammar at that time. Sadia comes from a Bengali medium background. As a result, her teachers in school used to translate English grammatical rules into Bengali for her better understanding. This approach is most likely referred to as the ‘grammar-translation method.’ This approach includes the explicit explanation of grammatical rules in the native language. Teachers may also use native language translation to demonstrate the meaning of vocabulary and structures while using this approach (D. STEINBERG & V. SCIARINI, 1993).

Her teachers approached her in late school with an in-depth explanation of grammatical concepts. Later on, she used to encounter the same grammatical concepts in her writing. She used to practice after the lesson through worksheets and exercises. This approach appears to suggest that perhaps it was a deductive method of teaching grammar. When the grammatical rule is supplied and the language is generated based on the rule, this is referred to as a deductive approach (Cotter, n.d.). Sadia was introduced to a new way of teaching grammar when she was embraced into university. It was a whole new experience for her. During her university years, she has started to acknowledge grammar rules more naturally. She has also begun to discover new grammatical concepts and how they work in real-life contexts. Her lecturers applied cognitively effective strategies that left a mark on her contextual memory. She also discussed how these approaches help her learn better grammar and the benefits of teaching grammar.

She believes that those methods were successful in teaching English grammatical rules. They greatly aided in the development of her writing abilities. Furthermore, since her teachers translated them into Bengali during her school days, she was able to understand the meaning of a word or a phrase more clearly. Besides, with the help of grammar, she can express herself more fluently. Grammar helped her to make sentences clear enough to understand. The knowledge of grammar conceivably helped her to organize words and messages and make them meaningful. Further to that, grammar allowed Sadia to construct better sentences in her writing and speaking performances. Grammar guidance, as she said, assists a learner in discovering the essence of language and how language actually functions. Grammar also influenced her initial perceptions of the English language. She believes that grammar instruction is important since it is the structure of a language. An accurate understanding of language structures is needed for foreign language acquisition. As a result, grammar instruction is essential, especially in the context of foreign language acquisition. She also mentioned that teaching grammar is essential because it helps a learner avoid unnecessary lexis and information. Moreover, it makes writings more concise and precise. Grammar instruction is too important to overlook. If learners do not have a good comprehension of grammar, their language growth will be relatively low.

We discussed the disadvantages of teaching grammar later in the interview. She also shared some of her negative personal experiences with grammar learning. She believes that such methods to teach grammar have certain limitations, similar to what she had encountered in her early days. Those approaches, as she predicts, usually resulted in a teacher-centric classroom with less space for speaking practice. They concentrated more on her writing and reading abilities. One possible implication of this is that these strategies did not adequately prepare her to interact in real-world environments. When she was younger, she tried to understand everything by translating it into Bengali. As a result, she did not develop the ability to think in English. Sadia also mentioned that the main focus was placed on grammar rules and memorizing a long list of vocabulary. In consequence, it makes the learning procedures relatively less appealing to her. Those rules and vocabularies were complex for her to remember in school. It is possible that she lost interest in grammar because of this in the initial days.

She had always struggled with implementing all of the grammatical rules she had learned in school. She frequently made grammatical errors in her writings since she used to forget which rules should be applied. Thus, it made her writings relatively ordinary to her teachers. She always thought grammar is merely a list of rules and structures of a language. However, in her later years, she discovered that grammar is more than just a set of rules; it also has other aspects. Furthermore, she now realizes that phonology has always been overlooked in comparison to other aspects of grammar. For example, her teachers always placed a greater emphasis on syntax and all other written forms of grammar. They did not place the same value on verbal forms of grammar. As a result, she now has a lower degree of spoken English ability than she has of written English. Hence, she finds it difficult to carry on a real-life conversation with an English speaker. She often misinterprets the meaning of the utterances. She also has difficulty understanding the distinct native accents of the English language. Consequently, this issue has left her emotionally distraught as well as morally depleted.

Then she talked about the drawbacks of teaching grammar in general. Grammar teaching remains a contentious problem, particularly in the field of foreign and second language acquisition. According to Sadia, prescribing grammatical rules has little effect on learners’ output in the target language. Besides, teaching grammar in a disembodied fashion is counterproductive. Grammar teaching out of context hardly helps a student. She also stated that grammar does not represent the complicity of language. Language is generative, dynamic, creative, and ever-evolving. Grammar, on the other hand, has always been locked in time and space. Again, grammar is stagnant and formulaic. She considers grammar to be a deeply cultural phenomenon. People utilize grammar in accordance with the society to which they belong. Grammar is also affected by their lifestyle, traditions, customs, heritage, habits, values, and other factors. Moreover, different grammar is used in different contexts. So, she assumes that teaching grammar is apparently a difficult task for the teachers. Students with limited grammar knowledge may struggle to understand how grammar is used in various contexts. As a result, they may misinterpret the grammar in context.

Furthermore, she mentioned some downsides of teaching grammar. As grammar comes from a reductive source, it can short-circuit the flow of thinking. Similarly, formulaic thinking can lead to formulaic discourse. According to Sadia, grammar instruction might limit the thought processes of students. As Otto Jespersen discovered in the early 1900s, deductively teaching grammatical rules to students results in almost no progress in their production (Sah, n.d.). She also shared some research data regarding this issue. Grammar learning is regarded as a tough topic by the majority of the students (59%) (Sik, 2015). Moreover, most adult learners (90%) want to look at some examples of grammatical rules and structures while they are taught grammar (Sik, 2015). Students are less engaged and fail to learn by using a deductive method. Younger students may have difficulty grasping the concepts. Grammar teaching is always mentioned as a difficult subject by teachers. However, Sadia believes that the problem is that we do not operate innovative trials to discover if alternative ways work. The age-old “grammar” books that blatantly describe “correct” guidelines keep us under control and firmly rooted. Moreover, in her opinion, it is time to stop utilizing prescriptive grammar rules as textbook assistance and instead let students develop their own grammar through comprehensible materials.

In the final section of the interview, she discussed the correlation between Bengali and English grammar. Sadia also investigated the similarities and differences between Bengali and English grammar. As she stated, Bengali Grammar is very similar to English, especially in the phonology section. Sadia had learned it when she did the phonetics and phonology course at her university. English and Bengali have some common sounds. Two vowels stand out in every way: /e æ/. If the length of the vowel is overlooked, /ɒ i u ɔ/ will also be found similar. Sixteen consonants are commonly used in Bengali and English: /p b t d k g s ʃ n m ŋ r l w j h/ (Barman, 2011). This suggests that the two languages have a lot in common when it comes to phonemics. Sadia also mentioned that pronouns in Bengali and English are generally the same in terms of first, second, and third person, despite the fact that gender-specific pronouns are not used in Bengali. There is also a correlation between English and Bengali’ tense’. Sadia’s teachers used to teach her English ‘tense’ rules using Bengali ‘tense’.

Her teachers also compared and contrasted English and Bengali grammar to make learning easier for her. For instance, she was taught that the Bengali language has its modifying words occurring after the object. It is known as ‘Postposition’. However, it is known as ‘preposition’ in English because it is used before a noun or a pronoun. She also learned that the primary distinction between Bengali and English syntax is in word order. Bengali is a SOV (Subject + Object + Verb) language, whereas English is an SVO (Subject + Verb + Object) language. Moreover, Sadia added that, unlike English, the Bengali language lacks auxiliary verbs. She demonstrated it to me with an example. The sentence should be written in English as follows: He (Pronoun) is (Auxiliary Verb) reading (Main verb) a (Article) book (Noun). However, in Bengali, the sentence would be সে (Pronoun) একটি (Article) বই (Noun) পড়ছে (Main verb). Sadia also noted another distinction between English and Bengali grammar in terms of using a semantically empty subject. Unlike English, Bengali grammar does not use an empty subject like ‘it’ or ‘there’ in a sentence. In English, two examples can be: “it rains” and “there are several mosques in Dhaka.” In Bengali, however, there are no such empty subjects.

Sadia shared her thoughts on Bengali and English grammar’s third-person singular number rule. In English, the verb form changes depending on the person and number of the subject, for example, ‘I eat rice’ while ‘He eats rice’. Though the verb varies depending on the person of the subject, there is no difference based on the person’s number in Bengali. She went on to claim that there are variations in the use of the plural number in Bengali and English. Both the determiner and the keyword (i.e. noun) become plural in English. For instance, ‘a student’ but ‘some students’ and ‘a pen’ but ‘many pens’. However, in Bengali, the plural marker is used as a pre-determiner either before or after the noun, but never both at the same time. For example, ‘োত্ররা’ or ‘অছেকগুছ া োত্র’, but never ‘অছেকগুছ া োত্ররা’. Further, Sadia stated, The Bengali language does not use capitalization in the same way as English does, and it has very different punctuation rules. Sadia also learned from her phonology class that Bengali does not form consonant clusters in the coda position like in English. In coda position, words like ‘ant,’ ‘melt,’ and ‘splash’ form a consonant cluster. However, no such example can be found in Bengali.

Sadia had always struggled with using the third-person singular pronouns in English, particularly in its oral form. The gender of the third person singular pronoun in English varies: he/she, him/her, and his/her. However, no such difference exists in Bengali. The pronoun for both masculine and feminine genders is the same in Bengali. She also thinks that the absence of auxiliary verbs in Bengali has an unavoidable impact on the development of negative and interrogative sentences. Negative sentences in English, for instance, are formed by placing ‘not’ between the auxiliary and main verbs or adjectives, and ‘no’ between the main verb and noun. For example, ‘He is not a good student’ or ‘I did not come yesterday’. In Bengali, however, the negative word comes after the main verb, adjective, or noun. For instance, ‘আমার মে ভাছ া সেই’ or ‘আমম মাাংে খাই ো’. Sadia believes that this issue has a serious impact on students, especially those who learn English as a foreign or second language. As a second language learner, Sadia was frequently confronted with these obstacles, which had a significant impact on her English grammar learning.

In conclusion, Sadia thinks that teaching grammar has always been a matter of debate among linguists. However, in her opinion, grammar acquisition is essential for a second language learner because it prevents language from slipping into chaos. Grammar can help to discipline a language and limit the possibility of misunderstanding. She concluded her interview by stating that Bengali and English both have highly rich grammar and that it will take a lot of research to figure out all of their similarities and differences. She hopes that researchers will dedicate their valuable time to these two languages.