[B-Greek] Where is Grammar-translation supported?
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Thu Apr 7 18:12:08 EDT 2011
PS: A lot of things can be clarified with a fuller picture.
For example, I may "advocate immersion". But in fact, we run our courses
with 90% target language and 10% 'other' (English, or whatever). And the
grammar that is effective is usually inside the 90%, when students are
ready.
Randall Buth
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for this.
> That is in the right direction. Ellis 2001 is particularly useful.
> (Actually, there are more than one 'ellis', and helpful.)
>
> I would only add that explicit grammar instruction should be fit into every
> system and can be done in many effective ways.
> But that is distinct from 'grammar-translation' as a method. The studies
> that the books are talking about also work with students in communicating in
> the language, and not as an afterthought.
>
> For the record, James Asher says the same thing in his materials. There is
> a time and a place for focusing on form and grammar.
>
> But none of these are advocating what we have in 'NT Greek grammars'.
> Night and day different. Five-Ten-fifteen years of grammar-translation sort
> of shows itself for what it is: by its fruit.
>
> ERRWSQE
> Randall Buth
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Gary A. Staszak <garystaz4444 at verizon.net
> > wrote:
>
>> A question was raised regarding studies. In an interest of fairness, I
>> provide the following for further thought.
>>
>> There are a number of recent studies that do suggest explicit grammar
>> instruction is helpful to L2/FL learning.
>>
>> There is a wonderful article by Pawlak in Studia Anglica Posnaniensia
>> (2004) that summarizes the latest research (Ellis 2001, 2002; Doughty and
>> William 1998) about the forms, timing, and intensity of explicit grammar
>> instruction (aka teaching of forms). Pure communicative learning
>> environments may produce students who are communicatively fluent but fail to
>> acquire basic grammatical and sociolinguistic distinctions or high levels of
>> grammatical accuracy (Swain and Lapkin 1989; Tarone and Swain 1995) and poor
>> quality output (Lightbrown and Spada 1990).
>>
>> Ellis (1994) found that "grammar instruction should be included in the
>> language curriculum and speeds up acquisition and leads to higher levels of
>> ultimate achievement" (Pawlak 2004). Despite the natural acquisition
>> sequence of L2/FL learning, Mackey and Philip (1998) found convincingly
>> "attention to form can assist learners in moving from one stage to another
>> more rapidly, an effect that is no doubt more than welcome by language
>> teachers" (Pawlak 2004).
>>
>> The article outlines more research. I am surprised these studies were not
>> at least mentioned!
>>
>> Do they support a return to grammatical-translation methods of teaching
>> L2/FL, in particular New Testament Greek? The empathic answer is no!
>>
>> Pawlak as well does not advocate a return to the grammatical-translation
>> method of bygone days of L2/FL learning, which is still unfortunately the
>> hallmark of NTG learning, but suggests there were other factors at play
>> rather than grammatical instruction. These include the form of the teaching
>> of grammar, namely synthetic, isolated, etc. Hence the recommendation of
>> Long (1991) that grammar be taught in/from meaningful contexts.
>>
>> There is a balance between communicative approaches and grammar
>> instruction.
>>
>>
>> Gary A. Staszak
>>
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2011, at 12:53 PM, Randall Buth wrote:
>>
>> I visited b-greek today and found a long thread on a frequent topic,
>>> comparing 'pedagogical grammars'.
>>> But there was not a word about how to justify such an approach for
>>> our field of studies.
>>>
>>> It wouldn't hurt to ask:
>>> Are these pedagogies supported through any kind of
>>> psycholinguistic or pedagogical research? Can they or do they
>>> lead to internalization of ANY language? I leave these as open
>>> questions, though some may have read them as rhetorical
>>> questions.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> ERRWSQE
>>>
>>> Randall Buth
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>
>
>
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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