Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 6; November 2000

One of the questions teachers have in mind when selecting a textbook is "Are grammar items properly graded, in an increasing degree of complexity?" If the textbook syllabus complies with present standards in this sense, it is pronounced "properly graded". It is also widely accepted that a syllabus should not contain "leaps" but should follow a smooth, though sustained, progression from "easy" to "more complex" language. These criteria are purely theoretical and aimed at ensuring teachability of the materials, but do not take the learner's priorities into consideration.

English teaching is not yet ready for the abolition of the grammar syllabus, though important steps are being taken to re-design its role in the language class, subordinating it to performance objectives. A superficial analysis of textbook-based grammar learning discloses several problems:

1. Items are not always learnt in the order they are taught
   
   
2. Each member of the class develops a personal grammar bearing a degree of approximation to the grammar of L2 but also resembling L1, with some purely personal and original parts.
   
   
3. This grammar is in constant change and evolution.
   
   
4. The incorporation of a new item causes a re-accommodation in the learner's transitional grammar. The previously acquired system has to re-arrange its elements to make room for the newcomer. Consequently, a leap forward in the learner's progress is usually preceded by a period of confusion.
   
   
5. Learners have language needs which the textbook syllabus does not contemplate.
   
   
6. Learning occurs in plateaux, not step-by-step.

These issues define the manifestations of the learner's built-in grammar syllabus which, if allowed to emerge and realise itself, produces a dramatic acceleration in learning and even overrides the book syllabus. Unfortunately, grammar teaching has not changed enough in our country as to permit the learners' built-in syllabus to prevail over the tutor's or the course designer's, and we continue to suffocate learners' development rather than favour it.

Let us analyse the teaching practices that do not allow the realisation of the learner's built-in syllabus (Pit Corder;1968), in relation to the issues listed above:

1. Teachers present grammar items in the order they appear in the course syllabus, and demand that learners acquire them in that order. This is so to such an extent that one often hears teachers say: "I cannot move on to the next unit until they have learnt this one properly" or "How can I teach them the Present Simple, when they have not yet learnt the Present Continuous?" or "I don't think he is an advanced learner, because he still makes mistakes in the use of the Past Simple". The learner's natural order of acquisition (Krashen; 1982) is ignored and thwarted.
   
   
2. Error analysis is carried out as a diagnostic process, i.e., to find out what parts of the grammar code have been breached, and not as a descriptive process, i.e., what learning strategies it reflects. To compound this, some modern methods favour the idea of non-correction, leaving learners helpless and teachers without a fundamental part of their job. An error-based approach to teaching would be a more appropriate tool, because errors, if systematically studied, disclose the learner's built-in syllabus better than any other indicator. When learners make errors they are trying to validate hypotheses about L2 which need to be proven right or wrong. Even advocates of non-correction would admit that babies, whom they claim are not corrected, get validation from the environment when they produce comprehensible language constructed according to their assumptions about the language code. By the same token, they are rebuffed by the environment when their messages are not comprehensible because, even when nobody corrects them, they are unintentionally punished with incommunication. It is a myth that allowing EFL learners to go uncorrected reflects the native language acquisition situation.
   
   
3. Learners are considered to be doing well if they use language within the textbook syllabus and make few mistakes. However, an error-free production in the early stages is not necessarily a sign of progress. It may be a sign that the learner does not take risks, does not explore, and his built-in syllabus is dormant. Such a learner will find it very easy to follow the textbook syllabus, and to respect the order of acquisition of grammar points proposed by the tutor or the course. At the intermediate or upper intermediate level, his limitations will begin to show.
   
   
4. Teachers who favour grammatical gradualism and the one-thing-at-a-time approach are often anguished to find that every time they teach a new grammar point their learners begin making mistakes in others they were supposed to "know". This is, however, not only normal but also desirable: the new item is trying to find its place in the learner's transitional grammar system. Some other times, the learner resists the assimilation of the new item and skilfully works his way around it, avoiding its use at all costs. The tutor should monitor these processes, proposing challenges and offering guidance, but it is just as wrong to go back and review previous textbook units when learners are temporarily confused as to allow learners to make do with their previously acquired knowledge and bypass the incorporation of more complex language forms.
   
   
5. Learners have a personal, built-in syllabus no textbook can comply with. It is in the tutor's hands to allow this built-in syllabus to rule the learning process, but it is essential to recognise its external manifestations. Errors are one of them, and "inopportune" questions are another. When, in the middle of a class about the comparison of adjectives, a learner asks a question about the past perfect, the tutor should know that the answer to this question takes priority, for this is the moment when that learner is ready for the past perfect. Tutors may argue that this will make their lessons a bit chaotic, but this is only a manifestation of their insecurity, which prompts them to impose on their classes the type of organisation they can foreplan and control.
   
   
6. No learner adds one item at a time, building up his command of a foreign language as if he were constructing a house with building blocks. Rather, he collects language items, experiments with them, tries to combine them in different ways and suddenly, one day, takes a big step further when all these items fall into place almost at the same time.

Learners need a lot of exposure to language. They also need to be given as much as they are willing to take, not less. Most learners are ready to grasp and remember the answers to very complex and comprehensive questions such as "How can I combine sentences?" or "How can I tell a story in the past?" at a very early stage. Learners will go through the information provided and select those parts they are ready to process at the moment. Sometimes, the complete answer is stored for future reference, but the teacher should not say, "We'll deal with that later in this course", or worse still, "That is in next year's syllabus".

The concept of learning taking place in plateaux rather than step-by-step should also influence evaluation. One of the worst problems of examinations is that they are administered to whole populations of students simultaneously, on dates that suit the school authorities or the examining bodies, and catch unlucky learners half-way between plateaux. These learners fail, and as a consequence are forced to go through the same textbook syllabus the following year, with considerable delay in their progress.