3.1.1. The importance of listening

In order to develop communicative efficiency in pronunciation the students need to understand how sounds are made and how stress is used. This is something the teacher can tell them through explanation and example. They also need to hear the language used so that they can both imitate the pronunciation and also subconsciously acquire some of its sounds and patterns.

One source of language they can listen to is the teacher. This source will be absolutely vital since, in so many ways, the teacher will be the language model for the students to aim at. But it is also important for students to be exposed to other voices and that is why listening to tapes is so important. Of course, if students are living in a TLC they should be able to find unlimited access to native-speaker speech through personal contact and radio and television. Outside such communities it may be more difficult. That is why teachers must ensure that they give students as much listening material (on tape and video) as possible. The first answer to the question about how to teach pronunciation is that students should be given as much exposure to people speaking the language correctly as possible.

3.2. Grammar

Since a knowledge of grammar is essential for competent users of a language it is clearly necessary for our students.

Obviously, they need to know that verbs in the 3^rd person singular have an –s ending in the present simple (he swims, she runs, it takes). They also need to know modal auxiliaries are followed by bare infinitives without to so that they can eventually avoid making mistakes like ‘He must to go’. At some stage they also need to know that if phrases like ‘no sooner’ are put at the front of sentences they affect word order, e.g., ‘No sooner had I arrived…’ and not ‘No sooner I had arrived…’

Luckily, there is a consensus about what grammar should be taught at what level. Any experienced teacher will know that the use of ‘no sooner’ and other similar phrases at the beginning of sentences is a matter for advanced students. At the same time the correct use of ‘must’ is something that elementary student should know. While there may be variations in the actual order of grammatical items taught a glance through the majority of currently available teaching materials will show how strong the consensus is.

Our aim in teaching grammar should be to ensure that students are communicatively efficient with the grammar they have at their level. We may not teach them the finer points of style at the intermediate level, but we should make sure that they can use what they know.

3.2.1. The importance of language awareness

When we present grammar through structural patterns we tend to give students tidy pieces of language to work with. We introduce grammar that can easily be explained and presented. There are many different ways of doing this, which do not involve the transmission of grammar rules.

It is certainly possible to teach aspects of grammar. Indeed, that is what language teachers have been doing for centuries. But language is a difficult business and its speakers often use it very inventively. In other words, real language use is often very untidy and cannot be automatically reduced to simple grammar patterns. Students need to be aware of this, just as they need to be aware of all language possibilities. Such awareness does not mean that they have to be taught each variation and linguistic twist, however. It just means that they have to be aware of language and how it is used. That is why reading and listening are so important, and that’s why discovery activities are so valuable since by asking students to discover ways in which language is used we help to raise their awareness about the creative use of grammar – amongst other things.

As teachers we should be prepared to use a variety of techniques to help our students learn and acquire grammar. Sometimes this involves teaching grammar rules. Sometimes it means allowing students to discover the rules for themselves.