FAQ: Why should a Native Speaker English Teacher need to know grammar?
When I wrote in a recent post and the ensuing comments that I think Native Speaker English Teachers should be expected to have a high standard of grammar knowledge, I got a fair amount of pushback.
Many suggested that I was wrong. That Native Speaker English Teachers don’t need to know the grammar because native speakers don’t learn the grammar and they can use the language perfectly well.
This claim overlooks two important points.
1. We actually do learn grammar in English speaking countries.
When suggesting that grammar study is not a necessary part of EFL learning, the argument usually revolves around the fact that “native speakers” are the highest standard of English users and yet they do not need study to grammar, so neither should an L2 learner.
There are two mistakes here. First of all, L2 learners are not L1 speakers, and we would be wrong to treat them as the same thing. But it is also simply wrong to claim that L1 speakers do not learn grammar.
Though so many graduated adults appear to have forgotten, young L1 speakers growing up in L1 countries do go to school and attend English classes, which are a combination of literature and language studies, and in these classes, they learn English grammar.
2. We’re typically not all that good with our own language.
Those who argue against my suggestion that teachers should be expected to learn English grammar often labour under the illusion that, while “Native Speakers” might not be able to explain the language, they can use it perfectly and that’s what matters. But that is, of course, far from the truth.
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4 年Karl Millsom ???????? I have even compared the grammar teaching techniques between a Native Teacher and Non Native Teacher, surprisingly the later had better ideas and methodologies
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4 年I'm not sure I completely agree with this premise, even for ESL classes. I have studied and used foreign languages, and been around people doing the same, for most of my life and have always witnessed two things: if you want to be good at speaking a foreign language, speak it every opportunity you get without fear of mistakes; if you want to be good at writing a foreign language, read books written in that language every opportunity you get and then write your own texts without fear of mistakes. Progress will be fast. Studying grammar seems to have very little to do with it, except in a minor role at the very beginning stage. Language teachers obviously need to have a high degree of aptitude in the language they're teaching, but do they need to know or even teach the grammatical theory underpinning the language in order to be effective?