Using english songs to help EFL high school students improve grammar knowledge

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Globalization and reform movements – as recently witnessed around the world
– invite waves of change impacting aspects of human life, including the language and
culture of communication and exchange (Canagarajah, 2005). With English becoming
the lingua franca of the global community in major professional fields such as science,
technology, commerce, and education, there is an increasing demand for effective
teaching and learning of English in many world contexts. Effective English language
skills are seen as vital for the workforce of countries which seek to participate actively
in the global economy and want to have access to the information that forms the basis
of social, educational, and economic development (Burns & Richards, 2009). Even on
the individual level, a good command of the English language has a major role in
elevating an individuals’ socio-economic status and thus is key to success and
prosperity.
In Vietnam, English teaching aims at mastering four basic skills of language,
which include listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Nowadays, based on our
newest curriculum that is launched by the Ministry of Education and Training, the
students are expected to master those four skills in order to be able to use English
communicatively. However, its aim will not be successfully achieved if the language
teaching does not consider the language components such as grammatical structure,
vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation. Therefore, grammar needs to be mastered by
the students since it is the basic rule of language.
1.1. Rationale
Over the past few decades, grammar instruction has evolved as a major topic of
concern in the field of second language. During the long history of second language
instruction, Savage, Bitterlin, and Prince (2010) stated that grammar was viewed as a
body of knowledge to be studied and a set of rules to be memorized than as a skill to
be practiced and developed. Today, grammar is still taught and tested in this way in
many parts of the world. In particular, English language teaching (ELT) in Vietnam has
for quite a long time followed the traditional path-teaching vocabulary and grammar
textbooks, cramming students with a considerable amount of exercise and then
evaluating their accomplishments through consecutive exams. It is no surprise that

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ELF learners view English language learning as insipid and an unconquerable
obstacle.
Based on information obtained from various English teachers, it was found that
many students still had difficulties in mastering grammar. Simple past tense, for
instance, is important as the basic rule for the students to make and use sentences to
communicate in daily life. Based on the information given by the English teacher,
some students even could not use the subject-verb agreement and usage; it was known
that the ability of the students in using Past simple tense was low. It seemed that the
most significant reason of this was the teacher grammar teaching method influenced
the students’ motivation in learning. From the observation, the researcher found that
the English teachers tended to teach the grammar deductively. The teacher taught
grammar by giving a note on the whiteboard, gave some examples, and then asked the
students to take a note. After that the students were only given limited time to do some
exercises. As a result, it is inevitable for students’ learning motivation to be decreased
since there were no interesting or attractive activities involved in their learning
process.
Practically, the students would become not interested in learning if the
technique used was monotonous which made the learning process not effective.
However, there is a great way which can strengthen the students’ learning motivation –
utilizing music. In fact, songs have been an amusing companion for human beings for
as long as or even longer than we can speak. As an integral part of our language
experience, it can be of great value to foreign language teaching. And the manyfaceted merits songs possess may enrich and activate our foreign language class.
GeorgiLozanov incorporates music into his teaching method – Suggestopedia, for
music is instrumental in creating a relaxing and comfortable environment, which can
propel language learning (Larsen- Freeman, 1985). Besides music, another
indispensable of songs is lyrics which serve as a direct genuine source of teaching

materials in foreign language classes, so why should songs be overlooked by the
teachers? There have been abundant researches abroad on songs as an authentic
teaching resources in language teaching (Maley, 1997; Eken, 1996; Gaston, 1968;
Geoff, 2003), but a paucity of such studies are reported in Vietnam. Stimulated by the

2


inner urge of providing readers with deeper insight into this method, the researcher
would like to carry on this study entitled “Using English songs to help EFL high
school students improve grammar knowledge.” Hopefully, the results will serve as a
useful source of reference for those who are concerned teaching and learning writing.
1.2. Aims of study
This paper endeavors to demonstrate the value of English songs in ELT in
general and English grammar teaching in particular.
1.3. Research questions
This study was designed to answer three research questions:
1. Will listening to English songs facilitate EFL high school students' retention
of the grammatical items they learn in class?
2. To what extent English songs help EFL high school students extend their
grammar knowledge?
1.4. Methodology
This study was conducted in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam. It has 3,496,000
inhabitants (GSOV, 2014). In this province, the predominant native language is
Vietnamese. However, English is currently the most used language in the world
(Michel, 2014) in different fields such as science, technology and education. This is
the reason why there are many bilingual schools and schools that teach ESL
inThanhHoa province. Here, there are a total of 798 high schools: 89.6 % public
schools and 10.4 % private schools (GSOV, 2012). This study was carried out at a
public high school that teaches ESL: Hoang Hoa 4 high school, ThanhHoa province.

The participants were 10th grade students. In total, 56 students took part in this study –
28 students in each of the two 10th grade classrooms.
This main methodology used in this method was experimental. First, students’
English levels are evaluated via a standardized test. Then, they will experience the
learning process in which English songs are applied for teaching English grammar.
Finally, another test will be conducted to assess the influence of this method. A
computer program is designed for synthesizing and analyzing collected data. During
the process of researching, the author also consults with the professor for useful
guidance, corrections, and comments.

3


The method of assessment will be based on correct sentences of multiple choice
test (on total 100 score scale) in basic tenses of English: present simple tense, present
continuous tense, past simple tense, past continuous tense, present perfect tense, future
simple tense, etc. The test also includes some external items from school curriculum
such as idioms and phrasal verbs.
1.5. Scope of study
Due to the time allotment, experience, and source limitations, the author offers
no ambition to cover the problem in a large number of populations. She wishes to
confine herself to studying the 10th grade students in Hoang Hoa 4 high school, Thanh
Hoa province.
1.6 Thesis design
The thesis includes four chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 is the introduction, which provides a brief introduction, rationale, the
aims of the study, the scope of the study and the research questions.
Chapter 2 provides a deep insight into the literature review, in which the
previous studies about grammar and teaching grammar and some concepts as
theoretical basis for the study will be discussed.

Chapter 3 illustrates the experimental study, which describes the research
methodology, participants, instruments for data analysis, pre-treatment test and posttreatment test, general test, grammar materials, research procedure, results, findings
and discussions.
Chapter 4 includes results, findings and discussions.
Chapter 5 composes of finding summary, implications and limitations of the
research.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Definition of grammar

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Grammar, at its core, refers to the rules of language. But how these rules are
imagined and what these rules encompass can vary greatly from definition to definition.
As a result, the common understanding of grammar differs in subtle but important ways
from the linguistic sense of the term.
The traditional understanding of grammar—the one we associate with the
prescriptivism position—began in ancient Greece and Rome. For hundreds of years,
grammar was synonymous with the study of Greek and Latin. These languages were
regarded as perfect - or nearly so - and their grammatical structures were taken to be
universal forms by which all "vulgar" languages should be judged. It was not until the
seventeenth century that writers began to turn their attention systematically to the
grammar of English itself, and when they did so, they applied the structures that they had
learned studying classical languages to English. Original definitions of grammar do not
vary much. Samuel Kirkham, author of one of the best-selling grammar books in
nineteenth-century America, defines grammar as "the art of speaking and writing the
English language with propriety". The first thing to notice is that grammar is seen as an
art. In other words, the overriding goal of traditional grammar is to produce aesthetically
pleasing English. Traditional grammar does not try to explain the most basic aspects of

language - the point at which linguistics begins. It takes the basics for granted. Traditional
grammar is not about speaking any old form of English, but one particular form - a proper
one. Kirkham's word "propriety" suggests that grammar is a form of social decorum and
therefore that grammar involves following rules. And so, as even cursory thought will
show, language must. Without some agreement as to the rules, there could be no
communication.
So what is grammar? A question people rarely ever ask themselves when they
speak their native language. However, when it comes to learning a second language, it’s
the first thing learners are introduced to. When people contemplate this question, the first
answer that comes to their minds is a set of rules that govern a language. However, there
is more to grammar than that. Grammar is a system composed of many interconnected
components that ensure accuracy and meaning. It is the art of writing and speaking a
language correctly. It is “the mental system of rules and categories that allows humans to
form and interpret the words and sentences of their language.” There is no escape from

5


using grammar if people want to improve our English or learn a new language. Just as the
latter, grammar is a living entity that evolves and undergoes a great deal of change over
time. Grammar of the 19th century is by no means the grammar of today. These changes
are due to several factors such as time, culture, literature and so on.
Grammar differs from one language to another and from one person to another.
Non-native English speakers may presume that the English language has less complicated
grammar in comparison to French or Spanish and that grammar, as a concept, to a Spanish
speaker, may not be the same to a German or a Japanese speaker. Nevertheless, grammar,
from a linguistic point of view, is the same in terms of complexity in all languages and
they all share the same universal components. Although the grammatical structure or the
arrangement of words would differ, yet its role remains imperative and instrumental in all
languages.

Definitions of grammar vary greatly according to one’s knowledge and expertise in
the realm in question. A laymen’s definition of grammar would be much distinct from a
grammarian’s or a linguist’s. This distinction is primarily on account of the extent of
knowledge one possesses over the field or the orientation one has chosen to pursue. A
laymen’s definition would only scratch the surface of grammar while a grammarian’s
definition would delve into. More elaborate aspects like word class and part of speech. As
for a linguist, he would tackle the linguistics components of language such as phonology,
semantics and so on. Grammar is a tremendously vast field which could be approached
from a myriad of ways. In this part of the research we shall see how each of the
aforementioned persons perceive grammar and in what ways their views are different?
a. Laymen’s definition
Laymen’s definitions of grammar are usually succinct and superficial. They give
grammar an over general definition which makes it lose its significance. An example of
these definitions is “the rules and structure we use to make sentences, phrases and words
logically.” Another example is “The study of how words and their component parts
combine to form sentences.” These sorts of definitions don’t give grammar its actual
worth and limit, in scope, the role grammar plays in governing the usage of language.
Nevertheless, these sort of simplified definitions come in handy when it comes to teaching
native children or new learners of English about the basic concepts of grammar. Namely,

6


it encourages children and especially the adult learners, who usually quit due to the
complexity of the grammatical rules, to embrace it and learn its rudiments until they reach
a level where they could grasp more intricate notions. Complicating grammar right from
the start would only result in developing an aversion for the language and hence alienate
the learners
b. Grammarians’ definition
Grammarians’ definition of grammar is on a totally different level than the latter.

Their perception of grammar is much more profound and entails more elaborate entities
which add 7 to the multiple usage grammar can take. They delve into more intricate
details and tackle advanced components which would seem bewildering for the nonspecialist. Some of these entities grammarians approach in view of grammar are like word
class, clauses, part of speech etc. and how they merge together to form accurate and
meaningful sentences. A grammarian’s definition would take such a form as “The science
which treats the principles of language; the study of forms of speech, and their relations to
one another.” Also “A normative or prescriptive set of rules setting forth the current
standard of usage for pedagogical or reference purposes”. Furthermore, grammarians have
primarily two or rather three approaches in which they conceive the role of grammar. The
first approach is the descriptive approach. The latter describes how a language is used. As
for the second approach, it is the prescriptive approach. In this approach Grammar
provides rules for correct usage. The last approach is the generative approach. It provides
instructions for the production of an infinite number of sentences in a language.
c. Linguists’ definition
As regard the linguistic perspective. Grammar is a branch of the vast field of
linguistics. “It’s the part of the study of language which deals with the forms and
structures of words (morphology), with their customary arrangement in phrases and
sentences

(syntax),

along

with

language

sounds

(phonology)

and

word

meaning(semantics).” In addition to this, grammar of language should be thought of as
“a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis”
(Chomsky 1957:13). It’s a system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a
mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language.
2.2 Classification of grammar

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Patrick Hartwell, author of "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar",
categorizes grammar into five groups, derived from the likes of W. Nelson Francis and
MathaKolln, summarized as follows:
Grammar 1: a set of formal patterns in which the words of a language arranged in
order to convey a larger meaning. It is not necessary that we be able to discuss these
patterns self-consciously in order to be able to use them. In fact, all speakers of a language
above the age of five of six know how to use its complex forms of organization with
considerable skill.
Grammar 2: the branch of linguistic science which is concerned with the
description, analysis, and formulation of formal language patterns. Just as gravity was in
full operation before Newton’s apple fell, so grammar in the first sense was in full
operation before anyone formulated the first rule that began the history of grammar as
study.
Grammar 3: linguistic etiquette. The word in this sense is often coupled with
derogatory adjective. For example, it is said that the expression "he ain't here" is "bad
grammar." . . .

Grammar 4: school grammar. Literally, this is grammar which is used for
teaching at school.
Grammar 5: grammatical terms used in the interest of teaching prose (1987: 352353). And, since stylistic grammars abound, with widely variant terms and emphases, we
might appropriately speak parenthetically of specific forms of Grammar 5 namely
Grammar 5 (Lanham); Grammar 5 (Strunk and White); Grammar 5 (Williams, Style);
even Grammar 5 (Christensen, as adapted by Daiker, Kerek, and Morenberg).
From the classification above, it is noteworthy that Francis' Grammar 3 is not quite
related to grammar but usage. One would like to assume that Joseph Williams' recent
discussion of usage ("The Phenomenology of Error," CCC, 32 (1981), 152-168),
along with his references, has placed those shibboleths in a proper perspective. But
it is inevitable that popular discussions of the grammar issue will be as flawed by
the intrusion of usage issues as past discussions have been. At any rate the author
will make only passing reference to Grammar 3-usage-naively assuming that this

8


issue has been discussed elsewhere and that her readers are familiar with those
discussions.
It is also essential to make further discriminations about Francis' Grammar 2,
given that the purpose of his 1954 article was to substitute for one form of
Grammar 2, that "inaccurate and misleading" form "which is usually taught,"
another form, that of American structuralized grammar. Here we can make use of
a still earlier discussion, one going back to the days when PMLA was willing to
publish articles on rhetoric and linguistics, to a 1927 article by Charles Carpenter
Fries, "The Rules of the Common School Grammars" (42 [1927], 221-237). Fries
there distinguished between the scientific tradition of language study (to which we
will now delimit Francis' Grammar 2, scientific grammar) and the separate tradition
of "the common school grammars," developed unscientifically, largely based on two
inadequate principles-appeals to "logical principles," like "two negatives make a

positive," and analogy to Latin grammar; thus, Charlton Laird's characterization,
"the grammar of Latin, ingeniously warped to suggest English" (Language in
America, p. 294).
There is, of course, a direct link between the "common school grammars"
that Fries criticized in 1927 and the grammar-based texts of today, and thus it
seems wise, as Karl W. Dykema suggests ("Where Our Grammar Came From," CE,
22 (1961), 455-465), to separate Grammar 2, "scientific grammar," from Grammar
4, "school grammar," the latter meaning, quite literally, "the grammars used in the
schools." Further, since Martha Kolln points to the adaptation of Christensen's
sentence rhetoric in a recent sentence-combining text as an example of the proper
emphasis on "grammar" ("Closing the Books on Alchemy," p. 140), it is worth
separating out, as still another meaning of grammar, Grammar 5, "stylistic
grammar," defined as "grammatical terms used in the interest of teaching prose
style." And, since stylistic grammars abound, with widely variant terms and emphases,
we might appropriately speak parenthetically of specific forms of Grammar 5Grammar 5 (Lanham); Grammar 5 (Strunk and White); Grammar 5 (Williams,
Style); even Grammar 5 (Christensen, as adapted by Daiker, Kerek, and Morenberg).

9


Regarding these classification, the author will return to Francis' Grammar 1,
admirably defined by Kolln as "the internalized system of rules that speakers of a
language share" ("Closing the Books on Alchemy," p. 140), or, to put it more simply,
the grammar in our heads. Three features of Grammar 1 need to be stressed: first, its
special status as an "internalized system of rules," as tacit and unconscious
knowledge; second, the abstract, even counterintuitive, nature of these rules, in so far
as we are able to approximate them indirectly as Grammar 2 statements; and third,
the way in which the form of one's Grammar 1 seems profoundly affected by the
acquisition of literacy. This sort of review is designed to firm up her theory of
language, so that we can ask what it predicts about the value of teaching formal

grammar.
A simple thought experiment will isolate the special status of Grammar 1
knowledge. For example, the rule is that in English the order of adjectives is first,
number, second, age, and third, nationality. Native speakers can create analogous
phrases using the rule- "the seventy-three aged Scandinavian lechers"; and the drive
for meaning is so great that they will create contexts to make sense out of violations
of the rule, as in foregrounding for emphasis: "I want to talk to the French four
young girls." (So Grammar 1 is eminently usable knowledge-the way we make our
life through language but it is not accessible knowledge; in a profound sense, we do
not know that we have it. Thus neurolinguist Z. N. Pylyshyn speaks of Grammar 1 as
"autonomous," separate

from

common-sense

reasoning,

and

as

"cognitively

impenetrable," not available for direct examination.10 In philosophy and linguistics,
the distinction is made between formal, conscious, "knowing about" knowledge(like
Grammar 2 knowledge) and tacit, unconscious, "knowing how" knowledge (like
Grammar 1 knowledge). The importance of this distinction for the teaching of
composition-it provides a powerful theoretical justification for mistrusting the ability
of Grammar 2 (or Grammar 4) knowledge to affect Grammar 1 performance was

pointed out in this journal by Martin Steinmann, Jr., in 1966 ("Rhetorical Research,"
CE, 27 [1966], 278-285).
Further, the more we learn about Grammar 1-and most linguists would agree
that people know surprisingly little about it the more abstract and implicit it seems.

10


This abstractness can be illustrated with an experiment, devised by LiseMenn and
reported by Morris Halle,11 about our rule for forming plurals in speech. It is
obvious that people do indeed have a "rule" for forming plurals, due to not memorizing
the plural of each noun separately. You will demonstrate productive control over that
rule by forming the spoken plurals of the nonsense words below: those flitch plats.
Halle offers two ways of formalizing a Grammar 2 equivalent of this Grammar 1
ability. One form of the rule is the following, stated in terms of speech sounds:
a. If the noun ends in /s z s z c j/, add /iz/;
b. Otherwise, if the noun ends in /p t k f 0/, add /s/;
c. Otherwise, add /z/
This rule comes close to what we literate adults consider to be an adequate
rule for plurals in writing, like the rules, for example, taken from a recent "common
school grammar," Eric Gould's Reading into Writing: A Rhetoric, Reader, and
Handbook (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983): Plurals can be tricky. If you are unsure
of a plural, then check it in the dictionary. The general rules are
a. Add “s” to the singular: girls, tables
b. Add “es” to nouns ending in ch, sh, x or s: churches, boxes, wishes
c. Add “es” to nouns ending in y and preceded by a vowel once you have
changed y to i: monies, companies.
But note the persistent inadequacy of such Grammar 4 rules: here, as the
author read it, the rule is inadequate to explain the plurals of ray and tray, even to
explain the collective noun monies, not a plural at all, formed from the mass noun

money and offered as an example.) A second form of the rule would make use of much
more abstract entities, sound features:
a. If the noun ends with a sound that is [coronal, strident], add lIz!;
b. Otherwise, if the noun ends with a sound that is [non-voiced], add Is!;
c. Otherwise, add /z/.
The notion of "sound features" is itself rather abstract, perhaps new to readers
not trained in linguistics. But such readers should be able to recognize that the spoken
plurals of lip and duck, the sound [s], differ from the spoken plurals of sea and gnu,

11


the sound [z], only in that the sounds of the latter are "voiced"- one's vocal cords
vibrate-while the sounds of the former are "non-voiced."
To test the psychologically operative rule, the Grammar 1 rule, native speakers
of English were asked to form the plural of the last name of the composer Johann
Sebastian Bach, a sound [x], unique in American (though not in Scottish) English. If
speakers follow the first rule above, using word endings, they would reject a) and b),
then apply c), producing the plural as /baxz/, with word-final /z/. (If writers were to
follow the rule of the common school grammar, they would produce the written plural
Baches, apparently, given the form of the rule, on analogy with churches.) If speakers
follow the second rule, they would have to analyze the sound [x] as [non-labial, noncoronal, dorsal, non-voiced, and no strident], producing the plural as /baxs/, with
word-final /s/. Native speakers of American English overwhelmingly produce the plural
as /baxs/. They use knowledge that Halle characterizes as "unlearned and untaught" (p.
140).
Now such a conclusion is counterintuitive-certainly it departs maximally from
Grammar 4 rules for forming plurals. It seems that native speakers of English
behave as if they have productive control, as Grammar 1 knowledge, of abstract
sound features (+ coronal, ?+ strident, and so on) which are available as conscious,
Grammar 2 knowledge only to trained linguists-and, indeed, formally available only

within the last hundred years or so. ("Behave as if," in that last sentence, is a
necessary hedge, to underscore the difficulty of "knowing about" Grammar 1.)
Moreover, as the example of plural rules suggests, the form of the Grammar 1
in the heads of literate adults seems profoundly affected by the acquisition of
literacy. Obviously, literate adults have access to different morphological codes: the
abstract print -s underlying the predictable /s/ and /z/ plurals, the abstract print -ed
underlying the spoken past tense markers It!, as in "walked," /ld/, as in "surrounded,"
/d!, as in "scored," and the symbol /01 for no surface realization, as in the relaxed
standard pronunciation of "I walked to the store." Literate adults also have access to
distinctions preserved only in the code of print (for example, the distinction
between "a good sailer" and "a good sailor" that Mark Aranoff points out in "An
English Spelling

Convention,"

Linguistic

12

Inquiry,

9 [1978],

299-303). More


significantly, Irene Moscowitz speculates that the ability of third graders to form
abstract nouns on analogy with pairs like divine: :divinity and serene: :serenity,
where the spoken vowel changes but the spelling preserves meaning, is a factor of
knowing how to read. Carol Chomsky finds a three-stage developmental sequence in

the grammatical performance of seven-year-olds, related to measures of kind and
variety of reading; and Rita S. Brause finds a nine stage developmental sequence in
the ability to understand semantic ambiguity, extending from fourth graders to
graduate students.12 John Mills and Gordon.
Hemsley find that level of education, and presumably level of literacy,
influence judgments of grammaticality, concluding that literacy changes the deep
structure of one's internal grammar; Jean Whyte finds that oral language functions
develop differently in readers and non-readers; Jose Morais, Jesus Alegria, and Paul
Bertelson find that illiterate adults are unable to add or delete sounds at the
beginning of nonsense words, suggesting that awareness of speech as a series of
phones is provided by learning to read an alphabetic code. Two experiments one
conducted by Charles A. Ferguson, the other by Mary E. Hamilton and David Bartonfind that adults' ability to recognize segmentation in speech is related to degree of
literacy, not to amount of schooling or general ability.
It is worth noting that none of these investigators would suggest that the
developmental sequences they have uncovered be isolated and taught as discrete
skills. They are natural concomitants of literacy, and they seem best characterized
not as isolated rules but as developing schemata, broad strategies for approaching
written language.
People can, of course, attempt to approximate the rules or schemata of
Grammar 1 by writing fully explicit descriptions that model the competence of a
native speaker. Such rules, like the rules for pluralizing nouns or ordering adjectives
discussed above, are the goal of the science of linguistics, that is, Grammar 2. There
are a number of scientific grammars-an older structuralist model and several versions
within a generative-transformational paradigm, not to mention isolated schools like
tagmemic grammar, Montague grammar, and the like. In fact, we cannot think of
Grammar 2 as a stable entity, for its form changes with each new issue of each

13

linguistics journal, as new "rules of grammar" are proposed and debated. Thus
Grammar 2, though of great theoretical interest to the composition teacher, is of
little practical use in the classroom, as Constance
Weaver has pointed out (Grammar for Teachers [Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1979], pp. 36). Indeed Grammar 2 is a scientific model of Grammar 1, not a description of it, so
that questions of psychological reality, while important, are less important than other,
more theoretical factors, such as the elegance of formulation or the global power of
rules. We might, for example, wish to replace the rule for ordering adjectives of age,
number, and nationality cited above with a more general rule what linguists call a
"fuzzy" rule that adjectives in English are ordered by their abstract quality of
"nouniness": adjectives that are very much like nouns, like French or Scandinavian,
come physically closer to nouns than do adjectives that are less "nouny," like four or
aged. But our motivation for accepting the broader rule would be its global power,
not its psychological reality.
The author tries to consider a hostile reader, one committed to the teaching of
grammar, and she tries to think of ways to hammer in the central point of this
distinction, that the rules of Grammar 2 are simply unconnected to productive
control over Grammar 1. It can be argued from authority: Noam Chomsky has touched
on this point whenever he has concerned himself with the implications of linguistics
for language

teaching,

and

years ago transformationalist

Mark

Lester stated

unequivocally, "there simply appears to be no correlation between a writer's study of
language and his ability to write."'
It can be cited that analogies offered by others: Francis Christensen's analogy in
an essay originally published in 1962 that formal grammar study would be "to
invite a centipede to attend to the sequence of his legs in motion," or James Britton's
analogy, offered informally after a conference presentation, that grammar study
would be like forcing starving people to master the use of a knife and fork before
allowing them to eat. She can also offer analogies of her own, contemplating the
wisdom of asking a pool player to master the physics of momentum before taking up
a cue or of making a prospective driver get a degree in automotive engineering before
engaging the clutch. She considers a hypothetical argument, that if Grammar 2

14


knowledge affected Grammar 1 performance, then linguists would be our best writers.
(She can certify that they are, on the whole, not.) Such a position, after all, is only in
accord with other domains of science: the formula for catching a fly ball in baseball
"Playing It by Ear," Scientific American, 248, No. 4 [1983], is of such complexity
that it is beyond my understanding-and, she would suspect, that of many workaday
centerfielders. But perhaps she can best hammer in this claim-that Grammar 2
knowledge has no effect on Grammar 1 performance-by offering a demonstration. The
diagram on the next page is an attempt by Thomas N.
Huckinand Leslie A. Olsen (English for Science and Technology [New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1983]) to offer, for students of English as a second language, a fully
explicit formulation of what is, for native speakers, a trivial rule of the language-the
choice of definite article, indefinite article, or no definite article. There are obvious
limits to such a formulation, for article choice in English is less a matter of rule than
of idiom ("I went to college" versus "I went to a university" versus British "I went to
university"), real-world knowledge (using indefinite "I went into ahouse" instantiates

definite "I looked at the ceiling," and indefinite "I visited a university" instantiates
definite "I talked with the professors"), and stylistic choice (the last sentence above
might alternatively end with "the choice of the definite article, the indefinite article, or
no article").
Huckin and Olsen invite nonnative speakers to use the rule consciously to
justify article choice in technical prose, such as the passage below from P. F.
Brandwein (Matter: An Earth Science [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975]). I
invite you to spend a couple of minutes doing the same thing, with the
understanding that this exercise is a test case: you are using a very explicit rule to
justify a fairly straightforward issue of grammatical choice.
Imagine a cannon on top of highest mountain on earth.

It is firing ____

cannonballs horizontally. First cannonball fired follows its path. As cannonball moves,
gravity pulls it down, and it soon hits ground. Now velocity with which each succeeding
cannonballis fired is increased. Thus, cannonball goes farther each time. Cannonball 2
goes farther than cannonball 1 although each is being pulled by gravity toward the
earth all time. _____ last cannonball is fired with such tremendous velocity that it

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goes completely around ____ earth. It returns to mountaintop and continues around
the earth again and again. cannonball's inertia causes it to continue in motion
indefinitely in _____ orbit around earth. In such a situation, we could consider
____ cannonball to be _______ artificial satellite, just like ____ weather satellites
launched by _______ U.S. Weather Service. (p. 209)
Most native speakers of English who have attempted this exercise report a great
deal of frustration, a curious sense of working against, rather than with, the rule. The

rule, however valuable it may be for non-native speakers, is, for the most part, simply
unusable for native speakers of the language.
In addition, Chung, S. and Pullum, G. (2005) divide grammar in three categories
namely descriptive grammar, prescriptive grammar, school grammar.
Descriptive grammar attempts to describe the usage of native speakers. Descriptive
grammar assumes that the only authority for what is exists in a language is what its native
speakers accept and understand as part of their language. A speaker who says “I ain’t
doing nothing,” intending to say just that, has produced a sentence which is grammatical
in the dialect and register in which he or she is speaking. This utterance is “grammatical”
(i.e., produced by the grammar of a native speaker) for speakers of several different
dialects of English and appropriate in different registers for those dialects.
A descriptive grammar therefore will specify many rules for structures in which no
native speaker will ever produce anything except a single form, for example, rules like (1)
– (3) below.
1. In English, the article precedes the noun and any adjectives modifying the noun.
a. The short people moved.
b. Short the people moved.
c. Short people the move.
2. In English, demonstratives agree in number with the nouns they modify: that
and this go with singulars; those and these go with plurals.
a. That dog is surprisingly fond of these bones.
b. Those dog is surprisingly fond of this bones.
3. Use only one question word at the beginning of an English sentence.
a. Who said what?

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b. Who what said?
c. What who said?

A descriptive grammar will also specify rules which allow variation in structures
which speakers use variably. What does that mean? (4) is an example of a rule that varies
in different contexts:
Speakers of more or less standard dialects of American English
4. Typically use objective pronouns after copular verbs;
a. That is me.
b. It’s him.
c. The guy in the front row with the red hat is him.
5. Use subject case pronouns after copular verbs with very short subjects in formal
contexts;
a. That is I.
b. It is he.
c. That guy in the front row with the red hat is he.
On the other hand, Prescriptive grammar assumes the existence of better
authorities than the usage and judgment of native speakers. People who write prescriptive
grammars adduce better language users (educated speakers, high-class speakers, great
writers), better languages (usually Latin) and better information systems (mathematics or
predicate calculus) as authorities for preferring one usage over another. Prescriptive rules
exist only to express a preference for one structure or usage or linguistic item over
another. A prescriptive grammar will not contain rules that tell you to put articles before
nouns, rather than after, because no native speakers of English put articles after nouns.
Prescriptive rules are reserved for places where speakers have choices and they exist to
limit those choices. It is descriptive grammar that notes that speakers have choices in
certain constructions about where the preposition can appear.
For example, consider this discussion from Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern
English Usage. Preposition at end. It was once a cherished superstition that prepositions
must be kept true to their name and placed before the word they govern in spite of the
incurable English instinct for putting them late (’They are the fittest timber to make great
politics of,’ said Bacon; and ‘What are you hitting me for?’ says the modern schoolboy).

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‘A sentence ending in a preposition is an inelegant sentence’ represents what used to be a
very general belief, and it is not yet dead. One of its chief supports is the fact that Dryden,
an acknowledged master of English prose, went through all his prefaces contriving away
the final prepositions that he had been guilty of in his first editions. It is interesting to find
Ruskin almost reversing this procedure. In the text of the Seven Lamps there is a solitary
final preposition to be found and no more; but in the later footnotes they are not avoided
(Anymore wasted words...I never heard of./Men whose occupation for the next fifty years
would be the knocking down every beautiful building they could lay their hands on).
Dryden’s earlier practice shows him following the English instinct; his later shows him
sophisticated with deliberate Latinism: ‘I am often put to a stand in considering whether
what I write bethe idiom of the tongue, ... and have no other way to clear my doubts but
by translating my English into Latin’. The natural inference from this would be: you
cannot put a preposition (roughly speaking) later than its word in Latin, and therefore you
must not do so in English.
Gibbon improved upon the doctrine, and, observing that prepositions and adverbs
are not always easily distinguished, kept on the safe side by not ending sentences with on,
over, under, or the like, when they would have been adverbs. The fact is that the
remarkable freedom enjoyed by English in putting its prepositions late and omitting its
relatives is an important element in the flexibility of the language. The power of saying A
state of dejection such as they are absolute strangers to instead of A state of dejection of an
intensity to which they are absolute strangers, or People worth talking to instead of People
with whom it is worthwhile to talk, is not one to be lightly surrendered. But the DrydenGibbon tradition has remained in being, and even now immense pains are sometimes
expended in changing spontaneous into artificial English. That depends on what they are
cut with is not improved by conversion into That depends on with what they are cut; and
too often the lust for sophistication, once blooded, becomes uncontrollable, and ends with,
That depends on the answer to the question as to with what they are cut. Those who lay
down the universal principle that final prepositions are 'inelegant' are unconsciously trying

to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used
freely by all our greatest writers except those whose instinct for English idiom has been
overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards. The legitimacy of

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the prepositional ending in literary English must be uncompromisingly maintained; in
respect of elegance or inelegance, every example must be judged not by any arbitrary rule,
but on its own merits, according to the impression it makes on the feeling of educated
English readers. (473-4)
Notice that Fowler said that Dryden in revising himself did not ask “What sounds
good in English?”, instead he very explicitly changed his writing so it existed as a pseudotranslation of Latin (an odd thing to do unless you really believe in the superiority of
Latin). Fowler distinguishes between style and grammar much more effectively than most
prescriptivists. He is arguing in favor of (or against) different usages because of what he
perceives their stylistic effect to be – he is not claiming that ending a sentence with a
preposition (or avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition) is “ungrammatical”. He is
expressing a stylistic preference. There has been a long tradition in prescriptivism to claim
that those things which the prescriptivists dislike are ungrammatical. (7) Suggests that
split infinitives or verb phrases are somehow wrong; the data suggests that not only do
English speakers prefer to split infinitives sometimes, sometimes they actually must.
Avoid separating the parts of a verb phrase or the parts of an infinitive." (H.
Ramsay Fowler, The Little, Brown Handbook:
a. Our five-year mission is to boldly go where no one has gone before.
b. Our five-year mission is to go boldly where no one has gone before.
c. To only read the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of
time.
d. Only to read the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of
time.
e. To read only the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of

time.
One of the most important things about prescriptive grammarians or various
stylists is that their rules must sit on top of an adequate descriptive grammar. Why?
Descriptive grammar tells us what a preposition or an infinitive is. If you don’t know what
an infinitive is, how can you interpret example above? Nothing in prescriptive grammar
defines infinitives.

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It is descriptive grammar that notes that speakers have choices in certain
constructions about where the preposition can appear. The prescriptivist comes in and
asserts that only one of the choices is “correct”, but the existence of the choices and the
structure that sits beside them can only be found by competent observation and
description of native speaker usage.
Prescriptive rules are a set of social and sometimes more narrowly aesthetic rules
about linguistic structure – they are not, contrary to way they are often presented – rules of
language. The degree to which a speaker or writer abides by these rules may affect how
his or her audience judges the work or the author of it. A failure to abide by the rules may
suggest to an audience that the speaker/writer is unfamiliar with these rules (which can be
associated with intellectual, scholastic or social success), while abiding by them may
suggest to an audience that the speaker/writer is pompous and overly formal.
Within prescriptive and descriptive, School Grammar is a subset of (usually highly
oversimplified) rules which are explicitly taught in school. These will include things like
definitions of word categories (nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc.) and the very explicit
prescriptive rules like the “don’t end a sentence in a preposition” rule discussed above.
These rules are found in textbooks and other materials used in schools from elementary
school to college. They include statements like “A verb is an action word” (a definition
which we will find woefully inadequate when we start actually working with verbs).
An illustration of "Use the subjective case for all parts of compound subjects and

for subject complements." (H. Ramsay Fowler, The Little, Brown Handbook)
a. That's her.
b. That's she.
c. The best person for the job would be me.
d. The best person for the job would be I.
"Use the subjective case for all parts of compound subjects and for subject
complements." (H. Ramsay Fowler, The Little, Brown Handbook:162)
a. That's her.
b. That's she.
c. The best person for the job would be me.
d. *The best person for the job would be I.

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Compare this with the rule (4) above and the data listed with (4) and (8), it should
be clear that there is a substantial problem with it. It appears unfortunately to press
English speakers and writers to produce things which sound absolutely horrible to the
English ear. Thus, this thesis will be based on the first theoretical foundation.
2.3 Levels of English grammar
According to the CEFR standard (Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages), there are six levels of English grammar that language learner will have to
gain, which are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.
First and foremost, in A1 level, learners can understand and use familiar everyday
expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type.
They can introduce themselves to others as well as ask and answer questions about
personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have. Besides,
they also can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly
and is prepared to help.
For A2 level, learners are expected to understand the main points of clear standard

input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with
most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken.
They can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal
interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give
reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
Regarding B1 level, learners can comprehend the main ideas of complex text on
both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of
specialization. They can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes
regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. They
are also expected to produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a
viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
When it comes to level C1, students are able to understand a wide range of
demanding, longer texts, and recognize implicit meaning. They can express him/her
fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. They are
also able to a language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional
purposes. Most importantly, they do not find it difficult in producing clear, well-

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structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organizational
patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.
Finally, C2 is the highest level of English learners in which they can understand
with ease virtually everything heard or read. Moreover, they can also summarize
information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and
accounts in a coherent presentation. Especially, they can express him/her spontaneously,
very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex
situations.
2.4 Assessing grammatical knowledge
There are two basic types of test items, which are direct and indirect test items,

according to Harmer’s distinction (322). A test item is direct if it either asks students to
perform the communicative skill, which is being tested, or it tests receptive skills, and it
tries to be as much like real life language use as possible, i.e. tasks which deal with
features of real life are included. In real life when people speak or write, they generally do
so for a real purpose, because they need something or they are interested in the topic of
conversation and want to add their own ideas. Here is an example of the task testing
writing skills.
Tests of reading and listening skills can reflect real life. Role-playing in which
students perform tasks such as introducing themselves may be a good example of testing
speaking skills. On the other hand, indirect test items try to measure a student’s
knowledge that lies beneath their receptive and productive skills, grammatical knowledge
in particular. It is found out through more controlled items. These are often quicker to
design and, crucially, easier to mark and produce greater scorer reliability. Indirect items
included multiple choice tests, cloze procedure, transformation, paraphrase, sentence reordering, sentence fill-ins, finding errors in sentences or choosing the correct form of a
word. Cloze procedures, in their purest form, mean the omission of every nth word in a
text (somewhere between every fifth or tenth word). Because the procedure is random, it
avoids test designer failings. The randomness of the omitted words also enables that
anything may be tested (e.g. grammar, collocations, fixed phrases, reading
comprehension, etc.). Transformation and paraphrase means to rewrite sentences in a
slightly different form:

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I am sorry that I didn’t get her an anniversary present.
 I wish...................................................................................
In order to complete it successfully students have to understand the first sentence,
and they have to know how to construct an equal sentence, which is grammatically
possible. Sentence re-ordering means putting words in right order to make appropriate
sentences, which tells the teacher a lot about students’ knowledge of syntax and lexical

grammatical elements (Harmer 323-325).
Multiple choice tests concerning the distinction of indirect test items, Harmer notes
that, although there is a wide range of indirect test possibilities, certain types are common
in use, such as multiple choice questions (MCQs). Here is the example:
How .................. sugar do you take in your coffee?
A. little

B. few

C. much

D. many

A multiple choice item must have only one correct answer (Heaton, Classroom
Testing 96), which seems to be common sense, but it is very easy to write an item with
two correct answers. The item above, for example, has two correct answers: A as well as
the expected C.
Harmer also admits a number of problems with multiple choice questions. First,
they are extremely difficult to write well especially in the design of the incorrect choices.
Second, it is possible to be trained in technique so the trained students will probably be
more successful than those who have not been trained in it. Finally, while students’
multiple choice questions abilities may be trained and improved, this may not actually
improve their English (Harmer 323).
Also Hughes refers to the difficulty of writing multiple choice items successfully
(61). He says that, according to his experience, multiple choice tests produced for use
within institutions are often full of faults. Common among those faults are: more than one
correct answer; no correct answer; there may be clues in the options to which is correct
(e.g. difference in length); and lastly, the possible answer (A, B, C, D) is so simple to
show to other students nonverbally. Hughes concludes that saving time for administration
and scoring will outweigh the time spent on successful test preparation. On the other hand,

he also adds the most obvious advantages of multiple choice tests: scoring can be

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perfectly reliable and it is possible to include more items than would otherwise be possible
since the student has only to make a mark on the paper (Hughes 59-61).
However, for many years multiple choice questions were considered to be an ideal
test instrument for measuring students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (Harmer
323). In addition, Heaton describes multiple choice questions as a device that tests the
ability to recognize sentences which are grammatically correct (96). However, this ability
is not the same as the ability to produce correct sentences. The teacher must remember
this limitation and then he or she can still find multiple choice items useful for certain
purposes, especially on a progress test, and they may be useful for finding out more about
the difficulties which students have with certain areas of grammar.
Further on, wherever possible, the items of tests should be set in context. If the
teacher wants to concentrate on a certain area of grammar, he or she should put the item
into a short two-line dialogue. This is better than providing no context at all. Thus, the
item becomes more meaningful:
Can I get you anything? .................... a pen and a piece of paper.
A. I like

B. I’ll like

C. I’d like

D. I’m liking

There is also the possibility to write only three options instead of four of them
(Heaton, Classroom Testing 96-97).

2.5 The role of grammar in language learning
Grammar plays a substantial role in governing the use and application of language.
It gives the user the structure to build complete and meaningful sentences. The role of
grammar can take many dimensions and varies according to the situation and context in
which it is used.
The underlying role of grammar lies in being the language which enables us to
talk about language. It names the words and words groups that make up sentences as well
as the way in which they can be accurately put together. It is true that natives can
subconsciously pick up their languages without any kind of explicit or formal instruction,
but they can’t talk about it or explain some of its irregularities without having learnt them.
Grammar also plays an important role in the writing and reading processes. One
cannot write efficiently and professionally without this instruction. It would be nearly
impossible for the writer to articulate his thoughts and make them intelligible for the

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reader. How would he be able to express the future perfect or doubt without knowing
grammatically how? In addition to that, without grammar, one cannot even read without
misunderstanding the meaning. If the reader has to go back and re-read a sentence several
times because they are not quite sure what it means, it spoils their reading experience and
they are quite likely to misunderstand the point or even to give up and not read any
further. Knowing about grammar also helps us understand what makes sentences and
paragraphs clear and interesting and without it any language will be totally coarse and
ugly to deal with, not to mention that the language would eventually become completely
illegible and nonsense.
Grammar, as Chomsky put it, is a set of finite rules which, if learnt and mastered,
can generate an infinite set of sentences. This is also one of the attributes of grammar.
With a sufficient vocabulary, one can give utterance to any thought that crosses his mind.
The only two criteria which would restrain the number of sentences created are the

vocabulary at hand and the user’s sense of creativity. To exemplify, tourists who choose to
spend their vacation somewhere abroad, they usually buy a small tourist book with all the
basic ready-made sentences needed for communication. However, that book is only
usable for 1 or 2 weeks and there comes a time when the tourists need to say something
that is not in the tourist book. In that case, a little of grammar instruction and some
elementary vocabulary would enable them 10 to express what they want, Not necessarily
correctly, but the recipient would most likely receive the meaning.
“Grammar communicates meaning, meaning of a very special kind” (article
‘grammar meaning and pragmatics’ by Michael swan). Usually people disregard the usage
of grammar to communicate when there is enough contextual input. Single words or
motions would do the job. For instance, at a dinner, the waiter would come to you and ask
you “coffee?” you would understand what the waiter meant by that due to the context.
However, when you are home and you would like to ask your wife to make you some
coffee, you can’t just go ahead and say “coffee”. It would seem inappropriate and rude.
This is where grammar comes in, it serves to make the speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear
when contextual information is lacking. Moreover, Grammar also serves as an enabling
tool for articulating complex thoughts. Baby talk is fine to a certain point, but there comes
a time when you need to express more complicated concepts and meanings for which

25