What is the Spirit of the English Grammar Teaching？

Haijiang+Zhao

Abstract：In China，English is a foreign language，not a second language.Chinese students cant learn English well without learning its grammar first.As for English teachers，the most important is to help the students to grasp the spirit of English grammar learning.

Keywords：Spirit；English grammar teaching；Foreign Language；Second Language

In China，English is a foreign language，not a second language，so it is absolutely impossible for students to learn this language well without learning its grammar first.So，grammar teaching is an influential and sensitive problem.

In teaching English，I found that many students are still not good at grammar even if they have spent five or six years learning English.For most students，the non-predicate，the attributive clause and the nominative absolute construction are very difficult to learn.In fact，the English grammar is not too difficult to learn.The problem is that the students cant grasp the spirit of the grammar learning.So an English teachers duty is not just to teach students the rule of grammar，but mainly to help them to grasp the spirit of English grammar learning.

And what is the spirit of the English grammar teaching？

In my opinion，we must properly concentrate time on teaching every item of the grammar and we should follow the principle of proceeding from the simple to the more complex，grasping the essence，teaching only the essential and ensuring plenty of practice.

Take the nominative absolute construction as an example，Id like to introduce a proper way to teach it.

As we know，most teachers will write on the blackboard the structure“logical subject+adjective/participle/infinitive/prepositional phrase”before giving or listing relevant sentences as examples，which is a popular and traditional way.This method will surely make students understand the nominative absolute construction，but cant make them use it themselves in an actual situation.I advocate beginning with exercises such as the following：

When he had done his work，he went home.

——Having done his work，he went home.

——When his work had been done，he went home.

——His work having been done，he went home.

——His work done，he went home.

The teachers explanation about this sentence pattern transformation must be clear enough for the students to understand.After being explained to，students will have more similar exercises.For example：

1.He sat in the armchair.He fixed his eyes upon the ceiling.

——

……

2.When they （had）finished the test，they began their holiday.

——

……

Attention，each sentence must be listed with one or more“=”perpendicularly under it，which motivates the students to do these sentence transformations.This method is in accordance with the principles of task-based teaching and study exploring.Of course，not all the students will perfect all these exercises.Then the teacher guides the students to the completion，summarizing main points.Again the teacher will give a further example.

He stood there.He put his hands in the pockets.

——As he stood there，he put his hands in the pockets.

——He stood there，putting his hands in the pockets.

——He stood there，with his hands in the pockets.

——He stood there，hands in pockets.

As above，the students will do more similar exercise like：

1.The teacher came into the room.He took a book under his arm.

——

……

2.As there was no bus going there，we had to walk about one hour.

——

……

Notice，there is no explanation of the grammar rules in the studentsactivities so that they need to think how to express the meaning of the example sentence in another way.When the students are engaging in the tasks they may not realize that they are practicing grammar，but they are focusing on the meaning instead of the grammar form.In this kind of task，instead of presenting the grammar rules or using the metalanguage to explain the rules，a lot of example sentences are listed and done by the students.By comparing the meaning of the example sentences the students are guided to understand the structures and the grammatical points from the sentences.

By means of the adverbial clauses，the attributive clauses and the participial phrases，especially by comparing and analysing the connections and differences between them，the students will surely grasp the nominative absolute construction.This grammar teaching based on the inductive approach usually brings about a better result than the deductive approach.

So I think what is most important of all in teaching English is that teachers must grasp the spirit of English grammar teaching first.Otherwise we couldnt have a good teaching result and the students couldnt grasp the knowledge of this language，let alone have the ability to use it freely in actual situations.