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TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR COMMUNICATIVELY: A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE

ROLES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN THE EFL CONTEXT

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR COMMUNICATIVELY:

A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE ROLES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN THE EFL
CONTEXT

Tran Quoc Thao

Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam
Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh
University of Phan Thiet, Vietnam

Abstract
Grammar plays a vital role in the success of mastering a language. It is, nevertheless,
noticed that the roles of grammar are still underestimated in different EFL contexts, and
grammar-oriented examinations are explicitly in practice rather than teaching grammar
communicatively. Consequently, many EFL learners are seen to be good at grammar but
still cannot communicate fluently and accurately. This paper, therefore, aims at discussing
grammar teaching including principles and goals of grammar teaching. It further looks at
the positions and roles of grammar in communicative language teaching (CLT) in the EFL
context. Additionally, this paper also suggests some pedagogical implications on how to
teach grammar communicatively in the EFL context. This paper is hoped to contribute its
part to highlight the roles of grammar in CLT and shed further light on the inclusion of
teaching grammar communicatively in the EFL context.

Keywords: EFL context; communicative language teaching; Communicative

competence; grammar; grammar teaching.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the English language has been considered as one of the most popular
languages, and it has been used to serve for learning and teaching at schools in Vietnam.
English is considered as a tool of communication. Grammar is usually taught by using
traditional methods before the availability of the computer in the classroom. Moreover, as it
certifies that grammar lessons seem complex to students, students need to learn English
grammar first when they learn the English language, and teaching grammar is challenging.

Most teachers always rely on blackboard and posters as their teaching aids. Due to the
influences of teaching English from the beginning learners are familiar to do grammar
exercises. Therefore, English grammar always plays a crucial role in learning the language.
People are not able to comprehend deeply without knowledge of grammar. Sentences
without appropriate grammar structures are also hard for readers and listeners to fully
understand the meaning. Even if the words or sentences do not put on correct grammar
structures, it may cause misunderstanding when conveying information to listeners. It is the
reason for learning English grammar and it cannot avoid learning English grammar. Besides
English plays as a useful tool of communication in many fields about cultural, social,
business working and so on. It brings people to come closer and to achieve what they really
want in communication.

It is highlighted that teachers are known as a center of power instead of giving students
chances to communicate in English (e.g., Denham, 1992; Tran & Seepho, 2016). However,

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

Pradeep (2013, p. 482) states that “grammar is a very important part that cannot be
neglected in teaching and studying English. Students are able to speak English more
correctly if they are proficient in grammar”.

With the purpose of using English grammar structures or forms applying in real contexts
and paying interested in learning grammar communication, it is essential to look back on
teaching English Grammar communicatively. This article, mainly focuses on the three main
points of (1) discussing the grammar teaching including principles and goals of grammar
teaching, (2) the positions and roles of English grammar in communicative language
teaching (CLT) in the EFL context, and (3) some pedagogical implications on how to teach
grammar communicatively in the EFL context.

2. Grammar teaching: principles and goals of grammar teaching

2.1. Principles for Grammar Teaching

2.1.1. Principles for creating the context

It is better to bring real contexts in teaching English grammar. The real contexts will help
teachers and learners attain desirable results. So how to bring practical contexts in English
grammar lessons, it should have three main characteristics that a good context should attain:
they are authentic, informative and interesting.

Firstly, the contexts should be authentic. When the matters are close to life, it will bring
much more effects in teaching and learning. And the most important thing is that it needs to
provide fully contents of the structures, usages, meanings and some model samples that the
learners are able to redo, regain and recover it well with what are happening in their real
situation. Lewis and Hill (1992, p. 28) state that the appropriateness of context can be
achieved if the teacher brings something real and useful from the outside classroom.

Secondly, an informative context should be comprehensible and easy to remember. It also

should have many clues to attain the target languages and provide various forms. The
information of different situation should be clear, useful and practical with daily activities.
Thirdly, learners always feel interested in real contexts. Learners also feel excited with
learning, willing to study; play the roles and eager for attending the class. They are ready to
participate in any activities without hesitation. As Ehrenworth & Vinton (2005, p. 89) state
that it should be made “seductive” in the way that the students cannot resist it but they have
to “dig” it and “get their hand dirty”. It is also better for students to do by themselves, so
they are able to remember knowledge longer and speak naturally.

For Ur (1996, p. 57) shows that the context should provide the background for a lot of
languages using so that students can use the information not only for the repetition of model
sentences but also for making their own sentences.
It is necessary to bring the contexts in teaching grammar communication that will help to
attain effective results.

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

2.1.2. Principles for creating tasks in the context

In order to attain the target language, the teachers need to help the learners know how to
apply forms or structures in doing tasks, spoken languages or written texts. Especially,
learners can know how to recognize the form and meaning in the real situation, and they can
produce both written and spoken form. It is vital to provide correct and meaningful
sentences in appropriate contexts. Therefore, teachers need to design real contexts by using
suitable model structures. While designing tasks, teachers should ask their learners some
targets at least about presentation, practice, and consolidation.

The most important thing is that the tasks should be related to the structures or form-
focused. Based on the structures, teachers may open widely diversified activities. There are
some activities that enhance the learners to learn without any fear in the classroom such as
Role Play, Games, Pair work, Interviews,…

As Ur (1988, p. 6) states that when grammatical structures are taught, teachers are, or should
be, asking students to learn “a large number of different though related bits of knowledge
and skills” which are recognition, identification, and production of the target structure.

Hedge (2000) considers that the presentation of grammar to learners should facilitate
learning in many ways. It can provide input for noticing output and accurate forms of
English; it can present high-frequency grammatical items explicitly to speed up learning; it
can provide information about the communicative use of language structures by
contextualizing them in spoken and written form.

Furthermore, tasks should be practical. It must be used very often in life.

Thornbury (2001, p.23) summarizes some rules of context, teaching grammar in context, the
rule of using grammar structures, the ability to use and apply in real contexts, the rule of the
economy and the rule of appropriateness about the levels, needs, interests, expectations and
learning styles of the students.

The tasks should be various and they can satisfy the learners’ needs as well as social needs.
It should be combined different techniques in order to create a comfortable atmosphere
which will help learners pay more interest in learning and have much more cooperation
among others during the time implementing the tasks.

2.2. Goals of grammar teaching

The paper mentions three main goals in teaching grammar.

Firstly, every student, from every background, should complete school with the ability to
communicate comfortably and effectively in both spoken and written Standard English.
They will be aware of when using Standard English is appropriate. It will be recognized that
each learner will attain the languages in their own ways, by doing various exercises,
listening to the tapes recorded or practicing speaking by themselves or with others even if
they can acquire the targets in any environment. The most important thing is teachers should
share effective skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Besides, students should

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

have various knowledge of grammar in order to talk freely and naturally in different
situations.

Secondly, after finishing English courses learners must acquire basic knowledge as well as
advanced knowledge about English grammar. They are able to use the grammatical
structure, to analyze the grammatical structure of sentences in English texts, daily life
conversation and the ability to practice well simple sentences to complex paragraphs.

Finally, with the purposes of proficiency in communication, learners should attain at least
their goals for studying. When they can understand and master languages, they are easy to
take part in society and deal with foreigners. Therefore, grammar teaching sets the teaching
of communicative competence as its goal. The ability to recognize and deeply will help to
produce correct sentences and meaningful conversations. They can take the contents or keep
giving much more other information.

3. The roles of grammar in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

In fact, Communicative Language Teaching does not include any English grammar. It only
focuses on communication. Spada (2007, p. 275) points out that “Communicative Language
Teaching means an exclusive focus on meaning”.

In order to discuss the roles of grammar used in communication, there are some matters
such as grammar helps to get the true meaning of talking.

As can see that the foreigners also often get some mistakes when speaking, so to be good at
grammar will help to hear and get meaning of conversation easily and effectively.
By contrast, without English grammar, you will not be able to understand the purpose of the
speaker. Take these two sentences as an example: “I am in love with her and I was in love
with her”. It can be seen that the difference is very small (am - was), one is in the present
meaning and one is in the past but the relationship between the speaker and "her" is very
different in two cases. So it will cause some misunderstanding in communication.
One more thing is that to be good at grammar will help to perform appropriately and
effectively to listeners.

When having to talk, people may misunderstand the meaning if English grammar is used
incorrectly. For example, with the phrase "He is a handsome boy", it can misinterpret that
"He handsome boy", people still can understand. However, it is said that "He handsome
boy”, it will make the listener "confused". For complicated sentences, basically, people who
are straining their ears but can't understand what we say.

Even if we are good at basic grammar it will be better. A good grammar foundation will
definitely help us convey ideas more efficiently and coherently.
And a native speaker will quickly realize that you are a learner of English as a foreign
language when you have a grammatical error such as "I meet her yesterday". It is a common
mistake but it is necessary to own good English grammar.

It is crucial to be good at grammar because it also shows respect to the culture.

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

Grammar gives insights into the meaning and contents of the words. Understanding and
responding will be appropriately and fluently. Especially, when using English for academic
purposes, grammar is extremely important and indispensable.

Thornbury (1999, p. 213) states two main types of CLT; the first one is the shallow-end
approach and the second one is the deep-end approach.

Although the deep-end approach also has strong influences, the paper does not mention too
much about “the deep-end approach” as it is not useful and unnecessary. The study only
considers more about “shallow-end approach”. Thornbury (1999, p.18) refers to the
shallow-end approach to Communicative Language Teaching is based on the thought that in
order to make the learners use language in a communicative situation, it is necessary first to
learn the grammatical rules and then apply them in that communicative situation.

In the shallow-end approach, CLT deals with grammar. Firstly, it will include the
grammatical structures using in communication; Secondly, it considered about functional
grammar. Halliday (1985, p.5) demonstrates that grammar is the study of linguistic forms or
wordings realizing functions or meanings; both wordings and functions are studied by the
grammar.

English Grammar is considered as a vital means towards communication. It is taught widely

in shallow-end syllabuses with the aims at acquiring using English grammar
communication. As it is known that learners presented grammatical rules only learn by heart
(presentation-practice-production cycle) but rather, the teachers provide them with examples
from which the learners will have to infer the rules by themselves and have more creative
ways to make the dialogues when using the language. Students will have more opportunities
to practice using the language as well as to see the relevance outside the classroom. It
stimulates critical thinking for the students in different conversations.

4. Pedagogical implications

The implications of the study include the critical look at the roles of English Grammar in
CLT in the EFL context.

Firstly, the research mentions about activities. It should have combined useful forms and
practical activities, incorporating communicative activities, authentic materials,
personalized contexts, and diversified activities. When teaching grammar, teachers should
organize some activities which must be combined between the content of grammar and
entertainment activities. It should be ensured that the activity can bring much success to the
grammar lesson. The students feel relax and unpressured. Sometimes it should have more
activities from the students and they can incorporate with their teacher or self-organized by
themselves under teachers’ instruction. Their study will much be better and flexible. They
can enjoy working with the tasks as well as with teachers and friends. Learners can do
individually, work in pairs or groups to exchange ideas. Also, interpersonal exchanges are
good ways to unlock new things. Besides, role-playing which is related to actual life also
should be organized for students and students can pretend to be someone in different
situations. It helps to keep remembering the words and sentences longer.

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

Secondly, it discusses Teacher roles. Teachers have important roles in the classroom.
Teachers should have good methods in order to bring learners to real-world situations.
Moreover, the teachers’ roles are the instructor, sampler, assessor by giving feedback,
giving correction, and extending matters.

The most important matter is the teachers’ instruction. If teachers have clear instruction it
will help learners follow the correct steps.
Richards & Rodgers (2001, p. 167) explain that “a language teacher is no longer viewed as
the authority of the knowledge, but as a facilitator, participant, and group manager who
could create a productive learning environment for the learners”.

Besides, teaching should be flexible and practical. The teacher should show how to plan a
communicative grammar lesson, how to arrange the steps in teaching. Teachers should
prepare CLT activities, plan lessons, and create a CLT environment to develop
communicative competence of the students. The form and content must be suitable,
meaningful and related to the student’s life. Teachers should know how to balance, how to
combine their teaching approach in order to get effective results.

In addition, it is important to provide real contexts, recall it over and over (practice makes
perfect) and the teacher should give students the chance to make mistakes and self-correct
their own mistakes. The teachers give the final corrections, feedbacks, and directions to
learners.

In order to provide a better opportunity to enhance learners’ communicative competence,

teachers should make real communication focus on language learning. Teachers should
provide learners opportunities to develop both accuracy and fluency in a CLT environment.
Or teachers should link different skills such as speaking, reading, writing and listening to
train learners’ ability such as discussion, communication games, information exchanges
about the students themselves, or role-play in accordance with the suitability of the target
grammatical points. Teachers should give feedbacks and some necessary explanations.
After the presentation, teachers will create controlled practice tasks that are based on the
principles.

For Harmer (1991, p.122) points out some communicative activities about discussions,
communication games and information exchanges among students, or role-play in
accordance with the suitability of the target grammatical points.
Richards Platt and Platt (1992, p. 179) state that communicative language teaching is
defined as an approach to foreign or second language teaching which aims to develop
communicative competence.

Furthermore, grammar lesson teaching should be authentic and easy to conduct. It can be
used very often in daily life.

Thirdly, it is about the learner roles. They should show cooperation, interaction, give
feedback and comments. If students want to improve Communication with Grammar,
students should own a solid foundation in the form, meaning, and use of grammatical

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structures. They are able to understand better and use skillfully their target language.
Learners should own basic grammar at least and they need to accumulate necessary
grammar knowledge in communication. They should be self-conscious with their studying.

Moreover, studying materials are also very important. The materials should be updated
regularly, edited, revised and reformed suitably with the present’s requirement. There are
many documents about communicative activities, authentic materials, and personalized
contexts. Indeed, course books are also developed on the traditional method of language
teaching. Mey (1998, p. 716) states that with learner-oriented classroom, opportunities to
develop a wide repository of activities, multiple roles of the teachers, and use of authentic
materials. It is essential to update the new programmes for teaching and studying.

Besides, the school administration should improve the traditional method of teaching,
schooling syllabus, and materials. There should be supports in teaching and diversified
activities. Administrators may support teachers about device aids as well as different
resources of CLT. It should have some supported things from machines, sounding, display
devices, facilitation,… Administrators should encourage teachers to design or re-design
curriculum in developing students’ communicative competence in daily activities.

To sum up, the combination of activities, teachers, learners, and materials are very necessary for
teaching and learning English grammar communicatively. It needs to be upgraded and consolidated
each time. It is important that it must be satisfactory and meet the needs of learners and society.
Otherwise teaching grammar must bring benefits to learners.

5. Conclusion

The study contains three main points of discussing the grammar teaching including principles
and goals of grammar teaching, the positions and roles of grammar in communicative language
teaching (CLT) in the EFL context, and some pedagogical implications on how to teach grammar
communicatively in the EFL context. Teaching English grammar communicatively plays a
vital role in teaching and learning a language.

Especially, without grammar knowledge, the understandable sentences cannot be

comprehended. It has no meaning and sense. The conversation may be good at content but it
can be bad at grammar so it also causes confusion to listeners and they cannot get the full
meaning. Because people need to understand what others speak out then they can give exact
responses.

When teaching grammar, the teachers not only give the students the means to express
themselves but also fulfill their expectations of what learning a foreign language involves.
In conclusion, grammar teaching plays an indispensable role in learning EFL. Grammar
should be taught in learning English communication. Grammar Translation Method is
concerned with accuracy and fluency while the Communicative Approach emphasizes
fluency.

Harmer (1997, p.7) remarks that “at this stage, it is enough to say that grammar teaching of
both the overt and covert kind, it has a real and important place in the classroom”. Owning

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AUTONOMY AND MOTIVATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE INTERCONNECTED WORLD

firmly grammar framework and being fluent in communication will enhance learners’
communicative competence as well as mastering the English language.

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