Whether grammar is important or not

By Karoline Lilleberg 

Whether grammar is important or not depends on the situation. For pupils in school it is very important, because they’re being evaluated in it, both written and oral. A student will not be able to achieve full score without good grammar. In our case, it’s more important than others to know our grammar, because we’re going to be the ones who is teaching grammar at some point. When you’re learning a foreign language there will be a certain insecurity, and in this case the teacher has a very important role. I think that in many cases the pupils are going to copy your language and grammar from you as a teacher. From my own experiences, I’ve seen that pupils copy your pronunciation, so I would not be surprised if they copy your grammar as well, both in writing and speaking. The teacher also has to show that learning a new language is fun rather than scare with grammar. Because when you’re learning grammar it’s much of fail-and-learn, and there is no harm in it. And study do show that this is a good way of learning.

On the other hand, for some the grammar is not that important. In several situations, it’s all about making yourself understood. I hope everyone will accomplish that when learning both a second or a foreign language.

I believe that learning grammar is something that takes time. You may learn it and know it well one week, but the next it’s a bit faded. To really learn it you have to practice it often, it’s like riding a bicycle. I remember when I first learned to ride one by myself, but after the winter, I could not remember how to do it anymore. Then I had to do some practice again to succeed. I feel like it’s the same principle when learning grammar. Maybe pupils doesn’t have enough of the subject of English in school to learn it fully. I’ve also experienced that the ones who’s got their grammar correct and their language, is the ones who also has relevant hobbies. For example, reading English, playing video games or watching movies. To learn grammar you have to do more than just practise the rules that follow and where to use which article and such.

One activity to practise grammar is to give each of the pupils their own book to read in, and on beforehand make them aware of what they/we are practising. Maybe they can choose a book of their own, it kind of makes it more special and they will also read something they find interesting. This might make it easier to work with later on, both for the pupil and the teacher. For every English lesson each of the pupils can present something that has to do with grammar, for example make them pick out a sentence they liked from what they’ve read and work with that somehow. Like we’ve done in class with Minjeong.