Teach English in Xihe Zhen - Zibo Shi

Grammar has always been considered one of the most important parts of learning a foreign language and perhaps also one of the most daunting. Although many students dread to hear that words ‘Today we are learning grammar’, they are some of the most essential classes to take part in. Grammar accompanies everything we say in the English language not only giving meaning to our words but similarly emphasising phrases and voicing our opinions. Therefore, as a student of English, grammar should take a front seat role in learning. The primary aspect of English grammar is learning the use of different lexis, such as verbs, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, etc. Although this knowledge comes naturally to native speakers, those learning English as a forgiven language will find that in categorising words into their correct title, they will be able to create and modify sentences with ease. By understanding whether a word is a verb or a noun students will be able to swap and change the vocabulary they have learnt to create contrasting sentences and discuss different topics. This understanding will not only allow a more complex vocabulary but will similarly improve fluency. Once the grammar basics have been learnt by students, more complex structures can be introduced. In doing this, the use of grammar is allowing the students to think about how they want to vocalise their thoughts and giving them further options to chose from. For example, the use of conditional and reported speech allow the students to explore ways they can both communicate their wants and desires but also retell a conversation. Conditional’s allow students to work with hypothetical knowledge and out comes, rather than day to day facts. This aspect of grammar opens up an entirely new area of speech for individuals, as it allows them to discus what 'could be'. Reported speech similarly opens up a new avenue to increase fluency as this grammatical function allows students to recall a conversation and repeat knowledge. Reported speech is used very frequently in our day to day life from news reports to discussions amongst friends and this is often overlooked, therefore it is incredibly important to learn this aspect to achieve a natural fluency. Modals and the use of passive voice are also key to discuss why understanding grammar is so important. The use of modals allows an individual to express a degree of certainty or uncertainty. This aspect is important for English speakers as it is commonly used to express certainly on plans in the future, or past routines. Passive voice allows an individual to place emphasis on a different section of the sentence, as well as being used in this way, by understanding passive voice it also allows students a contrasting way to express the same sentence if they are struggling. This once again increases fluency as the student will not be caught up as they will have two ways to express the same sentence. By analysing a few of the important aspects of English grammar and why they are considered to be of importance, it has been suggested and shown how learning grammar can help students of English. Not only does the use of grammar place understanding to a sentence but similarly it has been shown how learning different grammatical functions can increase fluency, and natural dialect. An important point to finish on is perhaps to look at how a student would cope without obtaining lessons in English grammar. The main issue that would arise would be the difficulty that the student would have in expressing his or her thoughts and opinions. Sentences would become more difficult to string together without the knowledge of nouns, verbs and adjectives and the fluency of the speaker would be broken. Similarly, although students may still be able to talk in the correct tense they may find it difficult to express hypothetical situations, degrees of certainty and contrasting ways to word sentences.