Grammar In English Language Teaching Essay

The place of grammar in the English Language Teaching courses have often kept switching over the centuries depending on the prevalent convention / practice or the dominant theories of language analysis and language learning premised on which several ELT methods were propounded one after the other. Some of the ELT Methods are being discussed below in order to identify the place and role of grammar in the English Language Teaching programmes.

Keywords: ELT-English Language Teaching, EFL-English as a Foreign Language, L1-First Language, GT-Grammar Translation Method, TL-Target Language, LSRW-Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and CLT-Communicative Language Teaching. Grammar – Translation Method

This method ruled the world for more than a century. The main concentration of this method was to help learners to acquire the

They devised a Natural Method which was advice from the G.T. Method. The same method later came to be known as Direct Method. German Scholar I. Frank too deals with the psychological aspect of language learning where they discussed the principle of direct association before you the form and meanings in target language learning.

The role of grammar in the Direct Method was quite in contrast with that of G.T. Method.

Richard and Rodgers (1968, quoted in Geeta Nagraj, p. 78) State that:

Grammar was not taught explicitly and deductively as in the G.T. class but was learned largely through practice. Students were encouraged to draw their own structural generalization from what they had been learning by and inductive process. In this way, the study of grammar was kept at a functional level, being confirmed to those areas which were continually being used in speech, when grammar was taught more systematically, at a later stage, it was taught in the foreign language with the use of foreign languages terminology. 3

Richard and Rodgers (1968, quoted in Geeta Nagraj, p.