Sunday, January 27, 2013
Ibn Zohr University-MATEFL & ICT
General English
Midterm
If vocabulary is
considered as a vital organs and the flesh the language, then it is the structure
that makes up the skeleton of it. This statement summarizes the vital
importance of grammar. As I reflect on my experience starting from my first
year of studying English, I can clearly see the improvement of my language which
came as a result of many things. Among these things is the fact of taking
grammar courses. The following
paragraphs will mainly shed light on my experience with the following grammatical structures: non-referential it and there, questions, and prepositions. Adding to this, I will also shed light what I learnt from these experiences, and some suggestions about the best ways to teach these structures.
paragraphs will mainly shed light on my experience with the following grammatical structures: non-referential it and there, questions, and prepositions. Adding to this, I will also shed light what I learnt from these experiences, and some suggestions about the best ways to teach these structures.
The fist grammatical structure I
would like highlight is the "non-referential it and there". I deem
this grammatical structure important because Moroccan high school syllabi don't
have a particular unit that refers to this structure. Generally, teachers
implicitly refer to referentials as a part of reading comprehension; the
questions that they tend to ask is: to what "there", "it", "him"…
refer to in the text? This "neglect" of the importance of teaching referential
and non-referential grammatical structures results in the ambiguity of meaning.
During my high schools years, I often found myself unable to make the
difference between the referential and non-referential words. Some teacher opt to
stick to the syllabus and thus don't bother themselves with such problematic
features of English grammar, while others do their best to clarify anything
that may be a stumbling block towards our full understanding. It all depends on
the teacher consciousness; some do care while others don't. On the other hand,
we, the students, have very few choices; the first one was to go and ask the
teacher for clarification (very few do that because students tend to be shy), some
may resort to extra-hours; while others may depend on their own efforts; or
just ignore the problem!
The most important thing for me is
that day after day, and year after year I feel I'm learning new things, I
really feel I'm making a noticeable progress. Being a university student who
intends to be a future English teacher necessitates mastering grammar. Therefor,
during this semester, I found myself compelled to fortify my understanding so
as to grasp what I already perceived in the previous years. So far, I've learnt
new things about non-referential there that I didn't know before; for instance,
the functions that non-referential there can serve. I have also learnt new
activities that can engage students with the understanding of non-referential there
and it. For instance, the activity of weather reports in which students
practice non-referential it through role-play weather report. the teacher can
also bring a report modeled on a video recording and ask students to role-play
it. Adding to this, students can practice non-referential there using the map
activities designed to encourage the production of sentences with "there
is" and "there are". These activities are really worth
considering; I wish I have been taught using them. But, unfortunately, the
implementation of such activities remains difficult – but not impossible – in
the Moroccan context. This difficulty is ascribed to time constraints; very few
hours are devoted to English courses, let alone the problem of strikes sweeping
in the Moroccan schools.
Another grammatical structure I would
like to shed light on is that of questions. During my high school studies, we
were acquainted to ask questions mainly by using wh-questions. Teachers often
engaged us in role plays to ask information questions about our living place
(eg: where are you from?); age (eg: how old are you?); time (eg: what time is
it?)…ect. Although I was introduced to other forms of questions through reading
and listening to English, I didn't exactly know the type of the question forms.
Now as I deepen my knowledge, I can differentiate between the four basic types
of questions: the yes/no questions, tag questions, wh-questions, and
miscellaneous question forms. Knowing this variety of question forms will,
indeed, improve my English in the sense that it will enrich my repertoire of
different forms of asking questions as well as reveal the way native speakers
use them.
One of
the difficulties I personally encounter is that of intonation, the latter is considered
a fundamental part in forming questions in English. Although intonation exists
in Arabic, the change that occurs from one pitch level to another is totally
not the same. Thus; the conversational implementation of certain questions (
such as up-down intonation in "information wh-questions"; or the
greater degree of stress on wh-word and higher rise in the intonation patters
in "please repeat questions" )
will remain a real, challenging task. What's more challenging is that
the intonations of some question forms often vary from one speaker to another!
Regarding the way in which I've been taught, I can say that
teachers use different techniques. In addition the role play which was used as
information questions (I mentioned this in former paragraph), teachers are also
used to show us pictures of famous people and inquire us to ask question about
their nationalities, lives, jobs,…ect. Such activities were and will remain effective
and very engaging.
The last grammatical structure I
would like to stress is prepositions. Notwithstanding that native speakers use
them correctly without much thinking, mastering the use of prepositions is one
of the most challenging learning tasks I've ever face. This difficulty is attributed to various
reasons such as the fact that two or more prepositions may have the same
meaning and sometimes they are interchangeable and sometimes not. As an example,
I often found myself confused whether there is a difference between "I'm a
student at the faculty of Ibn Zohr" and "I'm a student in the faculty
of Ibn Zohr". Another trouble is that they aren't really translated well
into other languages. For instance in Arabic we don't have "in" and
"at" we only have "/fy/ في"
which means in English "in"; e.g.: أنا طالب في كلية ابن زهر".
From my experience, I can sum up the
mistakes made by EFL learners in three major problems. First is the use of
an incorrect preposition, second is the omission of a required preposition, and
third the use of an unnecessary preposition. However; as far as I’m concerned,
I managed to acquaint myself with how and when to use certain prepositions. It's
true that my previous teachers of English gave me an insight of the appropriate
use of preposition; for I still vividly remember two of my English teachers who
gave us a chart of different prepositions and when to use each one of them.
What the teachers ask us to do is to memorize the chart by heart. No doubt that
memorizing can be very constructive, especially if the objective is a short
term one such as setting for exams. But I don't think they are so for long term
goals because students tend to easily forget what they have memorized for the
exam. In other words, I memorized how to use different prepositions but as soon
as I passed the exam, I forgot about the majority of them. I personally believe
in Ausubel's learning theory which opts for meaningful learning because rote
learning is likely to result in a systematic forgetting. Hence, I think that
the best way to make students accustomed to preposition is through encouraging
doing more exercises, reading and writing so as to make them more familiar with
the language. Some interactive strategies such as using videos and songs (like
the ones Youness delivered in his presentation) can also be advantageous
especially for beginners.
To conclude, the above paragraphs intended
to give a general reflection of my learning experience of three grammatical
structures. Three pages autobiography cannot, by any means, thoroughly reflect an
experience that started 7 years ago. However, one of the important things I
learnt from this "flashback" is that teachers should be very careful
in the way they teach their students because one day students will judge them; teachers
should also bear in mind that students' understanding of a certain grammatical
item will heavily depend on the technique they use as well as the amount of
importance, time and energy they dedicate explaining that item. In addition,
teachers should raise students' awareness of mistakes stem from the
interference of the learners’ mother tongue. It's true that this is difficult
to practice in the Moroccan context because of the problems I've already mentioned
(overcrowded classroom, time constraints, strikes…). Yet, it is really worth
trying. So, as future teachers, let's give it a try and start making the
difference.
by:
Omar Taky-eddine
