The role of grammar in communicative language teaching: An historical perspective Diane Musumeci University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The topic

of this teleconference, "The role of grammar in communicative langauge teaching" suggests an uneasy relationship between two elements: namely, grammar on the one hand, and communication on the other. In my remarks I hope to dispel some of the misunderstandings that promote its continuing existence. But, befor e I address the role that grammar has played in the history of second language t eaching, I'd like to first explore the nature of grammar: What is it? Linguists define grammar as a set of components: phonetics (the production and perception of sounds), phonology (how sounds are combined), morphology (the study of forms, or how elements are combined to create words), syntax (how words are strung tog ether into sentences), and semantics or meaning. Because all languages are chara cterized by these components, by definition, language does not exist without gra mmar. However, grammar has not always been defined in these terms. Originally, the ter m grammar, grammatica, referred to the art of writing, as compared to rhetoric, rettorica, the art of speaking. As used today by many teachers and learners, gra mmar is loosely understood to be a set of rules that govern language, primarily its morphology and syntax. But morphology and syntax are only two components of grammar. Communicative language teaching has brought a renewed emphasis on the r ole that semantics plays in the definition of language. Communicative language t eaching is fundamentally concerned with 'making meaning' in the language, whethe r by interpreting someone else's message, expressing one's own, or negotiating w hen meaning is unclear. Viewing grammar with all of its components helps us as l anguage teachers understand the complexity of what it means to know the grammar of a language. Clearly, the goal of language learning in the communicative class room is for learners to acquire the grammar of the second language in its broade st sense, to enable them to understand and make meaning; that is, to become prof icient users of the second language. Research and experience have shown that exp licit teaching of grammatical rules, even if we were able to formulate them all, does not produce such competence. How, then, should grammar be taught? You may have noticed that I said that communicative language teaching has brough t a renewed emphasis to the role of semantics, especially in the early stages of instruction. The title of my presentation also promises an historical perspecti ve. What I will do now is demonstrate that the goal of developing learners' func tional competence in a second language, the goal of communicative language teach ing, is not a new idea: it has existed for at least the past five hundred years. And a look at the history of second language teaching will reveal characteristi cs of pedagogy that have been known to promote functional language competence as well as explain why language teachers have not had access to that pedagogy. While we are all aware of the status that English currently enjoys as a world la nguage, an international system of communication, it has held that position for a relatively short time. At the beginning of this century, linguists lamented th e loss of the only world language that they had known: Latin, and they could not fathom that another language would ever take its place. You see, the rediscover y of the classics during the Renaissance resulted in more than an information ex plosion in academia; and fluency in Latin represented much more than the ability to edit manuscripts: Latin was a language of considerable usefulness as the lan guage of culture and wider communication, and therefore power. In other words, t he reasons for learning Latin in the fifteenth century were not very different f rom learning English today, in the age of the Global Village. The importance of acquiring communicative competence in Latin dramatically affec ted language teaching. An entirely new curriculum was created: the studia humant

atis (literally, the study of humanity) in which the goal of learning Latin shif ted from the preparation of students who could accurately copy manuscripts or co mpose in imitation of classical authors to the study of what those authors had t o say, in Latin. Far from imparting an aesthetic appreciation alone, the revival of learning was understood to be a practical education. With its emphasis on th e study of history, philosophy, and science, the new curriculum was designed to give students access to information necessary for personal, moral, and civic dev elopment, while simultaneously developing their second language proficiency in L atin. Among the most celebrated proponents of the studia humanitatis was Guarino da Ve rona (1374-1460), an early humanist of the Italian Renaissance, an educator cele brated throughout Europe for his scholarship and his outstanding reputation as a language teacher (Garin, 1958). Guarino argued that if students were going to b e able to use Latin to understand the classical texts, as well as to convey new ideas, Latin must be acquired as a living, practical language. Therefore, he pro posed that the first emphasis in instruction should be on meaning, rather than o n form. Students must acquire "the habit of speaking continually in Latin" in ad dition to the ability to read and write. He understood that interpretive skills develop sooner than expressive skills and that language learning is a developmen tal process. He cautioned against harboring expectations that are not commensura te with the learner's stage of development, reminding the teacher, "don't expect from a baby's lips the learning appropriate to a mature adult." Moreover, he in dicated that, with experience, competence will eventually emerge. Because the id eas of the classical authors as conveyed in their writing formed the content of instruction, authentic text was central even in the earliest stages of the curri culum. Thus, Guarino gave the following advice on how to approach a written text : First of all, you must read [...] Don't go word by word, rather pay attention on ly to the meaning, and as though you were trying to grab a body not an appendage (letter to Lionello d'Este) Guarino recognized that initially the student might encounter difficulty, so he recommended don't be frightened if at first you don't understand; limit yourself to knocking on the door and calling again: the door will open and someone will answer (Garin: 345) Interestingly, even though Guarino wrote a grammar, he rarel y mentioned it. In fact, the study of rules as a prerequisite to language develo pment is conspicuously absent from his advice. Instead, Guarino's model stresses the acquisition of competence in a second language as a gradual, developmental process; he views the teacher as a guide and model of competence that learners w ill use. According to Guarino, interpretive skills come first, acquired through immersion in the language, exposure to excellent models, and interaction with in teresting subject matter. Fluency in oral and written expression develops gradua lly, as a consequence of exposure to good models and pleasant interaction in the second language. In the century following Guarino, the early humanists were thwarted in their att empt to establish Latin as the international language for all European citizens. With the rise of national cultures, national languages served to characterize n ational identities. In considerable measure still the language of scholarship, L atin was not the language of home, community, or commerce. Nevertheless, fluency in Latin continued to be held in high regard, and it carried enormous prestige and power. The genius of Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) lay in the development o f a detailed plan for the wide-scale organization and implementation of the stud y of humanities, the curriculum that granted such competence. Like Guarino, Ignatius believed that functional language ability would be acquir ed only through exposure to interesting texts accompanied by meaningful interact ion in the second language. The insistence on the development of learners' abili ty to actually use Latin was paramount such that "all be well grounded in gramma

r and the humanities" (Letter to Father Urban Fernandes, 1551). As to how this f oundation should be acquired, Ignatius advocated that students acquire interpret ive skills through their attendance at the daily lectures. These lectures were c onducted in Latin, with the caveat that "care must be taken that the lectures ar e accommodated to the capacity of the students" (Letter to father John Pelletier , 1551). Understanding Latin, however, was a necessary but insufficient conditio n for language acquisition. Ignatius insisted that "all, but especially the stud ents of humane letters, should ordinarily speak Latin" and that "the students of the classical language cultivate their ordinary conversation by speaking Latin commonly; and their style, by writing" . He insisted that interpretive skills co uld be acquired by comprehending the lectures, but expressive skills must be cul tivated by using the language to exchange ideas. Ignatius recommended that all s tudents meet in small groups after the lectures to discuss their content "with o ne [student] repeating [the content of the lecture] and the others listening, an d with mutual proposing of difficult points; and that they go to their teachers if there is something that they cannot settle among themselves" (Constitutions, Part IV). Language ability developed as the message of the day's lesson was nego tiated by the learners in a small group setting. They were encouraged to solve p roblems together as best they could, using the teacher as a resource. Despite th e hiatus of a century, a striking similarity exists between the langauge teachin g beliefs shared by Ignatius and Guarino. In the century following Ignatius, Johann Amos Comenius's vision for educational reform surpassed that of either of his predecessors. Throughout his long and ar duous career, Comenius (1592-1670) devised curricula for infancy through the uni versity, proposed a universal system of education and even advocated the inventi on of a new language of wider communication to replace Latin, which had been sup planted by the vernaculars for anything other than law or scholarly pursuits. Co menius was famous in his time, however, not for his philosophical treatises, but for his wildly popular textbooks [the Janua linguarum reserata (1631), the Vest ibulum (1633), and the Orbis sensualium pictus (1658)]. He also published a manu al in which he described his teaching method, entitled Didactica Magna , the Gre at Didactic (1657). Comenius, too, argued from the outset that language learning follow the "natural order": namely, that "the matter come first and the form follow" such that The study of language, especially in youth, should be joined to that of objects, that our acquaintance with the objective world and with language, that is to sa y, our knowledge of facts and our power to express them, may progress side by si de. For it is men that we are forming and not parrots. He agreed with Guarino and Ignatius that learners begin with an author, and he l amented the contemporary practice which had students commence with grammar rules , bemoaning his own language learning experience in which Latin grammar was taug ht us with all the exceptions and irregularities; Greek grammar with all its dia lects, and we, poor wretches, were so confused that we scarcely understood what it was all about. According to Comenius, such instructional practices only ensured that beginners in grammar are so overwhelmed by precepts, rules, exceptions to the rules, and e xceptions to the exceptions, that for the most part they do not know what they a re doing, and are quite stupefied before they begin to understand anything. Come nius maintained that "all languages are easier to learn by practice than from ru les" . Despite outright contradictions that crept into his writings regarding the metho d of teaching Latin, Comenius acknowledged that if one wished to learn a modern language The best way is to send them to a place where the language that they wish to lea rn is spoken, and in the new language to make them read, write, and learn the cl

ass-books of the Vernacular School That is, learning the second language through contact with excellent linguistic models and meaningful interaction with interesting, relevant subject matter, a r ecommendation in perfect harmony with both Guarino and Ignatius! So far, I have presented an historical perspective on second language teaching t hat is not well known, but that supports many tenets of communicative language t eaching, and especially resembles what we know of today as content-based instruc tion. What of the other perspective, the one that Comenius so soundly condemns? For despite the similarities in beliefs held by the historical reformers, teachi ng practice looked in many cases entirely different: classroom instruction consi sted of memorization of rules, repetition, drill, an early emphasis on linguisti c accuracy coupled with a strong measure of error correction, and the postponeme nt of subject matter teaching until the grammar had been 'mastered.' One may wel l question why such practice persisted when it did not produce functional compet ence. The answer to that question lies in part in how the stances of the reforme rs were conveyed in pedagogical treatises, the language teaching manuals of thei r time. In each instance, those who sought to capture the reformers' ideas, their innova tions in teaching practice, for future generations of language teachers grossly distorted those ideas. Remember Guarino's insistence that learners begin with un derstanding the overall meaning of a text? Here is how that idea was conveyed in a pedagogical treatise written by his son, Battista, who claimed that he was pr esenting exactly what his father believed: In teaching, the fact that verb tenses are formed according to a general rule is of utmost importance... To such an extent that ... in the blink of an eye they can distinguish a noun from a verb and the tenses of the verbs. They will soon a rrive at the point where they can respond accurately to frequent interrogations by the teacher. Then, little by little, they will come in contact with the [anci ent] authors, starting with the easiest prose writers because you don't want to wear them out by the profundity of the content at the expense of practicing the rules that they have learned. [The rules], first and foremost, are what we consi der the most important thing of all. And what of Ignatius' insistence that stude nts develop their intrepretive abilities by attending the daily lectures in Lati n? The Ratio studiorium of 1599 gives these directions on how to deliver a lectu re: First he [the teacher] will go through the subject both in Latin and in the vern acular; secondly he will so interpret each sentence that the vernacular explanat ion will be given immediately after the Latin; in the third place going through it again from the beginning [...], he will select words by twos and threes of wh ich he will explain the force and the derivation. What of the little session following the lecture, in which small groups of stude nts discuss it content and negotiate the meaning among themselves? In the Ratio is is described as follows: After the lecture, let him [the teacher] remain in the classroom or near the cla ssroom for at least a quarter of an hour so that the students may approach him t o ask questions, so that he may sometimes ask an account of the lectures, and so that the lectures may be repeated. And finally, Comenius and his unequivocal stance that subject matter teaching an d language leanring proceed hand in hand and that rules are thorns to the unders tanding? Here are some of the practical suggestions that he himself offers for c lassroom practice: For instance, if the question arose whether it would be more correct to say totu

s populus or cunctus populus, and the teacher were merely to say "conctus populu s is the right phrase," but omitted to give any reason, the pupil would soon for get it. If, on the other hand, he were to say "Cunctus is a contraction for conj unctus, and therefore totus should be used when the object denoted is homogeneou s, cunctus when the conception is collective, as here," it is scarcely conceivab le that the pupil could forget it, unless his intelligence were very limited. And as for teaching "men, not parrots"? In each lesson, after the teacher has briefly gone through the work that has bee n prepared, and has explained the meanings of the words, one of the pupils shoul d be allowed to rise from his place and repeat what has just been said in the sa me order (just as if he were the teacher of the rest), to give his explanations in the same words, and to employ the same examples, and if he make a mistake he should be corrected. Then another can be called up and made go through the same performance while the rest listen. After him a third, a fourth, and as many as a re necessary, until it is evident that all have understood the lesson and are in a position to explain it. In carrying this out great care should be taken to ca ll up the clever boys first, in order that, after their example, the stupid ones may find it easier to follow. We seem to have a dual tradition in second language teaching: namely, a theoreti cal stance that views language above all as a rich and complex system of human c ommunication that is best acquired through meaningful interaction with interesti ng content as opposed to a pedagogical practice that insists on accuracy, explic it instruction in rules, and rote learning of grammatical forms. Five hundred ye ars of experience is ample testimony that true change in institutional practice is difficult to effect; but it is especially so if we--as agents of change--don' t make clear what it is that constitutes the innovation. By discussing the role of grammar, it is my hope that this teleconference will function as the first of many long overdue steps in clearing up misunderstandings of the type that we ha ve witnessed in the history of our profession and, thus, bring practice more in line with theory, research, and centuries of experience. Thank you. Contact Us | Search | Home Copyright 1997 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use. Privacy Policy For further information about this site contact mhhe_webmaster@mcgraw-hill.com. McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hi ll Companies. Corporate Link