Content of teaching grammar in school

The main aim of language learning in school is the formation of students’ ability to participate in communication in the target language, reinforcement and development of this ability. The ability to communicate finds its realisation in skills of oral speech (speaking and listening) and written word (reading and writing). For the teacher, the skills are specific reflections of overall goals. Students’ terminal behaviour in the target languageis understood as demands to practical use of different skills within the ability to communicate. These target demands find their concretised expression in syllabus requirements to skills at each level of study. Thus, level (elementary, intermediate, advanced) requirements take the part of the first component of the content of teaching. They are fixed in a school syllabus as program requirements to each form student abilities.

Correlation of the teaching content elements, distinguished by didactics for all school subjects, to specific needs of teaching English allows us to speak about knowledge. In this respect, knowledge as the second component of the content of teaching is interpreted in two ways. The first aspect is knowledge about regulations in grammar, known as rules. These grammatical instructionsdetermine the way of analysing actual material according to its functional, structural and other properties. The second aspect is knowledge of modus operandi, i.e. knowledge about the way of operating grammar in real world communication. Such procedural techniques are of alga-rhythmical character. These two aspects of knowledge provide conscious acquisition of grammar habits. In teaching ESL this kind of knowledge is presented in grammar rules format. Language input is related to the category of knowledge, too.

Another element is presented in didactics as individual experience in performing verbal activity. It means that we have to reproduce the operations and actions, so that to master these operations and actions. In other words, students are to perform various training activities, qualified as exercises in methodology. Such training activities would provide forming speech habits and skills. So, we can speak of grammatical exercises as a teaching content component. Correspondingly, speech habits are related to the content of teaching, too, as one of its components. This is so, because forming lexical, grammatical and pronunciation habits is one of major tasks and the necessary condition of any speech skill formation. Speech habits are the basis for the realisation of aims and objectives of teaching. Thus, it seems possible to interpret grammatical habits of language input performance as the component of content of teaching grammar. At the same time, speech skills should be excluded from the content of teaching, for they are regarded in terms of verbal communication activity in teaching ESL. Speech habits, in their turn, are correlated to operations and actions as operations of complex character.

Speech is a communicative interactionrealised by means of language. This activity, as well as other types of communication, is accomplished with the help of a codification system. Signals of a code are of different levels: phonetic, grammatical, lexical, stylistic, etc. Perceiving a grammatical form, we identify its features, which are characteristic of a certain structure. These features are called grammatical signals. The grammatical structure is correspondingly viewed as the mechanism of signals serving to convey a definite meaning. Thus, for example, the presence of the modal verb must in a sentence in combination with the perfect infinitive indicate certainty of the action having taken place: He must have done it.

Knowledge of the set of signals of different levels providing the realisation of definite teaching aims is a condition for participation in verbal communication. However, knowledge of signals in itself means nothing. It is the operational basis of codification system signals combinability that put knowledge to use. This knowledge is the necessary condition for skill formation. Knowledge, speech habits and skills are not formed in linear succession. They are formed simultaneously. Sufficient and lasting knowledge is acquired while habit and skills are formed. Memorising material takes place in the process of habit development. A student has to acquire automated use of language material to make his speech function, that is the interlocutor’s attention should be concentrated on the content of his utterance, but not on its form.

According to S. Rubinstein, ‘the habit is an automated component of conscious activity’. A.A. Leontyevdefines the habitas the ability to realise actions and to perform operations within optimal parameters. According to A.A. Leontyev, the skill is the ability to realise activity in the target language. Thus, speech habits may be defined as automated aspect (phonetic, lexical, grammatical) components of communicative kinds of language activity, or skills. The physiological basis of a set habit is dynamic stereotype built up in the process of training in communicative interaction.

Speech habits possess certain characteristics: 1) automated nature; 2) flexibility; 3) stability and 4) conscious character.

1) Automated nature of a speech habit means certain speed of the performance, which is tension-free. Voluntary attention of the interlocutor is not focused on the form of an utterance while speaking or writing and on recognition of the form of an utterance while listening and reading.

2) Flexibility of a speech habit means aptitude for transfer of the operation trained in previous experience into a new communicative context.

3) Stability of a speech habit is understood as consolidation of dynamic stereotype traces in long-term memory of the learner.

4) Conscious character of a speech habit means that the learner consciously performs all operations in habit formation.

These qualities of a speech habit provide steady and correct performance of speech operations within given limits. Within interactions of habits the transfer of training and interference both within the target language and of the mother tongue take place. The transfer of training is attached more importance. For without the transfer there is no habit but there is only a memorised operations performance just within certain strongly determined boundaries.

According to E.I. Passov, a speech habitcomes through three stages before acquiring the quality of a skill: 1) the stage of formation of a speech habit (SH); 2) the stage of development of a SH; 3) the stage of improvement of a speech skill(SS). Schematically it can be shown as follows:

3 SS

SH 1

The process of acquiring a skill is not simply a linear progression. This is a process of gradual spiral development of language input acquisition, which inevitably will contain elements of certain regress when new operation basis is being included in training.

Mastering speech habits as the components of a speech skill is achieved through purposeful training of language material in simulative communicative and purely communicative activities. The activities proceed from simple imitation through substitution and transformation to reproduction and production. New language input is initially processed in small amounts while performing elementary operations. Operations are included into actions in order to make them automated.

The level of automation is further enlarged and the input increased. The input previously processed at the lower level is necessarily included into the widened training activities. Thus, speech habits are developed at the level of micro-context usually considered as a supra-phrasal unit. The already automated speech habit gradually turns into a speech skill, which is improved at the level of a text as communicative output. Everything said above can be illustrated as follows:

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