Pedagogical grammar as the framework of TEFL research. Part 20. Requirements to the rules of pedagogical grammar
Abstract
This latest article in the series continues the discussion of the relationship between linguistic (LG) and pedagogical (PG) grammars when developing foreign language grammar skills. The author examines the requirements for PG rules and how they differ from LG rules. They seek to answer questions about the criteria for selecting information from LG, the configuration of LG and PG in comparison, the principles of chunking pedagogical information (PI) when developing grammatical skills, the content of PI, the degree to which PG depends structurally on LG, and how PI is applied. Despite a wide range of theories, an analysis of the current literature shows that explicit approaches based on the use of rules remain predominant in the practice of grammatical skills development. However, at the declarative level, teachers predominantly employ rhetoric leaning towards implicit learning. The paper formulates a series of assumptions that require further research. According to the author, the configuration of PG differs from LG in that it has a concentric rather than linear structure, and material is presented within each concentric zone according to the principle of chunking. In other words, only the amount of information that is minimally sufficient to ensure communication at the corresponding stage of learning is introduced in each concentric zone. This leads to the requirement of minimal sufficiency in terms of the scope of PI. The sequence of its presentation must consider psycholinguistic data regarding the sequence in which the relevant grammatical structures are learnt during native language acquisition, as well as didactic and general methodological principles. Other requirements include the structural independence of PG rules, their accuracy, comprehensiveness and orientation capacity, the possibility of materialisation, and the expansion and condensation of their explicitness, as well as skipping the memorisation stage. The paper outlines prospects for further research.
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References
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