Grammar: Language Learning Goal 5

The grammar is something that we do care about, but it's not

something that should be upfront.

Hi, Steve Kaufmann here.

Today I want to talk about the fifth of my, uh, hierarchy of

goals and, uh, and that's grammar.

Um, some people may think that, or at least in traditional language

instruction, grammar was the first goal:

get it right.

Uh, But before I go any further to remember if you enjoy these

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So, I mean, typically we're used to the idea that language

instruction involves grammar.

It involves the teacher explaining grammar rules, which are introduced one at a time,

according to, you know, order that someone decided we begin with the present tense

and not the past tense, no real reason.

Uh, typically in Arabic, they begin with the past tense and

then move to the present tense.

Um, so there seems to be this order in which grammar concepts are introduced

and then we're tested on them, or we do exercises on them and the

sort of the core element in language instruction seems to be grammar.

Everything is built around grammar, uh, typically in these textbooks that will

be, um, you know, content items, items of content, uh, to introduce new vocabulary.

But together with that, inevitably there is a concept

of grammar that is introduced.

To me, grammar or speaking correctly, or correct usage as

a goal it's way down the list.

All right.

You, by now will know that I consider acquiring words as the first goal,

getting a lot of words, uh, getting to where I can start reading in

the language is the second goal.

The third goal is listening and of course the reading helps you with listening.

Cause if I just hear it, I don't necessarily know what I'm missing.

Uh, and then I get to speaking because now I've been listening to so much

of the language that I have words, I feel that I'm ready to speak.

And so it's only when I start speaking that my inaccuracy in the language

becomes a problem because as long as I'm input based, I'm listening and reading,

I'm requiring words, I can actually understand fairly well what's happening.

I have some concepts of the grammar, but because I'm not producing much of

the language, I'm not making mistakes.

So it's a happy situation.

I'm enjoying the language, no pressure, no mistakes.

Now, once I start speaking, then of course we all would like to

speak more correctly, more...

the usage patterns, we want to imitate the usage patterns of the native speaker.

To some extent, if we put a lot of effort into our listening and reading and we

have lots of words, we will have a...

begin to have a feel for how the language works, but, and we

will notice certain patterns.

And we will notice that for example, the verb comes at the end for example.

We don't have to be told that, that becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly.

Although if we're told that upfront, there's nothing wrong with that either.

But so much of what is in grammar, at least in the initial stages in my approach

is just to be kind of vaguely aware that these things exist in the language without

necessarily expecting to remember it.

But comes a point now where I'm speaking and I always make...

struggle to get my thoughts out.

And I'm not quite sure how that structure works, even though I've

seen it, I'm not able to produce it.

And so now we really have to focus in, on, on producing the language correctly.

And so, but the advantage is if we start focusing in on grammar after

having put enough effort into the input we now have some idea of what the

grammar explanations refer to because we've already experienced much of it.

And so we look at the grammar rule, we still can't apply it, but I

think that studying grammar after a significant exposure to the language

helps us grasp these grammar rules.

And even if we forget them and we look at them again and we look at them again and

we look it up again, slowly, our ability to use the grammar correctly improves.

And I don't think it's necessary to be tested on them.

I think it's enough to review the grammar rules, try to notice them

when we're listening and reading.

And I've always found that in time if I have enough words,

I'll be able to start speaking.

So the grammar is something that we do care about, but it's not

something that should be upfront.

And because I'm very much focused on input based learning, I would like to

see more grammar books where concepts of grammar are introduced in the target

language in Spanish and Japanese.

And that there is a company audio for that lesson so that I can go away and I can

listen to a discussion of the subjunctive in Spanish with a lot of examples and

I can listen to it and I can read it so that it becomes a lesson like any other

lesson and I'm learning the grammar rules, but in the target language, I'm

not sure if resources like that exist.

Um, I've often...

I haven't had that so what I've relied upon is grammar resources

that I can find on the internet.

I can download a PDF of Romanian grammar.

I can look up specifics of, you know, Ukrainian noun declensions, or anything

really that you need to look up.

Uh, you can look it up.

And, uh, certainly with verbs, uh, at LingQ, we have conjugating

dictionaries in many cases.

So as you look up a form of the verb, it'll tell you which form it is and

it'll show you the other, uh, you know, conjugations of that verb.

So there's so many resources around that help us treat grammar as something that

we refer to rather than something that has to be deliberately learned and certainly

not deliberately learned upfront.

So, and with that, I find over time, my accuracy, it gets better and,

but there will always be mistakes.

And in many cases, I'll make the same mistake week after

week, month after month.

And eventually these mistakes do correct themselves.

So grammar therefore or correct usage is for me, uh, in my hierarchy

of goals number five, not one, not two, not three, not four but five.

Okay.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.