Teachers of English Need to Appreciate the Extent of the Problem

Teachers of English need to appreciate the extent of the problem

. No tertiary programme can assume that their students have the required terminology to undertake the scientific study of English grammar at this level. But if it is reasonable to assume that these students' knowledge of terminology reflects pedagogic practice at the secondary level, then it is not just tertiary teachers who need greater awareness. Teachers at all levels must take care, and those moving from one place to another must not assume that their terminology is portable. Classes where the students Links Of London Bracelets are from different backgrounds will be particularly problematic. But even where they are from the same general background very few assumptions can be made, given the wide intra-group differences identified in this study. As a result, whenever terminology is to be used concrete measures are needed to check knowledge and to identify and prepare learners who are weak in it (e.g. via self-access exercises or support materials, such as glossaries). This is especially relevant for textbooks aimed at an international audience which use more than a bare minimum of terminology.

The final implication concerns the use of terminology as a research tool in investigating the metalinguistic knowledge of learners. To the theoretical doubts about the use of such a methodology outlined at the start of this paper must be added the practical problems identified by these results. Many learners, even English majors at university, cannot be relied on to have more than a smattering of terms, and studies should be designed with this in mind; where possible, alternatives to the use of terminology, such as the techniques outlined by Ellis (2004), should be sought speech versus reported speech agreement versus concord and present progressive tense versus present continuous tense. The relative popularity of these in the three countries will offer direct comparisons of pedagogic practice. Respondents were asked to tick the items that they knew and then exemplify them in one of two ways to show their understanding: by giving a word (or words) or phrase to demonstrate (e.g. for determiner 'this, these'; for infinitive 'to go') or by writing a phrase or clause and underlining the relevant word(s) (e.g. for subject 'He likes you'.). Cases where a tick was given without an example were discounted; it could well have meant that learners thought that they knew the term but were mistaken. In other words, they may have Links Of London Earrings been familiar with the term but not its meaning. Indeed, in many cases where learners gave examples, these were identified as incorrect. For example, student A2 wrote 'This tree is big' as an example of direct object. In some cases, examples which were grammatically incorrect were allowed as correct examples of the term, such as when student A8 wrote 'beautifuller' as an example of comparative adjective.

The study did not have only a quantitative orientation. Examples which were wrong, if systematic, such as the one above, could have as much significance as those which were correct by indicating common misconceptions and confusions about terms. For this reason, a qualitative analysis was carried out on cases where examples were given but which were considered incorrect. This analysis also looked for insights from correct examples.

Teachers of English Need to Appreciate the Extent of the Problem

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