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Gabrielatos, C. (2003). Grammar, grammars and
intuitions in ELT: A second opinion. IATEFL
Issues 170, 2-3. |
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Introduction Richard
Bradford (IATEFL Issues 167: 13) criticises the treatment of grammar in ELT
materials and invites the ELT community to do something about the situation.
He implies that we should stop using any grammar-related books, because they
are riddled with terminology, and their content has little to do with what he
terms “humanistic”, “free-range”, “standard” English. Although his
assessment of ELT materials is valid to a large extent, the implications of
some of his arguments and solutions invite scepticism. He seems to argue that
grammarians are neither (human) language users, nor in touch with reality, to
conflate the ‘what’ of grammar teaching with the ‘how’, to advocate reliance
on native speaker intuitions, to equate ‘native speaker’ with ‘(good)
language teacher’, and to treat grammar books as a uniform category. I would like
to use this response to consider some issues from a different perspective,
introduce more aspects to the discussion, and propose alternative solutions. |
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Relevant
details This is my
response to Richard Bradford's article ‘Grammar is by statisticians, language
is by humans’, published in IATEFL
Issues 167, p. 13, June 2002 [ |
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Key
words Grammar, explicit teaching, corpus
linguistics, corpora, reference grammars, pedagogical grammars, teacher
knowledge, native speaker intuitions, English language teaching, EFL, ELT,
TESOL. |
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Related articles by the same author |
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Gabrielatos, C. (2005). Corpora and language teaching:
Just a fling, or wedding bells? TESL-EJ
8(4), A1, 1-37. |
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Gabrielatos,
C. (2004). Teaching the expression of time: A concise framework. In
Pulverness, A. (ed.) IATEFL 2003.
Brighton Conference Selections. Canterbury, Kent: IATEFL, 133-136. |
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Gabrielatos, C. (2002). The shape of the language
teacher. In Pulverness, A. (ed.), IATEFL
2002: York conference selections. Whitstable, Kent: IATEFL Publications,
75-78. |
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Gabrielatos, C. (2002). Shopping at the ELT
Supermarket: Principled decisions and practices. ERIC, ED478747. |
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Gabrielatos,
C. (1994). Minding our Ps. Current
Issues, 3, 5-8. |
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Related conference paper by the same author |
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Gabrielatos, C. (2003). Conditional sentences:
ELT typology and corpus evidence. Paper given at the 36th
Annual BAAL Meeting, University of Leeds, UK, 4-6 September 2003. |
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Related
edited online discussion |
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Teaching About Language. TESL-EJ Forum, Karen
Stanley (Ed.) TESL Electronic Journal 6(4),
2003. |
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