GrammarIssues

Grammar Issuesand
and
How to
How toApply
ApplyGrammar
Grammar
Learning Strategies
Learning Strategies in
in ESP
ESP
Do you think
grammar is
important in ESP?
 Grammar issues in
teaching ESP
It is often said that ESP teaching is not
concerned with grammar (Dudley
Evans,page 74)
Grammatical accuracy in the
classroom can be directly confronted
by an ESP teacher, but rather than
wasting time on this it is often a case
that they just use the materials and
the output to do this for them.
Grammatical accuracy within ESP
approaches as well is dealt with not as
a separate entity but something which
is naturally part of language itself.
Grammar is always dealt within the
varying contexts of language use
If grammar is
important, how do
we apply it in the
teaching of ESP?
Grammar Learning Strategies Applied
to ESP Teaching
Zhaojun Chen
Department of College English Teaching, Yantai Nanshan University,
Longkou, China

ISSN 1799-2591
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 617-621, March 2016
 ABSTRACT
difficulties in learning ESP because of the
There are
characteristics of ESP and learners low grammatical
competence. Grammar knowledge plays important roles in
cultivating grammar competence, especially for ESP learning.
There is the connection between grammar and learning strategies.
Cognitive approach (deductive and inductive
learning), communicative approach, and drills are
beneficial to grammar learning. ESP grammar learning strategies can be
cognitive strategies, metacognitive
classified into
strategies, affective strategies for learning grammar, and
social strategies for learning grammar. Teachers can apply some
strategies to ESP teaching.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
GRAMMAR IN ESP
Rod Ellis (2005)

The needs to ensure that learners

develop both a rich repertoire of
formulaic expressions and a
rule-based competence.
formulaic expressions - caters
fluency in ESP
communication,
rule-based competence consisting
of knowledge of specific
grammatical rules -caters to
complexity and accuracy
in ESP communication.
 GRAMMAR CAN BASICALLY PLAY TWO
PARTS IN ESP LEARNING

To enhance
To monitor
comprehensible
effective output
input
 GRAMMAR AND
LEARNING
STRATEGIES
Learning strategies can facilitate
grammatical items to be learnt by
helping learners to explicitly notice
them, structure them into working
and automatize them through
practice so that they can be available
for spontaneous use (Vicenta, 2002).

Three types of Grammar Learning

Strategy:

Cognitive approach
Communicative approach
Successful learners grammar
learning
 COGNITIVE APPROACH

DEDUCTIVE Explicit teaching

learners are taught rules and given specific
LEARNING information about a language

Implicit teaching
INDUCTIVE learners are not taught grammatical or other types of

LEARNING rules directly but are left to discover or induce rules

from their experience of using the language

EXPLICIT
INDUCTIV
grammar explanations are provided to learners for
consultation throughout the instructional activities once
they have opportunities to discover the rule
E Explicit knowledge may contribute to the development of
implicit knowledge by helping learners to process input
APPROAC and intake (Ellis, 2005, p. 57).

H
 COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

emphasizes the importance of grammar learning for

being able to communicate

Grammar and communication influence each other,

so they are complimentary. As the result of
interlanguage, there may be some errors that may
cause miscommunication. However, proficiency and
accuracy should be not enemies but allies.
 SUCCESSFUL LEARNNERS GRAMMAR
LEARNING
connection between grammar and strategies by
enumerating the strategies that successful
learners would use to learn grammar

Actively
Concern
Attend to involved in
meaning or
language form language
communication
learning

Flexible to use
Aware of the strategies
learning according to
process the tasks
requirement
 Learners learning grammatical knowledge may
benefit from the effective use of a strategy. Learning
assist students in mastering
strategies may
the forms and functions required for
comprehension and production.
 ESP GRAMMAR
LEARNING
STRATEGIES
CLASSFICATION
poor learners, following the grammar
strategy instruction, can learn
grammatical structures better and
become a little more autonomous
than the students who do not follow
the instruction (Vicenta, 2002)
IMPORTANT TERMS

Cognitive Strategies for

Learning Grammar
(CSLG)

Metacognitive Strategies
for Learning Grammar
(MSLG)

Affective Strategies for

Learning Grammar
(ASLG)

Social Strategies for

Learning Grammar
 CSLG
learners use to be more efficient to identify,
understand, retain and extract grammar
knowledge,
 MSLG
help learners to confirm and regulate the learning
aims, select learning approaches and techniques,
and evaluate and feedback the learning results
 ASLG
those strategies learners use to foster, adjust and
control emotions in the process of learning
grammar
 SSLG
are those strategies learners use to apply the
gained grammar knowledge to intercommunication
 PEDAGOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS FOR ESP
teachers should be aware and emphasize
that they could provide strategies-based
instruction of grammar to ESP learners
and find what kinds of strategies are
useful and effective for ESP learners to
learn grammar

cognitive approaches are suggested

applying to teaching ESP grammar

fluency and accuracy are allies not

enemies, and grammar and
communication are complimentary since
they shape and influence each other

overuse of the mother language can be a

drawback

Teachers guide ESP learners to have

proper and positive attitudes towards
 References
[1] Dudley-Evans, T. & St.John, M. (1998). Developments in ESP: A multi-disciplinary
approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2] Ellis, R. (2005). Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review. New
Zealand: Auckland UniServices Limited.

[3] Vicenta Vines Gimeno. (2002). Grammar Learning Through Strategy Training: A
Classroom Study on Learning Conditionals through Metacognitive and Cognitive Strategy
Training. Universitat de Valencia Servei de Pubilcations.