Main goals for teaching grammar in a foreign language.

One of the goals of grammar instructions is that students could develop their communication skills, but this is not that simple, because this goal has three implications; first of all students need connecting grammar structures with situations on a real context in order the learning process could be significant. Second, the students do not need to master every single aspect of each grammar point, only those that are relevant for their immediate communication task. And last but not least, error correction is not always a negative point of view of the students’ work.

Of course these three important aspects let other perspectives show up, for example mods of students get benefit from direct instructions and when they apply real life situations to grammar learning, they could develop critical thinking skills. Another way to facilitate understanding is to teach each grammar point in the students’ first language or both.

Another good step is limiting the time you devote to grammar explanations around ten minutes, especially for lower level students. Now spread grammar points in written and grammar points for students with different learning styles. Remember the purpose of learning grammar is to learn the language of which grammar is only a part, and not vice versa. Teachers need to let students know when they are making errors so that they can work improving them, because teachers also need to build students’ confidence.

Another important aspect is set the difference between knowing the rules of grammar and being able to apply those rules in speaking, listening, reading and writing this separation has two stages, the first one is called Declarative knowledge that is the knowledge about something, in this case grammar rules and structures, and the second is Procedural knowledge that is the knowledge about how to do something, in this case, it is how a student applies the grammar rules in communication.

After all this, you just need identify the student goals for learning this language, it means students who plan to use the language exclusively for reading educational texts need to focus more on declarative knowledge; students who plan to live in a foreign country need to focus more on the procedural knowledge that help them manage day by day oral and written interactions.

Finally planning a lesson that incorporates a grammar point into a larger communication task, when instructors have the opportunity to develop part or all the course curriculum, they can develop a series of contexts based on the real world tasks that students will need to perform using the language, and then teach grammar and vocabulary in relation to those contexts.