The human brain is genetically endowed to acquire language and its grammar naturally by reading and listening, and therefore, making any attempt to learn using explicit rules of grammar will distort the learning process. This is because human beings are biologically wired to acquire any language subconsciously, by focusing on the meaning and not the form. Therefore, compelling learners to focus on language structures by teaching grammar will not facilitate acquisition. Learners, in general, are misguided by giving more exposure to grammar specifically for learning a second language (English), but the fact is there is no different neural system that processes a second language in a different way.
Rules are complex by nature and in the course of simplifying rules, grammarians often misstate rules. Learners learn such misstated rules and assume that they use explicitly learnt grammar rules for answering grammar questions. In fact, they depend on subconsciously acquired grammar knowledge. For instance, I once asked my students to change the sentence ‘Jessica is not as tall as Joshua’ into the comparative degree. All of them changed the sentence ‘Joshua is taller than Jessica’. When asked what rule they used to change the word ‘tall’ to taller’, the students immediately responded they have to add either ‘er’ or ‘more’ with the adjective ‘tall’. In fact, the application of this rule eventually would lead to the possible rewrite of the word both as ‘taller’ and ‘more tall’ but none of them preferred the phrase ‘more tall’ despite the ignorance about adding ‘er’ with mono-syllabic adjectives. When asked why they did not use ‘more tall’, they said that would not make any sense. Moreover, they claimed that they have not come across such non-grammatical expressions while reading and listening confirming grammar is acquired incidentally when receiving input in the form of reading and listening. The acquired grammar knowledge can easily be put to use in conducting conversations and answering grammar questions.
Complementary
Language properties such as grammar, phoneme, words and syntax do not exist in isolation and they complement each other. Therefore, any attempt to learn the language by classification and segmentation as suggested by grammarians will be inadequate for the purpose of learning a language. In fact, language properties are incidentally acquired by reading. Every time when readers encounter an unknown word, they acquire the partial meaning of the word by fixing the contextual meaning using the current language knowledge and the repeated exposure to such words would help acquire the complete meaning. Further, readers acquire more meaning than the meaning given in a dictionary. Chomsky, while analysing the inadequacy of dictionary meaning, argues that the word ‘house’ in the sentence ‘John is painting the house brown’ obviously represents the external surface of the wall and not the complete concrete structure. In this context, the brain considers the external surface of the wall as a house. The nuanced extended deeper-level meaning of words is not given in dictionaries. Such meanings could be acquired by reading.
Human brain quantifies the amount of pleasure it could extract from a learning experience; therefore, if learning is not pleasurable, the inaccessible part of the brain will not allow the language learner to concentrate on the language and, indeed, it would increase learning apprehensions. If language is experienced by reading and listening using pleasure-giving reading materials it would facilitate learning. Pleasure extracted from reading can create a positive attitude towards reading which would help develop a reading habit in English. This eventually would provide more input in the language which in turn would positively affect acquisition. Thus, learners would become autonomous acquirers of the language which is the goal of education.
The writer is the Head of the Department of Humanities of and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology.
