Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

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Box 2.5 L2 learning of principles and parameters grammar
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L2 learners do not need to learn principles of Universal Grammar as they will
use them automatically.
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L2 learners need to acquire new parameter settings for parameters such as
pro-drop, often starting from their first language.
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All L2 learners can be looked at within the same overall framework of gram-
mar as it applies to all languages.
2.5 L2 learning of grammar and L2 teaching
Teachers are often surprised by what ‘grammar’ means in SLA research and how
much importance is given to it. While the grammar used here has some resem-
blance to the traditional and structural grammars with which teachers are famil-
iar – ‘structures’, ‘rules’, and so on – the perspective has changed. The SLA research
category of grammatical morphemes, for instance, cuts across the teaching cat-
egories of prepositions, articles and forms of ‘be’. Principles and parameters theory
puts grammar on a different plane from anything in language teaching. Hence
teachers will not find any quick help with carrying out conventional grammar
teaching in such forms of grammar. But they will nevertheless understand better
what the students are learning and the processes they are going through. For
example, sentences without subjects are not only common in students’ work, but
can also be explained simply by the pro-drop parameter. It is an insightful way of
looking at language which teachers have not hitherto been conscious of.
Let us gather together some of the threads about grammar and teaching intro-
duced so far in this chapter. If the syllabus that the student is learning includes
grammar in some shape or form, this should be not just a matter of structures and
rules but a range of highly complex phenomena, a handful of which have been
discussed in this chapter. The L2 learning of grammar has turned out to be wider
and deeper than anyone supposed. It ranges from morphemes such as ‘the’, to
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What do you think is easy grammar for a beginner?
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What do you think is the best order for teaching grammar?