Roy's Blog

My students are too afraid of making mistakes. The atmosphere is very tense when I ask them to speak. However, I think teachers are entirely responsible for this because students are afraid of making mistakes because of the constant corrections from teachers. I think it is important for students to get a chance to speak freely in class. If the goal of such a task is not accuracy, teachers don't need to correct the students' mistakes. What teachers can do instead is to ask them to clarify their meanings so that students know how to express their opinions/ minds clearly. Communicative activities are useful to encourage students to speak and use the language in a fun way. The goal is to improve fluency. We can drill the students for accuracy in other forms of tasks, such as grammar exercises.

I believe the focus of grammar teaching in HK is mainly on accuracy. Therefore, teachers spend a lot of time on drilling. However, not as much focus was put on the meaning and communicative functions of the form. Students don’t really have an idea of when to use certain grammatical items. That’s why they continue to make grammatical mistakes in their speaking and writing as they are no aware of the context. In primary school, language meaning and communicative functions are often ignored. It may be difficult for students to move on to secondary school as language functions and meaning are becoming important as they may need to use the grammatical items in writing and speaking in different contexts.

I believe students don't need to memorise the grammar rules but they should have a rough idea on when to use a particular grammar items. By that I mean they should know it but they don't need to be able to tell me with the exact words as in the grammar book. I think just because you are able to recite the rules doesn't mean you can use the grammatical items coorectly. I think that drills are useful in teaching grammar in a sense that it can help with the accuracy of students using that grammar items. It may not be useful for improving the fluency of students using that grammar items though. Therefore, I think it depends on what your goal is when it comes to drilling. For instance, I think the most common "gap-filling" exercises are not very effective in improving the fluency of students but may be helpful in helping with their accuracy - to help them focus on the form of the grammar item. I think whether or not to use deductive or inductive approach depends on...