ELT Journal Advance Access originally published online on March 10, 2009
ELT Journal 2009 63(4):303-312; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp004
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Perspectives on spoken grammar
Christine Goh is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the National Institute of Education of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is interested in listening, speaking and pronunciation development, metacognition and second language learning, and the influence of teacher cognition on ELT. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on first and second language acquisition, ELT methodology for listening, speaking, and pronunciation and supervises research in her areas of interest
Email: christine.goh{at}nie.edu.sg
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Abstract |
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English language teachers' opinions on the pedagogic relevance of spoken grammar are beginning to be reported, yet the voices of teachers in East Asia are rarely heard. In this article, the views of teachers from China and Singapore expressed in an online discussion are compared. The discussion, which was part of a taught postgraduate course, focused on the usefulness of British spoken grammar norms and the potential value of spoken grammar knowledge for language learners. There is a broad consensus of opinion about its importance for raising learners' language awareness, but Chinese and Singaporean teachers generally had different attitudes to native speaker norms, while opinions on some pedagogical issues vary more at the individual level. The similarities and differences are attributed to the teachers' sociolinguistic concerns, understanding of learner needs, and beliefs about grammar that are influenced by the written language. The implications of these teacher perspectives for teacher education are highlighted.