Communicative grammar teaching within the scope of English for specific purposes university course

кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедра менеджменту, маркетингу та міжнародної логістики Чернівецький торговельно-економічний інститут ДТЕУ, м.Чернівці, Україна

КОМУНІКАТИВНЕ ВИКЛАДАННЯ ГРАМАТИКИ В РАМКАХ УНІВЕРСИТЕТСЬКОГО КУРСУ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ ЗА ПРОФЕСІЙНИМ СПРЯМУВАННЯМ

The purpose of teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) at Ukrainian universities is centered around the formation of students' professional communicative competence, which is viewed as the foreign language communicative efficiency in terms of the ability to carry out a target language conversation in a professional setting. Thus, ESP learners should be able to express their thoughts and ideas as well as make themselves understood by using their current foreign language proficiency. They should be able to convey a message, that is accurate and context-relevant avoiding confusion that might be caused by faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. In this respect, students' grammatical competence should be perceived as an integrated whole of the ultimate goal and should serve the needs of the communicative teaching approach in ESP studying.

The communicative approach to foreign language teaching advocates the idea that language should be learned via communication and through its use in practical situations. Nevertheless, many foreign language teachers continue teaching grammar in isolation from students' communicative needs, thus turning the process of grammatical competence acquisition into a mechanical scheme of rules memorization, and drills performance. The traditional approach to teaching grammar prevails in ESP classes as well and grammar rules explanation is followed by practicing correct structures and completing written exercises to reinforce them, which is often separated from the ESP context and the needs of communication for professional purposes.

However, if we perceive grammar as a dynamic means of meaning creation based on cognitive mechanisms, then it is an indispensable part of students' foreign language communicative competence acquisition and grammatical proficiency should be focused on solving true-to-life and realistic communicative tasks. Students should be taught grammar from the perspective of how to use it to achieve a specific communicative goal. This means that the grammatical competence acquisition of ESP students should be focused on how to use grammatical rules for communicative purposes to satisfy professional needs, rather than just memorizing or drilling them, which is a very relevant, however problematic issue nowadays.

Literature review

Communicative approach to grammar teaching is a relative newcomer compared to grammartranslation method and has its roots in the communicative language teaching (CLT) movement that emerged in the UK in the 60-70s of the 20th century, influenced by the works of N. Chomsky and S. Krashen. The approach was aimed at the formation and development of learners' communicative competence as a response to the perceived limitations of the traditional (grammar-translation and audiolingual) foreign language teaching methods and approaches. While these approaches were often effective for developing a receptive (reading) knowledge of a language, they sometimes failed to provide students with the ability to use language communicatively in speaking and writing [11].

M. Canale and M. Swain described the term «communicative competence» as the ability to use a language that is studied in a specific social context and regarded it as a synthesis of knowledge of basic grammatical principles, knowledge of how language is used in social contexts to perform communicative functions, and knowledge of how utterances and communicative functions can be combined according to the principles of discourse [1, p. 20]. J. C. Richards described communicative language teaching as a movement away from «grammatical competence to the knowledge and skills needed to use grammar and other aspects of language appropriately for different communicative purposes» [8, p. 3]. Thus, communicative competence does not mean an absence of grammar instruction, but rather that grammar instruction is incorporated into the learning process and is aimed to strengthen and fortify the ability to communicate effectively.

The notion of spoken grammar, which is the basis for the production of spoken language, was investigated by R. Carter and M. McCarthy. According to them, it is necessary to teach features of spoken grammar that (a) are markedly more frequent or differently distributed in speaking, (b) have been neglected or overlooked because of the emphasis on writing as the source of grammatical description, and (c) further illuminate face-to-face speaking and the conditions under which it unfolds [2, p. 6]. As to methods of teaching spoken grammar, R. Carter and M. McCarthy introduce an I-I-I paradigm (Illustration - Interaction - Induction). The first I, which stands for Illustration refers to the presentation of material aimed at raising awareness as to target features of a grammar notion and developing students' observation. Interaction refers to language usage in the process of communication, and Induction concerns conclusions that learners draw after the task performing stage [6, p. 216-217]. Later on, C. Ruhlemann suggests that description of grammar in spoken corpora should be better termed conversational grammar, since it is there that outstanding differences are brought to light [9, p. 386].

In the sphere of communicative grammar teaching, there is a lot of discussion and debate as to whether grammar should be taught implicitly through exposure to examples or through explicit instruction. D. Nunan, for example, states that inductive teaching is effective as «you present the learners with samples of language and, through a process of guided discovery, get them to work out the principle or rule for themselves» [5, p. 158]. M. Swan corroborates the deductive method and argues that while meaning-focused activities are important, explicit instruction and practice of grammar rules are also necessary for learners to develop target accuracy [8]. On the whole, different practitioners and scholars (L. Baiwen, V. Guseva, P. Ur, Z. Xueyun, et al.) agree that both methods have their advantages and disadvantages and the choice of deductive/ inductive strategy depends on the learners' abilities and skills, thus, should be chosen according to target group's preferences to facilitate the learning process.

Recent researches support teaching grammar communicatively, because this approach can help students develop their ability to use language in context and to communicate effectively, which are key goals of language learning. V. Guseva claims that grammar should be taught not for the sake of grammar form, but for its use in talking about this or that topic, thus stressing on communicative teaching of grammar [3]. O. D. Ostafiychuk stipulates the use of communicative tasks that allow students to apply their knowledge of grammar in real communication situations, and the inclusion of grammar in context as important elements of the communicative approach in English grammar teaching and learning [7, p. 100].

Despite the general understanding of the importance of teaching grammar communicatively, few investigations in the sphere of specific activities could guide the teachers to implement the approach, especially in the sphere of teach- ing/learning ESP. The main purpose of the article is to reveal the ways of communicative approach to grammar teaching application within the scope of studying ESP by students majoring in Economics as well as analyze specific activities that facilitate teaching grammar communicatively in ESP classes.

Methodology of the research

In the study process a number of general research methods have been used: theoretical analysis of scientific findings and investigations - to specify the notion of communicative grammar teaching and its main principles; systems analysis - to disclose different approaches to grammar teaching; descriptive analysis - to define communicative grammar activities applicable to ESP teaching and learning; comparative analysis - to evaluate activities under study as to their efficacy and productivity. Generalization and prognostic methods have been applied in formulation of conclusions.

Results

Grammar is an important and indispensable part of language learning, since it is impossible to make oneself understood or comprehend others without a correctly structured and grammatically accurate message. Through the entire history of foreign language teaching pedagogy, miscellaneous researchers understood the significance of the role that grammatical accuracy plays in language learning and have directed their endeavours, proposing theories and approaches, to facilitate the process of grammatical competence acquisition.

There have been several approaches to teaching English grammar. The most significant ones consist of the traditional and the functional approach. The traditional approach is a form-centered approach and concerns teaching grammar through practicing correct structures. It is closely connected with the deductive method of grammar rules presentation, as firstly the teacher explains a definite grammar phenomenon, and then offers the students different written exercises and drills to reinforce it and help them use the rule appropriately. In a word, this approach offers the students to follow the scheme «from general to specific» and is rather teacher-centered, as it is the teacher who is the source of knowledge, while the learners need to listen attentively and memorize the instructor's words.

Very often deductive grammar explanation that follows the scheme «from general to specific» is isolated from the context, from the theme under study and is separated from real communication. This is why this approach has been criticized by many scholars and practitioners, which led to the appearance of a functional approach.

In contrast to traditional grammar teaching, functional approach focuses on the language functions, thus making grammar a tool to perform them. This approach presupposes that students should learn grammar from the perspective of how to use it to perform a specific communicative task. Functional grammar teaching intertwines grammar and communication and praises the idea that grammar should be taught implicitly by inductive methods, that is following the scheme «from specific to general». Here students are offered examples of authentic discourse, which demonstrates a definite grammatical phenomenon and by answering specific questions have to arrive at the grammatical rule under focus. However innovative and stimulating students' discovery abilities, this approach has also been criticized for being too time-consuming in terms of preparation for the teacher as well as in terms of time necessary for students' rule detection process. Besides, it is more applicable to learners with high proficiency levels, rather than at initial stages of language acquisition process, since the students need to have some basis for performing grammar structures analysis.

The communicative approach to grammar teaching is very closely connected with the functional approach and is based on the idea that language should be learned through communication and via its usage in real (or true-to-life) situations. This means that the study of grammar should focus on grammatical structures in meaningful contexts. This approach integrates grammar principles into a communicative framework, that is teachers should direct learners' attention to understanding grammar rules while retaining focus on the need to communicate. Thus, if grammar is a means of accurate communication, then students must be explained how to use it in everyday conversations, oral or written, to achieve communicative goals. An important principle here is contextualization. Through contextualiza- tion grammar becomes meaningful and supportive to students, as it becomes their tool to conduct interaction.

Communicative approach to grammar teaching supports attention to both form and function. In this sphere it integrates the traditional and functional approaches and corroborates the idea that students should be taught grammar rules in parallel with explanation how to apply them to achieve a communicative goal. Besides, the whole grammar teaching process should follow the interactive model and be student-centered. Instructors should actively engage their students into the learning process mainly with the help of group and/or pair work, thus stimulating the creation of a supportive and collaborative environment, which fosters communication and facilitates grammatical accuracy training.

An important element of communicative grammar teaching is also minimalization of errors correction while speaking. Since the goal of a communicative class is to actually make the students talk, then they should not be interrupted during speech delivery. The process of mistakes correction can be done afterwards, during the teacher's feedback stage. However, the feedback of the teacher should be prevailed by positive remarks in order to encourage the students and overcome their fear of speech production in class.

In the sphere of teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes some scholars talk about teaching grammar as a social function [4] within the scope of the communicative grammar teaching approach, which focuses on the development of students' ability to apply and comprehend a grammatical structure in miscellaneous social situations spontaneously and properly. Students practice the target language to reflect their own thoughts, experiences, views, etc., as these personal bonds serve to reinforce grammar patterns and structures more efficiently than utterances irrelevant to students' lives. These views come in accordance with the essence of ESP as a subject aimed at satisfying students' needs for communication in professional setting and support the ESP focus on those aspects of the target language which are relevant to students' professional field and are of interest to them.

Thus, the approach of teaching grammar as a social function is based on the development of students' communicative grammatical competence, which means incorporating grammar instruction into a communicative ESP class, offering students interactive activities and communicative tasks to practice grammar patterns. Students are pushed to produce their own ideas, experiences, opinions on professional topics by applying this or that grammatical structure. In this way, the grammatical competence is developed in a natural way through solving communicative assignments, which turns the process of foreign language learning into a motivating and beneficial procedure.

For example, to practice conditional sentences and express ideas as well as advocate one's point of view students studying Economics could be offered the following communicative sentence filler. For each situation they are asked to choose one option and support one's choice with an explanation. This activity helps to rehearse rules of II Conditional formation, revise target vocabulary as well as stimulate learners' creative thinking and imagination:

If I were a businessman, I would be a. wholesaler/ retailer... because.

If I had a company, it would be a .... sole proprietorship/ a partnership/ a corporation. because..

If I were a company owner, I would apply a. line/ line and staff/ matrix organization structure. because.

If I had my own enterprise, it would employ. 50/ 100/200 employees. because.

If I had a business, it would be a .. domestic / international/ multinational business.. because.

If I produced a product, it would be an ... innova- tion/ adaptation... because.

If I were a Rolls-Royce producer, I would sell it to. millionaires/ teenagers/ general public. because.

If I chose to advertise my product, I would run an Internet/ TV/magazine/newspaper advertising... because.

If I were a business tycoon, I would. run a charity project/finance innovations/support scientists. because.

An interesting type of pair/ group work is class research. This type of activity is not difficult to perform and is particularly effective to practice any grammatical rule (the use of tenses, degrees of adjectives, modal verbs, etc.), rehearse ESP vocabulary, as well as to activate learners' attention and to involve everyone into a guaranteed participation. The activity transforms the usual idea of a traditional class, where the educational process participants just sit and reproduce the teacher's words, and helps the students find out more about each other. Students majoring in Tourism/ Hospitality Business might make up questions about their group mates' native town/ village by putting the adjective in the necessary form:

1. What's (famous')place to visit?

2. What's (interesting) thing to do?

3. What's (dangerous) area?

4. Where's (good) place to take a photo of the town/ village?

5. What's (easy) way to get around?

6. What's (exciting) local event?

7. What's (typical) thing to eat and drink?

8. What's (old) building?

9. What's (good) hotel there?

10. What's (popular) area to go out at night?

11. What's (beautiful) place there to go for an excursion?

12. What's (memorable) souvenir to buy?

As a follow-up to this activity, students later report their findings to the whole group, thus rehearsing degrees of comparison of adjectives and providing their fellow-students with valuable tourist insights about native cities/ villages in the district. As the activity is student-centered, the teacher here plays the role of a facilitator, rather than an instructor, strengthening students' communicative proficiency and simultaneously making them rehearse important grammar forms.

A good activity to make the students rehearse some difficult grammatical structure is substitution. The teacher writes a fairly long sentence on the board, and replaces any word with any other s/he can think of - so long as the original sentence retains grammatical accuracy. Then, a student changes another word, and then another, and so on, the only condition is to keep the sentence grammatically correct. While performing this task, the class is encouraged to be creative, and think of words that produce crazy - yet grammatically sound - sentences. For example:

24 tourists booked a flight to Paris last Friday.

24 crocodiles booked a flight to Paris last Friday.

24 crocodiles missed a flight to Paris last Friday.

24 crocodiles missed a ride to Paris last Friday.

This is a fun activity most students get effortlessly involved into.

A variation of this activity might be presented in a form of a dialogue and be called substitution dialogue. The students are provided with an example of a discourse and are asked to substitute some parts of their dialogues to produce new, but very similar ones. As an example of this assignment, students, majoring in Marketing, could be given the following substitution dialogue to practice describing world famous adverts in a conversational manner, drill superlative degree of adjectives formation as well as Present Continuous structures. In this activity students make up a dialogue as in the model, substituting pre-defined sections by new options, provided as prompts:

Model:

- Have you seen the latest commercial for Kodak camera on TV?

-- No, unfortunately not. Why are you asking? Was there something extraordinary about it?

-- Oh yes! This Kodak commercial is presenting Rihanna and the all new m590 camera from Kodak.

-- I'll try to find it on the Internet!

Use the following prompts:

1. Late/ commercial /Kodak camera/ on TV/ extraordinary/ Kodak commercial/ Rihanna and the all new m590 camera from Kodak.

2. Big / advertisement /Nescafe / on a building in Venezuela's capital/ unusual/ Nescafe advertisement / a Nescafe branded cup and must be among the largest hot-air balloons in the world.

3. Cool / advertisement / Nike/ in the latest newspaper/ strange / Nike advert/ a huge ball bombarding a rather old building.

4. Funny / print ad / Fitness Company / in a Sports Magazine / unexpected / Fitness Company Advertisement / shopping bags with weights given to customers when purchasing at the Fitness Company fitness centers.

5. Smart / print advert / Panasonic 3d TV / on a billboard / amazing /Panasonic advert / an unrealistic dinosaur jumping out of a very realistic picture on TV

To practice the use of modal verbs, Marketing students could express their opinions on a number of problematic topics, introduced by the teacher, discussing them in pairs or groups. They might use a pre-taught model, if they would like to. An important condition here is for the teacher to stress that the students are expected to use modals whenever possible:

Task: discuss the following in pairs (groups):

- Say what you believe a successful advertisement should do, justify your choice. (...attract the reader's attention; address the advertiser's needs; change benefits into features; justify its claims; tell the reader how to respond; be in flyers only; use an effective advertising technique; be in December or November)

- Do you think there should be laws regulating advertisements?

- Do you think adverts directed at children should be more tightly regulated than adverts directed at adults?

- What would the world be like without advertisements?

Use the model: «To my mind (I totally agree with the statement that., I would say that., In my view., I feel that., I strongly believe that., I disagree with the statement that., It's true that.) an advertisement should. because ...»

A similar activity to practice modals (can/ could, may/ might, must, should), or any other grammatical structure, is a pyramid discussion, which begins with a think-pair-share and then turns into a class discussion. The students first undertake a speaking task in pairs or small groups where they have to agree on certain items. Then they join another group and have to reach an agreement again. Such organization gives students time to practice speaking in smaller groups before facing the whole class. As a less controlled fluency activity, it can help the learners to practice a broad range of language that they have both been formally taught in the classroom or acquired from elsewhere. Pyramid discussions help students to build up confidence by rehearsing and repeating arguments that they have already used on others. Though learners are involved in one discussion, the idea behind a pyramid is that they should come to an agreement when they reach the top of the pyramid. It is important to stress during the instruction phase, that a significant element of the task is the use of modals (or any other grammatical topic), thus the more modal verbs students can insert into their discussion and apply correctly - the better.

Task: Express your opinion on the following statements:

Advertisers:

- Introduce a wide range of consumer goods to you, thus giving you greater choice;

- Create false needs;

- Keep you informed of the latest products available;

- Manipulate social values and attitudes;

- Stimulate materialism and greed.

e.g. We think that advertisers might create false needs by advertising their goods to customers and trying to sell their products, however consumers should be reasonable in their choice and must decide for themselves whether this or that product is necessary and beneficial to them or not.

A great warm up for getting students to practice asking questions is the Question Game. Students sit in a circle or around a table. One student starts by saying the name of another student and asking that student a question. The student that was asked the question does not respond to the question. Instead, he or she says the name of another student and asks that person a question. If a student cannot generate a question within 5 seconds, he or she is out and the rest of the students continue. To make this more challenging for upper intermediate or advanced groups, one can make students only ask a certain type of questions (Have you ever questions, second conditional questions, indirect questions, etc.).

Conclusions

On the basis of the stated above one might conclude that communicative grammar teaching aims at the development of communicative skills through the study of grammar among other important constitutive parts of the language acquisition process and focuses on how to use grammatical rules in a communicative situation, rather than just memorizing or drilling grammar structures in isolation from the meaningful context. Thus, communicative approach to grammar teaching views grammar as a linguistic structure, which allows students to give form to their thoughts, ideas, intentions and views and has to be practiced in true-to-life situations, like conversations, discussion, presentation, etc. In the sphere of ESP studying, communicative grammar teaching can be perceived as teaching grammar as a social function with a main focus on the development of students' ability to apply and comprehend a grammatical structure in miscellaneous social situations of their professional field properly and accurately.

This means incorporating grammar instruction into a communicative ESP class, offering students interactive activities and communicative tasks to practice grammar patterns. Students are pushed to produce their own ideas, experiences, opinions on professional topics by applying this or that grammatical structure. In this way, the grammatical competence is developed in a natural way through solving communicative assignments, which turns the process of foreign language learning into a motivating and beneficial procedure. We provided examples of communicative grammar teaching within the scope of ESP studying of students with economic majors. Some efficient activities have been described and analyzed; however, we admit that the present study has definite limitations. Further research will be needed to analyze the characteristics and features of an array of grammatic activities as well as communicative tasks that did not fit into the scope of this article.

Список використаної літератури

1. Canale M., Swain M. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics.

1980. № 1 (1). P.1-47.

2. Carter R., McCarthy M. Spoken grammar: where are we and where are we going? Applied Linguistics. 2015. P.1-21.

URL: http://www.drronmartinez.com/uploads/4/4/8/2/44820161/spoken_grammar_applied_linguistics-2015-carter-applin- amu080.pdf

3. Guseva V. Teaching grammar communicatively. University of Education, Karlsruhe, Germany 2024.

URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377841794_Teaching_grammar_communicatively

4. Karabutova E. A., Akinshina I. B., Prokopenko J. A., Kobzareva L. A. Communicative grammar teaching within a university course of foreign language. 2015. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287814002_Communicative_Grammar_Teaching_ Within_a_University_Course_of_Foreign_Language

5. Nunan D. Practical English language teaching. Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 353 p.

6. McCarthy M., Carter R. Spoken grammar: What is it and how can we teach it? ELT Journal. 1995. № 49 (3). P.207-218.

7. Ostafiychuk O. D. Teaching Grammar Communicatively. Інноваційна педагогіка. Теорія і методика професійної освіти. 2023. Вип.58, Т.2. С.97-101.

8. Richards J. C. Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 47 p.

9. Ruhlemann C. Coming to terms with conversational grammar. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 2006. № 11 (4). P.385-409.

10. Swan M. Some things that matter in grammar teaching and some things that don't. British Council, 2012.

URL: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/seminars/michael-swan-some-things-matter-grammar-teaching-and- some-things-dont

11. Teaching Grammar for Communicative Competence. AE Teacher's Corner. URL: https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/ resource_files/teaching_grammar_for_communicative_competence_1.pdf

References

1. Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1 (1), 1-47.

2. Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (2015). Spoken grammar: where are we and where are we going? Applied Linguistics, 1-21. URL: http://www.drronmartinez.com/uploads/4/4/8/2/44820161/spoken_grammar_applied_linguistics-2015-carter-applin- amu080.pdf

3. Guseva, V. (2024). Teaching grammar communicatively. University of Education, Karlsruhe, Germany.

URL https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377841794_Teaching_grammar_communicatively

4. Karabutova, E. A., Akinshina, I. B., Prokopenko, J. A., & Kobzareva, L. A. (2015). Communicative grammar teaching within a university course of foreign language. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287814002_Communicative_Grammar_ T eaching_W ithin_a_University_C ourse_o f_Foreign_Language

5. Nunan, D. (2003). Practical English language teaching. McGraw-Hill.

6. McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (1995). Spoken grammar: What is it and how can we teach it? ELT Journal, 49 (3), 207-218.

7.Ostafiychuk, O. D. (2023). Teaching Grammar Communicatively. Innovatsiina pedahohika. Teoriia i metodyka profesiinoi osvity, 58 (2), 97-101.

8. Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge University Press.

9. Ruhlemann, C. (2006). Coming to terms with conversational grammar. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11 (4), 385-409.

10. Swan, M. (2012). Some things that matter in grammar teaching and some things that don't. British Council.

URL: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/seminars/michael-swan-some-things-matter-grammar-teaching-and- some-things-dont

11. Teaching Grammar for Communicative Competence. AE Teacher's Corner. URL: https://americanenglish.state.gov/ files/ae/resource_files/teaching_grammar_for_communicative_competence_1.pdf

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