ellis_grammar 2014 TESOL Quertarly教程.pdf

Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective ROD ELLIS University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand The study of how learners acquire a second language (SLA) has helped to shape thinking about how to teach the grammar of a second language. There remain, however, a number of controversial issues. This paper considers eight key questions relating to grammar pedagogy in the light of findings from SLA. As such, this article complements Celce-Murcia’s (1991) article on grammar teaching in the 25th anniver- sary issue of TESOL Quarterly, which considered the role of grammar in a communicative curriculum and drew predominantly on a linguistic theory of grammar. These eight questions address whether grammar should be taught and if so what grammar, when, and how. Although SLA does not afford definitive solutions to these questions, it serves the valuable purpose of problematising this aspect of language pedagogy. This article concludes with a statement of my own beliefs about grammar teaching, grounded in my own understanding of SLA. This article identifies and discusses a number of key issues relating to the teaching of grammar in a second language (L2) and, by drawing on theory and research in SLA, suggests ways to address these problems. It points to a number of alternative solutions to each problem, indicating that more often than not there are no clear solutions currently available. The aim, therefore, is not to identify new solutions to existing controver- sies, nor even to present new controversies. Rather it addresses within the compass of a single article a whole range of issues related to grammar teaching, problematises these issues, and by so doing, provides a counter- weight to the advocacy of specific, but also quite limited, proposals for teaching grammar that have originated in