Page 36 - EL108 Learrning Module

setting. For instance, in discussing the teaching of Russian as a foreign

language, Rifkin (2005) advocates that students study abroad in a Russian-
speaking environment because there is a ceiling effect as to what can be

accomplished in a class where Russian is the target language.

IMPORTANT POINTS ON GARMMATICAL ASSESSMENT

Language Views (General approaches)
1. Syntactocentric perspective of the language

It is predominantly concerned with the structure of clauses and
sentences. This view defines “grammar” as a systematic way of accounting

for and predicting an “ideal” speaker’s or hearer’s knowledge of the

language.
a. Traditional grammar

It is based on a set of prescriptive rules along with the exceptions. It
is criticized for its inability to provide descriptions of the language that

could adequately incorporate the exceptions into the framework and for
its lack of generalizability to other languages.

b. Structural grammar

It describes the structure of the language in terms of both its
morphology and its syntax, in which each word in a given sentence is

categorized according to its use and the “patterns” or “structures” are
said to constitute a unique system for that language.

c. Transformational-generative grammar
It provides a “universal” description of language behavior revealing

the internal linguistic system for which all humans are predisposed.

Underlying properties of any individual language system can be
uncovered by means of a detailed sentence-level analysis. This

Universal Grammar (UG) has been criticized for failing to account for

meaning or language use in social contexts.

Teaching and Assessment of Grammar 24