View Content #17546

by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

Anyone involved in language acquisition, both practitioners and theorists alike, has a perspective on accuracy and the need for (or need to avoid) focus on grammatical forms in the language classroom. The goal here is not to debate the value of widely varying perspectives, but rather highlight ways in which we can blend the artificial boundaries which often pit form against function.  

A common misconception of communicative, task-based, or functional approaches to language teaching and learning is that grammar and accuracy are ignored. However, the absence of accuracy from the learning process is not the intention.  Instead, these approaches advocate utilizing grammar forms in the service of producing meaning and completing real world tasks.  For example, in the task of buying food at a market, the learner needs to build accurate vocabulary and target structures for making requests and expressing gratitude.  From this perspective, accuracy is critical for making appropriate requests, but does not stem from a verb paradigm such as 'irregular present tense verbs'.  Grammar in the service of meaning would, instead focus on the function and then identify the tools needed to complete the function.  The sample below highlights this perspective for a food buying transaction in a market.  In this case, primary lexical emphasis would be placed on the vocabulary (in green) needed to identify foods, exchange money, and express gratitude. Primary grammatical focus would be on structures needed to make different types of requests (in purple), and additional attention would be placed on the strategic knowledge and pragmatic skills necessary to implementing the grammatical structures appropriately.

As such, the structures are intimately tied to successful performance of the primary function and corrective feedback would target the forms in focus for successfully completing the task. This approach requires a curricular structure which focuses first on meaning, but then intentionally ties this meaning to the tools (i.e., strategies, vocabulary, grammar structure) needed to carry out a function. Accuracy is needed to support any one of the functions, but is not the primary mechanism for determining success or failure.