Research

[pazybeloved]

Hi everyone, I would like to do a research about how English language is taught in native speaking countries, which are major grammar and pronunciation difficulties teachers have to cope with
Thanks

[Tdol]

Isn't pronunciation largely dealt with before starting school?

[5jj]

By the time children start school, they have acquired the essential grammar of English. Their vocabulary will grow enormously after they start school but they have little grammar to learn. Such things such as the second and third forms of irregular verbs can, at this stage, be considered a matter of lexis. By the time they start school most children have acquired the knowledge of these forms of the common verbs they have already met, and they have enough 'grammar' wired into them to construct in a regular way the second and third forms of new verbs they meet. Some of them will learn, in time, that if they want to refer to 'smiting' someone in the past they will have to use the word 'smote', not 'smited'; some will never learn that, just as some will never know what 'defecation' means.

The 'grammar' that we attempt to teach children from the age of five on is the knowledge of how to speak one form of the language that is generally accepted as being appropriate for use in moderately civil surroundings in the part of the country in which they live, and how to put their thoughts into a form of writing that will be considered 'literate/educated' enough for them to obtain a job in which the ability to write in that way is considered important.

[pazybeloved]

Well Tdol I asked about pronunciation issues because I dont really know if native English people have difficulties in learning sounds. For instance, in Spanish, children have to learn to distinguish when the same letter has to be pronounced diferently: in "cerca"(near) the first "c" is pronounced like /s/ and the second like /k/. Another similar cases have to do with "B" and "V", "Z", "C", "S"
Thank you

[pazybeloved]

Hi 5jj, very interesting the facts that children have to deal with second and third forms of irregular verbs.
My point is how important are phonetics and grammar when teachers correct a communicative interaction and if the same criteria should be assume as "correct" when teaching English as a second language. Hope I could express my idea

[Tdol]

The irregularities of our spelling system can cause problems as sounds can be written in many different ways.

[5jj]

The irregularities of our spelling system can cause problems as sounds can be written in many different ways.

I agree, but that is a problem that arises when children are learning to read and write; it has nothing to do with pronunciation as such.

[5jj]

Hi 5jj, very interesting the facts that children have to deal with second and third forms of irregular verbs.
I should think that that is true of other languages as well. I imagine that when German children first encounter the verb 'bleichen' (bleach) they, incorrectly, construct the first and second pasts as though the verb were weak.

5

[Tdol]

English-speaking children can make irregular verbs regular, and regular ones irregular.