Tests and drills in English grammar for foreign students
Tests and drills in English grammar for foreign students
Publisher: Latin American Institute Pr | 1957 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B0006AV3SC | English | DJVU | 191 pages | 1.38 Mb
Publisher: Latin American Institute Pr | 1957 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B0006AV3SC | English | DJVU | 191 pages | 1.38 Mb
Tests and Drills in English Grammar for foreign students - Revised Edition by Robert James Dixson … The efficiency of this book will depend greatly upon the skill of the teacher who uses it. The book is planned very simply, so that there is no real problem of organization of materials. Each lesson is so arranged that the teacher simply starts with the first exercises of each lesson and proceeds through the remaining exercises. But the problem arises from the following: many teachers, and particularly the inexperienced teacher, consider the exercises to be simple and obvious, and they are unaware of the profound difficulty of these exercises to the foreign student. It is true that the exercises in themselves are not difficult to do. The theory behind the various grammar exercises is also not complex. English grammar, on the whole, is relatively simple. But the real teaching problem arises from the fact that the teacher must do much more than simply explain the exercises and repeat them once or twice with the students. The students must be taught to use what they are studying. They must be given sufficient practice and repetition so that everything that they study is retained and made an active part of their everyday conversation. This is the basic problem.
It may be helpful to the teacher if she keeps the following in mind: Learning to speak a foreign language is more or less a matter of acquiring a skill. It is a skill similar to the skill acquired in learning to typewrite or to play the piano. It is therefore an ability which comes only with much practice and repetition. The theory involved is generally quite simple. One can understand the theory of typewriting, for example, after only a few minutes study of the typewriter keyboard-but to learn to typewrite well then requires months of patient practice. So it is with learning to speak and understand a foreign language. A student can understand the theory of most of the English grammar "principles in this book after a few minutes study-but to be able to use these principles later in speaking English will require constant practice and repetition.
How can this practice and repetition be given within the limits of the usual grammar lesson without tiring or boring the student? This is the task of the teacher.
Tests and drills in English grammar for foreign students
