Reasonable literacy is a clear image and outline of the subtlest thoughts and the subtlest feeling.
A. P. Sumarokov

A few words about the history of grammar
The word grammar, as well as the foundations of this science, we inherited from the ancient Greeks, in whom one of the signs of human beauty was the ability to express their thoughts eloquently and correctly.
First printed grammar Slavic language is considered “Grammar of the well-versed Hellenic-Slovenian

language ”, which was published in 1591. As we can see, scholars have fought over the rules of grammar since time immemorial. Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov made a huge contribution to the development of Russian grammar, it is his "Russian grammar" that is considered the first printed Russian grammar. In our time, many Books are published, teaching aids and grammar reference material. The study of this discipline is necessarily included in the school curriculum.
Congenital literacy
Is there really such a thing as "innate literacy"? Sometimes there are people who, not knowing or not being able to formulate

even the basic rules of grammar, however, they write texts correctly and without errors. So far, there is no answer to the question of whether there is still innate literacy, whether it is transmitted genetically. Teachers with extensive work experience believe that those students who read a lot can write competently, while their visual memory works, the spelling of words and the rules for constructing sentences are automatically stored in their heads. So, in order to “hone” your style and learn how to express your thoughts correctly, you need to read a lot.
Indicators of beautiful speech
One can distinguish such signs of beautiful speech as brevity, the use of unbroken phrases, a rich vocabulary, the use of graceful turns of speech. However, in my opinion, such a parameter as literacy is decisive. Comprehending the basics of grammar from school, a person improves himself, becomes more educated, his authority in the eyes of others grows. IN modern world When information, the speaker's ability to convey it to the listener in an undistorted form, is so important, the culture of speech should come first and it is quite obvious that it is impossible to do without knowledge of such a discipline as grammar.

Other works on this topic:

1. Have you ever thought about how many words there are in Russian? Can you count them? Has anyone tried this? On reflection, we can assume that for this ...
2. The section of grammar is one of the directions of linguistics, or science, which studies the methods of forming, connecting and changing words, and methods of constructing sentences. If a person lacks knowledge, ...
3. I. A. Ilyin in his article raises the problem associated with the meaning native language... According to the author, Russia presented its citizens with an invaluable gift - the great Russian ...
4. "The vocabulary of the language shows what people think, and the grammar shows how they think." (G. Stepanov) Language is a means of communication between people. It develops together with society, ...

In the new release of the blog, the site team tried on the role of mythbreakers. We've collected 3 beliefs that address the age-old problem of English learners - grammar.

Myth 1. You need to learn grammar from the first lessons

Native speakers don't learn grammar since childhood. They come to her later - when they are already talking, they intuitively understand the structures. The same should happen with children who learn English as a foreign language. Comprehensively, grammar is connected at the Intermediate level, when the child already has an idea of ​​a living language, the courage to communicate, and use fixed expressions.

At the initial level, grammar is learned intuitively, using ready-made structures... Instead of cramming the rule board, the child repeats the desired phrase several times during the lesson. So the kid will learn it by copying the finished model - the same happens with the grammatical structures in the native language.

You hardly think about the rules when you speak Russian. It's the same with native speakers. They just communicate and this is natural. The most important thing in the learning process is vocabulary, understanding of basic spoken phrases and patterns.

Later, grammar will "shape" the language, support practical skills with theory. Balance is important here. For example, the double negative structure “I ain’t going nowhere” is the norm for communicating with friends, but will cost the child points during the exam.

The basic idea: do not immediately scare the child with a large book with rules. Focus on learning words, phrases, and make the lessons interesting.

Myth 2. Grammar should be taught separately

This myth is destroyed by the communication method - one of the most effective in the opinion of teachers. Communicative approach implies that the student must simultaneously improve oral speech, writing, vocabulary, grammar, listening and reading skills.

In the site, teachers use their native language in extreme cases: if something is completely incomprehensible. Thus, 90% of the lesson is in English, and the child stops mentally translating phrases, concentrating on more important things. At the same time, he learns to correctly construct sentences and understand speech by ear.

The basic idea: exercise alone is not enough to master grammar. Read, communicate, write, listen to live speech and the rules will gradually be remembered by themselves.

Myth 3. Grammar will help you to speak fluently

Grammar reinforces the student's confidence in knowledge, but is unlikely to help them speak. Only with constant communication disappears psychological barrier and fear of making a mistake. Therefore, first of all, you need to overcome shyness. Imagine that your child is learning a grammar rule and suddenly notices that he has heard this structure many times. Most likely, he will think: "So that's why they say that all the time!" It is in this case that learning will be natural, holistic and effective.

P.S. Many parents ask when we will start teaching grammar with the child .. We just explain the rules in game form- with the help of cartoons or fairy tales. As a result, children “feel” the language in much the same way as we felt Russian grammar in childhood, before we started learning it. If the child is already ready to master the whole rules, we will definitely include this module in the program, and if necessary, we prepare children for IELTS and TOEFL tests, admission to British schools and Universities. We are sure that learning grammar is effective when it is timely, not boring for the child and complements the general picture of his knowledge.

1. One cannot but agree with the statement of the Russian writer L. V. Uspensky: "Vocabulary alone without grammar does not yet constitute a language. Only when it is placed at the disposal of grammar does it acquire the greatest meaning." Indeed, without grammar and grammatical connections, the sentence will turn into an incoherent set of words.
   Let us confirm Ouspensky's statement with an example from the text of Yuri Bondarev. The grammatical category of the predicate tenses of this non-union complex sentence (number 2) gives us an idea that the action took place in the past. It is important to note the agreement of predicates with subjects according to the grammatical categories of gender and number: autumn (f, singular) stood (f, singular), rain (f, singular) lil (m.r., singular), iron (s.r., singular) pounded (s.r., singular). Without this agreement, we would have an incoherent set of words.
   Let's take another example. Sentence number 19 consists of the words: "I", "sobbed", "a", "he", "hugged", "me", "how", "small". Without grammatical categories (gender, number and case for pronouns and gender, number and tense for verbs), this sentence would be a meaningless set of words: "I", "sob", "he", "hug", "I", "like ", "small".
   Thus, in these examples, we see that "one vocabulary does not yet constitute a language."

   Reply Delete

2. Misha, you need to carefully look and study the criteria for evaluating an essay on a linguistic topic. In the essay-reasoning, it is necessary to give 2 arguments and indicate their role in disclosing the thesis. The arguments given by you are very similar and carry general character: so you can say about any sentence and this text and any other. At best, the examples given can be counted as one argument, and this is not enough to cover the topic.

   Reply Delete

3. The well-known linguist L. V. Uspensky stated: “One vocabulary without grammar does not yet constitute a language. Only when he is at the disposal of grammar does he receive the greatest meaning. " Indeed, grammar allows words collected in a sentence to acquire a single meaning in order to express any thought. Let us prove this with examples from the text.
   In sentence 12 we can see a separate circumstance, expressed by the adverbial phrase “barely holding back tears”. It conveys to us the girl's feelings for her father.
   We can also see the address "sweetheart" (sentence 16), which is used in dialogue. It shows us to whom the speech is addressed and reveals to us the affectionate attitude of the father towards his daughter.
   

   Reply Delete

4. The famous philologist Lev Vasilievich Uspensky wrote: “One vocabulary without grammar does not make a language yet. Only when he is at the disposal of grammar does he receive the greatest meaning. " I absolutely agree with this statement. Let us confirm this with examples from the test of Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev.
   In sentence 25, the author uses the antonyms "a lot and a little", which give expressiveness to artistic speech. But only if we put these words at the disposal of the grammar. For example, let's put the word “person” in the dative, and the word “happiness” in the genitive case, create a phrase with the subordinate link “control”: “it is necessary for happiness”. To express the author's feelings, we put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence. And then the proposal, according to L.V. Uspensky, will receive great significance.
   Sentence 23 consists of 6 words that parents use to convey their love to their daughter, but only with the help of grammar, which linked these words into a single sentence.
   

   Reply Delete

   Answers

   Sasha, examples about "a lot and a little", about "happiness in the genitive case" "wander" from essay to essay following the publication of an unsuccessful essay on a "linguistic topic" on one of the sites. It is a pity that you could not give your examples. The second argument does not work at all. He does not illustrate anything, does not reveal the theme of the composition.

   Delete

5. Svetlana Alekseevna, in order to convince you that I "trust myself" and personally look for arguments, albeit not all successful ones, I will try to give a few more.

   In 3 sentences, the author conveys emotional condition heroines. To do this, he uses homogeneous predicates in the subordinate clause. The writer uses the verb "rolled" in a very interesting way. With the help of him, and several other verbs, Yuri Bondarev personifies the melancholy that affected the girl so much. Only if we put these words "at the disposal of grammar" can we understand their true meaning.
   Sentence 16 consists of only three words. However, they are grammatically and syntactically related and make a strong impression on the readers. We feel cordiality, warmth and even surprise in the words of the heroine's father. If we look at them separately, then they certainly will not convey a single drop of kindness in the attitude of the father to the daughter.

   Delete

7. Sasha, indeed, the new examples are more successful than the previous ones, but, unfortunately, they are also very abstract in nature. Why aren't you thinking about the specifics of Sentence 16? What is this proposal for the purpose of the statement? What is the word "sweet" in the sentence, with which the father refers to his daughter? Each word has its own lexical meaning, but, "having entered the disposal of grammar", it acquires a new sound, or, as Lev Uspensky claims, "receives the greatest meaning." I urge you to have a specific conversation about linguistic phenomena, when you give examples, only then you show that you understand the topic of the essay.

   Delete

8. The famous philologist Lev Vasilievich Uspensky wrote: “One vocabulary without grammar does not make a language yet. Only when he is at the disposal of grammar does he receive the greatest meaning. " I absolutely agree with this statement. The vocabulary of a language is a set of words (vocabulary) of a given language. Grammar is a science, a section of linguistics that studies the grammatical structure of a language, the patterns of constructing correct meaningful speech segments in this language. Only in the union of words and grammar can a writer express his thought in "the greatest meaning." Let us confirm this with examples from the test of Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev.
   The word "sweetheart" means dear, dear, close to the heart. In sentence 16, it acts as an address, giving the father's speech kindness, gentleness. The reader understands the caring and loving attitude towards the heroine due to the fact that this word came to the "disposal of grammar" and acquired a special meaning.
   In sentence 3, the author conveys the emotional state of the heroine. To do this, he uses homogeneous predicates in the subordinate clause. The writer uses the verb "rolled" in a very interesting way. This word means to push, push, move. With the help of him, and several other verbs, Yuri Bondarev personifies the melancholy that affected the girl so much.
   Thus, with the help of grammar, the vocabulary of the language acquires meaning and receives "the greatest meaning."

   Delete

Yesterday in the group we discussed the question of one of the participants:

"Hello, colleagues. I am not a teacher of Russian language studies, but of one of the European languages. But I decided to ask a question in this group, since the company here is sincere, and I would like to consult with you.
I structure my training in this way: introduction to the topic - lexical and grammatical, study, exit to conversation. The whole cycle can take 2-3 lessons. Of course, to speak in the lesson in the languageblue, but new topic at first I try to work it out. Here comes a student who says, I'm not interested in doing all these exercises, let's start talking right away. In principle, the request is not new, it happens. But here - the teacher is just an RFL. I tried it, a person, in general, already a speaker came to me, you can do that. (here I must say that I have the following principle of working with objections: I do not resist, I do as they ask. Then either it turns out to be harmful and the student sees it and we return to the way of work that I propose, or ... well "or" has not happened yet. Hmm ...) But between us, I think so-so that it will be marking time .... What do you say? I want to go forward, and the person cannot do homework, and I am confused ... The teacher ... says, I do this in my lessons and everything works out great. How??? Here's my question. How can you, without working out the grammar, have an excellent result ... Who has the same thing? Confess! Does it work? "

In this regard, I remembered my conversation with one novice teacher of RFL, who literally wrote the following to me:

"It is impossible to master a foreign language as a means of communication without knowledge of grammar" ("Practical methods of teaching RFL", p. 168). I watched as in a British schoolhundreds of Russian, Korean, Japanese, etc. speaking children of different ages got hold of English language to the level of a native, not knowing what grammar is. I am fluent in German, I read newspapers, but I am completely unfamiliar with grammar. And how did I even manage to master the Russian language, not knowing about the inflectional-branched-prepositional-case-in ido-temporal-complex-syntactic-specific-word-formation system, etc.?
"Knowledge of the rules shortens the path to the practical development of a foreign language"
Not only does reality confirm the opposite - the language is learned better without knowing the grammar rules, which simply overload the brain with unnecessary information, and therefore foreigners run away from language courses, because they cannot learn anything and they are bored, but also since the 70s Numerous scientific studies confirm that grammar is learned instinctively and not through rules. This knowledge is used in international (British) schools, where non-native children are purposefully not taught grammar, and even in high school they are given it to a minimum so that they learn English faster.
Sorry, but according to this abnormal system, which has long been morally outdated, in which the language is viewed as something dead, not living, and the student as a kind of computer brain, I would rather forget my native language than teach anyone.
It seems to me that it is necessary to create a system of teaching the Russian language for living breathing people, taking into account, say, the British experience, which is successfully applied all over the world.

Even a non-native language is learned intuitively - it is just convenient for teachers to close their eyes to this, so as not to start rewriting the methods anew. I know this for myself - I mastered grammar at school by 3. After 2 years of working with a native speaker, by the way, a philologist, with a minimal bias on grammar, I began to publish in English. That is, already in adulthood, he mastered the language intuitively. I am far from the only case: I have seen hundreds of adults learn a language without grammar, and hundreds of people who have learned grammar and have not mastered the language.

Your entire methodology is built on the false assumption that a foreign language cannot be learned intuitively by adults. This is complete nonsense, and millions of people will tell you the same thing, and millions more will say that grammar only made it difficult for them to learn the language, and often it killed their desire to learn it. The methodology that I studied (and I know from myself) assumes that first you learn the language, like a child, intuitively. And only after mastering it, you are given grammar, but not too much. Language is not mathematics. The a priori approach should be different.
I travel a lot and I will tell you: service workers learn excellent Russian without any methods, simply through communication with Russians. And not knowing what declension and conjugation are.
Let's say you and I learned cases before school. Any foreigner will learn cases faster without your methodology, in live speech. We had a guide in Crete, studied in Russia, told how he remembers the study of cases, as if in a nightmare. He married a Russian and mastered them through conversation. "

Now what? Throwing grammar off the ship of modernity?

What I would like to point out:

1. Learning a native language by children and learning a foreign language by adults is different. In childhood, you can master several languages ​​as native, precisely because the language is learned without rules, at the level of intuition.

2. Knowledge of grammar cannot interfere with the practical assimilation of the language. Some students are analysts: they will ask what and how, and why, while others will try to memorize blocks of information more in order to quickly use these phrases at work, in everyday life. Everything is determined by the goals, terms of training, the contingent of trainees. And believe my experience and the experience of other teachers, developers of the methodology, that the students will only be grateful to you if you can clearly and sensibly explain the necessary rules. In the practical course of the Russian language, grammar is not an end in itself, but a way to teach students to live communication. With mistakes, without grammar, they can learn individual phrases without us. They come to study with a teacher to get a competent explanation.
However, some novice teachers of RFL expect a miracle: that their adult learner will learn everything intuitively and speak fluently, only having fun and not making any effort to understand linguistic phenomena. But after all, understanding, delving into the structures, we develop in ourselves a linguistic flair for foreign language and we begin to perceive and reproduce a lot at the level of intuition. Isn't that why learning each subsequent language is easier than the previous one. Anyone for whom Russian is native, unmistakably use the forms of the genitive case, without thinking about it. And a foreign student needs to be told in what cases we use the genitive case and what meanings it conveys, and with the help of what forms it is formed, we consolidate this and then he can use the knowledge gained in practice. After all, no one says that you need to do only grammar or do it for most of the lesson. Start the lesson with the phrase "Let's open the textbook on such and such a page" or "In the last lesson we talked about the verbs of movement, well, so ...". unacceptably. This approach leads exclusively to a loss of motivation on the part of both the student and the teacher. Grammar rules are explained through their communicative functions.

3. The courses can perfectly offer role-playing games, communication between the student and the teacher must necessarily be natural, even friendly, an atmosphere of trust and mutual interest must reign in the lesson, it is necessary to strive for the least use of the intermediate language, use visual aids, audio, video, work in pairs, triplets, etc. ... etc..
A grammatical commentary only helps and facilitates and accelerates the process of language acquisition. For example, let's say my foreign student wrote a story about how he spent the summer and wrote: "* I was in Istanbul." If I explain to him that when we talk about the location, where we are, where we were, we need to add - E (prepositional case), and we use the accusative case after the verbs go, walk, food, etc. (i.e. verbs of movement) to indicate the direction (where?) - this will allow him to easily apply his knowledge in the future and not make such a mistake the next time?

No one disputes the fact that in practical terms language course grammar should be communication oriented. This is the functional direction in grammar.

Write your comments. What do you think about the place of grammar in language learning?