Teaching English Grammar and the Effect of Culture

I believe that the values of the culture will not hinder or obstruct our students from developing a good command of the English language, on the contrary the culture could assist in the learning process if our students were enough enlightened and reminded about the importance of learning foreign languages. Students should know that by learning English language they will be equipped with the best means to communicate with the outside world. Through English language students can learn and acquire knowledge needed for their undergraduate in the country and post graduate studies abroad since most references in modern times for different disciplines likewise science, aviation, mathematics, maritime, economics and the like were written in foreign languages particularly English.

Therefore, our students should be reminded that, they also can take the advantage of learning foreign languages especially English to represent their country's religious and cultural values by expressing themselves in foreign languages and even propagate for Islam through talking to their counterparts from other countries when they meet through student exchange programs and not feel shy or hesitant and make sure to present themselves as an excellent example of well-behaved students from good background.

Firstly, most important for the Arabic learners of English is to have a good command of his or her native language specially the grammar mastering at least the basic parts of speech in order to understand the English grammar. This could be an advantage and facilitates the learning process of the English grammar. If the student is poorly equipped with his or her own language grammar surely he or she will not gain the grammar of other languages.

Secondly, the student must have a good command of the English language vocabulary in order to learn the grammar of the English language more easily, otherwise it would be a time consuming process for the English teacher. If the student doesn’t have a good stock of the English words used in any grammatical structure to be understood, definitely the student will get strayed and may start to ask questions about the meaning of the words used in the construction of the grammatical structure and it will be hard to understand the words used in the grammatical structure, instead of learning the new grammatical point itself.

I always try to remind my students about the meaning of some words that used in the new grammatical structure in order to make it easier for them to understand the new grammatical structure.

In Arabic, grammar is taught as an independent lesson and even mentioned in the teaching schedule but in English grammar is stiff and hard to learn for Arabic learners thus it would be better that grammatical aspects to be taught in contexts rather than as abstract grammar.

Some grammatical aspects could cause confusion for Arabic learners of English. Teacher should bear in mind that, in English common nouns have three genders male, female or neuter, but in Arabic common nouns are either male or female and the same apply to pronouns. Therefore, most students have a problem in using pronouns instead of nouns to avoid repetition of nouns. For instance, 'The captain got on board the ship and suddenly discovered that it's not ready to sail on the journey, but in Arabic the same sentence will read ' The captain got on board the ship and suddenly discovered that she is not ready to sail'. In Arabic everything either a male or a female; a ship, a table, a car, a pillow and a watch are females while a computer, a street, road, a dog, a book, a telephone and milk are males. This is why students seriously misuse and confuse pronouns.

In Arabic all nouns are given different forms singular, plural and dual in Arabic it is called 'muthana' and they differ according to their position in the sentence whether they are subject or object, male or female, but in English they are either singular or plural but no dual.

Also, Relative pronouns such as 'who' and 'whom' as well as 'whose' and 'who' which could cause some sort of confusion for Arabic learners of English. For instance, who is in the kitchen? Whose bag is this? They sound the same that's why they are confused by Arabic learners. Also, 'who' and 'whom' despite they have their Arabic equivalents which are quite different for a male and a female. 'Who' has it's equivalent in Arabic 'Mun' as 'Mun alathi eind alabab?' who is at the door? For male and 'Mun alati ja'at bi ataam' Who brought the food' for female. In Arabic who is followed with 'alathi' for male and 'alati' for female and that’s why they are sometimes confused by Arabic learners. Nouns are different for male from female, for example; 'anta' you for male and 'antee' you for female while in English 'you' is used for both genders.

Indefinite Articles 'a' and 'an' have no equivalent in the Arabic language. Common nouns are just left blank without any thing to indicate that they are indefinite. That explains why students neglect them in their writings.

Verb 'be' forms (helping verbs/auxiliaries) are also without an equivalent in the Arabic language. That’s why students confuse them and even neglect them in their writings.

In Arabic Present Simple and Past simple verbs are given different forms; singular, dual and plural, and different genders, but in English they are neither singular nor plural, or given any gender.

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Students should possess a good vocabulary arsenal.

STEP (1): Students listen for conversations or short texts containing the new grammatical structure – here TOUCH STONE a syllabus which taught by IGIT is an ideal course. Then, they repeat, read and role play a text or a conversation with intended grammatical points and try to figure out the grammatical points.

STEP (2):Sts fill in gaps with missing grammatical points.

STEP (3):Sts try to write complete sentences with correct grammatical points recently taught assisted by colleagues and teacher, if necessary.

STEP (4):Sts write sentences with correct grammatical points taught recently with students' assistance, but without teacher assistance, if possible.

STEP (5):Sts try to write sentences with correct grammatical points taught recently and previously with minor assistance, if needed.

STEP (6):Sts try to write sentences with correct grammatical points taught recently and previously without minor assistance.

C O N C L U S I O N

To conclude with, many grammatical aspects could cause ambiguity for Arabic students while learning English and the English teacher should register them in his or her portfolio as well as the feedback obtained from students themselves should be logged down by the teacher and given a special attention while teaching English grammar and focus on them in order to eliminate students' language ambiguity and train students on proper sentence construction the matter which leads to correct paragraph writing and at the end leading to perfect essay writing.