When Grammar Competence Mirrors Career Opportunities:

The Case of Italian Schools

Emanuela Gutkowski
Lecturer of English Language and Translation
University of Catania, seat of Ragusa (Italy)
E-mail:  emagutkowski@hotmail.com

Note: This article was previously published in the ATEG Journal, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), and is published here with permission of the ATEG Journal.

It seems quite difficult, in a moment when the efforts of many foreign language textbooks concentrate on a communicative approach to the subject, to find the right place and function of grammar, traditionally conceived, within the activity of teaching English as a foreign language. This is particularly evident if we consider that even textbooks of the pupils’ mother tongue present it in a way which is extremely different from what current teachers were used to when they were students.

As a teacher of English language in Italy, where I teach both at the secondary school level and at the university level, I would like to start off with some observations about the role of grammar in studying the Italian language. The study of grammar in the student’s first language has resulted in several important consequences on the approach to foreign languages, including English: I will focus on the negative results of a diffused “snobbish” attitude towards grammar, results that can be observed not only when we consider grammar competence but even communication as well.

I would like to specify that by “traditional” grammar teaching I mean the teaching of grammar in itself given as a group of rules and as a use in a realistic context. For example, the conjugation of a verb with its third person singular ending, the interrogative form with do/does and the fall, again in the case of a third person singular, of the -s, which is already included in the does auxiliary, must be presented in itself before passing to the observation of sentences such as:

Where do you live? I live here.
Where does he live? He lives here.

Of course, teachers can sometimes start from the example and discuss it to explain grammar; nevertheless, there must be a moment when the reflection on language is based upon the structure of language itself.

The Italian language, like many neo-Latin languages, has, to some extent, quite a complex structure when compared to the English language. To give some examples: all verbs are conjugated according to the number and, in the composed tenses, the gender; the past participle has got a singular and a plural, a feminine and a masculine; all subjunctive mood has a conjugation on its own; all nouns have got, again, a declination according to their number and gender and, the few cases that have not such variations constitute exceptions to remember.

All these factors created the necessity for a strict way of studying the language, first of all through grammar. The primary school exercise books of those who are today twenty-five or thirty years old, who are now the young teachers, were full of what was called “grammar analysis” (or “parsing”) and “sentence analysis”, defined in Italian as “logical analysis”.
An example of the first was the splitting up of sentences into each part so that a sentence like “that man is Italian” (“quell’uomo è italiano”) was so explained:

Quello (that) = demonstrative adjective, masculine, singular

uomo (man) = common name (contrasting to proper names, as Paul, Italy, etc.), concrete (contrasting to abstract names, referring to non-touchable concepts as desire, hope, nightmare, etc.), masculine, singular

è (is) = verb to be, third person singular

italiano (Italian) = descriptive adjective, masculine, singular.

An example of sentence analysis had much more to do with the functions of each piece of the sentence, so the sentence “that Italian man is coming from his house” (“quell’uomo italiano viene da casa sua”) was so analysed:

Quell’uomo (that man) = subject

Italiano (Italian) = attribute of the subject

viene (is coming) = verbal predicate

da casa sua (from his house) = adverb phrase of place, indicating coming from motion.

The sentence analysis paved the way to the study of Latin (compulsory until 1976 in the Middle schools) (Morani, 2002), because for each adverb phrase there was a different case, corresponding to a different ending of the word, as it still happens in languages as German or Russian.

The exercise books providing these sorts of exercises could be considered today as an antique example of grammar in a past age of language studies. Nothing of this sort is taught today in Italian elementary schools, and if we speak of the above mentioned analysis to Italian teenagers they will probably ignore their meaning and their usefulness.

If we transfer this capability to the field of teaching English as a foreign language an immediate consequence of the “death” of traditional Italian grammar teaching is the comatose state of English grammar teaching.

The meta-language definitions which were extremely useful to talk about grammar (necessary not just to “speak about English”, but simply to “speak English”, or at least to speak good English), have lost their meaning to many students. As an example of a typical English structure: the Saxon genitive translates the Italian “di” or “de[…]”, so that “The boys’ father” means in Italian, “il padre dei ragazzi”.  In grammar analysis, “dei” is a preposition combined with an article (de+i = of the), in sentence analysis, “dei ragazzi” is a genitive case defined in Italian as “specifying”,  as it specifies who the father belongs to. Confusion can come from sentences as “I want some biscuits”, in Italian “Voglio dei biscotti”: in grammar analysis, “dei” is always a preposition combined with an article, but “dei biscotti” is a partitive (a part of all the biscuits). It would be then enough to explain to students that the Saxon genitive translates our “di” when it introduces, in most cases (not always), the genitive case but not the partitive. If you do that in a secondary school class, two things may presumably happen. If students are careful and interested in the topic, they will ask what is the meaning of “genitive case” and “partitive”? If they are not, they will passively listen to such definitions they do not know the meaning of and, as a consequence, they will probably use the Saxon genitive incorrectly. In the most optimistic case, which is the one of an interested and “questioning” audience, every lesson takes such a long time (grammar definitions are always needed), that the program can be developed extremely slowly, generating boredom and lack of interest. To a general apathy that can be sometimes found among teenagers when they have to face the activity of studying in general, it is of course necessary to add the shyness of those who could be good learners but have developed a kind of intolerance of ambiguity, defined as “the tendency to perceive […] ambiguous situations as sources of threat” (Budner, 1962) which does not allow them to expose themselves to the attention of the others, asking too many questions. Teachers can of course prevent this by giving the explanations of everything, but stopping at any definition the thread of the argument becomes fragmentary and difficult to follow. What was done at elementary school in five years’ study cannot be easily undone or replaced by the few hours that the English teacher has in the middle and secondary schools (three hours per week in most cases) and besides, as foreign language teachers usually claim, this should be the Italian language teachers’ duty.

A good background in the grammar of the student’s mother tongue would need, of course, some integration, especially in those cases when a particular structure is peculiar to English language (as in the case, for instance, of phrasal verbs which do not have any equivalent in Italian), but explaining just some grammar concepts is not comparable to explaining all grammar concepts.

The result of the diffused ignorance regarding grammar definitions is that when an English teacher gets to the explanation of the Saxon genitive (just to provide a concrete example), which happens quite early in the study of English language, students usually do not have the appropriate background to understand it properly.

Classes are not always that dramatic, and my experience can be useful to understand why. I taught English in a technical school for tourism last year, and today I teach both in a secondary school with an emphasis on humanities, called in Italy “Classical Lyceum”, and at the University of Ragusa (Sicily), faculty of Foreign Languages, which should be the “natural habitat” of English language studies.

A further explanation is necessary to understand what a huge panorama on Italian attitude towards a traditional study these differentiated audiences provide. Technical schools did not permit the access to university until the 1960s. Today they do, but at least half of the students choose to look for a job as soon as they get their diploma. Education in these schools is mainly practice-oriented, without much attention paid to what seems too abstract. This means, for an English teacher, not to have the meta-linguistic tools to deal with the study of a language or, if he/she wants to follow a “traditional” way, explaining what is lacking in the pupils’ education, he/she will risk becoming incredibly “abstract”. It could seem quite a drastic conclusion, but in reality, in those kinds of schools, the language level achieved by students is hardly ever excellent. In 2002, a university professor of linguistics at the University of Genoa defended the study of grammar (in that case Latin grammar) at school, narrating his everyday personal experience; when university students ask him to follow them for their final dissertation, and he wants to know what modern language they know, the students usually admit not to know English at a sufficient level to consult a foreign bibliography (Morani, 2002). I would add that this depends on the way English is studied in certain schools and on the importance given to its grammar. A superficial background does not help in superior studies, and unfortunately, a superficial cultural background (and grammar background) is provided in technical and professional secondary schools. This result is confirmed by the high percentage of students coming from these institutes who leave university demonstrating a lower attitude towards study if compared to those coming from the “classical lyceum”.

According to a recent survey, 89% of Italian university students come from the “Licei” (I have written about the classical lyceum, but the same level is achieved in the scientific and the linguistic ones). 48% of Italian students leave university without taking a degree and, among them only 4.5% come from a Lyceum (Colapaoli, 2004). The fact that a traditional way of studying leaves a better attitude towards study itself seems rather indisputable.

Even the definition of “excellent English” I have given above could be something to discuss, especially in a moment when standard English and, consequently, standard English grammar, are passing through a period of crisis (Warschauer, 2000). More than in other historical moments, English is spoken more by non-native English native speakers than by English native speakers. As Crystal argues, 85% of international organizations all over the world officially use English, 85% of the worlds film market is in English, 90% of academic articles in some fields, such as linguistics, are written in English (Crystal, 1997). The idea itself of an “English English”, intended also as a body of rules, vocabulary, syntax, morphology, has lost its significance, being enriched, or impoverished, but certainly modified, by the local uses of the language. We can all easily agree on that point. Nevertheless, there should be a starting point, or a reference point, when teachers “present” English to their students. Deviations from norms of standard English can come at a second stage, when students are aware of the language.

If English is useful for employment, the knowledge of it must meet certain requirements otherwise its level risks being too low to be useful. Reich divides the workers of developed countries into three main categories: routine-production service workers, including factory workers but also routine information workers such as data processors and payroll clerks; in-person service workers, such as janitors, hospital attendants and taxi drivers, and; symbolic analysts, so called because they spend much of their time analysing symbol based information, both numerical and textual, including engineers, managers, lawyers, scientists (Reich, 1991). Teachers are not explicitly mentioned in any of these categories. What differs in the competence of a foreign language, for these different kinds of workers, is the level required; a manager needs a high competence to convince an audience of his plans, a taxi driver needs an everyday level of communication, a factory worker could even “survive” without a foreign language or, in the case of a clerk who uses the computer in his work, he could need a basic and “authomatized” level of English, sufficient to decode the basic information or orders given by a monitor. Reich writes of the increasing number of opportunities for symbolic analysts in developed countries, compared to the falling of income, status and career opportunities for the other two categories.

My impression is that while the English language level of those who will be symbolic analysts needs to be solidly based upon a theoretical knowledge of the language, and so on a good grammar competence, the two other kinds of workers can also express themselves in a less correct English, because, in that case, a communication which is not absolutely correct but which makes the basic messages pass from the sender to the receiver can be enough.

The kind of secondary school chosen is often linked to the future career, at least in Italy. The Classical Lyceum is, traditionally, the school of well-to-do people even if, from a legal point of view, it is open to everybody.  Education is totally free at this stage in Italy, so that everybody can choose the most suitable school, but in Italian mentality those who find school just a “waste of time” before a job will not be likely to send their children to a Lyceum.

The basis of the classical curriculum is the study of ancient languages, namely Latin and Greek. In the first two years of this address, there is usually a teacher who spends eighteen hours per week in the same class, teaching Italian, Latin, Greek, History and Geography. In order to make students understand the rules of the classical languages, this teacher starts from what was once already acquired in the middle school: the grammar and the sentence analysis.

In this way, when the English teacher has to face students who have already acquired a theoretical basis, he/she doesn’t have to stop on every single grammar concept but can go straight to the use of the language. It is then easily understood that in English the subject must be expressed, except when we use an imperative form, and nobody will wonder what a subject is and what an imperative is, so that even the communicative approach has got a solid base, not only useful, but I would say necessary, for English. In giving street directions, for instance, expressions like “go straight ahead”, “take the first on the right”, and so on, are not only used much more rapidly than in classes that do not have a good grammar background, but they are used with an awareness that allows students to master them even in situations different from those proposed in the already given context. Going back to Reich’s analysis, I would argue that these students are well prepared to become symbolic analysts. This result is not just based upon the study of English, but, of course, it concerns all curriculum and the way of studying imposed in these kind of schools.

The situation changes again if we consider a university class. Students arrive at university from all secondary schools, so that a completely different background among them creates a heterogeneous audience which sometimes makes lectures difficult. An explanation about a foreign language can hardly meet the needs of such a mixed ability group; what is good for the less prepared part of the class will be slow for the other part, and what is good for those with a solid and correct education cannot be easily followed by those who face certain studies for the first time. The problem was once solved giving only to those who came from a “Lyceum” the free access to university, but the 1968 school reforms opened the access to all students coming from the secondary school. The explanation was based upon the fact that, at the age of thirteen, when students must choose their secondary school address, they are too young to decide for their career and parents usually decide for them. The impossibility of going to university provoked, in the mind of those who were against such a system, the eternal perpetuation of social class distinction. This could be true to some extent, but the remedy is somehow worse than the evil; in a class which must be adapted to an “ideal student” who does not exist, nobody is satisfied (and the teacher less than the others).

The solution which is usually found is the distinction in classes of different levels, but those who do not come from a traditionally based study will have little possibility to achieve the levels of those who come from a background which has been built on years of systemic study on languages. Besides, and again, teachers and textbooks often deal with the foreign language study with a communicative approach; they do teach grammar, but they do not talk about grammar. As a matter of fact, students can use the sentence in the context they hear, but they will not be perfectly conscious of the way they are using the structure of the language.

I must then observe reality (which is quite an objective task) and then I would like to give a personal interpretation of it (with all the mistakes of subjectivity).

From my personal and differentiated experience, there is no doubt that students who have a good grammar background, even in their mother tongue or in different subjects, such as Latin or Greek, understand and practice a foreign language better than those who miss the elementary terms to speak “about” a language. It is difficult, at an advanced stage of the study, as at university, to make up for what has not been done in a previous stage; the student’s mind is not as ready as before in perceiving complex structures.

If I base my analysis on Johnson’s approach (Johnson, 2001), I would say that, when studying the structure of a language too late, I can acquire sociolinguistic and strategic competence, but the systemic one is not easily assimilated. I can then understand, especially if I live in a foreign context for a long period of time, what is convenient to say and what isn’t, I can deepen my knowledge of the rules of use and rules of discourse or, using strategic competence, I can use mimes and gestures, or I can build up a neologism, even if it does not mirror a perfect mastery of the foreign language. And now, thinking about what sociolinguistic competence is, I wonder what is the utility in knowing what is proper to say in a situation, when I do not know how to say it correctly, especially if there is a slightly different context from the one I expect.

In the end of my analysis and on the base of my work, I have the impression that the two aspects of language competence, I mean the declarative and procedural, could not be fundamental when the level required is not excessively high. In the case of the need of speaking a foreign language in those fields where a huge knowledge is required, the procedural knowledge cannot, on the contrary, but be strictly linked to the declarative one. Neglecting the theoretical basis of grammar, coherently with the neglection of a traditional study, according to teaching methods based on the need for a more practical approach to reality, could oblige students to follow a way without any possibility of changing their professional destiny, which means, in other terms, perpetrating the situation of the family social class (as it’s the family which often influences the student in the choice of the school) without the possibility of changing it.

This does not mean, of course, that language lessons have to be presented as boring and old-fashioned grammar repetitions, and good teachers usually know how to adapt a language lesson to different classes according to their level, their age, the purpose of their learning and so on. These aspects could be certainly considered in the choice of different materials, so that an article in Time, even if simplified and made accessible by the teacher, hardly ever will raise the attention of a Middle School audience, while adults could be bored by even a complex reading on singers beloved by teenagers.

No matter what kind of topics are treated, provided they are considered interesting by the students, a good language level necessarily passes through a good grammar level. You can hide grammar teaching under the appearance of a lively conversation about fashion, politics, habits, but in order to make the student master the language, there must always be the moment when the teacher needs to stop, to take the “old” blackboard, and to explain why a sentence produced by a student is right or wrong, how it should be composed if the students wanted to use another subject or another tense, and how the deep structure of language works.

References

Budner, S., 1962, “Intolerance of ambiguity as a personality variable”, Journal of Personality 39: 29-50.

Colapaoli, F., Il modo migliore per opporsi alla Moratti, Intervento del 2-2-2004, on http://www.proteofaresapere.it/contributi.asp?Id=228.

Crystal, D., 1997, English as a Global Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, K., 2001, An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching, London, Longman.

Morani, M., Latino: lingua madre, Incontro del 24 ottobre 2002, on http://www.rivistazetesis.it/latinomediainterventi.htm

Reich, R., 1991, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism, New York, Knopf.

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