By Carmen Hurtado
There is a lot of interesting research in this area, specifically comparing the grammar skills of native speakers’ vs. the ones of non-native speakers of a given language. You have probably heard expressions like, ‘If you really want to learn a language you’d better be taught by a native speaker,’ or ‘There’s nothing like learning a language from a native speaker,’ or so. Well, the truth is that is not necessarily truth. You can learn either from a native or an assimilated speaker as long as they are well prepared or had become specialists; that is, someone who had studied the language properly as a career, for instance.
Alternatively, you might have noticed some unthinkable expressions such as: ‘I didn’t see nothing’, ‘There’s many people around here,’ ¿There were less than 20 people in the show last night’? ‘I’ve went to Brazil two times’, and the list goes on. Indeed, these expressions belong to native English speakers, or to those who have acquired the language and still lack grammar accuracy when using their mother tongue to convey messages orally or in the written form. So, where’s the mistake? What prevents natives from becoming proficient in managing their own language? Why is it hard for natives to be aware of those common mistakes? Let’s review briefly what Noam Chomsky states in his research which has contributed to linguistics, and especially to language acquisition, establishing four key concepts that support the objective of the article.
Noam Chomsky is acknowledged as the best known and influential linguist of the second half of the Twentieth Century, who has made a number of strong claims about language. In particular, he suggests that language is an innate faculty — that is to say that we are born with a set of rules about language in our minds, which he refers to as ‘Universal Grammar.‘
The ‘Universal Grammar’
The Universal Grammar is the basis upon which all human languages are formed. If a Martian linguist were to visit the Earth, he would deduce that there was only one language, with a number of local variants. He would be able to study the language and determine the rules based on the patterns he hears and the patterns of other languages.
Children do not simply copy the language they hear around them. They deduce rules from it, which they can then use to make sentences that they have never heard before. They do not learn a repertoire of phrases and sayings, as the behaviorists believe, but a grammar that generates an infinite number of new sentences. Have you ever been around a toddler as they are acquiring new language? They suddenly change from “I play.” to “I’m playing.” without any formal instruction. Children are born, then, with the Universal Grammar wired into their brains.
Language Acquisition
Language rules are complex. If there is not a Universal Grammar, how do children make sense of it all? When a child begins to listen to his parents, he will unconsciously recognize which kind of a language he is dealing with, and he will set his grammar to the correct one — this is known as ‘setting the parameters.’ It is as if the child were offered at birth a certain number of hypotheses, which he or she then matches with what is happening around him. The child knows intuitively that there are some words that feel like verbs and others that sound like nouns; and there is a limited set of possibilities to fit them within any sentence. This is not information that the child is spoon-fed directly by adults, but rather offered to the child to interpret. That set of language learning tools provided at birth is referred by Chomsky as the “Language Acquisition Device”.
Generally, this disparity challenges linguist Noam Chomsky’s theory of a Universal Grammar by suggesting that being a native speaker does not mean that you’re automatically a master of your own grammar.
Why aren’t some native English speakers good at grammar?
Over the years, we have noticed this as a common aspect among native English speakers. Very often, they disregard the simplest rules, or lack the essential/appropriate usage of their own language. The opposite is seen among people who learn the language as a foreign one, they usually strive to master these aspects better than native speakers do. One reason for doing it might be the need to study the language to master its use either for educational or professional purposes. Nonetheless, these learners will frequently have the same problem in their own language, particularly when using it in everyday conversations and for communicative purposes.
Language exists for the sole purpose of communication, and if you are not able to speak or use it well, then you won’t be successful in that language. Therefore, some questions arise whether a native or non-native speaker will guarantee a successful language learning experience.
What do YOU think?
If you are thinking of learning another language:
If you are thinking of learning another language:
Would you like to learn it with a native or non-native speaker?
What would be the advantages and disadvantages in one or the other scenario?
Leave your comments and keep following us… more to come to the fascinating world of languages in the next articles.
References:
Noam Chomsky and Language Acquisition Theory
4.1 child language acquisition theory – Chomsky, Crystal, Aitchison & Piaget
Noam Chomsky on Universal Grammar and the Genetics of Language with Captioning
What is language acquisition device?
Biodata
Carmen Hurtado, graduated in the educational field; she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Educational Science, and the title of Licenciada en Educación by Universidad Nacional de Educación. She has also finished her master’s studies in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Universidad de Piura, and taken some specializations in the EFL and Spanish fields. She has taught English and Spanish for over 20 years. She currently works teaching fully online courses. A lecturer in the late Annual Congresses at CIDUP, she works as a Pedagogical Specialist, Teacher Trainer and is a member of the Research Area at Universidad del Pacifico Language Center.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 17 seconds
Well done, Carmen!!! Your post is awesome and links to further research, which will be soon part of my project.
The answer to (i) if I were to choose a language to learn now, I would choose NONE. To me, there is a need to practice Spanish –my mother tongue. Focusing a third language, will be worthless.
Thinking of question (ii) NEST or NNEST (Spanish speakers) is eligible to teach better English… my answer is BOTH provided that they are long-life learners and ready to come up with answers to most questions we have in mind. It’s undeniable that teaching is a calling, it's like modelling clay. When I was a child my mum did dream big to make a living abroad. She would chant in English aiming to instill US culture and its language here. That was inspiring; it arouse my interest on learning English and become an educator. Quite resourceful and eager to teach, sort-of-skillful parents –modelling clay- shape and shape beautiful crafts. The point is that successful teaching involves much more than the transmission of skills and content.
Learning to teach languages is a huge responsibility. Our ultimate goal –either as NEST or NNEST- is to nurture independent, self-directed, self-motivated learners capable of directing their own work, open to alternate viewpoints, and have highly developed HOTS in interpretation, analysis, and communication.
After a lesson at a college, some adults asked me whether my mentors were NEST or NNEST. In fact –I replied- some made attempts holding checklists ticking our progress, but very few stumbled yawning on desks waiting to clock out. Teaching is a calling to aim students’ needs again.
Last year, while working at a Japanese school, I learnt that the noun system in that language has features that (1) turn in negative into English (2) ARTICLES DO NOT EXIST in Japanese. The fact that many Japanese nouns can also function as adjectives or adverbs leads to mistakes in the choice of the correct part of speech in English. Nouns can be pluralized in various ways (depending for example on the degree of respect to be conveyed) or not at all, if the context is clear. Hence, Japanese often find hard to become skillful teachers of English. Languages then differ from one another…
Dear Ceci,
Thanks again for such a nice description of your feelings about the topic of this week's article. I totally agree with you; especially when you say that teaching is a calling to aim students' needs. As educators, we know what it means and how commited we should be when doing our job. Good to know that the references can also motivate researching on the topic of your future projects.
Congratulations and keep following us.
Dear Carmen,
As teachers, we can`t ignore the role of grammar within classrooms or in general, Nunan (1999) reported that “In order to communicate beyond the most rudimentary level, it is necessary to develop knowledge of grammar” (p. 103).
Notwithstanding, your article also points out the big issue related to the role of teachers of English in the classroom context, and more importantly whether they are natives or non-natives.
Nowadays there seem to be a kind of preference for NESTs since they are believed to be more ´natural´ or ´prepared´ to teach their ´own language´; although knowing my mother tongue does not mean fully mastery of it. Unfortunately the advantage of being or hiring ´native teachers only´ have been spread thanks to successful marketing and political trends. Notwithstanding, there is plenty of evidence that when it comes to teaching not all natives speakers are necessarily fully efficient for that kind of job.
On the other hand, we have local teachers who may or may have gotten the same academic background as their foreign counterparts, however, this is not an excuse so as to stop looking for opportunities in order to improve their professional and academic performance. Furtheremore, NNESTs have the advantage of knowing their students´mother tongue so this could actually help them to guide and give meaningful feedback to learners since they also struggled quite a bit when learning the same target language.
What is more, the learning process, the way we learn something, sheds light how a second or foreign language is mastered, and that means, we need to accept the fact our students nowadays count with lots of tools such as music, internet, or movies, which can be part of their natural exposure to the target language. So not everything goes around formal instruction including grammar and lexical content.
All in all, I think both teachers NEST and NNEST need to have the same level of demand and opportunities, it will depend on each of them to show what kind of professionals they are once they start interacting and giving feedback to their learners.
References
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. 4th ed., NY. Longman.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Boston: Heinle, Centage learning.
Widdowson, H. (2000). Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: OUP.
Dear Walter, Thank you so much for sharing your views. That's the idea. We pretent to give the chance all our colleagues and say what they think about the differente topics we talk in our articles. Topics that some times are controversial, but as you said it all depends on each of the professionals when being hired as well as on the institutions and their real purpose of doing it.
Stay tuned Walter…. more to read soon!
Good teaching and good learning take place simultaneously. Motivation, attitude and the desire to learn lead to the adquisition of a second language regardless the frequency of classes.
Comments are closed.