GRAMMAR, USE OF LANGUAGE AND TEACHING

Abstract

This paper tries to establish a correlation among conceptions of grammar, language use and their implication on native language teaching. The classical Halliday et alii’s (1974) approaches to language teaching are taken as first theoretical basis. Following the authors, the productive approach is emphasized and the overestimation of the prescriptive one is criticized. The actual usage of contemporary language, in specific communicative contexts (discourse genres) is detached, as it can approach language teaching to the students reality. Quantitative results of two variationist recent analysis on subject expression are brought as evidence of the distance between prescriptive approach and language real use. Although recognizing school as the place where students are supposed to acquire the patterns of formal language, we suggest that other varieties are not dismissed. On the contrary, they should be discussed in relation to their appropriate context of use. This could be a better way to succeed in improving native speaker’s range of varieties and its adequacy to different contexts.