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Never before in history has a single language been as widely used as English. The number of English users in Asia alone is more or less equal to the number of Native English speakers worldwide: 350 million, more or less the combined populations of the United States, Britain and Canada.

The advent of the Internet has boosted English even further, about eighty percent of the world’s electronically stored information is in English, and this widespread use of the language has caused an increase in the demand for English courses. An estimate by the British Council reports that today more than 1 billion people are learning English for work, study or leisure. China is strongly pushing English language in its schools, there are more Chinese children studying English as second language than there are Britons.

Those among the native English speakers who believe their language will soon be the standard for worldwide communication should think again:

Firstly, it can hardly be considered their language anymore, since the vast majority of English users are not native speakers. English is a living language and like all languages it evolves, it changes and adapts itself according to its environment and - especially - the cultural and historical background of its speakers, often mingling with idioms and linguistic structires of the local language. There is no longer one English, but rather various adapted forms of the language, often with dramatic changes in spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

Secondly, the Internet fastlane is producing an even more interesting phenomenon, when one would imagine such a widespread resource as the Web to become a solid reference for spelling and grammar, we are met with quite the opposite, English over the Net is evolving, or rather de-evolving towards a more simplified form.

More and more frequently we encounter what might look like harmless spelling mistakes; blogs, newsletters, chats and forums are full of them. At a closer look we might notice that some of these altered forms are consistent across the Web, in some cases we might encounter simplifications, such as there used indifferently as ‘there’ or ‘their’, or phonetic shifts, caused by the natural tendency to spell similar sounds the same way: thus unstressed _ent and _ant both sound the same and tend to be spelled _ant e.g. consistant.

Other changes might involve the tendency to either spell ’s no matter what grammar is involved, two chair’s or the opposite, its for ‘it is’ pronoun + verb or ‘its own’ possessive pronoun.

The result of this might be surprising and, for the purists, rather unsettling. If there ever will be a common world language, it won’t look or sound much like English anymore. Current trends might produce a language with simplified grammar, she look chair, phonetic spelling ther is a tendansy to bad wether and foreign words Hungry kya ‘Are you hungry?’ a mixture of English and Hindi found in a recent ad for Domino’s pizza in India.

Being a living language, the de-evolution of English seems unstoppable, in a certain sense this is a signal of its good health and of its massive usage in today’s world. Only dead languages never change.

Ian Lahey has the Italian equivalent of an MA in Language and Literature, he is currently living in Italy where he runs a small English language school and a second business for his other great love: computers and multimedia. He can be reached at ian@activeonline.it

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Based on my 15 years of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching experience, the statement “grammar teaching should be implicit, not explicit” could be argued both for and against. Whether to teach grammar as an extracted focus of ELT (English Language Teaching) or more passively as an inductive, integral topic has been the theme of countless debates on the part of institutions, professors, grammarians and language researchers for decades. Grammar is the branch of linguistics dealing with the form and structure of words or morphology, and their interrelation in sentences, called syntax. The study of grammar reveals how language works, an important aspect in both English acquisition and learning.

In the early 20th century grammarians like the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas and the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen began to describe languages and Boas’ work formed the basis of various types of American descriptive grammar study. Jespersen’s work was the fore-runner of such current approaches to linguistic theory such as Noam Chomsky’s Transformational Generative Grammar.

Chomsky, who studied structural linguistics, sought to analyze the syntax of English in a structural grammar. This led him to view grammar as a theory of language structure rather than a description of actual sentences. His idea of grammar is that it is a device for producing the structure, not of a particular language, but of the ability to produce and understand sentences in any and all languages. Since grammar is the means by which we can understand how a language “works”, a definitive study of language grammar is essential to language study.

Strictly explicit grammar study however, and even grammar-focused lessons are often not communicatively based. They can therefore be boring, cumbersome and difficult for students to assimilate. The strict teaching of grammar / structure, except with students of the Logical - Mathematical or Verbal - Linguistic multiple intelligences, can be frustrating and highly ineffective.

Grammar teaching should be implicit

In the early 20th century, Jespersen, like Boas, thought grammar should be studied by examining living speech rather than by analyzing written documents. By providing grammar in context, in an implicit manner, we can expose students to substantial doses of grammar study without alienating them to the learning of English or other foreign language. I also agree with this implicit approach of teaching grammar. The principal manner in which I accomplish this is by teaching short grammar-based sessions immediately followed by additional function-based lessons in which the new grammar / structure is applied in context.

The hypothesis is that adult language students have two distinct ways of developing skills and knowledge in a second language, acquisition and learning. Acquiring a language is “picking it up”, i.e., developing ability in a language by using it in natural, communicative situations. Learning language differs in that it is “knowing the rules” and having a conscious knowledge of grammar / structure. Adults acquire language, although usually not as easily or as well as children. Acquisition, however, is the most important means for gaining linguistic skills. A person’s first language (L1) is primarily learned in this way. This manner of developing language skills typically employs implicit grammar teaching and learning.

Grammar teaching should be explicit

This does not exclude explicit grammar-teaching entirely, however. Some basic features of English language grammar structure are illogical or dissimilar to speakers of other languages and do not readily lend themselves to being well understood, even in context. In cases where features of English grammar are diametrically opposed or in some other way radically different from the manner of expression in the student’s L1, explicit teaching may be required.

Aspects of English language grammar that may offer exceptional challenge to EFL students include use of word order, determiners (this, that, these, those, a, an, the), prepositions (in, on, at, by, for, from, of), auxiliaries (do, be, have), conjunctions (but, so, however, therefore, though, although), interrogatives, intensifiers (some, any, few, more, too) and distinctions between modal verbs (can, could, would, should, may, might, must). Phrasal verbs also present considerable difficulty to Spanish speakers learning communicative English.

Some students also are logical or linguistically-biased thinkers who respond well to structured presentation of new material. Logical-Mathematical and Verbal-Linguistic intelligence learners are prime examples of those that would respond well to explicit grammar teaching in many cases.

Based on my English language teaching and on my second and third foreign language learning (L2, L3) experience, an exclusive approach using either implicit or explicit methodologies is not as effective as utilizing one or the other of these approaches as required. Although it is essential to teach elements of language and develop communicative abilities in our students, there is no one best way to introduce and provide practice in them. Young learners have more natural facility in acquisition, while adults may benefit substantially from more “formal” language learning. Learning styles and intelligence strengths are also a significant factor.

There are many generally accepted ways of introducing the sounds, structure and vocabulary of English, including colloquial forms of conversation and the four basic communication skills. Grammar provides for “communicative economy”. Grammar teaching should be implicit, or explicit, as teaching / learning conditions may dictate helping to minimize the student response teachers fear most, “Teacher, I don’t understand.”

Note: Academic references for this article are available on request.

Related language learning and teaching articles in this series available online include:

“Learning a Language: 6 Effective Ways to Use the Internet”
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=76453

“Six Quick Tricks for Learning a Language”
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=72718

“What’s the Strangest Thing you’ve Ever Eaten?”
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81349

“What Makes a Person Intelligent?”
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81350

Teach English in Colombia: Grappling with Grammar, Gold, Guns, and Guayaba
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=85995

Try This for Perfecting Past Tense Pronunciation Practice
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=86780

7 Steps to Better Business English: Choosing a Business English Training Program
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=81697

English Only in the EFL Classroom: Worth the Hassle?
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=89180

Prof. Larry M. Lynch has taught EFL, published ELT articles as an expert author, presented at numerous TESOL conferences and trained teachers in the USA, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama and Spain. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape from America, Mexico News and Brazil magazines. At present he teaches at the Universidad Santiago de Cali in Cali, Colombia. To get original, exclusive articles and content for your newsletter, blog or website or information on TEFL presentations, specialized teacher training programs or conference speaking engagements contact him at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com

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English language is loaded with non-standard phrases, which rooted so deeply in its vocabulary that at times cannot be distinguished from the accepted Standard English terms. On the one hand, they jazz up the language of native speakers, making it very lively, natural, and authentic.

However, on the other hand, non-standard phrases make a pile of understanding hassles to English learners, who helplessly try to gain an understanding of all intricate words and phrases, invented by the language speakers impromptu.

This really stands for some reason, because the most difficult aspect of learning another language is not a great bulk of its vocabulary, but an extensive number of non-standard phrases. Non-standard phrases, used here to denote idiomatic expressions, which make up a considerable part of the lexicon of language users.

The best advice to the English learners is not to make many efforts, trying to remember tons of idioms at one sitting, but to learn the most common ones gradually and naturally through the learning material or lively communication with native speakers. Remember that it is much better to be accurate in the non-idiomatic English than inappropriate when using idioms.

It is a well-known fact that English is heavily idiomatic. The phenomenon of vast idiomatic basis of the English language is rather explanatory. First, English is a multicultural language, that’s why it comes under the influence of different languages and borrows new phraseological units extensively. Second, as new concepts are developed, new terms are needed for their indication, so instead of creating new words, we simply put together already existent words, which acquire new sense in combination.

Idiomatic expressions come across all over the place. Even a cursory scanning of the newspaper headlines and perfunctory watching of television shows or news broadcast clearly reveal the extent to which idiomatic language is a part of day-to-day life and communication. Being stripped of the non-standard phrases everyday language will lose its flavor and become pedestrian and dull.

What is especially interesting about idioms is that they can be defined in different ways, depending on the functions they fulfill. Idiom can be a figure of speech, which means that the words in idiomatic expressions are used figuratively, rather than with their literal meaning.

When we say that someone is in the soup, instinctively we feel that there is no real soup involved. We know that here the meaning of the word soup is figurative, and we guess from the context that someone who says it implies that a person is in trouble and has some serious problems.

Native speakers got so used to figurative language they speak that they don’t realize of how large a proportion of what they say and write is metaphorical. A great number of idioms which is used in everyday language are colloquial metaphor. Wikipedia offers very clear and to the point example to illustrate this statement: get lost! - which means go away or stop bothering me.

Idiomatic expressions are extremely common and are found in all kinds of English, both formal and particularly informal. After all, frequent occurrence of the idiomatic expressions in speech does not make them understandable for everybody. As the origin and history, standing behind them, remains enigmatic and obscure both for native speakers of the language and English learners.

The origin or also called etymology of idioms, which can be literally interpreted as tracing back to the roots of emergence of words and phrases in the language, is a vast field of unceasing debates of scholars and a fruitful ground for equivocal opinions and views of linguists.

Indeed, language users do not pay attention to the stylistic peculiarities of the phrases they use, and do not reflect much on the origin of the words they utilize on a daily basis. Indeed, usage of idiomatic expressions is par for the course for us, and we do not notice the beauty of the language we speak. English idiomatic language is a real diamond in the rough, which has enormous topical variety of forms and fascinating and surprising origins.

So be natural in your communication, keep your language simple and be sure to polish this rough diamond perfectly well.

Linda Correli is a staff writer of http://www.CustomResearchPapers.us/ and an author of the popular online tutorial for students “What Teachers Want: Master the Art of Essay Writing in 10 Days”, available at http://www.Go2Essay.com/ Visit Linda’s web log at http://custom-research-papers.blogspot.com/

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