Language Games in Grammar Teaching

Abstract

The term grammar is often used by non-linguists with a very broad meaning. Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to. However, linguists use it in a much more specific sense. Speakers of a language have in their heads a set of rules for using that language. This is a grammar, and the vast majority of the  information in it is acquired—at least in the case of one's native language—not by conscious study or instruction, but by observing other speakers; much of this work is done during   infancy. Learning a language later in life usually involves a greater degree of explicit instruction. This is due to the fact that people move from babbling during infancy to composing sentences. As a person builds grammatical competency they become focused on the meaning they are conveying through grammatical encoding. People begin to develop and use grammatical skills to plan these simple and complex sentence structures. To achieve this skill, we use games called language games as they are played to acquire a language flawlessly. This paper analyses how grammar can be taught through language games.