An approach to Teaching Grammar through Discourse

Abstract

The general thrust of the present article is to investigate the effects of raising students' discoursal awareness in their learning of grammar. It is argued that teaching grammar through discourse analysis is expected to promote learners’ cognitive and contextual involvement in the learning process. The two areas of discourse analysis, cohesion and coherence, are attended to as two main requirements in building up learners’ discourse competence. The key point in this methodology is to have students engage interactively in communicative activities and scenarios likely to raise their grammatical awareness without there being a focus on grammatical items as an end in themselves. Rather, students will be taught how these items are employed to develop discourse competence.