Language and Literature paper by Varga, Valéria
Approaches to Grammar Teaching in Hungarian Language Instruction
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
Even though specialists in second language acquisition agree that adults cannot learn a foreign language without consciously paying attention to form as part of their learning process, this does not mean that the traditional “Presentation/Controlled Practice/Free practice” model should be the basic structure of teaching grammar in a foreign language class. Instead I would like to explore alternative approaches to teaching grammar. How can we incorporate new approaches on teaching grammar in a Hungarian language class, where an agglutinative language is being taught, a language really different from English? How can we avoid the big mistakes we make as language teachers when we present our students long and complicated explanations of grammar points thus turning them into passive recipients of information rather than active participants in the process of learning? How can we give our students the opportunity to play with the language being learned, and to create with it?
In my presentation I would like to show some components of planning a Hungarian grammar class based on communicative approaches and will discuss ways of structuring the teaching of grammar of the Hungarian language in a reflective way.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Valeria Varga has been a visiting lecturer, later a lecturer, and is currently senior lecturer of Hungarian language at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She graduated from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest with degrees in Hungarian, English and Russian language and literature. She received her Professional Teacher's Degree in 2005, with specialization in mentoring, teacher training, testing and test developing and is also a certified ILR tester. She first taught Hungarian at IU between 1995 and 1998 and then again since 2005.