Prinsip Prinsip Proses Belajar Mengajar

                                                            BAB I

PENDAHULUAN

A.    Latar Belakang Masalah

            Pembelajaran adalah suatu aktivitas atau suatu proses belajar mengajar dan belajar. Aktivitas ini merupakan proses komunikasi dua arah, antara pihak guru dan peserta didik. UU No 20 tahun 2003 tentang sistem pendidikan nasional menyatakan : “Pembelajaran adalah proses interaksi peserta didik dengan pendidik dan sumber belajar pada suatu lingkungan belajar”

            Memperhatikan makna pembelajaran tersebut dapatlah dipahami bahwa pembelajaran adalah membelajarkan peserta didik dengan menggunakan asas pendidikan maupun teori belajar yang merupakan penentu utama keberhasilan pendidikan. Pembelajaran dapat disebut berhasil bila dapat mengubah peserta didik dalam arti luas serta dapat menumbuhkembangkan kesadaran peserta didik selama ia terlibat dalam proses pembelajaran itu dapat dirasakan manfaatnya secara langsung. Hal itu dapat dicapai manakala kesiapan guru untuk dapat dimengerti , memahami, dan menghayati berbagai hal yang berhubungan dengan proses pembelajaran, termasuk di dalamnya prinsip-prinsip pembelajaran.

            Makalah ini akan membahas tentang prinsip-prinsip proses belajar mengajar yang sangat diperlukan oleh para guru dan peserta didik dalam rangka kelangsungan pembelajaran yang efektif dan efesien.

B.     Rumusan Masalah

1.      Menjelaskan konsep dasar belajar mengajar

2.       Menjelaskan dasar-dasar strategi belajar mengajar

3.      Menjelaskan dasar-dasar perumusan tujuan dan evaluasi belajar mengajar

C.    Tujuan Masalah

1.      Untuk mengetahui konsep yang baik dalam belajar mengajar

2.      Untuk mengetahui pemilihan strategi yang tepat sesuai dengan situasi dan kondisi yang dihadapi dalam belajar mengajar

3.      Untuk mengetahui tujuan evaluasi dalam belajar mengajar

                                                      BAB II

                                                    PEMBAHASAN

“PRINSIP-PRINSIP PROSES BELAJAR MENGAJAR”

A.    Konsep Dasar Belajar Mengajar

Konsep dasar belajar mengajar merupakan suatu prinsip dasar yang sangat fundamental yang harus dipahami setiap guru dalam rangka melaksanakan proses belajar mengajar di ruang lingkup dunia pendidikan. Dengan didasari memahami mengenai konsep dasar belajar mengajar diharapkan tercapainya suatu tujuan dari proses belajar mengajar yang berkualitas dan pada akhirnya dapat diaplikasikan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, setidaknya oleh para guru sebagai pendidik dalam rangka pemahaman dan menciptakan peserta didik yang berkualitas sesuai dengan karakteristik minat dan bakat serta kemampuan yang dimiliki siswa.

            Guru merupakan figur yang sentral dalam rangka melaksanakan fungsi dan tugas institusional dalam proses belajar mengajar, karena ditangan para guru terletak kemungkinan berhasil atau tidaknya pencapaian tujuan pendidikan disekolah yang berkaitan dengan masa depan karier para peserta didik yang menjadi tumpuan harapan para orangtua. Oleh karena itu setidaknya seorang guru memiliki tugas-tugas pokok antara lain : mampu dan cakap merencanakan, melaksanakan, mengevaluasi, dan membimbing kegiatan belajar mengajar. Dengan kata lain para guru mampu menunaikan tugas dengan sebaik-baiknya dengan memahami dengan seksama hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan proses belajar mengajar, sebagai berikut :[1]

a)      Aspek siswa, seorang guru harus memahami segala karakteristik perbedaan yang ada pada diri peserta didik, guna mencapai tujuannya sesuai dengan tahapan perkembangan para peserta didik

b)      Aspek tujuan, yaitu apa yang akhirnya diharapkan tercapainya setelah adanya kegiatan belajar mengajar, yang diaplikasikan kedalam kegiatan yang terencana dan dapat dievaluasi (terukur)

c)      Aspek guru, sebagai figur pendidik seyogyanya dalam proses belajar mengajar selalu mengusahakan terciptanya situasi yang mengarah pada proses pengalaman belajar (learning experience) pada diri siswa, dengan mengarahkan segala sumber (learning resources) dan menggunakan strategi belajar mengajar (teaching-learning strategy) yang tepat (appropriate)

Dari sini timbul suatu pemahaman bahwa terjadinya perilaku belajar pada siswa dan perilaku mengajar pada guru tidak berlangsung dari satu arah (one way system) melainkan terjadinya secara timbal balik (interaktif, two way traffic system) yang seyogyanya dipahami dan disepakati bersama.

Setidaknya minimal ada 3 komponen yang harus dipahami oleh guru dalam rangka pencapaian dari perubahan-perubahan dari hasil proses belajar mengajar, yaitu :

a)      Hakikat atau konsep dasar serta terjadinya perilaku belajar pada diri siswa.

b)      Kriteria dan cara merumuskan tujuan belajar mengajar (instruksional) dalam bentuk yang operasional yang dapat dipandang sebagai manifestasi hasil perilaku belajar siswa yang secara langsung dapat diamati (observasi) dan dapat dievaluasi atau diukur (measurable)

c)      Karakteristik utama, termasuk segi-segi kebaikan dan kelemahannya, dari beberapa model strategi belajar mengajar yang umum, serta kriteria yang dapat dipergunakan untuk memilihnya bagi keperluan penggunaannya.

A.    Dasar-Dasar Strategi Belajar Mengajar

Secara harfiah, kata strategi dapat diartikan sebagai seni yakni aiasat atau rencana. Dalam perspektif psikologi kata strategi yang berasal dari bahasa yunani berarti rencana tindakan yang terdiri atas seperangkat langkah untuk mencapai tujuan. Jadi strategi mengajar sejumlah langkah yang direkayasa sedemikian rupa untuk mencapai tujuan pegajaran tertentu. Strategi mengajar tidak terlepas dari metode mengajar, karena merupakan kiat praktis yang dipakai guru untuk mrngajarkan materi pelajaran tertentu dengan metode mengajar tertentu pula, seperti metode ceramah.[2]

            Diantara strategi mengajar itu terdapat sebuah strategi belajar mengajar yang berdasarkan strategi yang kognitif, yang relatif masih aktual. Strategi ini bernama Strategy Program For Effektive Learning/ Teaching (SPELT). Tujuan strategi SPELT ini adalah :

1.      Penuntut ilmu yang aktif sebagai pemikir dan pemecah masalah

2.      Penuntut ilmu yang mandiri, memiliki rencana dan strategi sendiri yang efisien dan mendekati belajar.

3.      Penuntut ilmu yang lebih sadar akan kemampuan mengendalikan proses berpikirnya sendiri.

Dalam melaksanakan strategi SPELT ada 3 macam strategi belajar mengajar :

1.      Direct strategy instruction (pengajaran dengan strategi langsung)

2.      Teaching for transfer (mengajar untuk mentransfer strategi)

3.      Generating elaborative strategies (pembangkitan strategi belajar siswa yang luas dan terperinci) 

Yang dimaksud strategi secara umum dapat didefinisikan sebagai suatu garis besar haluan bertindak untuk mencapai sasaran yang telah ditetapkan. Menurut Newman dan Logan, dalam bukunya yang berjudul Strategi policy and Central Management (1971:8); strategi dasar dari setiap usaha akan mencakup keempat hal sebagai berikut :

1.      Mengidentifikasi dan menetapkan spesifikasi dan kualifikasi hasil (output) seperti apa yang harus dicapai dan menjadi sasaran (target) usaha itu, dengan mempertimbangkan aspirasi dan selera masyarakat yang memerlukannya.

2.      Mempertimbangkan dan memilih jalan pendekatan utama (basic ways) manakah yang dipandang paling ampuh (effective) guna mencapai sasaran tersebut.

3.      Mempertimbangkan dan menetapkan langka-langkah (steps) mana yang akan ditempuh sejak titik awal sampai kepada titik akhir dimana tercapainya sasaran tersebut.

4.      Mempertimbangkan dan menetapkan tolak ukur (criteria) dan patokan ukuran (standard) yang bagaimana dipergunakan dalam pengukuran dan menilai taraf keberhasilan (achievement) usaha tersebut.

Kalau kita terapkan dalam konteks pendidikan, keempat unsur strategi dasar tersebut akan sejalan sekali dengan keempat tahapan langkah utama dari pola dasar PPSI, yang dapat digambarkan sebagai berikut :

1.      Menetapkan spesifikasi dan kualifikasi perubahan profil perilaku dan pribadi siswa.

2.      Memilih sistem pendekatan belajar-mengajar utama yang dipandang paling efektif guna mencapai sasaran tersebut.

3.      Memilih dan menetapkan prosedur, metode, dan tekhnik belajar-mengajar (teaching methods) yang bagaiamana dipandang paling efektif dan efisien serta produktif.

4.      Menetapkan norma-norma dan batasan minimum ukuran keberhasilan atau ukuran baku keberhasilan.

Guru dituntut untuk memahami, memikirkan strategi atau pendekatan yang akan digunakan. Pemilihan strategi pembelajaran yang tepat sesuai dengan situasi dan kondisi yang dihadapi berdampak pada tingkat penguasaan atau prestasi belajar peserta didik.

A.    Hakikat strategi pembelajaran

Proses pembelajaran merupakan proses multiarah antara siswa, guru, dan lingkungan belajar. Karena itu proses pembelajaran harus diatur sedemikian rupa hingga akan diperoleh dampak pembelajaran secara langsung kearah perubahan tingkah laku sesuai dengan tujuan pembelajaran.

Pendapat para ahli :

Kozma dan Gafur (1989) : Strategi pembelajaran dapat diartikan sebagai kegiatan yang dapat memberikan fasilitas atau bantuan kepada peserta didik menuju tercapainya tujuan pembelajaran tertentu.

Gerlach dan Ely (1980) : strategi pembelajaran merupakan cara yang dipilih untuk menyampaikan materi pembelajaran tertentu. Meliputi, sifat lingkup dan urutan kegiatan pembelajaran yang dapat memberikan pengalaman belajar kepada peserta didik.

     Strategi pembelajaran merupakan cara-cara yang akan dipilih dan digunakan oleh seorang pengajar untuk menyampaikan materi pelajaran, sehingga akan memudahkan peserta didik mencapai tujuan pembelajaran yang diharapkan dapat dikuasainya diakhir kegiatan belajar. Strategi pembelajaran terdiri atas metode, tekhnik, dan prosedur yang mampu menjamin peserta didik benar-benar dapat dapat mencapai tujuan diakhir kegiatan pembelajaran.

-          Tekhnik pembelajaran yaitu alat atau media yang digunakan oleh guru untuk mengarahkan kegiatan peserta didik sesuai tujuan yang ingin dicapai.

-          Metode pembelajaran yaitu cara yang digunakan guru didalam menjalankan fungsinya merupakan alat untuk mencapai tujuan pembelajaran. Metode pembelajaran harus lebih bersifat prosedural, dan tekhnik yang digunakan selama proses pembelajaran berlangsung.

Komponen dan Kriteria Pemilihan Strategi Pembelajaran

 Menurut Walter Dick, Komponen strategi pembelajaran meliputi :

-          Kegiatan pembelajaran pendahuluan, guru diharapkan dapat menarik minat peserta didik atas materi pelajaran yang akan disampaikan.

-          Penyampaian informasi, guru perlu memperhatikan urutan ruang lingkup dan jenis materi yang akan disampaikan.

-          Partisipasi peserta didik, proses pembelajaran akan lebih berhasil apabila peserta didik secara aktif melakukan latihan-latihan secara langsung dan relevan dengan tujuan pembelajaran yang sudah ditetapkan.

-          Tes, biasanya dilakukan diakhir kegiatan pembelajaran setelah peserta didik melalui berbagai proses pembelajaran.

-          Kegiatan lanjut (follow up), setiap kali setelah tes dilakukan selalu saja terdapat peserta didik yang berhasil bagus atau diatas rata-rata.

-          Kriteria pemilihan strategi pembelajaran harus berorientasi pada tujuan pembelajaran yang ingin dicapai, disesuaikan dengan jenis materi, karakteristik peserta didik serta situasi dan kondisi dimana proses belajar berlangsung.

Pendekatan Inovatif dalam Strategi Pembelajaran

           Dalam mengaktifkan keterlibatan peserta didik dalam proses pembelajaran secara mandiri yaitu melalui kegiatan pembelajaran yang berorientasi pada penemuan dan pencarian.[3]

Menurut Jeremmy Brunner :

Pertama, spesifikasi dan kualifikasi perubahan tingkah laku yang bagaimana diinginkan sebagai hasil belajar mengajar yang dilakukan itu. Disini terlihat apa yang dijadikan sebagai sasaran dari kegiatan belajar mengajar, sasaran yang dituju harus jelas dan terarah. Oleh karena itu, tujuan pengajaran yang dirumuskan harus jelas dan konkret, sehingga mudah dipahami oleh anak didik. Bila tidak, maka kegiatan belajar mengajar tidak punya arah dan tujuan yang pasti.

Kedua, memilih cara pendekatan belajar mengajar yang dianggap paling tepat dan efektif untuk mencapai sasaran. Bagaimana cara guru memandang suatu persoalan, konsep, pengertian dan teori apa yang guru gunakan dalam memecahkan suatu kasus, akan mempengaruhi hasilnya. Satu masalah yang dipelajari oelh 2 orang dengan pendekatan yang berbeda, akan menghasilkan kesimpulan-kesimpulan yang tidak sama.

Ketiga, memilih dan menetapkan prosedur, metode, dan teknik belajar mengajar yang dianggap paling tepat dan efektif. Metode atau teknik penyajian untuk memotivikasi anak didik agar mampu manerapkan pengetahuan dan pengalamannya untuk memecahkan masalah, berbeda dengan cara atau metode supaya anak didik terdorong dan mampu berpikir bebas dan cukup keberanian untuk mengemukakan pendapatnya sendiri. Perlu dipahami bahwa suatu metode mungkin hanya cocok dipakai untuk mencapai suatu tujuan tertentu. Jadi, dengan sasaran yang bebeda, guru hendaknya jangan menggunakan teknik penyajian yang sama.

Keempat, menerapkan norma-norma atau kriteria keberhasilan sehingga guru mempunyai pegangan yang dapat dijadikan ukuran untuk menilai sampai sejauh mana keberhasilan tugas-tugas yang telah dilakukannya. Suatu program baru diketahui keberhasilannya, setelah dilakukan evaluasi. Sistem penilaian dalam kegiatan belajar mengajar merupakan salah satu strategi yang tidak bisa dipisahkan dengan strategi yang lain.

B.     Dasar-Dasar Perumusan Tujuan Evaluasi Belajar Mengajar

            Evaluasi artinya penilaian terhadap tingkat keberhasilan program pembelajaran siswa, yang bertujuan untuk mengetahui tingkat kemajuan yang telah dicapai siswa dan berfungsi untuk menentukan siswa dalam kelompoknya atau mengetahui perkembangan siswa.

            Tujuan evaluasi antara lain :[4]

1.      Untuk mengetahui tingkat kemajuan yang telah dicapai oleh siswa dalam suatu kurun waktu proses belajar tertentu. Hal ini berati dengan evaluasi guru dapat mengetahui kemajuan perubahan tingkah laku siswa sebagai hasil proses belajar dan mengajar yang melibatkan dirinya selaku pemimbing dan pembantu kegiatan belajar siswanya itu.

2.      Untuk mengetahui posisi atau kedudukan seorang siswa dalam kelompok kelasnya. Dengan demikian, hasil evaluasi itu dapat dijadikan guru sebagai alat penetap apakah siswa tersebut termasuk kategori cepat, sedang, atau lambat dalam arti mutu kemampuan belajarnya.

3.      Untuk mengetahui segala upaya siswa dalam mendayagunakan kapasitas kognitifnya (kemampuan, kecerdasan yang dimilkinya) untuk keperluan belajar. Jadi, hasil evaluasi itu dapat dijadikan guru sebagai gambaran realisasi pemanfaatan kecerdasan siswa.

4.      Untuk mengetahui tingkat daya guna dan basil guna metode mengajar yang telah digunakan guru dalam proses belajar mengajar (PBM). Dengan demikian, apabila sebuah metode yang digunakan guru tidak mendorong munculnya prestasi belajar siswa yang memuaskan, guru amat dianjurkan mengganti metode tersebut atau mengkombinasikannya dengan metode lain yang serasi.

5.      Untuk mengetahui tingkat usaha yang dilakukan siswa dalam belajar. Hal ini berarti dengan evaluasi, guru akan dapat mengetahui gambaran tingkat usaha siswa. Hasil yang baik pada umumnya menunjukan tingkat usaha yang efisien, sedangkan hasil yang buruk adalah cermin usaha yang tidak efisien. 

                                                    BAB III

                                                             PENUTUP

A.    Kesimpulan

            Pembelajaran adalah suatu sistem yang bertujuan untuk membantu proses belajar peserta didik, yang berisi serangkaian peristiwa yang dirancang, disusun sedemikian rupa untuk mempengaruhi dan mendukung terjadinya proses belajar peserta didik yang bersifat internal.

            Prinsip belajar adalah landasan berpikir, landasan berpijak, dan sumber motivasi agar proses belajar mengajar dapat berjalan dengan baik antara pendidik dengan peserta didik. Prinsip ini dijadikan sebagai dasar dalam upaya pembelajaran, baik bagi peserta didik maupun bagi guru dalam upaya mencapai hasil yang diinginkan.

B.     Saran

            Dalam melaksanakan proses belajar dan mengajar di kelas, sebaiknya sebagai calon pendidik kita harus bisa menjelaskan prinsip belajar, menerapkannya dalam upaya meningkatkan kualitas kita sebagai calon pendidik dan juga menciptakan suasana yang akan menjadikan peserta didik lebih nyaman dalam menerima bahan ajar yang akan kita berikan nantinya.

                                                DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Sardiman, Evaluasi Belajar Mengajar.(Jakarta : Raja Grafindo Persada, 2012), 184

Uzer Usman, Interaksi dan Strategi Pembelajaran, (Bandung : Remaja Rosdakarya,1999), 29

Nana Sudjana, Dasar-dasar Proses Belajar Mengajar, (Bandung : Sinar Baru Algensindo,2013), 168

http://techonly13.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/konsep-dasar-teori-belajar

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[1] http://techonly13.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/konsep-dasar-teori-belajar

[2] Nana Sudjana, Dasar-dasar Proses Belajar Mengajar, (Bandung : Sinar Baru Algensindo,2013), 168

[3] Uzer Usman, Interaksi dan Strategi Pembelajaran, (Bandung : Remaja Rosdakarya,1999), 29

[4] Sardiman, Evaluasi Belajar Mengajar.(Jakarta : Raja Grafindo Persada, 2012), 184

What is Language (Introduction to Linguistic)

“What is Language”

When we study human language, we are approaching

what some might call the "human essence," the

distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know,

unique to man.

Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind

Whatever else people do when they come together - whether they play, fight, make love, or make automobiles - they talk. We live in a world of language. We talk to our friends, our associates, our wives and husbands, our lovers, our teachers, our parents, our rivals, and even our enemies. We talk to bus drivers and total strangers. We talk face-to-face and over the telephone, and everyone responds with more talk. Television and radio further swell this torrent of words. Hardly a moment of our waking lives is free from words, and even in our dreams we talk and are talked to. We also talk when there is no one to answer. Some of us talk aloud in our sleep. We talk to our pets and sometimes to ourselves.

The possession of language, perhaps more than any other attribute, distinguishes humans from other animals. To understand our humanity, one must understand the nature of language that makes. us human. According to the philosophy expressed in the myths and religions of many peoples, language is the source of human life and power. To some people of Africa, a newborn child is a kintu, a "thing," not yet a muntu, a "person." Only by the act of learning language does the child become a human being. According to this tradition, then, we all become "human" because we all know at least one language. But what does it mean to "know" a language

Linguistic Knowledge

When you know a language, you can speak and be understood by others who know the language. This means you have the capacity to produce sounds that signify certain meanings and to understand or interpret the sounds produced by others. We are referrin: to normal-hearing individuals. Deaf persons produce and understand sign language just as hearing persons produce and understand spoken languages. The languages of the deaf communities throughout the world are, except for their modality of expression equivalent to spoken languages.

Knowledge of the Sound System

Knowing the sound system of alanguage includes more than knowing the inventory of sounds. It includes knowing which sounds may start a word, end a word, and follow each other. The name of ~ former president of Ghana was Nkrumah, pronounced with an initial sound like the sound ending the English word sink. While this is an English sound, no word in English begins with the nk sound. Speakers of English who have occasion to pronounce this name, often mispronounce it (by Ghanaian standards) by inserting a short vowel sound, like Nekrumah or Enkrumah. Children who learn English recognize that nk does not begin a word, just as Ghanaian children learn that words in their language may begin with the nk sound.

Knowing the sounds and sound patterns in our language constitutes only one part of our linguistic knowledge. Knowing a language is also to know that certain sound sequences

signify certain concepts or meanings. Speakers of English know what boy means, and

that it means something different from toy or girl or pterodactyl. When you know a language,

you know words in that language, that is, the sound units that are related to specific

meanings.

Arbitrary Relation of Form and Meaning

If you do not know a language, the words (and sentences) will be mainly incomprehensible, because the relationship between speech sounds and the meanings they

represent in the languages of the world is, for the most part, an arbitrary one. You have

to learn, when you are acquiring the language, that the sounds represented by the letters house signify the concept ;if you know French, this same meaning is represented by maison; if you know Twi, it is represented by :JdaIJ; if you know Russian, by dom; if you know Spanish, by casa. Similarly, is represented by hand in English, main in French, nsa in Twi, and ruka in Russian.

The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge

Knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form phrases, and phrases

to form sentences. You cannot buy a dictionary of any language with all its sentences,

because rio dictionary can list all the possible sentences. Knowing a language means

being able to produce new sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before. The linguist Noam Chomsky refers to this ability as part of the creative aspect of language use. Not every speaker of a language can create great literature, but you, and all persons who know a language, can and do create new sentences when you speak, and understand new sentences created by others.

Knowledge of  Sentences and Nonsentences

To memorize and store an infinite set of sentences would require an infinite storage capacity. However, the brain is finite, and even if it were not, we could not store novel sentences. When you learn a language you must learn something finite - your vocabulary is finite (however large it may be) - and that can be stored. If putting one word after another in any order always formed sentences, then language could simply be a set of words.

Linguistic Knowledge and Performance

Speakers' linguistic knowledge permits them to form longer and longer sentences by

joining sentences and phrases together or adding modifiers to a noun. Whether you stop

at three, five, or eighteen adjectives, it is impossible to limit the number you could add

if desired. Very long sentences are theoretically possible, but they are highly improbable.

Evidently, there is a difference between having the knowledge necessary to produce

sentences of a language, and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between what

you know, which is your linguistic competence, and how you use this knowledge in actual

speech production and comprehension, which is your linguistic performance.

What Is Grammar?

Descriptive Grammars

The grammar of a language consists of the sounds and sound patterns, the basic units

of meaning such as words, and the rules to combine all of these to form sentences with

the desired meaning. The grammar, then, is what we know. It represents our linguistic

competence. To understand the nature of language we must understand the nature of

grammar, and in particular, the internalized, unconscious set of rules that is part of every

grammar of every language.

Every human being who speaks a language knows its grammar. When linguists

wish to describe a language, they attempt to describe the grammar of the language that

exists in the minds of its speakers. There will be some differences among speakers'

knowledge, but there must be shared knowledge too. The shared knowledge --the common

parts of the grammar - makes it possible to communicate through language. To the

extent that the linguist's description is a true model of the speakers' linguistic capacity,

it is a successful description of the grammar and of the language itself. Such a model is

called a descriptive grammar. It does not tell you how you should speak; it describes

your basic linguistic knowledge. It explains how it is possible for you to speak and understand, and it tells what you know about the sounds, words, phrases, and sentences of

your language.

Prescriptive Crammars

The views expressed in the preceding section are not those of all grammarians now or

in the past. From ancient times until the present, "purists" have believed that language

change is corruption, and that there are certain "correct" forms that all educated people

should use in speaking and writing. The Greek Alexandrians in the first century, the

Arabic scholars at Basra in the eighth century, and numerous English grammarians of

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries held this view. They wished to prescribe rather

than describe the rules of grammar, which gave rise to the writing of prescriptive

grammars.

Teaching Grammars

The descriptive grammar of a language attempts to describe everything speakers know

about their language. It is different from a teaching grammar, which is used to learn

another language or dialect. Teaching grammars are used in school to fulfill language requirements.

They can be helpful to persons who do not speak the standard or prestige dialect,

but find it would be advantageous socially and economically to do so. Teaching

grammars state explicitly the rules of the language, list the words and their pronunciations,

and aid in learning a new language or dialect.

It is often difficult for adults to learn a second language without being instructed,

even when living for an extended period in a country where the language is spoken.

Teaching grammars assume that the student already knows one language and compares

the grammar of the target language with the grammar of the native language. The meaning

of a word is given by providing a gloss - the parallel word in the student's native

language, such as maison, "house" in French. It is assumed that the student knows the

meaning of the gloss "house," and so the meaning of the word maison.

Language Universals

The way we are using the word grammar differs from most common usages. In our sense, the grammar includes everything speakers know about their language – the sound system, called phonology; the system of meanings, called semantics; the rules  word formation, called morphology; and the rules of sentence formation, called syntax It also, of course, includes the vocabulary of words - the dictionary or lexicon. Man) people think of the grammar of a language as referring largely to morphological rule: like "add -s to third-person singular verbs," or syntactic rules such as "a sentence con sists of a subject and a predicate." This is often what students mean when they talk about their class in "English grammar."

Our aim is more in keeping with that stated in 1784 by the grammarian John Fell it Essay towards an English Grammar: "It is certainly the business of a grammarian (find out, and not to make, the laws of a language." This business is just what the linguis attempts - to find out the "laws" of a language, and the laws that pertain to all Ianguages. Those laws representing the universal properties of all languages constitute, universal grammar.

The Development of Grammar

Linguistic theory is concerned not only with describing the knowledge that an adult

speaker has of his or her language, but also with explaining how that knowledge is acquired.

All normal children acquire (at least one) language in a relatively short period

with apparent ease. They do this despite the fact that parents and other caregivers do not

provide them with any specific language instruction. Indeed, it is often remarked that

children seem to "pick up" language just from hearing it spoken around them. Children

are language learners par excellence - whether a child is male or female, from a rich

family or a disadvantaged one, whether she grows up on a farm or in the city, attends day

care or is home?11 day - none of these factors fundamentally affect the way language

develops. A child can acquire any language he is exposed to with comparable easeEnglish,

Dutch, French, Swahili, Japanese -and even though each of these languages

has its own peculiar characteristics, children learn them all in very much the same way.

For example, all children start out by using one word at a time.

They then combine words into simple sentences. When they first begin to combine words into sentences, certain parts of the sentence may be missing. For example, the English-speaking twoyear-

old might say Cathy build house instead of Cathy is building the house. On the

other side of the world, a Swahili-speaking child will say mbuzi kula majani, which

translates as "goat eat grass," and which also lacks many required elements. They pass

through other linguistic stages on their way to adultlike competence, but by about age

five children speak a language that is almost indistinguishable from the language of the

adults around them.

Sign Languages : Evidence for Language Universals

The sign languages of deaf communities provide some of the best evidence to suppor!

the notion that humans are born with the ability to acquire language, and that these languages are governed by the same universal properties.

Because deaf children are unable to hear speech, they do not acquire spoken languages

as hearing children do. However, deaf children who are exposed to sign language

learn it in stages parallel to those of hearing children learning oral languages. Sigr

ianguages are human languages that do not use sounds to express meanings. Instead

sign languages are visual-gestural systems that use hand, body, and facial gestures a~

the forms used to represent words. Sign languages are fully developed languages, ane

those who know sign language are capable of creating and comprehending unlimitee numbers of new sentences, just like speakers of spoken languages.

American Sign Language

The major language used by deaf people in the United States is American Sign Language

(ASL). ASL is a fully developed language that historically is an outgrowth of the

sign language used in France and broughtto the United States in 1817 by the great educator

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

Like all human languages, ASL has its own grammar. That grammar encompasses

knowledge of the system of gestures, equivalent to the phonology of spoken languages,8

as well as the morphological, syntactic, and semantic systems, and a mental lexicon

of signs.

In the United States there are several signing systems that educators have created in

an attempt to represent spoken and/or written English. These artificial languages consist

essentially in the replacement of each spoken English word (and grammatical elements

such as the s ending for plurals and the ed endin~ for past tense) by a sign. The syntax

and semantics of these manual codes for English are thus approximately the same as

those of ordinary English. The result is unnatural in that it is similar to trying to speak

French by translating every English word or ending into its French counterpart. Problems

result because there are not always corresponding forms in the two languages.

Animal "Languages”

Is language the exclusive property of the human species? The idea of talking animals is

as old and as widespread among human societies as language itself. All cultures have

legends in which some animal plays a speaking role. All over West Africa, children listen

to folktales in whictl a "spider-man" is the hero. "Coyote" is a favorite figure in

many Native American tales, and many an animal takes the stage in Aesop's famous fables.

The fictional Doctor Doolittle's forte was communicating with all manner of animals,

from giant snails to tiny sparrows.

If language is viewed only as a system of communication, then many species communicate.

Humans also use systems other than language to relate to each other and to

send and receive "messages," like so-called "body language." The question is whether

the communication systems used by other species are at all like human linguistic knowledge,

which is acquired by children with no external instruction, and which is used creatively

rather than in response to internal or external stimuli.

“Talking” Parrots

Most humans who acquire language use speech sounds to express meanings, but such

sounds are not a necessary aspect of language, as evidenced by the sign languages. The

use of speech sounds is therefore not abasic part of what we have been calling language.

The chirping of birds, the squeaking of dolphins, and the dancing of bees may potentially

represent systems similar to human languages. If animal communication systems

are not like human language, it will not be due to a lack of speech.

Conversely, when animals vocally imitate human utterances, it does not mean they

possess language. Language is a system that relates sounds or gestures to meanings.

Talking birds such as parrots and mynah birds are capable of faithfully reproducing

words and phrases of human language that they have heard, but their utterances carry no

meaning. They are speaking neither English nor their own language when they sound

like us.

Talking hirds do not dissect the sounds of their imitations into discrete units. Polly

and Molly do not rhyme for a parrot. They are as different as hello and good-bye. One

property of all human languages (which will be discussed further in chapter 6) is the discreteness

of the speech or gestural units, which are ordered and reordered, combined

and split apart. Generally, a parrot says what it is taught, or what it hears, and no more.

If Polly learns "Polly wants a cracker" and "Polly wants a doughnut" and also learns to

imitate the single words whiskey and bagel, she will not spontaneously produce, as chil-

.dren do, "Polly wants whiskey" or "Polly wants a bagel" or "Polly wants whiskey and

a bagel." If she learns cat and cats, and dog and dogs, and then learns the word parrot,

she will be unable to form the plural parrots as children do by the age of three; nor can

a parrot form an unlimited set of utterances from a finite set of units, nor understand utterances never heard before. Recent reports of an African gray parrot named Alex

studied by Dr. Irene M. Pepperberg suggest that new methods of training animals may

result in more learning than was previously believed possible. When the trainer uses

words in context, Alex seems to relate some soun~s with their meanings. This is more

than simple imitation, but it is not how children ac~uire the complexities of the grammar

of any language. It is more like a dog learning to a~sociate certain sounds with meanings,

such as heel, sit, fetch, and so on. Alex's ability may go somewhat beyond that. How::;';

er, the ability to produce sounds similar to those used in human language, even if

meanings are related to these sounds, cannot be equated with the ability to acquire the

complex grammar of a human language.

The Birds and the Bees

Most animals possess some kind of "signaling" communication system. Among certain

species of spiders there is a complex system for courtship. The male spider, before he

approaches his ladylove, goes through an elaborate series of gestures to inform her that

he is indeed a spider and a suitable mate, and not a crumb or a fly to be eaten. These gestures

are invariant. One never finds a creative spider changing or adding to the courtship

ritual of his species.

Asimilar kind of gestural language is found among the fiddler crabs. There are forty

species, and each uses its own claw-waving movement to signal to another member of

its "clan." The timing, movement, and posture of the body never change from one time

to another or from one crab to another within the particular variety. Whatever the signal

means, it is fixed. Only one meaning can be conveyed.

The imitative sounds of talking birds have little in common with human language,

but the calls and songs of many species of birds do have a communicative function, and

they resemble human languages in that there may be "dialects" within the same species.

Birdcalls (consisting of one or more short notes) convey messages associated with the

immediate environment, such as danger, feeding, nesting, flocking, and so on. Bird

songs (more complex patterns of notes) are used to stake out territory and to attract

mates. There is no evidence of any internal structure to these songs, nor can they be segmented

into independently meaningful parts as words of human language can be. In a

study of the territorial song of the European robin,1O it was discovered that the rival

robins paid attention only to the alternation between high-pitched and low-pitched notes,

and which came first did not matter. The message varies only to the extent of how

strongly the robin feels about his possession and to what extent he is prepared to defend

it and start a family in that territory. The diffClent alternations therefore express intensity

and nothing more. The robin is creative in his ability to sing the same thing in many

ways, but not creative in his ability to use the same units of the system to express many

different messages with different meanings.

What We Know About Language

Much is unknown about the nature of human languages, their grammars and use. The

science of linguistics is concerned with these questions. Investigations of linguists and

the analyses of spoken languages date back at least to 1600 B.C.E. in Mesopotamia. We

have learned a great deal since that time. Anumber of facts pertaining to all languages

can be stated.

1. Wherever humans exist, language exists.

2. There are no "primitive" languages - all languages are equally complex and

equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe. The vocabulary of any

language can be expanded to include new words for new concepts.

3. All languages change through time.

4. The relationships between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages and

between the gestures and meanings of sign languages are for the most part

arbitrary.

5. All human languages use a finite set of discrete sounds or gestures that are

combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves may be

combined to form an infinite set of possible sentences.

6. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words and

sentences.

7. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments, like p, n, or a, that

can all be defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. Every spoken

language has a class of vowels and a class of consonants.

8. Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in all

languages.

9. There are universal semantic properties like "male" or "female," "animate" or

"human," found in every language in the world.

10. Every language has a way of negating, forming questions, issuing commands,

referring to past or future time, and so on.

11. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite

set of sentences. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a

way of forming sentences such as:

Linguistics is an interesting subject.

I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.

You know that I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.

Cecelia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an interesting

subject.

Is it a fact that Cecelia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is

an interesting subject?

12. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social,

or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or

she is exposed. The differences we find among languages cannot be due to biological

reasons.

It seems that Alsted and Du Marsais (and we could add many other universalists

from all ages) were not spinning idle thoughts. We all possess human language.