Blue Azar

Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Azar is one of the most popular grammar books around. It is affectionately called Blue Azar by ESL teachers. I do not know what the learners call it. There is even a grammar exchange online where people can ask grammar questions, something I seldom do when I learn a language. I just read and listen more to get used to the language. If I do ask about grammar I ask how is this said not why.

I have a copy of Blue Azar. The part of the book that categorizes different aspects of English Grammar is a useful reference. Learners with a lot of exposure to the language could go to this source to confirm what they have already experienced. On the other hand the exercizes that make up the bulk of the book are, to me, only useful for occupying students in a classroom and are not an efficient way to learn the language. Whatever time is spent on the exercizes would better be spent on more reading, listening and vocabulary acquisition, in my view.

I found an interview with Azar and quote an extract here with my comments:

Azar talks of how she got started writing about grammar:

"That very afternoon at I walked into my first class. I returned compositions that the other instructor had corrected before the sections were divided and walked around the class answering questions. One student, a tall, thin, balding man from Colombia ,had a question. He had written “ I was thirsty, so I drank some waters” and it had been marked incorrect. He wanted to know why “waters” was incorrect. I gulped. I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. But I said to myself, Wow, what an interesting question and told him I would find the answer and tell him tomorrow. That was my introduction to ESL . And the next day, after some somewhat frantic scrambling, I came back to class with a handout of explanations and exercises on count vs. mass nouns (which prior to that I had never even heard of ."

To me the learner who asks "why" is heading down a slippery slope. Why do we not say “I drank some waters” in English? Because we don't. (Nor do they in Spanish, by the way.) The learner is far better off to learn the phrase “drank some water” and then go on to reading and listening to more content that contains this or similar phrases so that it becomes a part him, than to try to remember whatever complicated explanation a grammar writer can come up with about countable and non-countable nouns.

I can say “opinions” but not “advices”. Why? No reason, it just is so. I say to him but I tell him. Why? I understand that in Russian “p” is pronounced “r” , I just get it wrong 10% of the time. Chinese people understand the difference between “he” and “she” and but just get it wrong regularly in English because they have not yet become accustomed to English usage. (In spoken Chinese the words are pronounced the same.) It is getting accustomed to the language, not the understanding of “why”, that will bring about fluency.

Comments

[Art]

> The learner is far better off to learn the
> phrase “drank some water” and then go on
> to reading and listening to more content
> that contains this or similar phrases so
> that it becomes a part him, than to try to
> remember whatever complicated explanation
> a grammar writer can come up with about
> countable and non-countable nouns.
> .. Why? No reason, it just is so.

People still tend to believe in magic, in outer force, no matter of its origin, when they approach foreign languages. The “scientific” approach to learn language is that kind of magic – “Do you want to speak like a native? We know how. This is what you need – the Grammar, do it twice a week and you’ll be like a native speaker. What, you didn’t reach your fluency with our spell? Did you do quizzes? Do them right, that’s why you are not like a native.”

I my practice people hate to hear the answer “because this is the way we speak” if they ask the question “why so?” This answer shatters their dreams in magic, puts them into the reality where all depends on them and no one to blame for faults expect themselves. I answered “because this is the way we speak” and teachers became furious because in this way they are not needed, everyone can study languages on their own. I answered “because this is the way we speak” to learners and they said I’m crazy because they put a lot of money into studies with teachers. The first is afraid of saying themselves they are on the wrong road and have spent a lot of life-time there, the second is afraid of accepting that they’re spending a lot of money in a wrong way.

Everyone used the method “No reason, it just is so”. We all acquired our mother-tongue. Many people say that we are not children anymore. That’s right. We should not learn languages as a child, but like a child. That simple means let the things go in their own way -- listen, read, speak and have fun. No reason, it just is so, because this is the way we speak. The magic has gone.

Art
(an English learner from Moscow)