The Communication of Grammatical Proficiency

In a recent article, James reviews the function of applied linguistics and concludes that it should serve as an interface between "linguistics and teaching methodology" (1993:30). My contention in this paper will be that recent work in generative grammar, on language processing and on error analysis provides a basis for making principled decisions in the classroom concerning the types of skills we wish to impart and the method of imparting them. The applied linguist as someone who is competent in both linguistics and teaching methodology assists in the application of linguistic theory to the classroom and of observations concerning the language learning process to linguistic theory. This latter function becomes all the more important when we realize that grammatical theory itself is simply a tool for understanding the language. Thus this feedback process is a critical link in the practical application of theory to classroom issues concerning language acquisition. In this regard, linguists should aspire to learn more about what is going on in the classroom and teachers to learn more about what is going on in linguistics.' Combining the three strands of investigation and the two roles alluded to above, we discover (i) that grammatical proficiency is both an important pedagogical skill and an important part of target language proficiency; (ii) that findings within the framework of generative grammar allow us to develop our language awareness to assist in achieving these functions of grammatical proficiency.