Journal of Languages for Specific Purposes (Mar 2024)
GRAMMATIKKOMPETENZ IM NEUEN MILLENIUM. VERGLEICHENDE STUDIE RUMÄNIEN-UNGARN English Title: GRAMMAR COMPETENCE IN THE NEW MILLENIUM. COMPARATIVE STUDY ROMANIA-HUNGARY
Abstract
The experiences of the past few years in teaching German at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Oradea, Romania, have given the impulse for writing the following study. Rendering grammar issues has stumbled time after time over the impossibility of relating to students’ previous grammar knowledge in their mother tongue, i.e. Romanian, resulting into the feeling that they might lack basic grammar concepts in general. To check if the hypothesis of students’ deficient grammar knowledge is a mere subjective perception of the author of this article or rather an existent generational, possibly global phenomenon, quantitative research methods like descriptive statistics and a short grammar test (four questions related to morphology and one syntax issue) were applied. Lacking data referring to Hungary, the statistical inventory included only the results obtained in Romania, in the time span 2017-2022, at the national graduation exam at the end of the 8th grade, in the discipline Romanian language and literature, while the grammar test was applied in an approximately equal number to first and second year Economic students both at the University of Oradea, Romania, and respectively the University of Debrecen, Hungary. The results obtained in the Romanian exam mentioned above, mainly for 2017 and 2018, when students included in the study took it, seem to be in concordance with the hypothesis initially formulated, but the results of the grammar test applied at the University of Oradea do not give a clear-cut proof of it. Still, these data are on both sides – Romanian and Hungarian respectively – anything else than comforting. In my opinion, the causes of this state of affairs are not to be found only in the limited analytical skills, induced by digitalisation, and the aversion of generation Z for grammar. Other factors have also contributed to it, to the same extent, namely the syllabi for Romanian for the 5th-8th grade pleading for the avoidance of conceptualisation of linguistic phenomena, valid for Romania, and the insufficient importance given to grammar both in teaching/learning and in the exam subjects in both countries analysed. As for improvement measures, one can identify changes in syllabi, on the institutional side, in the sense of a more conscious, conceptualised knowledge transfer and, on the other hand, giving more importance to teaching grammar at all levels, high school included. On the individual level, teachers can support this process by creating digital auxiliary didactic materials like explanatory videos put up using simpleshow video maker, or resorting to qualitative YouTube-videos when teaching grammar. The animated form, more appealing for young people, is likely to bring grammar and language rules, abstract concepts closer to them.
