Reflections on teaching devices articulating grammar and text

Abstract

Over and above the theoretical questions it raises, the interaction between grammar and text is a particularly open problem, constituting a real challenge for language teaching and teacher training. In this article, we will first examine the origins and characteristics of this problem, as it emerged several decades ago and as it appears today in the cantons of French-speaking Switzerland. We will then examine theoretical and pedagogical conceptions of the status of grammars and texts, and present the goals of grammar teaching so as to understand how the teaching problem that articulates grammar and texts is anchored in it. Then we will describe elements of a research program on this type of articulation which we are conducting in French-speaking Switzerland with the GRAFE'MAIRE group. This program, called 'Principles of a fundamental didactics of grammar', is particularly focused on the function of noun phrase complements and the values of past tenses. The experimental part of our research is ongoing, but as we will indicate in the conclusion, preparatory analyses of these experiments have revealed the need for a serious re-examination of the very status of these grammatical objects, and the efficient pedagogical approaches they require.