Traditional Grammar Instruction Research Articles

Contextual Teaching Strategies in the Grammar Instruction of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

Against the backdrop of globalization, the international status of the Chinese language has been increasingly elevated. However, its unique grammatical features pose significant challenges to non-native learners. Traditional grammar instruction focuses on the impartation of grammatical rules, neglecting the application of language in authentic contexts, which affects the accuracy of learners' Chinese communication. This paper analyzes the theoretical basis and practical application of contextual teaching strategies, demonstrating their significant advantages in improving the effectiveness of Chinese grammar instruction: they can promote the internalization and transfer of learners' language knowledge and enhance their cross-cultural communication skills. By analyzing the current implementation of these strategies, the paper profoundly analyzes the challenges faced in teaching, including the limitations of existing textbooks, the difficulty of teachers' preparation, and the constraints of classroom teaching time. It also proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to support the practice and research of Chinese grammar instruction.

Adult ESL Learners’ Perceptions of Participatory Teaching Methods: A Narrative Inquiry

<i>The main goal of adult English as a second language (ESL) education in the United States is to expand learners’ employment opportunities through traditional teaching methods with textbooks and fixed, pre-determined syllabi, which may or may not align with learners’ personal goals. Many studies compare different adult ESL teaching methods by language proficiency gains, but few focus exclusively on how learners feel about how they are learning English. This is particularly so for participatory education in ESL, in which learners explore relevant topics and take action to improve their lives and society at large while simultaneously learning English. This study is unique in that it examines the perspectives of advanced English learners in a participatory-based English for Professionals class in a southern U.S. city. Using narrative inquiry and action research, the study collects data from individual and focus group interviews, as well as the instructor/researcher’s field notes. The findings were grouped into four themes: the practical value of participatory classes, a comparison between traditional and participatory teaching, learners’ desired improvements to the participatory approach, and learners' perceptions of their English progress. The study shows that learners appreciate participatory learning but also have some concerns, such as the lack of traditional grammar instruction. The study discusses how the teacher-researcher addressed these concerns during a semester.</i>

Exploring the Effect of LearnEnglish Grammar Mobile App on English Language Learners Grammatical Competence

This study aimed to explore the impact of the LearnEnglish Grammar app on the grammatical accuracy of 10th-grade students at a gifted high school. Utilizing a quasi-experimental design, the researchers randomly assigned students to either an experimental group that used the app for grammar lessons or a control group that received traditional grammar instruction. The results revealed that the LearnEnglish Grammar mobile app significantly enhanced the experimental group’s grammar competence compared to the control group. Most learners demonstrated a positive attitude towards the app and expressed an interest in incorporating it into their language studies. These findings support the comprehensive integration of mobile learning in English grammar education to improve student achievement and lay the groundwork for future research on the effectiveness of mobile learning applications across various school subjects.

The Effects of Cognitive Grammar-grounded Instruction and Formal- Traditional Grammar Instruction on Learning Simple Past and Past Perfect

The English tense and aspect system has long posed great difficulty to second language (L2) learners due to their underlying complex concepts. This difficulty is compounded by oversimplified grammatical descriptions found in many ELT textbooks. Cognitive Grammar (CG) offers comprehensive accounts of tenses that could be useful for learners. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study investigating the differential effects of CG-informed form-focused instruction and formalist-traditional form-focused instruction on the acquisition of two English tenses, namely the simple past and the past perfect. Secondary school EFL learners (final pool: N = 36) were assigned to two groups (CG and Traditional). Learners in the CG group were exposed to CG-grounded grammatical descriptions of the tenses while learners in the traditional group received traditional accounts. Both groups performed awareness-raising tasks to enhance learning. Data were gathered from the learners’ performance in a cloze narrative task. Results from an immediate post-test revealed that CG-based descriptions helped learners improve significantly and outperform learners in the traditional group. These findings indicate the superiority of a CG approach to a formalist approach to teaching the tenses and lend support to the applicability and efficacy of CG-grounded form-focused instruction in the classroom.

The Effect of Input-based and Output-based Focus on Form Instruction on Learning Grammar by Iranian EFL Learners

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of input-enhancement and production of sentences, containing the target structures, on learning grammar by Iranian Intermediate EFL learners. Sixty male students in three input, output, and control groups participated in the study. After checking the homogeneity of the participants with a proficiency test, the researchers administered a pretest. Input-based group received input enhancement within reading texts in which the target structures were highlighted with different techniques such as bolding and underlying. The output-based group were required to produce some sentences including target structures based on reading texts. The control group received traditional grammar instruction. The results of ANCOVA revealed that both experimental groups learned the target structures better than the control group; however, the input-based group outperformed output-based group in learning target grammatical structures. The findings of the study suggest the widespread use of input-enhancement, as one of the techniques of focus on form, plays a significant role in enhancing grammatical accuracy.

Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy

This study first briefly describes an instructional approach to teaching grammar known as X-Word Grammar and then compares its effectiveness in assisting students in achieving grammatical accuracy with traditionally taught grammar. Two groups of L2 pre-college students were taught using curricula and practice procedures in two different grammar texts over a three-month period of time for 20% of their class time. Essays written at three different times were analyzed for the correct and incorrect use of sentence patterns and verb constructs. Results demonstrated that improvement (writing with less error) was larger in both categories for the X-Word Grammar group and significant for two verb constructs as compared to the traditional grammar group, indicating that X-Word Grammar students wrote more accurately in month three than they did in month one of the study when compared with students in the traditional grammar group. Possible reasons for these results are discussed in light of the differences in the two approaches and how these differences support the literature on ways of improving grammar instruction.

Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback in Developmental Multilingual Writing Classes

This study investigated the role of dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF; Evans, Hartshorn, McCollum, & Wolfersberger, 2010; Hartshorn & Evans, 2015; Hartshorn et al., 2010), a mode of providing specific, targeted, and individualized grammar feedback in developmental English as a second language (ESL) writing classes (pre–first year composition) at a large western U.S. research university. Via a quasi‐experimental design investigating DWCF at three different levels of developmental ESL writing classes across three terms with 325 student participants, results of this study suggest that multilingual students become better at self‐editing and have more accurate timed writing paragraphs after taking classes that supplement grammar instruction using DWCF than those who take classes with only traditional grammar instruction. Specific error categories were investigated (global, local, and mechanical, per Bates, Lane, & Lange, 1993), with largely significant results across all error types at each language level, indicating that DWCF may be an effective pedagogical intervention to improve linguistic accuracy.

The impact of teachers’ in-service workshops on grammar achievement: The case of Iranian intermediate EFL learners

The present study aimed at quantitatively investigating the effectiveness of in-service workshops for teachers on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ L2 grammar achievement in a private language institute. To do so, Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to homogenize the participants in terms of their level of proficiency. To collect the data, 40 intermediate learners took part in the study. Then, the participants were divided into one experimental group (i.e. receiving grammar practice by an in-service-trained teacher) and one control group (i.e. receiving no treatment and grammar practice by a non-in-service-trained teacher). The participants in the experimental and the control groups took the pre-test. After that, the experimental group was exposed to five treatment sessions of ‘focus on form’ approach of grammar instruction during five weeks, while the learners in the control group were given traditional grammar instruction. Then, the post-test was administered to both groups of the participants. It was concluded that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in the post-test measures of grammar tests highlighting the need for holding in-service workshops for teachers, particularly novice ones, and arm them to with the most recent knowledge of teaching language skills and sub-skills for the purpose of better teaching.

English language teaching methodology in a call classroom: Testing and evaluating traditional grammar instruction

Pursuant to the revised Research Policy issued by the Executive Committee of the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning, research in the area of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), should guide language pedagogies rather than the availability of new technologies and functionalities. Accordingly, the aim of this research was to test a combination of methods and techniques rooted in traditional grammar instruction by alternating them in a conventional classroom setting (based on paper and a whiteboard) and an experimental CALL setting. The hypothesis was that if the classroom activities were anchored in traditional grammar teaching methodology, the CALL environment would prove as comprehensive as the conventional classroom, thus stimulating and yielding positive results. By means of grammar-based teaching and communicative learning the grammar item 'meaning of modal verbs' was taught. Based on a quasi-experiment and the principles of a repeated measures research design, the performance of 50 students at two English language departments was alternatively measured in both the conventional and the experimental classroom settings in several subsequent instances. The analysis of the data resulted in the conclusion that the overall performance of the participants in the experimental setting exceeded the performance in the conventional setting.

Functional Grammar Instruction Impact on Writing Quality

Traditional grammar instruction at the elementary level tends to focus on isolated linguistic features such as the eight parts of speech and sentence types. This type of instruction omits an important part of writing which is the interrelatedness between grammatical structures and meaning. Using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework, this mixed methods study examined the use of SFLinspired writing instruction in fourth grade classrooms over the course of the fall semester to develop students’ descriptive writing. A sample of 24 students representing three ability levels was randomly selected for detailed text analysis. Writing samples from each student at three separate time intervals were collected and evaluated. Both quantitative and qualitative examination of students’ essays revealed a significant improvement in students’ descriptive writing over time. These improvements were linked to greater command of the linguistic elements that were the targets of instruction. Stabilization in writing progress was observed when instruction focused on test preparation. Implications are discussed.

Analyzing Grammar Rants: An Alternative to Traditional Grammar Instruction

Kenneth Lindblom and Patricia A. Dunn teach language awareness and use through published complaints about the teaching of grammar. Students are able to recognize issues of race and class that determine acceptable usage and learn the importance of audience in their own language use.

Analyzing Grammar Rants: An Alternative to Traditional Grammar Instruction

Analyzing Grammar Rants: An Alternative to Traditional Grammar Instruction

The Effectiveness of Written Recasts in the Second Language Acquisition of Aspectual Distinctions in French: A Follow‐Up Study

This follow‐up study on the acquisition of the aspectual distinction between the passé composé (PC) and the imparfait (IMP) investigates the differential outcomes of the results presented in an earlier study, Ayoun (2001), by pursuing two lines of research: the effectiveness of written recasts versus models and traditional grammar instruction, and the development of temporality in the interlanguage of French college students as second language learners (i.e., the Aspect Hypothesis). The earlier study found that all learners improved in their use of the PC but not the IMP. The R(recast)‐group out‐performed the M(model)‐group and the G(grammar)‐group, with a significant difference over the latter but not the former, which supported the hypothesis that recasts are the most effective form of treatment. The qualitative results of the present study weaken this finding because it was more difficult to distinguish among the three different treatments: (a) The G‐group outperformed the R‐ and M‐groups in accuracy and frequency in the PC; (b) all three groups decreased in their accuracy and frequency in the IMP but the G‐group outperformed the other two groups; (c) the three groups were practically identical in the production of various predicate types in the PC and IMP on the pre‐ and posttests; and (d) overall, it was the G‐group's performance that showed a greater aspectual use of predicate frequency and type in the IMP. These new results partially support a prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis, according to which the use of past tense morphology is influenced by lexical class, but they offer only tentative support for the Imparfait Spreading hypothesis. A few preliminary suggestions regarding pedagogical applications are offered.

Grammar in Context: Why and How

If we were to summarize the state of grammar in most American schools today in one sentence, it would be this: Grammar is very often taught but very seldom learned. This fact seems odd since grammar, unlike many other aspects of the middle-school curriculum, receives continuous support from teachers, parents, and administrators. Yet, despite efforts made on various fronts, the grammar of their own language remains a mystery to most students. Rather than making them more comfortable with their mother tongue, a few lessons in the difference between lie and lay or restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses seem to produce a greater uncertainty bordering on panic. Many people, even some very well-educated people, simply learn ways to avoid rules they never really understood or learn to make excuses for their mistakes by apologizing lamely, I never was any good at diagramming sentences. Although students do not appear to be learning grammar the way it is presently taught, most grammar curricula do not reflect new ways of teaching but simply rely on the same old techniques despite their ineffectiveness. In many schools, the same grammar objectives-students will be able to identify verbs in sentences, for example-show up for several different grades, sometimes even being listed as an objective for grades as different as second and ninth. That fact alone should indicate to us that something is seriously wrong. Why should it be necessary to repeat the same instruction year after year? Why should students be taught, over and over again, the same definition for parts of speech, with only the examples changing? A calculus class does not spend the first week identifying numbers and reviewing addition and subtraction, and yet after many years of study and even more years of use, students at all grade levels are given grammar lessons that start at square one over and over again. The reasons for this state of affairs are many, but there is one that seems particularly important to us: Traditional grammar instruction is bound to fail because it is given without any realistic context. In Ed Vavra's words, are never asked to do anything with [grammatical knowledge] (1987, 42). People who feel comfortable and confident with the grammar of our language developed that confidence by becoming language of standard English (Smith et al. 1982, 35). They spoke it and heard it spoken, they read it, and they wrote it. Grammar lessons showed them the patterns for what they already knew and in that sense were irrelevant. Now, however, we want the grammar lessons to do what life used to accomplish, and the old drills will not work. The classroom must now become the place where students become natural language users and learn grammar as part of the life of reading, writing, and speaking. Yet when language is taught in the middle grades, context is often ignored. Students are made to learn definitions--of parts of speech, kinds of sentences-and then are given worksheets on which each sentence contains an exam-