English Grammar: Views of Student Teachers and Communication of Grammar to Their Students

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ENGLISH GRAMMAR: VIEWS OF STUDENT

TEACHERS AND COMMUNICATION OF GRAMMAR TO

THEIR STUDENTS

A Mini-research Submitted to University Grants Commission

Sanothimi, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Bal Ram Adhikari

Tribhuvan University

Mahendra Ratna Campus

Tahachal, Kathmandu, Nepal

February, 2012

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This Work Is Dedicated

To

New Horizons in Education in Nepal

And

Its Author Prof. Dr. Tirth Raj Khaniya

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my profound gratitude to Fellowship Program (UGC) for providing

me with an opportunity to carry out this research work. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Tirth Raj

Khaniya, Professor of English Education, for his love, concern, and academic support; Dr.

Govinda Raj Bhattarai, Professor of English Education, and Dr. Anjana Bhattarai for their

valuable suggestions and above all, for allowing me to use their home library.

I am grateful to Dr. Chandeswor Mishra, Professor of English Education and Dr. Gopal

Prasad Panday; both have been an immense source of inspiration in my academic career.

Also, I would like to thank my seniors Netra Sharma, Lok Raj Regmi, Ganga Ram Gautam

and all the teachers from English Department, Tahachal for their direct/indirect cooperation.

I am thankful to Biswa Raj Joshi from Sanothimi Campus, Bhaktapur, Kul Raj Neupane from

Mahendra Ratna Campus, and Ms Usha Khakuryal from UGC. But for their help and

cooperation, this study could not have been in the present form. Similarly, I am ever grateful

to my students from Mahendra Ratna Campus, and all the respondents, whose participation

made this research work possible. Last but not the least, I have no words to pay a compliment

to Sunita's love and care, and Suban' smile.

Bal Ram Adhikari

February, 2012

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ABSTRACT

The present study entitled English Grammar: Views of Student Teachers and

Communication of Grammar to Their Students investigates and compares the views and

actual classroom practices of student teachers with regard to grammar teaching. Attempts

were made to explore the relationship between student teachers' thoughts on grammar and

their actions (i.e. the methods, techniques, activities, and resources) in the classroom while

communicating grammar points to their students. For the purpose of the study, thirty student

teachers teaching at secondary and higher secondary levels were selected purposively from

three campuses, namely Mahendra Ratna Campus (Tahachal), University Campus (Kirtipur)

and Sanothimi Campus (Bhaktapur). The study adopted the mixed methodology of

questionnaire survey and classroom observation. The collected data were presented under

different thematic headings and analyzed with the help of simple statistics and description.

The findings suggest that grammar was felt to be an integral component of ESL/EFL teacher

courses, and the grammar course prescribed for the students enrolled in the Master of

education (M Ed) first year English program was found to be relevant, its course materials

were perceived to be useful and its contribution to the student teachers' teaching career was

highly valued. However, the study found the lack of congruence between the student teachers'

views on grammar and grammar teaching, and their actual classroom practices in the areas

such as methods, techniques, resources and activities.

The present study consists of four chapters. The first chapter is the introductory one which

develops a theoretical foundation for the study. It presents the general background, problem

statement, objectives of the study, review of the related literature, justification of the study

and limitation of the study. The second chapter is concerned with the methodology adopted to

carry out the study. The third chapter presents, analyses and interprets the collected data

under the different thematic headings based on the study objectives. While discussing the

emphasis is on the areas of convergence and divergence between the respondents' views and

their classroom practices. The fourth chapter is divided into two sections. The first section

comprises findings in the form of summary while the second section makes some

recommendations with a view to making the M Ed grammar course more inclusive,

effective, contextual, and to narrowing down the gap between the teachers' views and their

actual classroom practices.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables vi

List of Abbreviations vii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1-17 1.1 General Background 1

1.1.1 Teaching Grammar to ESL/EFL Learners 3

1.1.2 Grammar Component in the Teachers' Course 8

1.1.3 English Grammar for Teachers 9

1.2 Problem Statement 12

1.3 Objectives of the Study 13

1.4 Review of the Related Literature 13

1.5 Justification of the Study 17

1.6 Limitations of the Study 17

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 18-20

2.1 Universe of the Study 18

2.2 Data Collection Techniques 18

2.3 Sampling Procedure 19

2.4 Process of Data Collection 19

2.5 Variables and Measures 20

2.6 Techniques of Data Analysis 20

CHAPTER THREE: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND

INTERPRETATION 21-37

3.1 Student Teachers' Views on the English Grammar Course 21

3.2 Student Teachers' Views on Grammar and Grammar Teaching,

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and Communication of Grammar Knowledge to Their Students 27

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS 38-45 4.1 Findings 38

4.2 Recommendations 42

REFERENCES 46

APPENDICES 49-58 Appendix: A 49

Appendix: B 52

Appendix: C 56

Appendix: D 58

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Relevance of the course 22

Table 2: Quality of textbooks and reference materials 23

Table 3: Linkage between the university grammar course and school grammar 24

Table 4: Course components appropriate for school English 25

Table 5: Suggestions for course improvement 26

Table 6: Status of grammar in language learning 27

Table 7: Ways or methods of presenting grammar points 29

Table 8: Methods preferred by the student teachers 29

Table 9: Techniques preferred by the student teachers 31

Table 10: Techniques used in the classroom 31

Table 11: Activities for practicing grammar points 32

Table 12: Models of integrating grammar points 34

Table 13: Resources preferred by student teachers 35

Table 14: Resources used in the classroom 36

Table 15: Approaches to treating grammar points 37

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BEd: Bachelor of Education

EFL: English as a foreign language

ELT: English language teaching

ESL: English as a second language

FLA: First language acquisition

MEd: Master of Education

PPP: Presentation, practice and production

TBLT: Task-based Language Teaching

TEFL: Teaching English as a foreign language

TTT: Task, teach and task

T. U. Tribhuvan University

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General Background There is not a great deal of agreement among English language teaching (ELT) practitioners

on the nature, scope and fundamental features of grammar, grammar teaching and grammar

learning. Grammar means different things to different people. Much depends on their views

on the nature of language, language learning, language learners, and their own language

learning experience.

Conventionally, grammar is defined as "the set of rules that describes how words and groups

of words can be arranged to form sentences in a particular language" (Cowan, 2009, p. 3).

The definitions like this confine grammar to morphology and syntax, and expect second

language learners to possess the rules in order to be able to use the target language correctly,

effectively and appropriately. This knowledge-transmission approach to teaching grammar

has a long tradition and still is a norm in many parts of the world. Until fairly recently such a

narrow approach to grammar and grammar teaching has been called into question,

particularly with the advent of the sociolinguistic perspective heavily influenced by Hymes'

theory of communicative competence (Johnson & Johnson, 1998, p. 83), interactional

perspective that draws on Long's interaction hypothesis (Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p. 166) and

the socio-cultural perspective that draws on the work of Vygotsky (Mitchell & Myles, 2004,

p. 216). With this, the meaning of grammar has undergone reassessment, its role in language

teaching has been redefined and its scoped extended. Nowadays, as argued by Savage,

Bitterlin and Price (2010), "many ESL practitioners view grammar less as a body of

knowledge to be studied than as a skill to be practiced and developed. Grammar knowledge is

important, but only insofar as it enables students to communicate" (p. 8). Now it is commonly

argued that grammar rules should be intricately woven into discourse or text. Celce-Murcia

and Hilles (1988) note that grammar should be counted as an important linguistic tool that

equips learners with the ability to comprehend and produce a text. It follows that grammar

rules should not be divorced from overall discourse. In a similar vein, Celce-Murcia (as cited

in Decarrico & Larsen-Freeman, 2002, p. 25) argues that "the vast majority of grammatical

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choices that writers make represent 'rules' that are discourse-sensitive, including position of

adverbials, passive versus active, indirect object alteration, pronominalization across

independent clauses, article/determiner selection, use of existential there and tense-aspect

modality choice". The traditional sentence-grammar has given way to discourse grammar,

which foregrounds the inherent relationship between grammatical structures and their

functions in communication.

More radical views of grammar come from Widdowson (1990), Bygate (1994) and Larsen-

Freeman (2001). For Widdowson, grammar, "is not a constraining imposition but a liberating

force: it frees us from a dependency on context" (1990, p. 231). Widdowson in this argument

assigns the communicative role to grammar rules. These are the rules of language "which

make meanings clear in relation to context" (Batstone, 1994, p. 231). To position grammar in

the domain of communication and to relate it to context is to regard grammar more as a

process than a product. Bygate goes to the extent of dismissing the notion of 'rules' itself and

redefines grammar as "the conventions according to which lexical items, phrases and clauses

are combined, their roles and relations are indentified, in the communication of meanings"

(1994, p. 239). For Bygate, grammar like custom evolves gradually through practice. Larsen-

Freeman (2007, p. 158) shows a clear departure from the traditional views of grammar and

treats it as a 'fifth skill' as she puts it:

If we conceive of grammar as a static set of rules, then we teach grammar in a static

manner. Such teachers have students read the rules, apply them to exercises and

memorize them. These steps alone do not help students overcome the inert knowledge

problem. Therefore, I think that the way to address the problem is to change the way

teachers think about grammar. I created the term grammaring to convey the idea that

grammar is a dynamic system, which needs to be taught as a skill, the fifth skill (the

other four being reading, writing, speaking and listening), rather than as a fixed body

of rules.

Larsen-Freeman's view of grammar is radical in the sense it discards the conventional identity

of grammar as a system (knowledge) and assigns it a new identity i.e. a skill. Learning this

skill requires the learners to establish constant interaction between the three dimensions:

form, meaning and function. The interrelationship between these dimensions can be ensured

only through performance in communication. Also, grammar as a distinct skill has a vital role

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to play in the overall development of language, for it is the skill that underlies all other

language skills.

Supporting the view of grammar as a skill to be learned, Savage, Bitterlin and Price (2010, p.

2) examine three roles that underlie the importance of grammar in second language learning:

• Grammar as an enabling skill (i.e. a necessary skill to be mastered to enhance

competence in other areas of language)

• Grammar as a motivator (better performance in grammar motivates learners to learn

other areas of language)

• Grammar as a means to self-sufficiency (better performance in grammar enables

learners to correct their mistakes on their own).

By and large, following Williams (1994, pp. 106-107), the views of grammar prevalent in the

ELT community can be summarized as:

• Grammar is a collection of shibbolethic rules, ubiquitous in English society. This

view proscribes and prescribes so called standard rules.

• Grammar consists of parts of speech and it is confined to the sentence level. This

traditional view confines grammar rules to morphology and syntax.

• Grammar consists of rules that characterize well-formed sentences. This structural

view focuses on word order, and structural elements of the given sentence, without

making any explicit reference to its meaning.

• Grammar consists of rules that specify the relationship between forms (language) and

functions (real world). This communicative or pragmatic view of grammar is broad in

its scope, for it is primarily concerned with the interaction between structures and

their functions in real life use.

From the pedagogical perspective, communicative grammar should be given priority over

other grammars, for it is not only about the rules of a language, but also about the rules of

language use that takes into account of sociolinguistic and discourse factors. Moreover, it

treats grammar as a skill.

1.1.1 Teaching Grammar to ESL/EFL Learners The importance of grammar in teaching English as a foreign or second language (ESL/EFL)

cannot be overrated. However, the existing literature reveals conflicting views prevalent

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among English teachers, ELT trainers, textbook writers, and syllabus designers as to its place

in ESL/EFL courses and its role in learning English. In the words of Thornbury (1999),

"Grammar teaching has always been one of the most controversial and least understood

aspects of language teaching" (p. ix). The changing views on language, language learning and

language learners, show that grammar teaching has a checkered history, occupying both

central and peripheral positions in different ELT approaches and methods. Bhattarai (2000, p.

ii) makes a similar observation:

Grammar teaching is an integral part of language teaching because without its

knowledge (explicit or implicit), language learning remains incomplete. It can be

observed that every new approach has allotted a considerable room for it. Of course,

the teaching approaches vary in terms of grammar teaching techniques.

Different degrees of importance to grammar have been attached by different approaches and

methods practiced over the history of applied linguistics. To go back in the history, the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the overriding emphasis on explicit teaching of

grammar. The Grammar Translation Method, for example, equated the study of a language

with the study of its grammar and vice versa. In other words, teaching grammar formed the

core of teaching the language as a whole. It established the teaching of grammar rules as a

norm. Against this explicit deductive method came the Direct Method. It eschewed explicit

teaching of grammatical items and advocated for the inductive way of teaching. Learners

were supposed to pick up target grammar rules the way they picked up their first language

rules. They were taught language conceptually (without explanations) and directly (without

translation). This method enjoyed considerable popularity at the beginning of the 20th

century. The middle of the the century, (the years between the 1950s and 60s) was

dominated by the Audiolingual Method. Firmly grounded in the linguistic theory of

structuralism and psychological theory of behaviorism, the Audiolingual method, like the

Direct Method, rejected explicit instruction on grammatical points. This method, writes

Brown (2001), "borrowed tenets from its predecessor the Direct Method by almost half a

century while breaking away entirely from the Grammar Translation Method" (p. 18). This

method required students to learn sentence patterns "through a process of verbal habit

formation" (DeCarrico & Larsen-Freeman, 2002, p. 28). For this, they were provided with a

graded list of sentence patterns through dialogues which they had to drill until their use

became automatic.

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The theoretical bases of Audiolingualism and their relevance in language teaching were

challenged with the advent of generative grammar, which viewed language as a rule-

governed system and the role of language learners as rule formulators from the available

linguistic evidence. This required them to formulate, test and revise hypotheses about

grammatical structures in the target language rather than just committing them to memory.

There was more inclination towards the ‘no-grammar-teaching’ approach in the late 20th

century. One of the main reasons, as stated by Mitchell (1994a, p. 90), was first language

acquisition (FLA) research which heavily influenced second language acquisition (SLA) and

questioned the significance of teaching grammar to second language learners. Emphasizing

the parallelism between FLA and SLA, the advocates of the Natural Approach came up with

the idea that learners could acquire a second language the way they acquired their first

language provided that they were exposed to linguistically rich input in the natural

environment. Acquisition activities as advocated by Krashen (1985) see no value of oral

grammar explanation in the language classroom. To him, "all facets of grammar instruction

are pointless or (...) 'peripheral and fragile'" (as cited in Cowan, 2009, p. 29). Krashen and

his followers argue that formal grammar instruction is waste of time because learned

grammar knowledge does not become acquired knowledge and it cannot be at users' disposal

when required for normal communication. They further argue that the textbook grammar

clashes with a learner's mental grammar; and "it is lexis not syntax that forms the foundation

of language" (Thornbury, 1999, pp. 18-19). However, such arguments which disregard

explicit teaching of grammar cannot be accepted without questioning. The critiques of

Krashen' no-grammar approach are many. Cognitive approaches (McLaughlin's information-

processing model, Anderson's Active Control of Thought (ACT), and connectionism), Long's

Interaction hypothesis and Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory (Mitchell & Myles, 2004)

question Krashen's contention that grammar teaching is not only futile, but also harmful in

the learner's overall language achievement. The following arguments as presented in

Thornbury (1999, pp. 15-17) make a case for teaching grammar to second language learners:

• The sentence-machine argument ( i.e. grammar helps learners to generate sentences.)

• The fine-tuning argument (i.e. grammar fine-tunes learners' language.)

• The fossilization argument (i.e. grammar safeguards learners' language against

fossilization.)

• The advanced-organizer argument (i.e. learning grammar can have a delayed effect on

later acquisition of the language.)

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• The discrete-item argument (i.e. language is teachable and learnable because of its

grammar.)

• The rule-of-law argument (i.e. grammar lends itself to the process of transmission

from teachers to learners.)

• The learner-expectation argument (i.e. grammar fulfils learners' expectations.)

Recent research works in second language learning, as discussed by Mitchell (1994), reveal

that grammar teaching is a prerequisite for a balanced language development. Mitchell's

argument conforms to what Richards and Rynandya (2004) state, "In recent years, grammar

teaching has regained its rightful place in the language curriculum. People now agree that

grammar is too important to be ignored, and that without a good knowledge of grammar,

learners’ language development will be severely constrained" (p. 145). Highlighting the role

of grammar in language learning, Nunan (1988) quotes Rutherford (1987), who maintains

that, "the abandonment of grammar as the pivotal element in the syllabus may be premature"

(p. 34). However, Rutherford's approach to incorporating the grammar component into the

learner' syllabus is against the traditional approach that treats grammar as product and

reduces learning grammar rules to memorization and their mechanical reproduction. Rather,

Rutherford contends, our prime concern should be on grammar process that engages learners

constantly in "reanalyzing data, reformulating hypotheses, recasting generalizations etc." (as

cited in Nunan, 1988, p. 118). Rutherford is of the opinion that our focus should shift from

'what' to 'how' aspects of grammar teaching. In other words, we should think of how the

grammar component can be best exploited in line with what we are informed of nature of

language, nature of language learning and teaching.

In a similar vein, stressing on the value of teaching grammar to ESL/EFL learners, Bygate,

Tonkyn and Williams contend:

Rather than simply arguing for or against the value of formal instruction, researchers

now began to investigate the situations in which instruction was most likely to be of

benefit, (.....) Many scholars have also pointed out the particular benefits of formal

instruction, which make it a necessary complement to informal learning if high levels

of proficiency are aimed at: instruction is much more likely than informal interaction

to provide useful negative feedback; instruction can make formal features of the

language salient; instruction can provide a context for extensive practice of particular

forms. (1994, p. 6)

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The recent ELT learner-/learning-centered approaches such as Long's (1997) Task-based

Language Teaching, VanPatten's (1996) Processing Instruction, and Nunan's (1998)

Grammar in Context (as cited in Cowan 2009, pp. 34-36) emphasize the balance between

fluency (meaning) and accuracy (form) accompanied by restructuring. This balance can be

achieved by relating form to meaning via meaningful and context-sensitive instruction. These

approaches have redefined the nature and role of grammar instruction in learners' overall

language development. TBLT, for example, is neither as hostile to grammar teaching as the

Natural approach nor is it as structure-focused as Grammar Translation. The current trend of

grammar teaching underlies what Thornbury (1999) calls "paying-attention-to-form

argument" (p. 24). This argument subsumes the two influential theoretical concepts in

teaching grammar: consciousness-raising and focus on form. The former requires learners to

notice grammatical points and the latter to use them in meaningful activities. There are

different ways of promoting student noticing. Input flooding, text modification, teacher-

student interaction and peer interaction are some of the frequently used activities by the

teacher for this purpose. Noticing activities mainly engage students in the process-oriented

practice of the grammatical points in question. As a skill on its own as contended by Larsen-

Freeman, it requires overt productive practice. DeCarrico and Larsen-Freeman (2002, p. 31)

opine that " the practice must be meaningful what Larsen-Freeman (1997, 2001) has called

grammaring. Grammaring can be accomplished by asking students to engage in a

communicative task where it necessary to use certain structures to complete it". Productive

activities such as giving directions, talking about one' own or family members' or relatives'

daily routines, role-playing situations, simulating situations, interviewing their friends etc.

can engage students in the communicative practice of the target structures. It is postulated

that balanced language development can be achieved when receptive practice activities are

accompanied with productive practice activities.

What follows from the above discussion is that the question is not whether to teach grammar

or not. Rather the question is how to best implement the the appropriate activities to ensure

accuracy, fluency and appropriacy in the use of grammar. Regarding this, Thornbury (1999,

pp. 154-155) recommends the following rules of thumb which can be summarized as:

• The rule of context: Teach grammar in context.

• The rule of use: Teach grammar as a means to facilitate comprehension and

production of language in real life situations.

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• The rule of economy: Be economical on the time of presentation and the language you

use to present grammar points.

• The rule of relevance: Teach only those grammar points that the learners need.

• The rule of nurture: Teaching does not necessarily lead to learning. Therefore provide

the suitable conditions for learning rather than clinging to the notion of teaching.

• The rule of appropriacy: Take care of the factors such as level, needs, expectations

and styles of students while teaching any grammar points.

1.1.2 Grammar Component in the Teachers' Course English language teaching has morphed into a secured profession. Recently the field has

become more interdisciplinary with the influence of theoretical strands from a myriad of

disciplines such as education, linguistics, psychology, sociology, etc, and more complex with

the increasing number of research works in different levels of teaching ranging from

language policy to classroom practices. Consequently, ESL/EFL teachers find themselves

under pressure to keep themselves abreast of current research findings in second language

learning and trends in teaching English in general and its grammar in particular. Similarly, to

qualify themselves as professional teachers of English they are required to possess explicit

knowledge of English grammar and also the knowledge of how to communicate grammar to

their students. It is the knowledge, according to Leech (1994), that helps them perceive

grammar as a communicative system, to analyze learners' grammatical difficulties, to

evaluate the use of grammar, to contrast English grammar with that of the learners and to

simplify grammatical points for learners (pp. 18-22). The grammar course offered to

ESL/EFL teachers should ideally inform them of recent research findings in learning English

as a foreign/second language, and trends in teaching English grammar to ESL/EFL students.

Similarly, it is supposed to equip them with both grammatical knowledge (content) and

pedagogical knowledge (methodology). Teachers lacking these two major aspects of

grammar teaching, in Andrews' (1994) observation, are unable to:

• explain grammatical points to their students,

• to identify students' errors and

• to demonstrate understanding of grammar concepts and terminology.

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Conscious knowledge of English grammar is necessary not only to non-native speaker

teachers, but also native speaker teachers of EFL. Explaining why a good understanding of

English grammar is a prerequisite equally for the latter, Cowan writes:

English language learners want to know how grammar in English works. To them, it

is the key to understanding the language and using it to communicate it. (....) If a

teacher does not know the rules of grammar, [it is not] helpful to students who are

looking for accurate, detailed information about English grammar . It simply

establishes the teacher as a person who may speak the language correctly but is not

equipped to tell students what they want to know about it. (2009, p. 2)

The theoretical and pedagogical significance of the grammar component for ESL/EFL

teachers echoes in the English courses offered to them. Based on his survey research,

Williams concludes:

All master's level courses intended for teachers of English as a foreign/second

language in the UK contain a component which deals with English grammar

(variously entitled 'Grammar', 'Description of English, 'English in Use'). Acquaintance

with English grammar seems to be considered a necessary part of English language

teacher's development. (1994, p. 105)

It seems to be the case everywhere in the world where English is taught as a second/foreign

language. It attests that the grammar component is perceived as an integral part of the English

language course and hence a prerequisite for English teachers’ professional development, in

terms of content and methodology both. This trend is explicitly reflected in the English

course offered by Tribhuvan University to its Master's level student teachers or prospective

teachers.

1.1.3 English Grammar for Teachers Tribhuvan University, the Department of English Education has prescribed an advanced

English grammar course entitled "English Grammar for Teachers" (517). The course replaced

in 2010 the previous more theory-laden course entitled "Grammar Theory and Practice"

(512). It came as a response to the theoretical and pedagogical changes that the ELT

community experienced at home and abroad. Compared to the previous course, this course is

far more research-based, practical and classroom-oriented. Even from the cursory

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observation, one can conclude that the course has given equal importance to grammar

teaching theories and classroom activities. There are four units altogether, each dealing with a

particular aspect of teaching English grammar to EFL students:

Unit I: Basic Concepts of Grammar

II: Grammar in Practice

III: Grammar and the Language Teacher

IV: Pedagogical Grammar

Unit I provides basic theoretical concepts of different types of grammar such as theoretical

grammar and pedagogical grammar, structural grammar and functional grammar, prescriptive

grammar and descriptive grammar and so on.

Unit II is devoted to different instructional approaches to teaching English grammar followed

by their classroom application. The unit engages the teachers in the study of three major

components of English grammar. The first component presents twenty-four major grammar

topics beginning with questions and ending with discourse connectors and discourse markers.

The theoretical discussion of each grammar point is followed by a quick summary. Grammar

points are discussed from three major dimensions: form, meaning and function. The second

component presents problems that ESL/EFL students face in learning English grammar.

While discussing the problems, the evidence has been mainly drawn from Arabic, French,

German, Chinese and Korean contexts. The third section presents suggestions for teaching.

Moreover, the unit also consists of various activities for teaching difficult grammar points,

analysis of common errors made by learners from different language backgrounds and

practical suggestions for addressing learner errors. For this unit the course has prescribed a

course book and referential guide entitled "The Teacher's Grammar of English" (2009) by

Cowan.

Unit III presents background and theoretical knowledge of pedagogical grammar. The unit is

divided into four major sub-units: Grammar and Grammars, Teachers' Knowledge of

Grammar, Grammar and Learning, and Grammar and Teaching, each unit has three to four

research-based articles by (pedagogical) grammarians and researchers like Leech, Mitchell,

Andrews, Willis, Bygate, Batstone and others. All the articles are pedagogically oriented

and they attempt to link theories of pedagogical grammar to teaching and learning of English

grammar to and by ESL students. The last unit deals with the application of different

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approaches to grammar presentation, practice and correction in the classroom. It further

presents different resources, techniques and activities useful for teaching and having students

practice English grammar points. This unit deals mainly with the following four major

practical aspects of grammar teaching:

• Methods of presenting grammar points: The major methods or ways of presentation

are deductive (i.e. presenting grammar from rules), inductive (i.e. presenting grammar

from examples), text-based (i.e. presenting grammar through texts).

• Ways of engaging students in grammar practice: The major practice activities are

drilling, written exercises, information gap activities, personalization tasks, grammar

interpretation, and conversation.

• Models of integrating grammar points: The Presentation, Practice and Production

(PPP) and the Task, Teach and Task (TTT) are the two key models recommended

for the integration of grammar points into everyday language lessons. While

presenting the pros and cons of each, the priority is given to the latter.

• Techniques and resources in teaching grammar: The teachers are exposed to a wide

range of techniques useful for teaching grammar points for the students of all levels.

The comprehension-focused techniques such as listen and physically respond, listen

and draw, listen and color, listen and manipulate, etc are recommended for the low

proficiency students while production-focused techniques such as story-telling, role-

playing, dramatization, problem-solving etc are recommended for the higher

proficiency students. The key resources recommended are stories, skits, dramas,

recorded conversations, games, problems, poems and verse, pictures and realia (for

further information see Appendix A).

The contents reveal that the course is in line with the current language teaching-learning

trends and approaches such as Communicative Language Teaching, Task-based Language

Teaching and Grammar in Context. The course highlights the role of grammar for teachers

and learners, and its role in ELT pedagogy. The course expects the student teachers to teach

grammar to their students:

• through communicative activities (so that they will know not only the rules of

English but also the rules of their use in everyday communication);

• through task-based activities (so that fluency and accuracy can be developed

simultaneously);

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• in context ( so that their grammar develops as part of overall discourse);

• by designing lessons and activities for teaching English grammar;

• by identifying and using appropriate resources and techniques for teaching grammar.

Such a trend of teaching grammar seems new in our context, where teaching grammar

through the linear approach has been a norm for ages. The course eschews traditional

sentence-level grammar and prioritizes discourse-level grammar. By and large, the course

introduces English teachers to diverse approaches, methods, techniques, and resources and

encourages them to be eclectic by selecting any or combining many of them depending on the

factors such as the nature of grammar items to be taught, level of students, size and

composition of the class, and so on.

1.2 Problem Statement English students do benefit from formal learning of grammar. This is what lies at the heart of

the Master's grammar course offered to student teachers. It is therefore English teachers

should value the role of grammar in the overall language development of their students. They

should be able to transfer what they have learned from the course to the actual environment

of the language classroom. Ideally, they are expected to teach their students in line with the

objectives of their course. Similarly, the spirit and objectives of the course offered to them

should be in harmony with their views on grammar and grammar teaching. There should be

minimum or ideally speaking, no gap between their views on grammar and grammar teaching

and the syllabus designers' views. It is therefore necessary to carry out research in the area of

grammar and grammar teaching from the teachers' perspectives. It is important that we

analyze what the teachers think about grammar teaching and the grammar course offered to

them rather than just focusing on what the syllabus designers and experts want them to do in

the classroom. Pragmatically, student teachers' view on grammar is of paramount importance

and their classroom activities are and should be the guiding principles for the course offered

to them. The success or failure of the teacher course depends on how the student teachers

regard it and how they translate their learning into teaching their students. However, in our

context there was no research carried out for the collection of the student teachers' views on

the grammar and grammar teaching, and the grammar course they studied, and its comparison

with their classroom practices. Given the reality, the present research was guided by the

following questions:

21

i. How did the student teachers take the grammar course offered to them?

ii. What were their views on grammar and grammar teaching?

iii. What methods, techniques, activities and resources did they use while communicating

grammar knowledge to their students?

iv. To what extent were they communicating grammar knowledge to their students the

way they thought it should be learned and taught?

The study was an attempt to find out the views of student teachers on grammar and grammar

teaching in general and their views on the grammar course offered to them in particular, and

to find out the way they communicated grammar knowledge to their students.

1.3 Objectives of the Study The following were the objectives of this research study:

i) To find out the student teachers' views on the grammar course offered to them.

ii) To find out the student teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching.

iii) To find out methods, techniques, activities and resources used by them to

communicate grammar points to their students;

iv) To compare their views on grammar and grammar teaching with their actual

classroom practices;

v) To suggest some possible measures to make the teacher's grammar course more

inclusive and practical, and grammar teaching to students more effective.

1.4 Review of the Related Literature Recently there has been a shift from expert-driven teaching methods to classroom-oriented

pedagogy. Moving away from experts to teachers was felt necessary because of the gap

between what the experts, while designing ESL/EFL courses, thought about the 'best' way of

teaching English, and how the teachers perceived the course and how they actually taught

English to their students. Such a shift has also influenced the English grammar course offered

to ESL/EFL teachers. Moreover, the changing trend foregrounds the democratic approach to

second language pedagogy which underlines the involvement of key stakeholders in any

decision-making process. Teachers, not doubt, are one of such stakeholders whose role is of

paramount importance from policy level to classroom implementation. Hence, it is important

that the courses offered to student teachers should have room for their voice so that there

22

would be high congruence between what they study at university and, what and how they

teach to their students. These are the people who are most aware of what Holliday calls "the

cultures of the classroom" (2010, p. 9). Thus, how teachers view grammar and grammar

teaching is more important and relevant than what course designers and ELT experts want

them to teach to the target students. Incorporation of the teachers' views into the course is

probably one of the most important strategies to make the course more inclusive, relevant and

appropriate.

As regards teachers' views on the courses offered to them, Williams (1994) carried out a

research work entitled, "English Grammar and the Views of English Teachers" with the

objective to find out the MA students teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching, and

how they believed grammar should be taught to their students. The target population was MA

students on the TEFL course in the UK. Williams used a structured questionnaire as a

research tool for data collection. In his survey research all the respondents took for granted

that the English course for the teachers should contain the grammar component. Based on his

findings, Williams makes the following generalizations:

Since grammatical structures encode meanings, there is no more reason to disregard

grammar than there would be to disregard vocabulary. While there are some EFL

teachers who are prepared to disregard both, the majority prefer to have knowledge of

grammar so that they can better understand what they are teaching, also so that they

are in a position to decide for themselves when and how to use this knowledge. (1994,

p. 117)

Williams' respondents valued both the knowledge and pedagogical components of the

grammar course they embarked on. However, the teachers in Williams' survey were uncertain

about the status of grammar in language learning as he writes, "If it is true that teachers

believe linguistic competence can result from covert instruction, then their readiness to resort

to grammatical terminology appears at first sight inconsistent" (1994, p. 116). Similarly,

Williams found that there was a gap between what they thought the grammar course for

English teachers should consist of and what they were actually teaching to their students.

Bernard and Scamptom' (2008) study entitled " Teaching Grammar: A Survey of EAP

Teachers in New Zealand" came up with the similar finding, which indicated that "EAP

teachers in New Zealand appreciate the centrality of grammar in their language teaching and

have a critical awareness of many of the problems and issues involved" (p. 6).

23

With regard to the teachers' views on grammar and its communication to their students,

Mitchell' (1994) study "Foreign Language Teachers and Teaching of Grammar" showed a

lack of congruence between their views on grammar and grammar teaching, and teaching of

grammar to their students. It was a survey type of study. The population comprised two

groups of language teachers: foreign language teachers teaching modern languages and

English mother-tongue teachers teaching English as a mother tongue. Drawing on her

findings Mitchell (1994, p. 216) concludes:

The foreign language teachers generally claimed to teach in a 'communicative' way,

with a pupil-centered, topic-based approach. However, almost all were following

course books with a syllable based on a systematic grammatical progression, though it

appeared that the structures of the syllabus were generally taught inductively, using a

traditional three-part cycle of presentation-practice-exploitation.

This suggests that the teachers in Mitchell's study were not practicing what they were

preaching. Zain (2007) has a similar finding to report from the Malaysian context. He carried

out a study entitled "Teaching of Grammar: Teachers' Beliefs, Instructional Contexts and

Practices" to examine ESL in-service teachers’ beliefs, contextual constraints and practices in

relation to teaching grammar in the Malaysian context. Zain adopted multiple methods of

interviews, classroom observations, journal writings and analysis of lesson plans. Based on

the findings, he came up with three patterns of relationship between the teachers' beliefs, and

two stages of teaching: planning and implementation: some aspects of their beliefs which

were not reflected at the planning stage were reflected during instructional implementation,

some aspects of their beliefs were incongruent at both stages of teaching, and some aspects of

their beliefs were congruent at both stages of teaching.

In this regard, Richards (2008) makes a similar observation. According to him, "Recent

research (e.g. Bartels 2005) shows that teachers often fail to apply such knowledge

[knowledge about language and language learning) in their own teaching" (p. 5). Indicating at

the incongruence between thoughts and actions, Richards further writes, "Despite knowing

the theory and principles associated with Communicative Language Teaching, for example,

teachers are often seen to make use of traditional 'grammar-and-practice' techniques in their

own classrooms."

24

By the same token, Adhikari (2010) in his study entitled "Teaching Speaking in the Nepalese

Context: Problems and Ways of Overcoming Them" concludes that even the teachers who

had sound theoretical knowledge about current teaching approaches such as Communicative

Language Teaching were mostly using the deductive approach while teaching English to their

students.

Indicating the existing gap between what teachers learn and how they transfer their learning

to teaching, Karn (2006) writes, "It is very unfortunate that the theoretical knowledge

obtained from ELT courses is not put into practice during real teaching" (p. 77).

So far as the classroom practices are concerned, it is hard to claim that one approach, method

or technique, is better than the rest. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The efficacy

of any method or technique is subject to variegated situational and institutional factors.

Rather than looking for 'the best approach', the teacher should practice what Brown (1994)

calls "enlightened eclecticism" ( p. 291). It refers to the enlightened decision made by

teachers on the grounds of their own intuition, experiences, learners' needs and expectations,

and the teaching-learning environment. In other words, the teacher practicing enlightened

eclecticism relies on diverse sources and resources of teaching and learning. The enlightened

teachers, opines Brown, should consider a number of options at their disposal and tailor them

to their contexts. However, teachers cannot reach such a level of decision making overnight.

It calls for theoretical knowledge of teaching learning activities on the one hand and their

conscious application to the classroom on the other. That is, enlightened eclecticism calls for

the conscious blend of what Larsen-Freeman (2004) calls "thoughts and actions" (p. 183).

Commenting on the current trends of classroom practices of English grammar teachers,

Bhattarai (2000, p. 52) cites Husain (1996), who observes that "eclecticism with 'many time-

tested traditional techniques' is emerging as a post-communicative methodology today" (p.

15). Eclecticism is probably the best way of striking the balance between two theoretically

dichotomized extremes: structure-based teaching versus communicative teaching or product

teaching versus process teaching. Savage, Bitterlin and Price (2010) maintain that " more and

more practitioners realize that the two orientations – grammar-based and communicative –

have elements that complement each other and that, when combined, can result in an eclectic

approach that is effective in teaching grammar to adult students" (p. 10). This middle-way

teaching approach calls for the active involvement of the teacher as a wise-synthesizer rather

than a mere follower of the expert-prescribed methods. In the view of Larsen-Freeman (2004,

25

p. 183), such principled eclecticism requires the teachers to blend their thoughts with actions

accompanied by regular reflection on their own teaching in light of how they view language

learning and teaching and what they actually do in the classroom.

In this regard, no research was carried out in our context to study what the student teachers

think about the grammar component integrated into their courses, what they think about

grammar and grammar teaching, and how they communicate grammatical knowledge to

school children. This study was directed towards these areas previously not touched by any

researchers in Nepal.

1.5 Justification of the Study The findings of this study will have high significance in our context. The views expressed by

the student teachers on the the Master's level grammar course they studied will be useful

feedback for the concerned authority while revising the course, or designing a similar

English grammar course for teachers in the future. The research will also be very useful for

teacher educators teaching the ESL/EFL course in general and the English grammar course in

particular to help the student teachers to make their actual classroom teaching more

congruent with their views on grammar and grammar teaching. Likewise, this study will

provide student teachers and prospective teachers with the feedback that will help them to

transfer their university learning to school teaching. Last, but not the least, it is believed to be

fruitful to the future research related to this area.

1.6 Limitations of the Study Given the limited time frame and budget, this research had the following limitations:

i) It was delimited to three campuses located in Kathmandu Valley.

ii) The study was confined to those Master's level English students who studied the

course "English Grammar for Teachers (517)" and who were teaching English at

secondary and higher secondary levels of school located in Kathmandu Valley.

iii) The classroom observation mainly focused on student teachers' grammar teaching in

terms of the methods, techniques, activities and the resources they used in light of

what they thought about grammar and grammar teaching.

iv) Only the fifteen out of thirty respondents who took part in the questionnaire survey

were selected for the classroom observation purpose.

26

CHAPTER TWO

METHODOLOGY

The study aimed at surveying student teachers' views on the grammar course, grammar and

grammar teaching on the one hand and observing their grammar teaching in terms of

dominant methods, techniques, resources and activities they adopted to teach their students

on the other. Hence, this study involved the combination of survey with classroom

observation.

2.1 Universe of the Study The English teachers who studied the course entitled "English Grammar for Teachers (517)"

and who were teaching English at secondary and higher secondary levels located in

Kathmandu Valley formed the total universe of this study.

2.2 Data Collection Techniques The researcher used the two major research instruments, namely questionnaire and classroom

observation, for the collection of the data from the primary source.

• Questionnaire A structured questionnaire was introduced to elicit the data from the primary source. The

researcher prepared and used a set of questionnaire which comprised of three sections, each

dealing with an objective of the research. The first section was concerned with the

respondents' views on the grammar course they studied. This section mainly had close-ended

questions and also some open-ended items to elicit additional comments. The second section

of the questionnaire dealt with the respondents' views on grammar and grammar teaching. A

four-point Likert scale was used for this purpose:

-Strongly Agree

-Agree

-Disagree

-Strongly Disagree

27

The assumption was that "a four-point scale facilitates a clear analysis of positive and

negative responses" (Bernard & Scampton, 2008) and discourages regression to the central

point (no opinion or neutral) as in a five-point scale. The third section of the questionnaire

comprised of three open-ended items that required the respondents to mention the methods,

techniques, activities and resources they most frequently used to teach grammar to their

students.

• Classroom Observation The researcher followed the mixed method of classroom observation that combined the semi-

structured observation scheme with brief narrative field notes to collect the information about

the teachers' classroom practices. Observation was also supplemented with audio recording.

During the observation the researcher mainly focused on the methods, resources, techniques,

and activities the teachers' used to communicate grammar points. Also, the researcher took

into account of the mode of interaction and layout of the classrooms. Two lessons of each

selected teacher were observed to ensure consistency of information regarding their

classroom practices.

2.3 Sampling Procedure Thirty M Ed student teachers who studied the grammar course "English Grammar for

Teachers" and who were teaching English in schools were selected by using the purposive

sampling for the administration of the questionnaire. The use of this sampling procedure was

motivated by the practical factors such as geographical proximity, availability of respondents

at a certain time, easy accessibility, and their willingness to volunteer (Dornyei, 2007). Out of

them 15 respondents were from Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal; 10 from University

Campus, Kirtipur, and five from Sanothimi Campus, Bhaktapur. After the administration of

the questionnaire, 15 respondents were selected by using the same sampling procedure for the

purpose of class observation.

2.4 Process of Data Collection The researcher first visited the campuses he had selected for the administration of the

questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered by the researcher himself in the case of

the respondents from Tahachal Campus, while he took the help of his colleges to administrate

the questionnaire and to get access to the respondents from Sanothimi Campus, Bhaktapur

28

and University Campus, Kirtipur. He listed the names of the student teachers who showed

their interest in participating in the study. Then the questionnaire was given to each student

teacher to complete in their own time and to return the next day. While handing out the

questionnaire, they were also informed of the purpose of the research and were provided with

oral explanation as how the questionnaire should be filled up. There was 100 percent return

of the questionnaire. As regards classroom observation, the researcher, after the collection of

the questionnaire, took the consent of the 15 selected respondents to observe their lessons.

Following their consent, he visited their schools and observed two classes of each, after the

interval of 7 to 11 days.

2.5 Variables and Measures The student teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching, and their communication of

grammar knowledge to school children were studied in terms of:

i. their views on the grammar course, and grammar and grammar teaching by

using the attitude scale,

ii. the congruence between their views and the methods, techniques, resources

and activities they used to communicate grammar knowledge to their students

descriptively and narratively.

2.6 Techniques of Data Analysis The study adopted "mixed methods of data analysis" as recommended by Dornyei (2007).

The data were analyzed with the help of descriptive statistics and narrative analysis.

Percentage was used for the former while the thematic analysis was used for the latter.

29

CHAPTER THREE

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

This chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of the data. The data presented in the

tables are analyzed through the descriptive statistics and narrative mode. While doing so, the

data were broadly categorized into different thematic headings to address the research

questions and objectives. The comments of the respondents and some typical classroom

behavior are presented in italics. Similarly, the questionnaire items which are presented

verbatim from the the questionnaire are also in the same font (i.e. italics). In some cases, the

respondents were allowed to indicate or mention more than one item in the questionnaire. As

a result, the totality of the items presented in some tables (Tables 4, 5, 8, 9, 13 and 14)

exceeds 100%.

3.1 Student Teachers' Views on the English Grammar Course The first section of the questionnaire comprised of seven questions: six close-ended, each

followed by a space to allow the respondents to make a comment on their selection, and one

open-ended. The responses elicited from the questionnaire items and comments

accompanying them are discussed under the following thematic headings.

Necessity of grammar component for English teachers Question one required the respondents to express their views on the necessity of the grammar

component for English teachers. Hundred percent respondents replied in the affirmative.

That is, no respondents opined that the grammar component should be excluded from the

course offered to English teachers like them. One of the reasons behind this might be that if

they had not perceived its necessity in their English teaching career, they would not have

embarked on the course or continued it. Other possible reasons will unfold as we go through

the responses elicited by the questionnaire items 2, 3, 4 and 5 that respectively dealt with

relevance, quality, linkage and contribution of the grammar course.

Relevance of the course Question two asked the respondents to express their views on the relevance of the course in

their teaching context. The term 'their teaching context' implied the the classroom

30

environment where they were teaching English generally and English grammar in particular.

Unlike the first item, this one was followed by a four-point scale. The respondents had to

select one of the points and had to comment on their selection.

Table 1: Relevance of the course

Scale Percentage

Very relevant 27

Relevant 50

Somewhat relevant 23

Irrelevant 0

Total 100

For the the majority of the respondents the course was either relevant (50%) or very relevant

(27%). For them the course has high relevancy because in their opinion:

It includes theoretical and pedagogical components of grammar teaching; it provides

methods, techniques and activities; it discusses problems and their solutions for ESL

learners; it includes all the major grammar points necessary for English teachers; it

equips English teachers with the ability to improve their English language

proficiency.

Twenty-three percent of the respondents found the course somewhat relevant. They opined

that the course does not properly address the Nepalese learners' needs, and it lacks sufficient

materials useful for our students.

The former two groups (relevant and very relevant) have focused on the overall coverage of

the course and its components, ranging from theories and methods to classroom activities

while the latter's main concern seems to be with practicality of the course in terms of its

direct application to their classroom environment. Their views are further supported by the

responses to the questionnaire items 3, 4 and 6.

Quality of the textbooks and reference materials Question three was similar to, but more specific than, the above question. It asked the

respondents to judge the quality of the materials prescribed in the course in terms of

31

applicability to their teaching context. These materials subsumed the prescribed books,

references and further readings (See Appendix A). Like the previous one, this question

required them to select one out of four points and it called for the comment on their selection.

Table 2: Quality of textbooks and reference materials

Scale Percentage

Very useful 23

Useful 50

Somewhat useful 27

Not useful 0

Total 100

Table 2 shows that the majority rated the course high in terms of its usefulness. Those who

considered the course as useful (50 %) and very useful (23 %) commented that:

It has more interesting and motivating activities that can be used to teach school

children; it consists of materials from different sources; and it is more useful for teachers

teaching at the higher secondary level.

While rating the quality of overall course these respondents possibly kept in mind the

pedagogical components discussed in the prescribed course books such as "How to Teach

Grammar" (1999), "Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar" (1988) and practical

activities given in "The Teacher's Grammar of English" (2009). The rest i.e. one fourth of the

respondents found the course materials somewhat useful. They commented that:

Not all activities and techniques are useful for our context; many aspects cannot be

directly applied to the Nepalese context.

Some of them questioned the applicability of the activities given in the course to government-

aided schools as:

Can we apply these techniques and activities to teach the students in government-

aided schools?

As mentioned in their comments, this group is mainly concerned with the time and efforts

required for tailoring the activities to the levels of their students.

32

Linkage between the course and the school grammar Question four was aimed at finding out the type of linkage between the university grammar

course the respondent teachers studied and the course they were teaching in school. The

researcher assumed that strong linkage was of paramount importance to ensure the greater

transfer of learning to teaching. Like the previous items, it required the respondents to choose

one of the options. Moreover, they had to demonstrate the particular areas where they found

the type of linkage they chose.

Table 3: Linkage between the university grammar course and school grammar

Scale Percentage

Very strong 33

Strong 50

Weak 17

No link at all 0

Total 100

It is noticeable that the majority found the linkage between teachers' grammar course and the

school grammar either strong (50%) or very strong (33%). They observed a very strong or

strong linkage in the areas such as content (i.e. grammar points), activities (structural and

problem-solving, creative), teaching methods (communicative language teaching, inductive

way of presentation, context- and text-based presentation) and techniques, and resources (i.e.

stories, poems, dialogues). Contrary to this, 17 % of the respondents found the linkage

between the teachers' grammar course and the school grammar course weak.

Contribution of the course to their professional development Like questionnaire item one, item five called for the yes or no response. The respondents

were asked to make a further comment if they thought that the course had contributed to their

professional development. While making the comment they had to specify what area(s) of

their teaching the course had helped them to improve. Overwhelmingly, 100 % respondents

stated that the course has contributed to their professional development both in terms of what

to teach in grammar and how to teach grammar. The areas they mentioned were diverse.

They included:

33

knowledge of grammar rules and increased level of confidence; methods, techniques and

resources of teaching grammar; confidence in communicating grammar points to students;

increased accuracy in their language proficiency; familiarity with recent trends in teaching

grammar; and various ways of addressing students' grammar problems.

These positive comments on the role of the grammar in their teaching career are consonant

with their responses to questionnaire item one i.e. the necessity of the grammar component to

English teachers.

Course components appropriate for school English Question six was the only close-ended question in this section that did not require the

respondents to make any comment on their selection. The question stem was followed by

four broad components covered by the course and the respondents had to choose those

components they that believed to be most appropriate for the English course they were

teaching in general and English grammar particularly. They were allowed to tick more than

one component from the list.

Table 4: Course components appropriate for school English

Course components Percentage

Theoretical concepts of grammar 17

Theoretical knowledge of

English grammar

33

Discussion of the problems 73

Suggestions for teaching 40

Table 4 shows that the teachers gave priority to pedagogical components of the course over

its theoretical components. A large number of respondents (i.e. 73 % and 40 % ) opined that

the discussion of the problems that ESL/EFL students face while learning English grammar,

and suggestions that can be used to address such problems were of paramount importance.

These are the components discussed extensively in second unit of the course (See Appendix

A). The course component that discusses the theories of grammar in general was rated the

least appropriate. This component is dealt in the first unit of the course, while the course

component that provides the teachers with the theoretical knowledge of English fell in between the

two. The pattern of the responses reveals their primary concern to pedagogical aspects,

34

especially those which can be directly linked to classroom teaching. This concern echoes in

the suggestions they forwarded for the further improvement of the course.

Suggestions for the course improvement The last question was the only fully open-ended question in the first section. It sought the

suggestions from the respondents for the further improvement of the course. It was assumed

that the space for suggestions would allow them to express their views on the areas not

covered by other questions in the study which in turn would allow the researcher to see the

gap between different components of the course and what the respondents thought it should

look like or it should cover. Each response elicited from them was allocated to one of the

following categories:

Table 5: Suggestions for course improvement

Suggestions Percentage

Reduce theories and include more

practice activities

67

Contextualize the course materials 50

Research target students' needs first

and then design grammar course

materials for teachers

20

Table 5 shows that there was broad agreement among the respondents that the course should

reduce its theoretical components and should make it more and more classroom practice-

oriented. The necessity of tailoring the course materials to their teaching context was another

important suggestion from the 50 % of the respondents. Related to this but even more

valuable and obviously more challenging for the course designers was the third suggestion.

Twenty percent of the respondents suggested that the course designers first carry out

research, then only design the grammar course for the English language teachers. The

respondents' suggestions reflect the current issues in teaching English as a foreign/second

language. Their suggestions hint at the appropriacy factors such as age, level, context,

language and education background, and expectations of learners (Thornbury, 1999, pp. 26-

27) that any course is supposed to take into account of before its execution in a particular

35

situation for a particular group of learners ( for details, refer to Appendix- C, which provides

the respondents' views on the grammar course in a single table).

3.2 Student Teachers' Views on Grammar and Grammar Teaching, and

Communication of Grammar Knowledge to Their Students This subsection presents the data from the second section of the questionnaire and classroom

observation. The student teachers were asked to respond to two types of questionnaire item:

statements and open-ended. Altogether eleven statements were presented with the four-point

attitude scale ( Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly disagree ) to elicit their views

on grammar and grammar teaching, and the three open-ended questions required them to

mention any two major methods, and any three techniques and resources they commonly

used to communicate grammar points to their students. Their views and the information

obtained from the open-ended questions were used as a basis for their classroom observation.

The respondents' views on grammar and grammar teaching, and the methods, techniques and

resources they claimed that they used while teaching English grammar are discussed in light

of their congruence or incongruence with the actual classroom teaching.

The status of grammar in language learning Most of the student teachers considered that grammar occupies high status in ESL/EFL

teaching and learning. Seventy percent agreed that English grammar is a set of rules that

prescribes what is right and what is wrong in English, while the rest i.e. the 30 % disagreed

or strongly disagreed with this statement. For the 90 % of the respondents English grammar

is a skill that enhances competence in other skills in English. Table 6 below summarizes

their views on the status of grammar in language learning:

Table 6: Status of grammar in language learning

Status of grammar Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree

Total

Set of rules 30 40 26 4 100

Skill for learning

other skills

57 33 10 100

36

Table 6 clearly shows the English teachers' inclination to the communicative dimension of

grammar rules. These views concur with that of Larsen-Freeman's view of grammar as a fifth

skill (2001), a separate skill that contributes to acquisition of other four major language skills.

The similar view echoes in the the grammar course the respondents studied at the Master's

level.

One might expect that the teachers who regarded grammar as a skill would communicate

English grammar points to their students by encouraging them to what Vale and Feuntuem

call "experience and experiment" (2010, p. 28). The teachers with the communicative

awareness of teaching would engage the students in group work and pair work where students

could act and interact in English for the communicative practice of the grammar points in

question. However, their actual teaching did not reflect many of such tenets of the

communicative and experiential approach to teaching. The majority (80%) of the teachers

resorted to whole-class teaching. As a result, pair work and group work were missing from

their lessons which pushed student participation to the fringe. Only 20 % percent of the

observed lessons incorporated pair work and group work. Majority of the lessons were found

to be less congruent with the spirit of the grammar course they studied.

One of the possible reasons for the gap between their views on grammar as a skill and their

lack of teaching towards this direction could be the physical setting of the classroom itself.

All the observed classrooms had large benches fixed to the floor and arranged in rows, one of

the major hindrance to mobility required for working in pairs and groups. Put another way,

the layout of the classroom itself might have tempted or compelled the teachers to whole-

class teaching. Lack of skills on the part of teachers to negotiate with such constraints could

be another reason.

Methods and techniques of presenting grammar points The majority (87 %) agreed with the statement that grammar points are best presented

inductively and only a small number of respondents believed the opposite. Similarly, a large

number of respondents (80 %) rejected the idea that grammar points should be presented

deductively. These views are reinforced by the positive responses of the vast majority (94 %)

to the statement that grammar points are best presented when they are integrated in the

context through texts. Table 7 below summarizes their responses to these items:

37

Table 7: Ways or methods of presenting grammar points

Methods Strongly

agree

Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree

Total

Inductive 60 27 13 0 100

Deductive 10 10 60 20 100

Texted-based 64 30 6 100

This shows that the student teachers gave more priority to the indirect (inductive and text-

based) ways of presenting grammar points to their students. These views seem to be in line

with their views on grammar as a skill discussed above. The respondents were in very much

of the opinion that the students should be engaged in what Thornbury (1999) calls "the rule-

discovery path" instead of "rule-driven path" (p. 49). This also hints at the shift in their views

from grammar as a set of rules to grammar as a skill.

To go deeper into the matter, the respondents were also asked to mention any two methods

that they preferred to use while teaching grammar. As expected, they came up with a number

of methods ranging from grammar translation to communicative. Table 8 below summarizes

different methods they mentioned that they would use to communicate grammar points to

their students:

Table 8: Methods preferred by the student teachers

Methods Percentage

Inductive 73

Deductive 20

Communicative 33

Task-based 3

Translation 3

According to Table 8, the vast majority of the respondents claimed that they used the

inductive and meaning-first methods of teaching more than direct and explicit presentation of

rules. For instance, inductive, communicative and task-based were the most preferred

methods whereas deductive and grammar translation were the least preferred ones.

38

Interestingly, one can see the congruence between respondents' views on the status of

grammar in language learning, their views on the best ways of presenting grammar points,

and the methods they claimed to use to teach grammar points to their students. However,

their views and preference or claim contradicted with the methods they actually adopted in

the presentation of grammar points in the classroom. Contrary to the variety of methods they

suggested, inductive and deductive were the only two methods that dominated all the lessons.

Of them, 80 % percent of the lessons were based on the deductive way of rule presentation.

For many teachers, talking about the rules explicitly seemed a norm. For example, the

following are some of the ways the majority began their grammar lessons:

What is a conditional sentence?

How many types of conditional sentence are there?

Do you know where 'be going to' is used?

Okay, look at the structure of simple present on the board.

On the other hand, the 20 % percent of the observed lessons were based on the inductive

method. Those who adopted an inductive way of presentation often began their lessons by

setting up the context and eliciting the target structures from the students. The teacher, for

example, who was going to teach 'giving advice' to eleventh graders created the following

context:

It's cold but you are in the class. If you don't come to the class, what will your parents

say?

Your friend has a toothache. She cannot come to school. What do you think she

should do?

You brother's exam is next month. He is worried about it. What advice do you have

for him?

To go deeper into this matter, the respondents were asked to mention any three techniques

they preferred to use to teach grammar points. This item, as expected, elicited a large number

of techniques such as dramatization/ role play, group discussion, Total Physical Response,

problem solving, translation, drilling, discovery, story telling, information gap, and so on. All

the techniques that teachers claimed to use to teach grammar to their students are presented

below in Table 9:

39

Table 9: Techniques preferred by the student teachers

Techniques Percentage

Dramatization/Role-play 37

Group discussion/Group work/pair work 40

Total physical response (TPR)

7

Problem-solving 7 Translation 7

Discovery 7

Drilling 13

Dictation 7

Story-telling 7

Information gap 3

The majority of the teachers preferred the meaning-focused techniques of grammar teaching

i.e. dramatization (37%), group discussion/group work/pair work (40%), TPR (7%), problem-

solving (7%), discovery (7%), story telling (7%), and traditional structure-focused

techniques that included translation (7%) and drilling (13%). The teachers mostly preferred

those techniques that would engage their students in communicative practice of grammar

points to enhance "structure-social function match and structure-discourse match" (Celce-

Murcia and Hilles, 1988, p. 13).

Despite their preference to communicative techniques of grammar teaching, the majority of

the teachers heavily inclined to whole-class teaching via the structure-focused technique of

explanation. Table 10 below presents the techniques that the teachers mostly used in the

classroom:

Table 10: Techniques used in the classroom

Techniques Percentage

Explanation (demonstration) 40

Demonstration (explanation) 33

Elicitation (explanation) 27

Total 100

40

Out of the 30 % observed lessons, 40 % were dominated by the explanation technique. After

explaining the grammar points the teachers demonstrated them on the board, sentence cards

or flipcharts. In 33 % percent of the lessons the teachers first demonstrated the grammar

items on the board, sentence cards or flipcharts and then explained each in detail before

engaging students in practice activities. These two techniques were used to present grammar

points directly to the students. On the other hand, those who presented grammar points

indirectly resorted to the elicitation technique. The teachers first set up the situation and then

elicited the relevant sentences from the students. The elicited sentences were further

explained by the teacher again. In all cases, explanation occurred either as a main technique

or subordinate technique (as given in the the parenthesis in Table 10 above).

Despite what they mentioned, the majority adopted such methods and techniques which

present the grammar points rather directly and explicitly. It may be because the teachers

lacked preparation time; they thought their students were mature enough to process the rules

analytically, or they were fulfilling expectations of the students with the traditional teacher-

centered education like ours.

Activities for practicing grammar points Two of the statements sought the respondents' views on the type of grammar practice

activities they thought their students should get engaged in. The notion that grammar points

should be practiced in meaning-focused activities such as drama activities, interview, role-

play, etc was strongly agreed by 33 % and agreed by 50 % of the respondents. Sixty percent

of the respondents rejected the notion that grammar points should be practiced in structure-

focused activities such as fill-in the blanks, transformation, true/false, etc. Their responses to

these two statement items are given below in Table 11:

Table 11: Activities for practicing grammar points

Practice activities Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree

Total

Meaning-focused 33 50 17 100

Structure-focused 3 37 47 13 100

41

Their views on these practice activities largely concurred with their views on and preference

to the methods and techniques. Methods and practice activities both, as they opined, should

be meaning-focused and learner-centered. However, the classroom observation shows a

different picture. That is, there was incongruence between their views on the nature of

practice activities and the actual activities that their students were engaged in.

Contrary to their emphasis on meaning-focused activities such as role-play, story telling, pair

work and group work, most of the time their students were practicing in structure-focused

activities such as:

• Changing the given sentences according to the examples (such as Look at the

examples and change these sentences in the same way (Meanings into Words, p. 38.),

• Matching (such as Match the sentences in section A with the the continuation in

section B (ibid, p. 40)

• Making sentences for the given patterns (such as Now make similar sentences (V + to

inf., is/am/are + going to) using the clues in the box (Grade 9, English, p. 22).

After explaining and presenting three different patterns of the if-clause, for example, the

teacher asked her students to make five sentences for each pattern. Her instruction read:

Now make five sentences for each pattern given on the board.

Another important aspect of classroom activities was that most of the times the students were

required to respond to the questions given in the textbook mostly in written form. Moreover,

the students often worked individually.

The teachers' too much emphasis on structure-/accuracy-focused activities from the textbooks

could be traced to the grammar questions asked in the English examination. The ninth and

tenth graders, for example, are asked the following types of discrete and structured-focused

question in their examination:

Rewrite the following sentences selecting the correct options given in brackets:

i) Secretary and .........Treasurer is absent today (a, an, the, x)

ii) He lives .... Church Street. (in, at , on )

(Grade IX, English terminal examination)

42

Models of integrating grammar points Two of the statements were concerned with the ways of integrating grammar points into the

overall lesson plan. The majority of the respondents showed agreement (57%) or strong

agreement (30%) with the notion that grammar points are best integrated through the

Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) model. Only a small number (13%) of respondents

disagreed with this statement. The great majority (87%) also agreed with the notion that

grammar points are best integrated through the Task-Teach-Task (TTT) model. Only one

respondent strongly disagreed with this notion. Table 12 below presents their views on the

models of integrating grammar points:

Table 12: Models of integrating grammar points

Models of

integration

Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree

Total

The PPP model 30 57 13 100

The TTT model 47 40 10 3 100

Their views on the PPP model concurred with the actual classroom practice. All the observed

lessons were exclusively based on the PPP model i.e. the teachers began their lessons with

the presentation of the new grammar points either deductively or inductively; the students

practiced the presented points in a controlled way by means of different activities, and they

were involved in less controlled activities. So far as the second model of integration is

concerned, no teacher was found following it despite the majority agreeing with the notion

that grammar points should be integrated by engaging the students in task performance.

The teachers' exclusive use of the PPP model can be explained with reference to the principle

of easiness and the type of textbooks they were following. In the words of Thornbury (1999),

the PPP model appeals to teachers and students alike. "It provides a convenient template." (p.

128). Moreover, the format of the lessons presented in the books being used might have

tempted the teachers to follow this model. For example, Meanings Into Words: An integrated

course for students of English (1997, pp. ix) outlines each unit of grammar as:

• Presentation of material which introduces key language items,

• Intensive controlled practice

• Freer communicative practice and writing activities.

43

Likewise, the secondary English textbooks have also adopted the similar format of

presentation, practice and production. Since the observed teachers were teaching grammar

from these books, they heavily inclined to the PPP model outlined in the books despite their

preference to the TTT model as the best way of integration.

Resources for teaching grammar The respondents were asked to mention any three resources that they most frequently used for

teaching grammar. Stories (57%), games (53%) and songs/verse (50%) were the most

preferred resources while newspapers (7%) were the least preferred one. Drama and

dialogues fell in between them. The types of resources they mentioned are given below in

Table 13:

Table 13: Resources preferred by student teachers

Resources Percentage

Stories 57

Games 53

Drama and dialogue 33

Songs and verse 50

Pictures/Realia 10

Newspapers 7

From the perspective of their orientation to different aspects of language, these resources can

be divided into three broad categories: socially-oriented (games, drama/dialogue),

semantically-oriented (pictures/realia) and discourse-oriented (stories, songs/verse and

newspapers). These three types of resources are used for the communicative practice of three

types of match: structure-social function match through games, drama/dialogue; structure-

meaning match through pictures and realia; and structure-discourse match through stories and

newspapers (Celce-Murcia and Hilles, 1988, p. 13).

So far as the classroom teaching is concerned, most of these resources were found in use but

with low frequency. The resources such as drama and games were not used at all, while

textbook example sentences were the mostly used resource. However, no teacher had made

the mention of this resource while responding to the open-ended questionnaire item that

44

asked them to list any three resources that they preferred to use. Table 14 below presents the

resources used by the the teachers in the classroom:

Table 14: Resources used in the classroom

Used resources Percentage

Stories 13

Dialogues 13

Pictures 20

Textbook example sentences 47

Newspapers 7

Table 14 shows that textbook example sentences were the mostly used (47%) and newspapers

were the least used (7%) resources to introduce and practice grammar points in question. The

resources such as stories, dialogues, pictures and newspapers were used mainly to introduce

the points inductively while the example sentences were used to orient students directly to the

target structures or patterns. The stories and dialogues were used directly from the textbook

itself. The pictures were of two types: those given in the textbook and those from the

teacher's own collection. A large number of grammar lessons mainly exploited the sentence-

level resource, possibly because they were easy to use and they did not require preparation

time. Also, such sentences helped the students establish one-to-one relationship between

examples and the target grammar points easily and quickly.

Approaches to treating grammar points The last two statements were concerned with the two broad approaches to dealing with

grammar points in language class. These approaches were the full-length lesson in which the

whole lesson is devoted to the grammar points, and responsive teaching in which the

grammar points are discussed only when they appear while teaching other aspects of

language such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. The majority of the respondents

either disagreed (33%) or strongly disagreed (47%) with the notion that grammar points

should be taught/mentioned only when they appear in the lesson. Seventy percent of the

respondents were in favor of teaching grammar points in a full-length lesson.

45

Table 15: Approaches to treating grammar points

Approaches to

treating grammar

Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree

Total

Responsive

teaching

7 13 33 47 100

Full-length lesson 13 57 17 13 100

Table 15 shows that most of the teachers favored teaching grammar in a full-length lesson.

The views expressed by the majority concur with the views they expressed on the necessity

of the grammar component in the teachers' course and the status of grammar in language

learning discussed above respectively under the headings Necessity of grammar component

for English teachers and status of grammar in language learning. However, there was a small

minority who held an opposing view and preferred the responsive approach.

In this area, the teachers' views were more in harmony with their classroom teaching, for all

of them dealt with grammar points in forty- or -five-minute long lessons. The nature of the

English textbooks they were teaching can be cited as one of the reasons for such a treatment

of grammar points. For instance, the secondary English textbooks (Grade nine and Grade ten)

consist of a separate section called Time for Grammar. The section begins with instruction,

rovides a short introduction to the target grammar points followed by a list of rules with

examples, and presents activities for practice. In a similar vein, Meanings into Words

prescribed for Grade Eleven and Grade Twelve have different topics, each topic dealing

extensively with certain grammar points. It suggests that the teaching of the grammar points

from the textbooks required and also could be extended over the whole lessons.

46

CHAPTER FOUR

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This is the final chapter of the research study. Drawing on the analysis and interpretation of

the data from Chapter Three, the first section of this chapter presents the major findings while

the second section makes some recommendations.

4.1 Findings The present study was conducted to find out student teachers' views on the grammar course,

and grammar and grammar teaching on the one hand and communication of grammar

knowledge to their students on the other. The collected data were presented and interpreted

under two major headings: i) Student Teachers' Views on the English Grammar Course ii)

Student Teachers' Views on Grammar and Grammar Teaching, and Communication of

Grammar Knowledge to Their Students. Each heading was further divided into other thematic

categories. Based on the discussion of the data, the researcher has presented the major

findings of the study in the following points:

1. All the informants viewed that the grammar component should be included in the

English teachers' courses. This finding conforms to Williams' (1994) study, which

concludes that "At no point in discussion or in the open sections of the questionnaire

did respondents [MA students] suggest that there should be no grammar component"

(p. 116). Further, their views on the necessity of explicit grammar knowledge for

English teachers also support Mitchell's (1994) conclusion that "[language] teachers

need an understanding of grammar as offering a tool either for prescription or

description" (p. 222).

2. A substantial majority of the respondents (87%) rated the course relevant because it

has included both the theoretical and pedagogical components of English grammar

teaching. Most importantly, the majority valued the course because it equipped them

with a wide repertoire of methods, techniques, activities and resources. A small

number of respondents whose main concern was the applicability of these methods,

techniques and resources to the Nepalese context perceived the course as somewhat

relevant and rated it low.

47

3. To follow the views of the majority (83%), the course materials are of high quality

because it comprises the activities which are interesting and motivating for learners,

and it draws on the materials from different sources. However, viewed from the

applicability of these activities to government-aided schools, and time and efforts that

teachers need to tailor them to the needs of their students, the course materials are just

somewhat useful.

4. The course displays a strong linkage with the grammar component incorporated into

the English textbook or the grammar textbook prescribed at different levels of school.

Such a linkage was perceived by the substantial majority (83%) of the respondents in

the areas such as grammar points, activities (structural and problem-solving, creative),

teaching methods (communicative language teaching, inductive way of presentation,

context- and text-based presentation) and techniques, and resources (i.e. stories,

poems, dialogues).

5. Since all the respondents rated the course very high in terms of its contribution to

their professional development, the grammar course like this seems inevitable for all

ESL/EFL teachers. The grammar course has equipped the teachers not only with the

subject matter knowledge (i.e. knowledge of English grammar), but also with

pedagogical skills (i.e. methods, techniques, activities and resources) for teaching

English grammar to target students. These two components have significantly boosted

up the teachers' confidence in the use of English in the classroom and in

communication of grammar knowledge to their students.

6. The pedagogical components, namely the discussion of the problems that ESL/EFL

face and teaching suggestions for overcoming them, were rated more appropriate than

the theoretical components that deal with grammar in general and English grammar in

particular. The classroom-focused pedagogical components mentioned above are dealt

in Unit II under the heading 'Grammar in Practice', while the theories of grammar,

English grammar and pedagogical grammar are dealt in units I and III. What we can

draw from the views of the majority is that the course components that are

pedagogically-oriented and classroom-focused are more appropriate for English

teachers than those that have the theoretical slant.

7. As reflected in their suggestions, the respondents' major concerns were to reduce

theories and increase practice activities, to contextualize the course materials, and to

design course materials for teachers after carrying out needs analysis. In other words,

48

the suggestions from the respondents are in line with the spirit of the following three

parameters of postmethod pedagogy as envisaged by Kumaravadivelu (2001):

• practicality (i.e. increase practice activities),

• particularity (i.e. contextualize the course materials), and

• possibility (i.e. engage teachers in carrying out classroom-based research to

find out their students' grammar needs).

8. Although the vast majority (i.e. 90%) perceived grammar as a skill and heavily

inclined, in their views, to the communicative dimension of teaching and learning

grammar, in actual classroom they were treating grammar as a set of rules rather than

a skill. Even if the teachers' grammar course has strongly recommended the use of

pair work and group work, they were marginally used in the observed lessons, while

the whole-class teaching seemed a norm. One of the possible reasons could have been

the the setting of the classroom itself, for in terms of arrangement all the classrooms

were traditional (i.e. having immovable benches arranged in rows) calling for whole-

class teaching and preventing easy mobility and freedom required for pair work and

group work.

9. Moving on to teaching methods and techniques, the majority of the teachers viewed

that the inductive method is the best way of presenting grammar points, and they also

claimed, while responding to the the open-ended item, to teach in an inductive and

communicative way by using the communicative and learner-centered techniques

such as dramatization, group work/pair work, problem-solving, etc. However, almost

all were following the deductive way of teaching and using the teacher-centered

techniques such as explanation and demonstration. This finding agrees with Mitchell's

(1994) drawn from the research carried out to find out the foreign language teachers'

beliefs about the role of grammar and their actual classroom teaching in the British

context.

10. As in the case of methods and techniques, there was a disparity between their views

on and preference to the types practice activities, and the classroom practice activities

in which their students were actually engaged. The view that students should practice

grammar in meaning-focused activities was not well supported by their actual

classroom teaching. Despite what they viewed about the best way of practicing

grammar points, the majority were engaging their students in structure-focused

activities such as sentence manipulation, writing sentences for the given structure,

49

matching, etc. Moreover, such classroom activities were mainly taken from the

textbooks.

11. Although Presentation, Practice and Production, and Task, Teach and Task both

models were viewed as the the best ways of integrating grammar points into the

overall language lesson, no teacher was found following the TTT model. In other

words, despite their high opinion of the recent trend of teaching grammar through task

performance, all the teachers were teaching grammar using a three-part cycle of

Presentation, Practice and Production. When interpreted their inclination to this model

in light of the textbooks they were teaching, it is the model clearly outlined for the

teachers to follow. Mitchell's (1994) study has also come up with the similar finding

in the British context in which the teacher, contrary to what they claimed to do, were

following the PPP model given in the textbooks/ syllabus.

12. When asked to mention their most preferred resources, the teachers came up with a

wide range of resources such as stories, games and songs/verse and newspapers. Of

them stories were the most preferred one, followed by games and songs/verse, while

newspapers were the least preferred one. There was high congruence between what

they claimed to use and what they actually used in the classroom in terms of variety.

However, the congruence was low in terms of frequency of their use. Take for

example, stories and dialogues were the second least frequently used resources while

the most frequently used resource was the textbook example sentences, the one not

included in their preference. Most of the teachers heavily relied on the teaching-

learning materials given in the textbooks rather than using the resources from the

outside sources such as library and the internet.

13. As regards approaches to treating grammar points, the classroom teaching showed

high congruence with the views of the majority that grammar points should be dealt in

a full-length lesson. This finding reveals the importance that English teachers attach

to teaching grammar in ESL/EFL class and it also reinforces "the return of grammar

to the center stage of language teaching and learning (Bygate, Tonkyn and Williams,

1996, p. 12).

14. In general, the surveyed teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching echo most

of the tenets of the current trends in grammar teaching such as learner involvement,

collaborative learning, task-based activities. However, their grammar teaching was

found to be still traditional and teacher-centered lacking integration of grammar into

overall discourse through learner-centered activities. There seems to be a gap between

50

how English grammar is taught at school and what student teachers claimed and are

expected by the course to teach grammar to their students. Despite this, one can hope

that their high awareness of theoretical and pedagogical aspects of teaching grammar

to ESL/EFL students and their familiarity with a wide repertoire of grammar teaching

methods, techniques, practice activities and resources can in course of time lead them

to the path of eclecticism.

4.2 Recommendations On the basis of the major findings drawn from the analysis and interpretation of the data, the

researcher has made some recommendations. It is hoped that these recommendations will be

of high significance to address the weaknesses identified in the grammar course offered to

student teachers enrolled in Master's first year English program at TU, and to narrow down

the observed gap between student teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching, and

their actual classroom practices.

1. Following on from the views of the respondents on the inevitability of the grammar

course for English teachers and its contribution to their professional development, it is

reasonable to prescribe a similar type of grammar course for the English students

enrolled in the three-year and one-year B Ed programs. Although a grammar book

entitled "Exploring Grammar in Context" (Carter, Hughes and McCarthy, 2006.) has

been prescribed within the General English Course for B Ed first year students, it is

mainly concerned with the knowledge component of grammar. Equipping the

prospective teachers with the methods, techniques, activities and resources for

teaching English grammar to school children lies beyond its scope. Therefore, a

pedagogical grammar course that can orient B Ed student teachers to the 'how aspect'

of grammar teaching seems necessary. Moreover, if the course like this is prescribed,

it can also serve as a foundation for the present advanced grammar course for the M

Ed first year student teachers. As regards the one year B Ed program, the pedagogical

grammar course seems absolutely necessary.

2. It is necessary to address the concern of those who rated the course somewhat

relevant. They doubted the applicability of the methods, techniques and activities

given in the teachers' course to the Nepalese context. Their concern seems genuine

when we compare the emphasis of the teachers' course on recent ELT trend such as

task-based teaching, lexical approach and learner autonomy with our teacher-centered

culture, textbooks and examination system.

51

3. Only prescribing and discussing a wide variety of teaching methods, techniques,

resources and activities may not be sufficient. We should also train the student

teachers in tailoring the given materials to the needs of their students. They should be

informed of the fact that direct adoption of the teaching resources from the exported

materials is not possible all the time, nor it is desirable. What is desirable is adoption

of the relevant materials and their adaptation to the target situation. That is, the

teachers should be encouraged and even trained to adopt the the activities, techniques,

resources, etc. from the course materials and adapt them to their context.

4. The majority reported the strong linkage between the teachers' grammar course and

the school grammar they are teaching. However, we cannot dismiss the views of the

minority who found the linkage weak. In order to ensure a greater degree of linkage

between the university grammar course and the school grammar books, English

grammar book writers should be made aware of the recent development in the field of

grammar teaching in general and English pedagogical grammar in particular. Also,

the teachers should be encouraged to evaluate the school grammar books they teach in

the spirit of the recent principles and theories of pedagogical grammar.

5. The teachers' main concern to actual classroom practice suggests that classroom-

oriented pedagogical components should be given priority over theoretical

components in their course. Although the course has given more weightage to

pedagogical components of grammar than to theoretical ones, some theoretical issues

from unit III and Unit I that do not directly deal with teaching English as a

foreign/second language can be removed in the subsequent revision of the course. The

topic such as "German Word Order: A Role for Developmental and Linguistic Factors

in L2 Pedagogy" (Rogers, 1994) can be one of such topics.

6. Student teachers should have a voice in the decision making process, especially while

deciding on course materials, for they are the prime 'stakeholders' in the educational

process. If their direct involvement is not feasible, we can collect their suggestions

through a questionnaire or open discussion before finalizing the course. Since they are

the people for whom the course is designed and they are also the people who translate

into the classroom the methods, techniques, activities and resources prescribed in their

course. Their views and suggestions count more than those of any expert. If the

teachers are treated as 'outsiders' while designing the course, we cannot expect to

design appropriate methodology and will be difficult to achieve the parameters of

postmethod pedagogy: practicality, particularity and possibility. For the immediate

52

purpose, it is imperative that the course designing committee keep in mind the

suggestions from the student teachers while revising this course in future.

7. Since the layout of the classroom itself seemed to be one of many factors that might

have prevented the teachers from practicing what they preach. For example, the

majority treated grammar points as a set of rules and resorted to the deductive way of

teaching despite their views on grammar as a skill (i.e. teaching grammar for

communication) and their claims of teaching grammar in a communicative way.

Changing the traditional layout of the room only for English lessons may not be

practical all the time. Therefore, it is important that we train our teachers to capitalize

on such classroom constraints to increase students' active involvement through pair

work and group work. Each bench, for example, can be treated as a group, or four

students sitting together can form in two pairs while working out the answers to the

given questions.

8. If grammar is genuinely perceived as a separate skill that enhances the acquisition of

other major language skills, the teachers should think of how their students can be

engaged in the communicative practice of grammar points through the the fluency-

and meaning-first, learner-centered techniques such as dramatization, group

work/pair work, problem-solving. They should realize the fact that the teacher-

centered techniques such as explanation and demonstration have their own strengths,

but may not be so effective to teach grammar as a skill.

9. Many teachers seem to be aware of the recent trend of integrating grammar points into

the language lesson through tasks. However, they have failed to translate this

awareness to the actual classroom practice. Since the books they are teaching present

grammar in the traditional PPP model, the nature of the books itself seems to be one

of the causes of disparity between their views and actual classroom teaching. In such

a case, the only option they may have is to use the existing textbooks as reference

materials and design their own grammar lessons that require the students to work on

the given task before they are taught the targeted grammar points. Although this may

call for extra effort and time on the part of the teachers, a small change initiated at one

level of teaching may have a big impact on other areas.

10. Grammar teaching should expose the students to the three different dimensions of

grammar: form/structure, meaning and function. For this, they should experience

grammar points through a variety of resources such as pictures and realia for

structure-meaning match, drama and dialogue for structure-social function match, and

53

stories, anecdotes, essays and newspaper articles for structure-discourse match.

Moreover, teachers should decrease their dependency on the textbooks and look for

other resources available in the library and on the Internet to bring a variety and the

outside world into the grammar class.

11. We should work collaboratively with student teachers to address the disparity

between their views and their actual classroom teaching. However, such a disparity is

not uncommon among ELT practitioners both theoretically and practically. From the

theoretical perspective, it is natural to witness a gap between thoughts and actions in

all fields of profession. From the practical perspective, in the early phase of teaching

career the teachers seem to be theoretically aware of a wide repertoire of methods,

techniques, resources and activities exposed to them through formal instruction. Such

a theoretical awareness is mostly confined to their intellectual level. It takes years of

conscious practice to bring down this knowledge to the experiential or action level.

Our student teachers should be encouraged to engage in conscious practice of

teaching, that is, reflecting on their own everyday teaching so that they can self-

observe whether they are teaching English grammar the way they think it should be

taught. It is the process that can help them make a conscious choice of teaching

methods, techniques and resources most relevant to their classroom context. It is

through such theoretically conscious practice that the teachers can move to the path of

principled eclecticism.

12. This study mixed survey with classroom observation to find out student teachers'

views on the grammar course, and the degree of congruence between their

thoughts/views and classroom actions. Since it was limited in its scope in terms of the

number of respondents, the number of lessons observed and the issues it covered,

further research is necessary to find out all the relevant factors that might have

contributed to the gap between their views on grammar and grammar teaching and

their actual classroom practices. That is to say, it is necessary to carry out more

comprehensive and qualitative type of study to explore Nepalese teachers' beliefs, and

their of teaching grammar with reference to instructional and contextual constraints.

54

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57

Appendix A:

English Grammar Course Offered to MEd First Year Students

TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

2066

ENGLISH GRAMMAR FOR TEACHERS

1. Introduction

This is an advanced English grammar course. There are four units in it. The course begins

with the basic concepts of grammar. It also deals with the different types of grammar. The

second unit gives a thorough practice in various elements of English grammar. The third

unit highlights the role of grammar for teachers, learners and its place in ELT pedagogy.

The fourth unit offers practical activities and material for teaching grammar in the ELT

classroom.

2. Course Objectives

General objectives

• to acquaint the students with the basic notions and concepts of grammar.

• to make them practice various elements of the English grammar

• to familiarize them with the need of the knowledge of grammar in learning and

teaching of English.

Specific objectives

• Define grammar and mention its characteristics.

• Classify grammar into various types.

• Present an overview of various types of grammars

• Practice and use various elements of grammar

• Explain the importance of grammar for teachers and learners

• Design lessons and activities for teaching grammar

• Identify and use appropriate resources for teaching grammar

3. Course contents

Unit 1: Basic Concepts of Grammar

58

1.1.Meanings and scope of grammar

1.2.Characteristics of grammar

1.3.Theoretical grammar and pedagogical grammar

1.4. Descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar

1.5. Formal grammar and functional grammar

1.6. Traditional grammar, structural grammar, generative grammar, universal

grammar and communicative grammar

Unit 2: Grammar in Practice

Contents: All the chapters in Cowan (2009).

Unit 3: Grammar and the Language Teacher

3.1 Grammar and grammars

3.2 Teacher's knowledge of grammar

3.3 Grammar and learning

3.4 Grammar and teaching

Unit 4: Pedagogical Grammar

4.1. Why to teach grammar

4.2 How to teach grammar from rules

4.3 How to teach grammar from examples

4.4 How to teach grammar through texts

4.5 How to practice grammar

4.6 How to deal with grammar errors

4.7 How to integrate grammar

4.8 Resources for grammar teaching

4.9 Songs and verses

4.10 Games and problem-solving activities

4.11 Text-based exercises and activities

1.12 Pictures and realia

4. Instructional Techniques

• Lecture and discussion

• Demonstration

• Presentation

• Project work

• Group and individual work

59

• Self-study

5. Assessment Technique

Written examination 100%

6. Distribution of Marks

Unit 1: 10 marks

Unit 2: 60 marks

Unit 3: 15 marks

Unit 4: 15 marks

7. Prescribed Books

• Bygate, M., Tonkyn, A. & Williams, E. (Eds.), Grammar and the language teacher.

UK: Prentice Hall.

• Celce-Murcia, M. and Hilles, S. (1988). Techniques and resources in teaching

grammar. Oxford: OUP.

• Cowan, R. (2009). The teacher's grammar of English. Cambridge: CUP.

• Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. England: Pearson Education Limited.

8. References

• Halliday, M.A.K. (1991). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward

Arnold.

• Harmer, J. (1987). Teaching and learning grammar. London: Longman.

• Odlin, T. (Ed.) (1994). Perspectives on pedagogical grammar. Cambridge: CUP.

• O'Grady, W. et al (Eds) (1997). Contemporary linguistics. New York. St. Martin's

Press.

• Radford, A. (2009). Analyzing English sentences. Cambridge. CUP.

• Ur. P. (1988). Grammar teaching activities. Cambridge: CUP.

9. Further Readings

• Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mounton.

• Lyons, J. (1971). Theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.

• Lyons, J. (2002). Language and linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.

• Quirk at al (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. UK:

Longman,

• Quirk, R. and Sidney Greenbaum (1987). A university grammar of English. Hong

Kong: ELBS.

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Appendix B: A Survey Questionnaire

Student Teachers' Views on Grammar Course, Grammar and Grammar Teaching

Dear Teachers

I am Bal Ram Adhikari. I teach the course "English Grammar for Teachers" to the M Ed first

year students at Mahendra Ratna Campus (TU). I am carrying out a research study under

UGC, Bhaktapur, investigating student teachers' views on grammar and grammar teaching.

I'd like to request you to participate in my study by completing a survey questionnaire. The

information you provide will be of great importance to shed light on ESL grammar teaching

in the context of Nepal. I highly appreciate your cooperation. Your identity will not be stated

in the report.

Name:________________ Institute : _______________________

Level at which you are teaching:__________________________

Section I. Views on Grammar Course

Direction: Please read the questionnaire items carefully and circle the answer you agree

with.

1. Do you think that grammar should be included in the English course offered to

teachers?

Yes No

If 'NO', please comment on your selection:

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________

2. Is the course 'English Grammar for Teachers' relevant to your teaching context?

Very relevant Relevant Somewhat relevant Irrelevant

Please comment on your selection:

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________

61

3. How do you rate the quality of the course materials (textbooks and reference books)

prescribed in the Course in terms of their applicability to your teaching contexts?

Very useful Useful Somewhat useful Not useful

Please comment on your

selection:_______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

4. What type of link do you see between this Course and English grammar that you teach

in school?

Very Strong Strong Weak No link at all

If you have chosen 'Very strong' or 'Strong', please specify any two major areas of

grammar teaching (such as methods, activities, resources)

i. _________________________________________

ii. _________________________________________

5. Has this course improved your confidence and skills in teaching grammar?

Yes No

If 'Yes', please specify, what area (s) ____________________________________

6. Which of the following components included in the Course do you consider the most

appropriate for school English?

(You can tick more than one answer to the question if you wish.)

a) Theoretical concepts of grammar

b) Theoretical knowledge of English grammar

c) Discussion of the problems that students face with the given grammatical items

d) Suggestions for teaching the given grammatical items

7. What suggestions do you like to provide for the improvement of the Course?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

62

Section II: Teachers' Views on Grammar and Grammar Teaching

Direction: Please read each questionnaire item carefully and put a tick in the box under the

given heading you agree with.

Strongly

Agree

Agree Disagree Strongly

Disagree

1. English grammar is a set of rules that

prescribes what is right and what is wrong in

English.

2. English grammar is a skill that enhances

competence in other skills in English.

3. Grammar points are best presented inductively

(teaching grammar from examples).

4. Grammar points are best presented

deductively (teaching grammar from rules).

5. Grammar points are best presented when they

are integrated in the context through texts.

6. Students should practice grammar in meaning-

focused activities (e.g. dramatic activities,

interview, role play, etc.).

7. Students should practice grammar points in

structure-focused activities (e.g. fill in the

blanks, transformation, true/false, etc).

8. Grammar points are best integrated through

the Presentation-Practice-Production model.

9. Grammar points are best integrated through

the Task-Teach-Task model.

10. Grammar points should be taught/mentioned

only when they appear in the lesson.

11. Grammar points should be taught in a full-

length lesson.

63

1. Mention any two methods you prefer to use to teach grammar to your students.

i. ____________________________________

ii. ___________________________

2. Mention any three resources (e.g. songs, verse, games, dramas, stories, etc) you prefer to

use to teach grammar to your students.

i. __________________________________________________

ii. ___________________________________________________

iii. ___________________________________________________

3. Mention any three techniques you prefer to use to teach grammar to your students.

i. __________________________________________________

ii. ___________________________________________________

iii. ___________________________________________________

The researcher can be reached at [email protected] if you wish to know more about

the study.

The researcher will send you the findings of this research if interested.

Thank you for your cooperation!

64

Appendix C: Questionnaire Section: II Student Teachers Views on Grammar and Grammar Teaching

Strongly

Agree

Agree Disagree Strongly

Disagree

1. English grammar is a set of rules that

prescribes what is right and what is wrong in

English.

30 40 26 4

2. English grammar is a skill that enhances

competence in other skills in English.

57 33 10

3. Grammar points are best presented

inductively (teaching grammar from

examples).

60 27 13

4. Grammar points are best presented

deductively (teaching grammar from rules).

10 10 60 20

5. Grammar points are best presented when

they are integrated in the context through

texts.

64 30 6

6. Students should practice grammar in

meaning-focused activities (e.g. dramatic

activities, interview, role play, etc.).

33 50 17

7. Students should practice grammar points in

structure-focused activities (e.g. fill in the

blanks, transformation, true/false, etc).

3 37 47 13

8. Grammar points are best integrated through

the Presentation-Practice-Production model.

30 57 13

65

9. Grammar points are best integrated through

the Task-Teach-Task model.

47 40 10 3

10. Grammar points should be taught/mentioned

only when they appear in the lesson.

7 13 33 47

11. Grammar points should be taught in a full-

length lesson.

13 57 17 13

66

Appendix D: General Outline for Classroom Observation

Methods/Ways of

teaching

Techniques Practice

activities

Resources Model of

integration

Approaches

to treating

grammar

points

Mode of

interaction