G for Grammar teaching

 “Of the scores of detailed studies of naturalistic and classroom language learning reported over the past 30 years, none suggest, for example, that presentation of discrete points of grammar one at a  time […] bears any resemblance except an accidental one to either the order or the manner in which naturalistic or classroom acquirers learn those items.” (Long & Robinson 1998:16)

“When we do grammar exercises in class, my students cope admirably. They fill in the blanks with correct forms of the verb, don’t forget to invert the subject and the auxiliary when forming questions and don’t use TO after modal verbs must and can. But when it comes to free speaking and writing it seems all my grammar teaching just goes down the drain. They forget all the rules I’ve taught them!"

I am sure every EFL teacher can relate to the above sentiment which makes many teachers wonder: does explicit grammar teaching has any impact on learners’ accuracy? In SLA literature there are three positions regarding the relationship between explicit grammar teaching and learners’ production, known as non-interface, weak interface and strong interface. These positions are summarized in the table below:

Non interface	Weak interface	Strong interface
It makes no difference, i.e. it has no effect on the learner’s interlanguage	It is beneficial	It is necessary

The Non-interface position is associated with Stephen Krashen who distinguished between conscious, deliberate learning (often of grammar rules) and subconscious, implicit acquisition. According to Krashen’s learner’s output is the result of acquired knowledge and grammar learning / teaching has no effect on it. Learners only occasionally use the consciously learned rules to monitor their output when they have time.

Photo by @mscro1 on eltpics on Flickr

On the opposite side of the spectrum are those who believe that language is learned like any other skills, for example, driving a car or riding a bike. It first starts as a conscious learning - of grammar rules or spelling - and is then through practice the skill you are learning becomes automotized (DeKeyser 2001). Linguists who support this view draw on the skill-building theory which differentiates between declarative knowledge (knowing that) and procedural knowledge (knowing how). Practice plays an important role in converting declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge.

The majority of SLA researches would probably fall into the middle category: they believe that explicit learning has some role to play. For example, interactionists believe that focus on grammar should arise incidentally in the context of communication (Thornbury 2006), i.e. during communicative tasks where the primary focus is on meaning.

Michael Long, who proposed the Interaction hypothesis, distinguishes between:

Focus on Form – drawing students’ attention to grammar as it arises incidentally
Focus on FormS – “traditional”, deliberate teaching of grammar structures

These terms might seem a bit confusing so another way of looking at them is as

Proactive (FonFs) - when teaching is based on pre-selection of discrete items (grammar structures)
and
Reactive (FonF) - which may occur through clarification requests, recasts as well as explicit correction.

FonFs approach is therefore associated with the PPP (Present - Practice - Produce) methodology which developed out of behavioirism but was later given support by the Skills-building theory.

Conversely, FonF approach would best match Task-based learning (TBL) where learners are given a a meaningful task and their attention is drawn to grammar issues as they arise.

Another concept associated with the weak-interface position is that of noticing. According to Richard Schmidt, who proposed the Noticing hypothesis (Schmidt 1990), there is no such thing as subconscious learning; learners need to attend to linguistic forms for input to become intake. But that’s for another post…

  

References

DeKeyser, R. M. (2001). Automaticity and automatization . In P. Robinson (ed.), Cognition and Second

Language Instruction . New York: Cambridge University Press, pp 125-151.

Long, M. and Robinson, P. (1998). Focus on form: Theory, research and practice. In Doughty, C., and  Williams, J. (eds), Focus on form in classroom language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.

Schmidt, R. (1990). The Role of Consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied 

Linguistics 11: 129-158

Thornbury, S. (2006) An A-Z of ELT: A Dictionary of Terms and Concepts Used in English Language Teaching. Oxford, UK. : Macmillan Education