Two views of the teaching of grammar in compulsory education: teachers’ and students’ perspectives

Abstract

In the teaching of grammar, as in other subjects, it is necessary to discuss and define the object of what is to be taught: what contents should be selected, the reference theories to be applied on considering them, and the terminology and sequencing to be used. All these elements are essential in order to build a grammar for the school that may be used as a guide for teachers. However, there is also a need to gather information about the other two corners of the didactic triangle: teachers – what they do to organize and to make effective the students’ learning, how they value it, what difficulties they find and how they think it can be improved – and students – which process is followed by learners to build knowledge, what concepts are actually constructed and which methodologies promote better reflexive learning. In this paper, the authors highlight the interest in furthering the other two aspects mentioned above: teacher training and student learning, through the results of two research studies conducted in Catalonia in recent years.

Keywords: Grammar teaching and learning, reflection on language, metalinguistic reasoning, teacher’ conceptions, student’ knowledge.