Investigating High School Teachers’ Belief Regarding Teaching Grammar

Majid Farahian

Abstract


Although there is an ever increasing interest in the issue of teacher belief systems in mainstream education studies, the beliefs of EFL teachers, especially Iranian teachers‟, about grammar and the influence of such beliefs on their instruction remain relatively unexplored. The present study seeks to examine high school teachers‟ belief regarding teaching grammar. To do so a grammar belief questionnaire and an interview were administered. The result showed that although teachers were compelled by the curriculum and students needs to teach grammar explicitly through present, practice, produce (P.P.P) approach they were well aware of some tenets of focus on form instruction of grammar and valued learning grammar in communicative meaningful activities.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Barnard, R., & Scampton, D. (2008). Teaching grammar: A survey of EAP teachers in New Zealand. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 14(2), 59-82.

Borg, S. (1999). Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar teaching. System, 27, 19-31.

Borg, S. (2001). Key concepts in ELT: Teachers‟ beliefs. ELT Journal, 55(2), 186-188.

Borg, S. (2003). Teacher Cognition in grammar teaching: A literature review. Language Awareness, 12(2), 96-108.

Burgess, J. & Etherington, S. (2002). Focus on grammatical form: explicit or implicit? System, 30, 433-458.

Clark, C.M., & Peterson (1986). Teachers‟ taught processes. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd. ed. pp. 255- 295). New York: Macmillan.

Dahmardeh, M. (2009). English language teaching in Iran and communicative language teaching. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Warwick University.

Doughty, C., & Williams, J. (Eds.). (1998). Focus on form in classroom Second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, R. (2006).Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 40 (1), 83-107.

Farrell, T.S.C. (1999). The Reflective assignment: Unlocking pre-service English teachers‟ beliefs on grammar teaching. RELC Journal, 30(2), 1-17.

Ghorbani, M. R.( 2009 ).ELT in Iranian high schools in Iran, Malaysia and Japan: Reflections on how tests influence use of prescribed textbooks Reflections on English Language Teaching, 8 (2), 131–139.

Jahangard, A. (2007). Evaluation of EFL materials taught at Iranian public high schools. The Asian EFL Journal, 9(2), 130-150.

McKay, S. L. (2006). Researching second language classrooms. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.

Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2005). Second language research: Methodology and design.

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Meirin, L., & Norman, N. (2001). Grammar in MFL teaching revisited. Language Learning Journal, 23, 58-66.

Moini, M.R. (2009).The impact of EFL teachers‟ cognition on teaching foreign language grammar. Pazhuhesh-e Zabanha-ye Khareji, 49, 141-164.

Nassaji, H. (2000).Toward integrating form focused instruction and communicative interaction in the second language classroom: Some pedagogical possibilities. The Modern Language Journal, 84(ii), 241-250.

Phipps, S., & Borg, S. (2009). Exploring tensions between teachers‟ grammar teaching beliefs and practices. System, 37, 380–390.

Razmjoo, S. A. (2007).High Schools or Private Institutes Textbooks? Which Fulfill Communicative Language Teaching Principles in the Iranian Context?

Asian EFL Journal, 9(4). Retrieved June, 2010 from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/September_05_dn.php

Razmjoo, S. A., & Riazi, A.M.(2006). Do high schools or private institutes practice communicative language teaching? A case study of Shiraz teachers in high schools and institutes. The Reading Matrix, 6, (3), 340-363.

Richards, J.C., Gallo, P. B., & Renandya, W. A. (2001). Exploring Teachers‟ Beliefs and the Processes of Change. PAC Journal, 1,1, 41-58.

Tillema, H. H. (2000). Belief change towards self-directed learning in student teachers: immersion in practice or reflection on action. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 575-591.

Widdowson, H.G. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: OUP.

Yin, W.K. (2006). Teachers’ belief and grammar practice. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The University of Hong Kong.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies
ISSN 1305-578X (Online)
Copyright © 2005-2022 by Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies