Developing effective pedagogies of grammar: The two-in-one approach

Abstract

Teaching grammar at tertiary level can be challenging because students’ language repertoire is comparatively higher than at any other level of teaching and learning. While there is a great demand for grammar teaching in Academic Language Learning (ALL) contexts (and, consequently a broad range of materials to facilitate grammar teaching), the teaching of grammar has attracted much controversy. As a result, many teachers adopt their own techniques and some of these may be under-theorised. The approach proposed in this paper, incorporates Sfard’s (1998) “two metaphors of learning” as a framework to underpin grammar teaching pedagogy. It also encourages ALL practitioners to encompass characteristics of Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990, 2004) “flow” in language learning. By embedding cognitive as well as socio-cultural or participatory learning principles when creating grammar learning tasks, and by stimulating learners for “goal orientation”, the approach outlined in this paper aims to facilitate students’ grammar learning through an analytical learning technique. Grammar proficiency is a necessary part of language proficiency standards for non-native speaker students in Australian universities, and so analytical and self-exploratory learning techniques will benefit students in their thesis writing process and later in their careers as researchers and academics.