Papers in TESL March 30, 2009

The Debate on Grammar Teaching in the ESL Classroom

Since about the early 1980s, there has been an ongoing

controversy about whether to teach or not to teach grammar

explicitly in the ESL classroom. In other words, scholars have

argued the merits and demerits of focus-on-form instruction in

second language teaching, particularly in the context of the

communicative language teaching movement. To address this topic,

I intend to first review the literature on the “teach-or-not-

teach-grammar” debate, offering the theoretical account that has

given rise to this debate. Then, I will discuss some other

relevant considerations as well as important research findings

drawn from empirical research. After that, I will focus on

pedagogical insights of how to combine between focus on form and

communicative goals of language teaching methodology as informed

by the latest developments in the field. Finally, I will conclude

this paper by taking a stand on the role of grammar instruction

in the teaching of ESL.

A careful look at the history of the debate about whether

grammar should be taught explicitly will reveal that such a

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debate has been in a continuous state since the time when the

direct method was first used almost in the 1890s (Macaro &

Masterman, 2006). According to Ellis (2002a), this debate has

been even getting sharper during the last three decades. Ellis

sees that grammar was a prominent aspect in the methods that

relied on a structural syllabus, and then such a status of

grammar was downplayed later in the natural approach and the

communicative language teaching when more emphasis was placed on

a notional-functional syllabus. In the recent years, several

arguments have been made for making grammar part of the language

syllabus in the form of what is called focus on form based on

research findings that pointed out the insufficiency of the

meaningful input in the latter two approaches. In brief, these

arguments differed in whether form should be taught, and if

taught, should it be implicit or explicit? From another

perspective, Hood (1994) suggests that the debate primarily

evolves about three questions: “a) what grammar is; b) who it

should be taught to; and c) whether it should involve overt use

of terminology or merely the establishment of patterns” (p. 28).

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Before discussing the theoretical framework of the debate,

it is worthwhile to know how form is defined so that we can

establish a better understanding of why it is debatable in

addition to other issues involved in the debate. Contrary to the

initial perception of what form implies, Ellis (2001) maintains

that the term form “is intended to include phonological, lexical,

grammatical, and pragmalinguistic aspects of language” (p. 2).

Hence, focus on form can be defined “as the incidental attention

that teachers and L2 learners pay to form in the context of

meaning focused instruction” (Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewen, 2001,

p. 1). Subsequent to their definition, Ellis and his colleagues

note that this meaning has been expanded by Long (1991) who

suggests that focus on form can be proactive, intensive, or

repetitive instruction of a single linguistic element. In any

case, focus on form distinguishes itself from decontexualized

grammar instruction that is isolated from meaningful or

communicative language use (Lyster, 2004). We can relate this

implication to Celce-Murcia’s (1992) description of formal grammar

instruction and Terrell’s (1991) definition of explicit grammar instruction

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in that the learner’s attention is focused on the form a message

has; preferably as Celce-Murcia (1992) suggests, in its

meaningful and functional context. Terrell’s use of the term

explicit grammar instruction leads us to an important distinction

between implicit and explicit instruction which, according to DeKeyser

(1995), entails that while the former aims to have learners

acquire implicit rules, the latter seeks to help learners master

explicit rules. DeKeyser proposes that the amount of awareness

learners have of the forms being taught determines if these forms

will become part of the learners’ explicit or implicit knowledge.

In fact, it is this dichotomy between implicit and explicit

knowledge that further provoked the debate revolving around the

teaching of grammar, as Lyster (2004) maintains that whether or

not explicit knowledge can ultimately become part of an L2

learner’s implicit knowledge, and so can be used in unplanned

oral performance “is still an open question” (p. 321).

The facets of L2 pedagogy that have given rise to the teach-

or-not-teach-grammar debate become more evident when we consider the

change that occurred to L2 syllabus since the early 1980s;

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specifically, from the structural syllabus to the notional-

functional syllabus. It is central to the discussion of the

debate surrounding form-focused instruction (FFI) to shed some light

on the place of grammar in the era of the communicative approach.

Clearly, the debate involved has become more intense since the

advent of the communicative approach in the mid-1970s. In this

regard, a number of scholars (e.g., Wilkins, 1976; Widdowson,

1978) attempted to apply Hymes’s communicative competence,

suggesting that second or foreign language instruction should aim

to enable learners to communicate in the target language and that

the language teaching syllabus should be focused on notional and

functional aspects rather than structural aspects (as cited in

Celce-Murcia, 1991).

Another influential strand is that led by Krashen and

influenced by his Monitor Model along with its underlying

hypotheses which drove Krashen (1981) among others to claim that

a low affective filter and comprehensible input at an "i + 1"

level through meaning-focused instruction are sufficient

conditions for the acquisition of the rule system and that explicit

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grammar instruction is needless (Macaro & Masterman, 2006; Ellis et

al., 2001; Terrell, 1991). In the same vein, Prabhu (1987) proposes

that teaching language with a focus on a descriptive grammar is

prone to hinder learners’ interlanguage development, claiming

that the learner’s internal grammar is too complicated and

encompassing to be paralleled to the way in which a descriptive

grammar can be organized and offered (as cited in Willis, 1997).

Prabhu believes that “[g]rammar-construction by the learner is an

unconscious process which is best facilitated by bringing about

in the learner a preoccupation with meaning, saying or doing” (as

cited in Willis, 1997, p. 114). Obviously, as Lyster (2004)

notes, Krashen and Prabhu favor implicit or what came to be

called incidental learning to explicit learning. Nonetheless, it is

worth noting that in this view, FFI has not been passivized in

the sense that, as Ellis (2002a) points out, FFI is seen as

contributing to the development of explicit knowledge, but not

implicit knowledge and as such it does not conduce to the

learner’s spontaneous oral performance. In this respect, Krashen

(1982) suggests that this explicit or conscious knowledge aids

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the learner as a monitor and argues that when three conditions of

monitor use (knowledge of the rule, enough time to apply the

rule, and focus on form) are met, grammar can lead to improved

accuracy, yet at the expense of fluency (as cited in Krashen,

1992). Other scholars (e.g., Pica, 1994) understate the role of

accuracy in negotiation, suggesting that “[l]earners and their

interlocutors find ways to communicate messages through

negotiation, but not necessarily with target-like forms” (as

cited in Lyster, 2004, p. 323). In sum and as Wright (1999) puts

it, the opponents of FFI are motivated by that L2 acquisition can

be assimilated to L1 acquisition in that language learning can

occur naturally by simply exposing the learner to comprehensible

input through interaction in meaningful context “with learners

receiving little or no formal instruction in grammar” (p. 33).

On the other hand, the scholars who support FFI see it

indispensable if language proficiency is to be achieved in the

long run. For this realm of thought and research, “explicit

teaching of grammar rules may be viewed as a necessary 'short

cut' to learning the rules and structures that limited classroom

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language input can never hope to cover sufficiently for them to

be acquired” (Wright, 1999, p. 34). One important claim that

represents this view is that post-pubescent L2 learners lack full

access to the underlying acquisitional mechanisms that support

child L1 acquisition; therefore, they need to rely more on

inductive learning mechanisms which utilize negative evidence

(Felix, 1985; Schachter, 1989, as cited in Ellis et al., 2001).

Similarly, Beeching (1989) posits this position clearly when he

asks “[i]s not a grasp of underlying grammar essential if

learners are to generate their own meanings?” (As cited in

Wright, 1999, p. 35) Another explanation for the adequacy of FFI

is that learners cannot attend to both meaning and form

concurrently since such a task would be so demanding of their

language processing abilities (Ellis et al., 2001). Although Long

(1996) opts for the use of implicit or incidental learning the

same as Krashen does, Long (1991) subscribes to the dominion that

considers drawing learners’ attention to form necessary. If truth

be told, it was Long (1991) who first originated the term focus on

form and intended it to refer to any teaching technique that

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“overtly draws students' attention to linguistic elements as they

arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on

meaning or communication" (pp. 45-46). With this definition of

focus on form in mind, Long distinguishes focus on forms as being more

concerned with the systematic and intensive teaching of isolated

forms in accordance with a more structural syllabus.

The proponents of FFI uprate two important outcomes of FFI

which is that, as Ellis (1997) notes, it can help learners ward

off premature fossilization and promote their consciousness in

order to acquire explicit knowledge. This is seen especially

vital for post- pubescent; or else, they will not develop

interlanguage systems free from errors of various sources such as

L1 negative transfer, overgeneralization, etc. (Celce-Murcia,

1992). This holds true especially if we take into consideration

that such errors may fossilize as time passes and so become

beyond repair. In connection with consciousness, Schmidt (1994)

believes noticing to be “the necessary and sufficient condition

for the conversion of input to intake for learning” (p. 17),

suggesting that learners must consciously notice forms to be able

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to acquire them (Ellis, 2001). Endorsed by research from the

field of cognitive psychology, noticing serves to make learners

aware of the input they are receiving in which case this

awareness results in the learners’ internalizing the input

(Schmidt, 1990). It is also crucial to Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis

that the effect of noticing may not be instantaneous; in fact, it

can be an outcome of an interaction between what is being noticed

and what is already part of the intake (Long & Robinson, 1998).

On the whole, the above discussion brings to mind the distinction

being made between two models of language learning: skill-building

models on basis of which “learners acquire forms by

proceduralizing explicit knowledge through production practice”

and input-processing models which uphold the view that “learners

acquire forms by consciously attending to them and the meanings

they encode in the input” (Ellis, 2001, p. 36).

Since the overall purpose of this paper is to offer a

thorough discussion of the debate on the teaching of grammar,

this section will be devoted to other noteworthy considerations

pertinent to the debate. For example, Lyster (2004) summarizes

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three facets of grammar pedagogy that are still controversial as:

“the extent to which form-focused instruction must be integrated

into communicative activities…, the differential effects of form-

focused instructional options that vary in degrees of

explicitness, as well as the types of L2 features that can most

benefit from form-focused instruction …” (p. 324). Ellis (2002a)

turns to the question as to why such doubts as those mentioned

above have been raised about FFI which he answers as follows:

there is notable dissimilarity between the grammar being taught

and the learner’s implicit knowledge, the manner in which a

structural element is taught may deform the input, and it is not

yet clear if intensive instruction can result in the development

of implicit knowledge. What still needs to be made clear is: On

what basis has the preference of either teach or not teach grammar

been made? For Krashen’s view, a number of scholars and

researchers have expressed their skepticism about the sufficiency

of comprehensible input isolated from any focus on form in search

for ultimate language attainment; for example, Lightbown and

Pienemann (1993) suggest, based on research evidence, that FFI

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has proved effective in causing developmental changes in

interlanguage and promoting language acquisition. More to the

point, Ellis (2002b) points out that the mere exposure to

positive input does not guarantee the acquisition of all

grammatical structures and that negative feedback is extremely

needed in order for learners to achieve grammatical competence.

Another problem lying in Krashen’s position is that he limits the

role of explicit grammar knowledge to that of a monitor that adult

learners use under certain conditions (Terrell, 1991).

Conversely, Terrell (1991) details three ways in which explicit

grammar instruction affects acquisition: “1) as an “advance

organizer” to aid in comprehending and segmenting the input; 2)

as a meaning-form focuser that aids the learner in establishing a

meaning-form relationship for morphologically complex forms; and

3) by providing forms for monitoring, which in turn will be

available for acquisition in the output” (p. 58). Indeed, Krashen

himself (1993) admits Lightbown’s (1991) finding regarding the

long-term effect of focus on form. A fact often overlooked is that

learners like to be taught grammar explicitly and that is the

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only way they can be helped to form their hypotheses about

language (Wright, 1999). Many learners as well as teachers

believe that grammar teaching aids language acquisition (Terrell,

1991).

Whereas the above discussion is centered upon the

theoretical framework that shapes the teach-or-not-teach-grammar

debate, this section will briefly refer to some important

findings drawn from empirical research. Referring to numerous

studies he has reviewed, Ellis (2001) states that “[i]n general,

however, these experimental studies did show that grammatical

form was amenable to instruction, especially if the learners were

developmentally ready to acquire the targeted structure, and also

that these effects were often durable” (p. 4). In their meta-

analysis of 49 studies of FFI, Norris and Ortega (2000) concluded

that explicit instruction results in more positive and lasting

outcomes than implicit instruction; the same applies to explicit

feedback versus negative feedback. From six studies investigating

the role of comprehensible input among Canadian French immersion

students, Hammerly (1991) found that the results turned out

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dissatisfactory in terms of both language competency and accuracy

(as cited in Wright, 1999). Likewise, Ellis et al. (2001) report a

number of studies that have indicated that learners who are

taught through intensive meaning-focused instruction fail to

achieve satisfactory levels of grammatical and communicative

competence. Also, Ellis (2002a) maintains that ample research

provides us with positive evidence as regards the effect of

formal instruction on the development of explicit knowledge.

Despite the limitations they identify in their study, Housen,

Pierrard, and Van Daele (2005) found explicit grammar instruction to be

conducive to the learners’ acquisition and mastery of two

grammatical structures in spontaneous speech. Nevertheless,

Macaro and Masterman (2006) warn us that it remains unconvincing

as to whether explicit grammar instruction can result in the

grammatical rules being internalized and become part of the

learner’s implicit knowledge.

Obviously, a considerable body of research evidence points

to the efficacy of explicit instruction of grammar or focus on

form especially if it is in conjunction with meaning-focused

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instruction and tailored to learners’ current level of language

competency; however as Ellis et al. (2001) mention, the question

remains as to how this can be accomplished. The bitter fact is

that, as Celec-Murcia (1992) comments, this poses a challenge

that language teachers need to confront in order “to develop

effective ways of focusing learner attention on form at critical

moments while learners are using the second language for

purposeful communication” (p. 408). In a unique attempt to tie

these two types of instruction together; that is, form-focused and

meaning-focused, referring to the former as code-focused and the

latter as message-focused, Ellis (2002b) offers us two options:

integrated and parallel. He suggests that the integrated option can be

implemented through one of two approaches:

1. A proactive approach or “focused communicative tasks” (p.

24): the curriculum content involves communicative tasks

that focus on specific forms.

2. A reactive approach: the method of instruction involves

the teacher’s feedback with a focus on specific errors

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during or after learners’ performance of communicative

tasks.

Whereas for the parallel option, Ellis says that

[h]ere no attempt is made to integrate a focus on code and

message; instead, these are entirely separate components. In

such a syllabus the main component would consist of

communicative tasks, designed to engage learners in receptive

and productive processes involved in using language to convey

messages. A second, similar component would consist of a list

of grammatical structures to be systematically taught. There

would be no attempt to create any links between the two

components. (p. 25)

In my opinion, the vast amount of thought and research that has

been put into answering the main question of the debate leaves no

room to question the efficacy of explicit grammar instruction or focus on

form in the development of explicit knowledge and the refinement

of interlanguage. Evidently, the current argument should not be

over teach or not teach grammar; rather, it should aim to address such

questions as where, when, and how to teach grammar effectively as

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agreed upon among the majority of theorists and researchers

(e.g., Ellis et al., 2001). Such a fact has recently brought about

a shift in research from examining whether grammar teaching can

help to how different types of FFI can be carried out in a

variety of language learning settings (Ellis, 2001). Given the

ample evidence indicating that explicit grammar teaching can result in

the development of explicit knowledge and the use of monitoring

over speech production, it is rational that this form of teaching

is needed if we seek to help learners, especially adults, develop

their communicative competence, knowing that grammatical

competence is one integral component of communicative competence.

Contrarily, there is an obvious lack of convincing empirical

evidence as regards the reverse effect of explicit grammar teaching;

in fact, those who advocate this trend tend to base their

arguments on theoretical aspects using abstract terms to defend

hypotheses whose premises are still disputable. For example,

Lightbown and Pienemann (1993) make the strong statement that

“Krashen, on the other hand, seems ready to make strong claims

about pedagogical implications of his hypotheses” (p. 720).

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In this era of language teaching, we need to create “a

mixture of opportunities both for acquisition through

communicative interaction and for form-focused instruction, in a

balance which takes account of individual learner and classroom

environment variables” (Wright, 1999, p. 38). In so doing, we

need to consider learners’ needs and learning objectives; for

example, are they learning to accomplish academic or non-academic

goals, to decide upon how explicit and intense our focus on form

ought to be. We also need to keep in mind that adult learners

benefit from FFI more than youngsters and so do advanced learners

in comparison to beginners; especially, if grammar is taught as

awareness and aimed at areas that pose problems to the learners,

as Ellis (2002b) suggests. From my experience as a non-native

English speaker who has been taught grammar explicitly, I have a

strong feel that this form of instruction has contributed to my

explicit knowledge and notably enhanced my planning for oral

communication in English.

References

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