The evidence is now in: the explicit teaching of grammar rules leads to better learning
The straightforward, pre-planned teaching of grammar in English
language teaching has been under attack for years. Various alternatives
have been proposed: to expose learners to language that is just a bit
more advanced than what they currently produce; to wait until a
communicative situation demands a certain structure before introducing
it; to let the grammar emerge naturally from vocabulary learning, or
from the lived context of the classroom. Each approach has been defended
with carefully structured arguments, and some approaches have been
embraced enthusiastically by ministries of education around the world.
However,
evidence trumps argument, and the evidence is now in. Rigorously
conducted meta-analyses of a wide range of studies have shown that,
within a generally communicative approach, explicit teaching of grammar
rules leads to better learning and to unconscious knowledge, and this
knowledge lasts over time.
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