Grammar is the heart of language: grammar and its role in language learning among Finnish university students

This article presents and discusses views on grammar and its role in formal language learning amongst Finnish university students. The results are based on a questionnaire which was distributed to students at the University of Jyvaskyla as part of institutional action research. The background to the project was a feeling amongst some teachers of increased divergence between student respectively language teacher understandings of the role of grammar in language teaching. This concern raised the need to find out how students view grammar. The knowledge about thoughts on grammar amongst students would then help teachers to adjust and adept the way grammar is used in language teaching. The main finding of the questionnaire was that a majority of the students think of grammar as a valuable asset in language learning, but at the same time have somewhat different understandings of grammar. In this context grammar is understood as a metalinguistic set of (also normative) statements of regularities in language which is the way most students think of grammar. Three different student perspectives on grammar are distinguished. These include a normative, functional and structural perspective. Since all answers in the questionnaire couldn’t be placed within these categories, a fourth category, “other” was also included.

[1]  S. Fiske,et al.  Social Psychology , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[2]  J. Dupré.  Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa , 1981 .

[3]  J. Fodor,et al.  Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong , 1998 .

[4]  Martin Stegu,et al.  Bringing the ‘folk’ into applied linguistics: An introduction , 2011 .

[5]  Hilkka Yli-Jokipii,et al.  Kieli ja globalisaatio : Language and globalization , 2008 .

[6]  Christin Wirth,et al.  Concepts Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong , 2016 .

[7]  B. Kumaravadivelu.  The Postmethod Condition: (E) merging Strategies for Second/Foreign Language Teaching , 1994 .

[8]  Adam Jaworski,et al.  Sociolinguistic perspectives on metalanguage: Reflexivity, evaluation and ideology , 2004 .

[9]  R. Ellis.  Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective , 2006 .

[10]  Suresh Canagarajah,et al.  Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy , 2011 .

[11]  J. Fodor,et al.  The red herring and the pet fish: why concepts still can't be prototypes , 1996, Cognition.

[12]  Kenneth L. Pike,et al.  Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior, 2nd rev. ed. , 1967 .

[13]  D L Medin,et al.  Concepts and conceptual structure. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[14]  R. Newcombe.  Consciousness , 1996, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.

[15]  N. S. Prabhu.  There Is No Best Method-Why ? , 1990 .

[16]  D. Bell,et al.  Do teachers think that methods are dead , 2007 .

[17]  Kaisu Rättyä.  Opettajan pedagoginen sisältötieto kielitiedon opetuksen näkökulmasta , 2014 .

[18]  Bob Adamson,et al.  Fashions in language teaching methodology , 2008 .

[19]  R. Hasan,et al.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: Learning to function with the other tongue: A systemic functional perspective on second language teaching , 1994 .

[20]  Vivian Zamel,et al.  The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction , 1984 .

[21]  R. Gibbs.  The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding , 1994 .

[22]  Janie Rees‐Miller,et al.  Second Language Pedagogy , 2017 .

[23]  M. Smith.  Consciousness-Raising and the Second Language Learner1 , 1981 .

[24]  J. Bowers.  Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour , 1988 .

[25]  Klaus-Michael Köpcke,et al.  Standardsprachliche Variation als Ausgangspunkt grammatischer Reflexion , 2011 .

[26]  W. Rutherford,et al.  Grammar and second language teaching : a book of readings , 1992 .

[27]  Frank Boers,et al.  Cognitive linguistic approaches to second or foreign language instruction: rationale, proposals and evaluation , 2006 .

[28]  J. Llewelyn.  Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis , 1985 .

[29]  P. Skehan,et al.  Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching , 2006 .

[30]  Benjamin A. Rifkin,et al.  Revisiting Beliefs about Foreign Language Learning1 , 2000 .

[31]  Paul Westney.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: Rules and pedagogical grammar , 1994 .

[32]  Yoshiko Mori.  Epistemological Beliefs and Language Learning Beliefs: What Do Language Learners Believe About Their Learning? , 1999 .

[33]  Johanna Vaattovaara.  Spatial concerns for the study of social meaning of linguistic variables - an experimental approach , 2012 .

[34]  Henriette W. Langdon,et al.  Second-Language Learning , 2011 .

[35]  Dwight L. Bolinger,et al.  The Socially-Minded Linguist* , 1979 .

[36]  E. Rosch.  Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories. , 1975 .

[37]  W. Bruce Croft,et al.  Autonomy and Functionalist Linguistics , 1995 .

[38]  Sara Cotterall,et al.  Key variables in language learning: what do learners believe about them? , 1999 .

[39]  S. Reeves,et al.  Discourse Analysis , 2018, The Study of Language.

[40]  Michael Chapman,et al.  Meaning and the Growth of Understanding Wittgenstein's Significance for Developmental Psychology , 1989 .

[41]  Andreas Bittner.  Das Implizite ‚explizieren‘ – Überlegungen zum Wissen über Grammatik und zum Gegenstand des Grammatikunterrichts , 2011 .

[42]  G. Jean,et al.  Grammar Teaching and Learning in L2: Necessary, but Boring? , 2011 .

[43]  Andrew C. Billings,et al.  Assessing Language Attitudes: Speaker Evaluation Studies , 2008 .

[44]  Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen,et al.  Introducing Interactional Linguistics , 2001 .

[45]  John R. Taylor.  Some pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistics , 1993 .

[46]  Eleanor Rosch,et al.  Principles of Categorization , 1978 .

[47]  J. Nichols,et al.  Functional Theories of Grammar , 1984 .

[48]  H. Frey,et al.  25 Centuries of Language Teaching , 1971 .

[49]  Viv Edwards,et al.  Educational Linguistics , 1987 .

[50]  A. Wenden.  An introduction to Metacognitive Knowledge and Beliefs in Language Learning: beyond the basics , 1999 .

[51]  Hugh Trappes-Lomax,et al.  Language in language teacher education , 2002 .

[52]  Cecil H. Brown.  A survey of category types in natural language , 2014 .

[53]  D. Hymes.  Introduction: Toward Ethnographies of Communication , 2008 .

[54]  Kevin Jiang.  Introduction , 2013, Nature Medicine.

[55]  C. Allen,et al.  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 2011 .

[56]  Peter Master,et al.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: The effect of systematic instruction on learning the English article system , 1994 .

[57]  Cecil H. Brown,et al.  Mode of Subsistence and Folk Biological Taxonomy [and Comments and Reply] , 1985, Current Anthropology.

[58]  J. Potter,et al.  Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour , 1987 .

[59]  Muriel Saville-Troike,et al.  The ethnography of communication : an introduction , 1991 .

[60]  James Dean Brown.  Research Methods for Applied Linguistics: Scope, Characteristics, and Standards , 2008 .

[61]  Alan V. Brown.  Students' and Teachers' Perceptions of Effective Foreign Language Teaching: A Comparison of Ideals , 2009 .

[62]  Stephen Krashen,et al.  Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition , 1982 .

[63]  Gerhard Leitner,et al.  Grammars at the Interface of Language, Linguistics, and Users , 1989 .

[64]  D. Medin,et al.  The native mind: biological categorization and reasoning in development and across cultures. , 2004, Psychological review.

[65]  J. Edwards.  Language, society, and identity , 1985 .

[66]  E. Rosch.  Wittgenstein and Categorization Research in Cognitive Psychology , 1987 .

[67]  William Littlewood,et al.  Communication-oriented language teaching: Where are we now? Where do we go from here? , 2012, Language Teaching.

[68]  J. Richard Eiser,et al.  Language attitudes , 2015, The French Language in Russia.

[69]  J. R. John.  Consciousness and intentionality , 2004 .

[70]  Margret Selting,et al.  The construction of units in conversational talk , 2000, Language in Society.

[71]  Mary Bucholtz.  Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity , 2003 .

[72]  S. Andrews.  Why Do L2 Teachers Need to 'Know About Language'? Teacher Metalinguistic Awareness and Input for Learning , 1999 .

[73]  D. A. Wilkins.  Linguistics in language teaching , 1972 .

[74]  Kerstin Thelander,et al.  Grammatik och samtal. Studier till minne av Mats Eriksson , 2003 .

[75]  N. S. Prabhu,et al.  Second Language Pedagogy , 1987 .

[76]  B. Spolsky.  Educational linguistics : an introduction , 1978 .

[77]  William E. Rutherford,et al.  Second Language Grammar: Learning and Teaching , 1987 .

[78]  V. J. Cook.  The Relevance of Grammar in the Applied Linguistic of Language Teaching. CLCS Occasional Paper No. 22. Spring 1989. , 1989 .

[79]  Sarah Mercer,et al.  Language learner self-concept: Complexity, continuity and change , 2011 .

[80]  Edward Sapir,et al.  Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech , 1955 .

[81]  Joseph Lo Bianco,et al.  Language Planning as Applied Linguistics , 2008 .

[82]  Adam Jaworski,et al.  Social worlds through language , 2009 .

[83]  J. Mahon.  The Poetics of Mind , 1996 .

[84]  Eileen W. Glisan,et al.  Textbook Grammar: Does It Reflect Native Speaker Speech? , 1993 .

[85]  Simon Borg,et al.  Integrating Grammar in Adult TESOL Classrooms , 2008 .

[86]  Dorothea Franck,et al.  Grammatik und Konversation , 1980 .

[87]  Roy Harris,et al.  Landmarks in Linguistic Thought: The Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure , 1989 .

[88]  Harald Haarmann.  Europeanness, European identity and the role of language: Giving profile to an anthropological infrastructure , 1995 .

[89]  Michel Achard.  Grammatical Instruction in the Natural Approach: a Cognitive Grammar View , 2004 .

[90]  Alan Tonkyn,et al.  Grammar and the Language Teacher , 1994 .

[91]  Virginia Yip.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: Grammatical consciousness-raising and learnability , 1994 .

[92]  Phil Benson,et al.  Conceptions of Language and Language Learning. , 1999 .

[93]  M. Halliday.  Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning , 1976 .

[94]  Alan Davies,et al.  Applied Linguistics: Subject to Discipline? , 2008 .

[95]  Nigel Love,et al.  Landmarks in linguistic thought II , 2001 .

[96]  Borbála Rieger,et al.  Hungarian University Students’ Beliefs about Language Learning: A Questionnaire Study , 2009, Working Papers in Language Pedagogy.

[97]  A. Wenden.  Metacognitive knowledge and language learning , 1998 .

[98]  Heikki Paunonen,et al.  Vähemmistökielestä varioivaksi valtakieleksi , 2006 .

[99]  P. Wesely.  Learner Attitudes, Perceptions, and Beliefs in Language Learning , 2012 .

[100]  E. Rosch,et al.  Categorization of Natural Objects , 1981 .

[101]  Anna Turula.  Form-Focused Instruction and the Advanced Language Learner: On the Importance of the Semantics of Grammar , 2011 .

[102]  Michael Pasquale.  Folk beliefs about second language learning and teaching , 2011 .

[103]  T. Lillis.  The Sociolinguistics of Writing , 2013 .

[104]  Randal Holme.  Construction grammars: Towards a pedagogical model , 2010 .

[105]  Joan Turner.  Language in the Academy: Cultural Reflexivity and Intercultural Dynamics. Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education. , 2010 .

[106]  David Block.  5. An exploration of the art and science debate in language education , 2001 .

[107]  William E. Rutherford,et al.  ASPECTS OF PEDAGOGICAL GRAMMAR , 1980 .

[108]  André Martinet.  Elements of a Functional Syntax , 1960 .

[109]  J. P. M'Caskey.  Grammar , 1899, The ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication.

[110]  Paula Kalaja,et al.  Introduction to Beliefs about SLA revisited , 2011 .

[111]  E. Lewis.  Bilingualism and Bilingual Education , 1980 .

[112]  Per Linell.  The Written Language Bias in Linguistics : Its Nature, Origins and Transformations , 2005 .

[113]  Russell S. Tomlin,et al.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: Functional grammars, pedagogical grammars, and communicative language teaching , 1994 .

[114]  P. Lightbown,et al.  Form‐Focused Instruction: Isolated or Integrated? , 2008 .

[115]  René Dirven.  Cognitive Linguistics and Pedagogic Grammar , 1989 .

[116]  S. Bowerman.  Norms and Correctness , 2006 .

[117]  Rod Ellis,et al.  The Study of Second Language Acquisition , 1994 .

[118]  M. Celce-Murcia.  Grammar Pedagogy in Second and Foreign Language Teaching. , 1991 .

[119]  Jonathan Potter,et al.  Sociolinguistics, Cognitivism, and Discursive Psychologyl , 2003 .

[120]  Karen Roehr,et al.  Metalinguistic Knowledge and Language Ability in University-Level L2 Learners , 2008 .

[121]  W. Davies.  Language Education: Correctness and Purism , 2006 .

[122]  Hugh Trappes-Lomax.  Introduction: Language in language teacher education: a discourse perspective , 2002 .

[123]  Marianna Ryshina-Pankova,et al.  Grammar Dilemma: Teaching Grammar as a Resource for Making Meaning , 2012 .

[124]  M. McCloskey,et al.  Natural categories: Well defined or fuzzy sets? , 1978 .

[125]  Christian Lehmann,et al.  Linguistic competence: Theory and empiry , 2007 .

[126]  Mirjam Fried,et al.  Construction Grammar and spoken language: The case of pragmatic particles , 2005 .

[127]  Michel Achard,et al.  Cognitive linguistic applications in second or foreign language instruction: rationale, proposals, and evaluation , 2006 .

[128]  J. Rempel,et al.  Attitudes: A new look at an old concept. , 1988 .

[129]  R. Hudson.  Language Education: Grammar , 2006 .

[130]  R. Schulz.  Cultural Differences in Student and Teacher Perceptions Concerning the Role of Grammar Instruction and Corrective Feedback: USA-Colombia. , 2001 .

[131]  Wang,et al.  On Grammar and Teaching , 2011 .

[132]  Regina Weinert,et al.  Investigating L2 spoken syntax: A Usage-based perspective , 2013 .

[133]  J. Marshall Unger,et al.  Signs, language, and communication : integrational and segregational approaches , 1998 .

[134]  E. Horwitz.  The Beliefs about Language Learning of Beginning University Foreign Language Students , 1988 .

[135]  N. Coupland,et al.  Investigating Language Attitudes: Social Meanings of Dialect, Ethnicity and Performance , 2003 .

[136]  Peter Auer.  Syntax als Prozeß , 2005 .

[137]  D. Hymes.  Introduction: Toward Ethnographies of Communication1 , 1964 .

[138]  S. Thompson,et al.  The iconicity of the universal categories “noun” and “verb” , 1985 .

[139]  Michael Toolan.  Total Speech: An Integrational Linguistic Approach to Language , 1996 .

[140]  Per Linell.  The written language bias in linguistics , 2004 .

[141]  Stephen Krashen,et al.  Seeking a Role for Grammar. A Review of Some Recent Studies , 1999 .

[142]  Eric Margolis,et al.  A reassessment of the shift from the classical theory of concepts to prototype theory , 1994, Cognition.

[143]  Jan Lindström,et al.  Interaktionell lingvistik: procedurer, teman och analyser , 2014 .

[144]  Per Linell,et al.  En dialogisk grammatik , 2005 .

[145]  Ellsworth Faris.  Attitudes and Behavior , 1928, American Journal of Sociology.

[146]  Henry M. Hoenigswald,et al.  A PROPOSAL FOR THE STUDY OF FOLK-LINGUISTICS , 1985 .

[147]  John E. Joseph.  Is language a verb? — conceptual change in linguistics and language teaching , 2002 .

[148]  S. Borg.  Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do , 2003, Language Teaching.

[149]  Simon Borg,et al.  The use of grammatical terminology in the second language classroom: a quality study of teachers' practices and cognitions , 1999 .

[150]  Ana Maria Ferreira Barcelos,et al.  Researching Beliefs About SLA: A Critical Review , 2003 .

[151]  R. Schmidt.  The role of consciousness in second language learning , 1990 .

[152]  J. Hampton.  Concepts as Prototypes , 2006 .

[153]  Eduardo Negueruela-Azarola,et al.  Beliefs as conceptualizing activity: A dialectical approach for the second language classroom , 2011 .

[154]  Rod Ellis,et al.  Individual Differences in Second Language Learning , 2008 .

[155]  de Cornelis Bot,et al.  Handbook of Applied Linguistics , 2003 .

[156]  J. Norris,et al.  Effectiveness of L2 Instruction: A Research Synthesis and Quantitative Meta‐analysis , 2000 .

[157]  Christopher Brumfit,et al.  Problems in Defining Instructional Methodologies , 1991 .

[158]  Terence Odlin.  Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar: Introduction , 1994 .

[159]  Rod Ellis,et al.  Instructed second language acquisition : learning in the classroom , 1990 .

[160]  Paula Kalaja,et al.  Beliefs About SLA: New Research Approaches , 2006 .

[161]  Paula Kalaja,et al.  Conclusion: Exploring Possibilities for Future Research on Beliefs about SLA , 2003 .

[162]  Monika Chavez,et al.  Students' and Teachers' Assessments of the Need for Accuracy in the Oral Production of German as a Foreign Language , 2007 .

[163]  Per Linell.  Dynamics of discourse or stability of structure : Sociolinguistics and the legacy from linguistics , 2001 .

[164]  Sabine De Knop,et al.  Cognitive Approaches to Pedagogical Grammar: A Volume in Honour of René Dirven , 2008 .

[165]  N. Spada.  Beyond form-focused instruction: Reflections on past, present and future research , 2010, Language Teaching.