The effect of teaching grammar through consciousness raising tasks on high school English learners’ grammatical proficiency

Abstract

Despite the fact that teaching grammar is controversial in modern trends to methodology, grammar knowledge and its function is of great significance for all language skills. With the view that formal instruction is important for raising learners’ consciousness of grammatical structures, this quasi experimental study is an attempt to investigate the impact of teaching grammar through indirect consciousness raising tasks on learners' grammatical knowledge versus conventional grammar approaches such as target grammar explanation through native language and pattern practice. To this end, sixty six male intermediate-level (determined through Nelson Language Proficiency test) students of four intact classes, two second-grade and two third-grade classes, at a public high school in Dashtestan, Bushehr, Iran, participated in the study. Two classes formed two experimental groups performing grammar consciousness raising tasks, and the other two classes formed two control groups receiving grammar lessons identical in content to the consciousness-raising tasks through traditional approaches. Considering first research question, Pre-test and post-test mean values of 8.05 and 25.05 [Sig. (2-tailed) = p-value.000 < 0.05] of the second grade experimental group as well as the third grade experimental group’s pre-test and post-test mean values of 6.40 and 24.27 [Sig. (2-tailed) =.000 < 0.05] obtained through paired samples t-test indicated that consciousness raising tasks were effective enough to help subjects make significant progress in their grammatical ability. Regarding second research question, although the mean score of the second grade experimental group 25.05 was higher than the mean score of the control group 23.8 obtained through independent sample t-test, this difference was not significant. In the case of third grade experimental and control groups with the mean values of 24.27 and 21.14 on the post-test respectively [Sig. (2-tailed) = p-value = 0.013 < 0.05], CRT grammar instruction was more effective than traditional grammar instruction in the development of the third grade experimental group’s grammatical ability.