This module examines the role of grammar in Modern Language Teaching (MLT) as we enter the new Millennium. In the traditional language classroom of these islands, the study of grammar was often seen as synonymous with the study of language itself. Grammar-Translation was widely used as a method until the 1960s, and learners were given little opportunity to use language meaningfully. In the 1970s, audio-visual approaches were in vogue. Students were encouraged to practise language actively, but the syllabus was still often grammatical, and rote learning was encouraged.

In the 1980s, there was a move towards more communicative methodologies, and grammar was no longer strongly emphasized. This change was in response to research findings on how second languages are learned, and also to the introduction of the National Curriculum for MLT in the early 1990s (see Swarbrick, 2002b). As a result, explicit grammar teaching was treated to some extent as an outdated methodology, such that 'there was confusion within MFL [Modern Foreign Language] departments about the place of grammar within the largely accepted communicative approach' (Swarbrick, 2002b: 19). For Miller (2002: 144), grammar was 'forced underground' for much of the 1980s.

The pendulum has swung back, and there is now general acceptance that grammar teaching has an important role to play in classroom language learning (Doughty and Williams, 1998a; Hinkel and Fotos, 2002). In this module we will examine the research in favour of grammar teaching, the way methodology influences grammar teaching, how grammar is presented in the syllabus, and the new tools that are now available for the devising of a grammatical syllabus.

There are four distinct sections to the module:

Grammatical constructs and pedagogic grammars
Here we look at the differences between prescriptive and descriptive grammars, and suggest that a second language pedagogic grammar should be both prescriptive (ie should provide guidelines on how to use the language in accordance with native-speaker models) and descriptive (should reflect the way language is used in real-world communication). We also look at L2 grammar definitions, and how these can be sometimes inadequate in the analysis of real texts.

The case for teaching grammar
In this section we provide an overview of the research into the benefits or otherwise of teaching grammar explicitly. We note that more communicative methodologies have eschewed grammar teaching in favour of meaning-focused instruction because of a belief that learners do not always internalize explicitly taught grammar items. We also consider recent research findings that a focus on grammar does in fact accelerate the language acquisition process, and can lead to more accurate use of language.

Grammar and methodology
Here we examine how the methodologies we employ influence the way we teach grammar. We look, for example, at traditional teacher-led methodologies like Grammar-Translation (GT), Audiolingualism (ALM), and Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) and note that these still influence modern-day textbooks. We then move on to look briefly at how recent approaches, such as Consciousness-raising (C-R) and Task-based Learning (TBL), often advocate a student-centred 'discovery' approach, with learners encouraged to detect rules in the language they produce and are exposed to. We also look at protogrammar which, although not a methodology in itself, reflects how language users represent grammar in their minds, and how this knowledge may be influential in the design of a grammatical syllabus.

Grammar in the syllabus
We look also at how grammar is represented in the language syllabus, and we examine how grammar items are graded and sequenced. We look at how the grammatical syllabus is often simply a list of sequenced structures, and in particular at how features such as frequency, utility, and linguistic complexity influence the position of each item in the grammatical sequence.

Throughout the module, you will be asked to carry out activities; commentaries are provided for these activities at the end of the module.