Abstract： Grammar has always been a hot topic in the field of second language acquisition and quite a few scholars at home and abroad have carried out in-depth researches on grammar teaching. However, up to now, no unified consensus in this respect has been reached in the academic circles. Instead, there is an increasing number of fierce debates over the effectiveness of grammar teaching. In view of this, this study aims at discussing various reasons that lead to the failure of grammar teaching so as to explore several feasible strategies to solve this problem. It has found that grammar instruction fails to gain the expected effect because of the drawbacks that lie in a variety of pedagogic grammar instruction methods. To solve this problem effectively, it must be made clear what kind of grammar to teach and when to teach grammar. In addition, grammar teaching can also be helpful if form-focused instruction is adopted, explicit instruction and implicit instruction are integrated and implicit interference is made explicit in the course of foreign language learning.

Key words: grammar teaching; failure of grammar instruction; form-focused instruction; explicit instruction; implicit instruction

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

CHAPTER ONE  INTRODUCTION-1

CHAPTER TWO  LITERATURE REVIEW-3

CHAPTER THREE  FAILURE OF GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION-8

   3.1 Failure in Teaching Grammar-8

   3.2 Reasons for the Failure of Grammar Instruction-9

CHAPTER FOUR  SUGGESTIONS FOR GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION-13

4.1 The Kind of Grammar To Teach-13

4.2 Time To Teach Grammar-13

4.3 Form-Focused Instruction-15

4.4 Integration of Explicit Instruction and Implicit Instruction-17

   4.4.1 Explicit instruction and implicit instruction-17  

   4.4.2 Integration of explicit instruction and implicit instruction-17 

4.5 Making Implicit Interference Explicit-18

CHAPTER FIVE  CONCLUSION-20

REFERENCES-22