Turkish Academics’ and Students’ Views of English Grammar Teaching: Explicit or Implicit?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out Turkish academics’ and students’ beliefs about the role of grammar teaching and their preferences for grammar instruction approaches (i.e. explicit or implicit). By comparing the views of these two groups, it attempts to reveal whether teachers and students have common and different perceptions towards the phenomenon of L2 grammar instruction. For this purpose, a two-stage study was designed. 49 Turkish academics teaching English at a state university in Turkey took part in the first stage. Their views about the role and way of grammar teaching were obtained mainly through a four-point Likert-type questionnaire, which consisted of 29 items with three sections (viz. Explicit instruction, Implicit instruction, and General attitudes to the teaching of grammar). The same questionnaire was adapted in a way that makes it possible to attain the views held by students. In the second stage, this questionnaire was applied to the students who were learning English as a foreign language at the same school. Open-ended questions were also added to teacher and student questionnaires in order to obtain the reasons for their preferences. The quantitative data were analysed and both groups’ replies were statistically compared.  Results showed that Turkish academics and students give great importance to grammar instruction, and they favour explicit grammar instruction rather than implicit grammar instruction.

Keywords: English grammar teaching, explicit grammar instruction, implicit grammar instruction, academics’ views, students’ views.