Presented By Željka Babić

Session Details

“What is grammar and what does 'knowing grammar' mean
to you?” were the questions given to students who were studying English as a
major and a minor subject at university. The idea behind the project was to see
whether the problem of students’ negative attitude towards learning grammar had
arisen during their primary and secondary school education and whether there
were any differences in attitudes towards grammar between those students whose
major was English and students who learnt it as a non-obligatory university
subject. After completion of the survey which showed almost 90% negative
attitudes towards learning grammar in general, we tried to establish whether
the group will change their attitudes towards the importance of learning
grammar through the introduction of targeted
listening, consciousness-raising
exercises and covert grammar. This
also served for testing whether there were any changes in the acquisition
process, which was established through pre-exposure and post-exposure testing
conducted for the period of six months. This project was only a pilot, so the
groups chosen and the period of time taken are relatively short (3 groups of 60
students, 6 months). This should be emphasized, for the results are considered
only as a starting point of introducing both students and teachers with the
importance of changes in curricula and presentation of grammar during the
actual classes – a topic which is still not addressed properly in our schools
and universities.

View The Session

Support Material