i
DECLARATION

I, Trần Hoàng Yến, certify that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance
of this thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for a degree to any university or
institution. Hanoi, September 2011
Trần Hoàng Yến iii
ABSTRACT

It is clear that the development of language teaching, especially grammar teaching has
brought about great challenges in teaching English in all Vietnamese schools in general and at
Sao Do University in particular. However, the way teachers teach grammar and the way
students learn grammar are not similar.
This study was conducted to seek answers to the question of what teachers’ and
students’ view toward grammar presentation in the course book “English for Chemical
engineering” at Sao Do University. The finding from the study indicated that a balanced
between explicit instruction in which a target form is presented formally together with
information about how it is used, followed by practice and implicit instruction in which
students’ attention may be drawn to a target form and they may be have to induce the rule or
system underlying its use should be encouraged. In other words, a blend of both traditional
and communicative approaches to grammar could be a good solution to the question of
grammar teaching at our university.
This study is nothing but a first step towards a more rigorous study of the issue of the
grammar teaching at our university and other training centers where English is taught as a
curriculum subject.

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Table 3: Teachers’ style preferences for grammar teaching

32

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
List of tables
iv
Table of contents
v
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
1
2. Aim of the study
2
3. Research questions
2
4. Research methodology

2.1. Introduction
21
2.2. Research question
21
2.3. The participants
22
2.4. Methodology orientation: questionnaire
22
2.5. The procedure
22
2.6. The finding
23
2.6.1. Students’ views
23
2.6.1.1. Students’ awareness of the importance of grammar learning
23
2.6.1.2. Students’ evaluation of current grammar presentation in the
course book “English for Chemical engineering” at Sao Do university
26
2.6.2. Teachers’ views
29
2.6.2.1. Teachers’ awareness of the importance of grammar learning
29
2.6.2.2. Teachers’ evaluation of current grammar presentation in the
course book “English for Chemical engineering” at Sao Do university
32
2.7. Summary
34
PART C: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION


linguists, methodologists and teachers. Currently, there are several points of view on grammar
teaching issues.
In Vietnam, foreign language in general and English teaching in particular is said to be
grammar-focused, and for many English language teachers, teaching English means teaching
grammar. There are good reasons for this. This can be traced back to the national
examinations which measured candidates’ linguistic or grammar competence in written form.
Therefore, the teaching of English is still directed towards preparing students for such sort of
examinations. In this process, students are supposed to learn whatever teachers “give”. That’s
why not only knowledge but also learning styles are imposed on students by teachers.
Unfortunately, research findings have proved that students come to a language class with
particular profiles of interests, intelligence, learning habits, purposes and so on. All these
learner factors may affect their learning styles and learning process.
Because of learner variables, the departure of this study is the claim that function and
presentation of the grammar explanation is a complex issue and a single approach will be far
from being satisfactory in all teaching situations. An investigation into teachers’ and students’
views towards grammar presentation in the course book “English for chemical engineering” is
an attempt to deal with this under-researched area.
Another reason is related to my personal profession. Although teaching grammar
seems “synonymous with teaching foreign language”, (Rutherford, quoted in Celce-Murcia
and Hilles: 1988: 1) teachers have different attitudes and approaches to grammar in the
classroom. There are teachers who view grammar teaching as unnecessary while there are
teachers who obsessed by it (Canh, 2004). From my personal observation and professional

2
experiences as a five year English teacher at Sao Do University, I have realized that how to
make grammar teaching satisfactory to students is really a great challenge facing every
English teacher. For several years, I have been haunted by the question of how to deal with
grammar more effectively at our university. The answer to this question would be good help to
me as well as to my colleagues.


teachers helped to support data collected from questionnaires and provide insights into ways
that teachers can take to make their grammar teaching even more suitable to students’
expectations and learning styles (research question 3).
Data collected from the questionnaires and interviews were analyzed qualitatively (for
themes and recommendation using Hatch’s (2002) “interpretive model”) and quantitatively
(for descriptive statistics).

5. Scope of the study
As it has been stated above, the study is designed to explore teachers’ and students’
view towards grammar presentation in the course book “English for Chemical engineering” in
order to make some methodological recommendations for grammar teaching. The study is,
therefore, explorative by nature.
Given the aims of the study, I limited myself to focus on the first year students of
Chemical engineering and Food science at Sao Do University.

6. The setting and background
Sao Do University is a famous university in Hai Duong province located in Chi Linh
town. The school is over 40 years of foundation. It has more than 500 teachers and 15.000
students. It is known all over country with electrical and mechanical field. Chemical
engineering and Food science Faculty is a young one- only 5 years old. The number of
students is only about 300 students. The students related to this study are 50 students of the
first year. The program of English for Chemical engineering consists of 45 periods.

4
The program composes of 4 parts: Reading is to provide students with general
knowledge of chemistry. Vocabulary is to provide students with new words that occur in the
reading parts. Practice is to give students some kinds of exercise to help students understand
the text (reading part) well. Grammar is to provide students with some main structures, forms
and grammatical points that happen in the text.


sentences are formed. The study of grammar consists, accordingly, of looking at the way
words are arranged or patterned to make sentences. By contrast, recent views of grammar are
expanded to cover both texts and words are organized according to rules. This chapter
provides a review of various perspectives on grammar and grammar teaching. The chapter
begins with a discussion of different ways in which grammar defined. Since most language
teaching textbook and grammars are still firmly grounded in the sentence grammar tradition,
for the purpose of this study, I will assume grammar to mean grammar at the sentence level.
The definitions of grammar are followed by a presentation of different view of grammar,
which include prescriptive, descriptive and pedagogic views of grammar. Again, grammar
mentioned in this study is pedagogic grammar. The chapter ends with a review of various
approaches to grammar in the language classroom as well as factors affecting the
methodological choice for grammar teaching.

1.1. What is grammar?
The first challenge with which I am encountered is how to define the term “grammar”.
This is because different linguistic schools define grammar in different ways depending on
their particular field of interest:
●A traditional grammarian might see grammar as the “parts of
speech” together with a set of rules governing how they be combined, often
accompanied by pointers as to what is considered “correct” and “incorrect” usage.
●A structural linguist might see grammar as the sum total of sentence patterns in
which the words of a particular language are arranged.
●A philosophical/ cognitive linguist might see grammar as our innate knowledge of
the structure of language.

6
●A functional linguist might see grammar as a resource used to accomplish
communicative purpose in specific contexts.

Defining grammar, then, is not a straightforward matter and it is important to clarify

phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language. It usually takes into account the meaning
and functions these sentences have in the overall system of the language. It may or may not include the
description of the sounds of a language.”
For Richards and his colleagues, grammar is descriptive, rather than prescriptive and it
implies both meanings and functions. Their view of grammar reflects, firstly, the dynamics of
language, and secondly, the social and personal nature of language. Grammar is the way
people of the particular language community use to get meanings across, not the way people
are prescribed to use the language.
All the three definitions view grammar as meaning, but they share a common drawback,
which confine grammar to just sentences. Widdowson (1990:81) claimed that “Grammar is
not just a collection of sentences patterns signifying nonsense, something for the learner’s
brain to puzzle over.” For Widdowson, grammar means the relationship between three things:
grammar, words and context. In other words grammar should be viewed as linguistic rules
functioning in alliance with words and context for the achievement of meaning.
Hughes and McCarthy (1998) view grammar as discourse not as sentence and coined the
term discourse grammar. They argued that “grammatical statements that do not take account
of such contextual features are inadequate and unable to support grammar teaching
effectively” (p.265).
How grammar is defined is very important since it will influence the way grammar is to
be taught. For the purpose of the study, I use the definition of grammar proposed above by
Richards, Platt and Platt (1992:161) in their Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching &
Applied Linguistics.

1.2. How is grammar viewed?
The evolution in language pedagogy from Audiolingualism towards a more
communicative approach has also brought with it a great change in the way grammar is

8
viewed and taught. Traditionally, grammar was considered solely as prescriptive aspects as
well. In this section, a presentation of major views on grammar will be made.

the grammar books. In this way even descriptive grammar books can become prescriptive.
Pedagogical grammar:
Unlike prescriptive and descriptive grammars the term “pedagogical grammar” does
not refer to any particular type or school of grammar. Rather it refers to the kind of knowledge
about grammar needed by the teacher and the way this is made available to the students in the
form of lessons or materials. In other words it is grammar to be used in teaching. Nunan
(1991:153) states “pedagogical grammars are intended to provide those involved in language
teaching (including learners) with information on the language for the purposes of teaching
and learning, syllabus construction, materials development and so on. While they may reflect
current theories of grammatical description and analysis, pedagogical grammars do not
necessarily follow a particular grammatical theory or school of thoughts”.

To sum up, prescriptive grammar is what we should say, descriptive grammar is what
we do say and pedagogical grammar is what we – teachers of a foreign language – teach.
Pedagogical grammar differs from prescriptive and descriptive grammars in terms of (a) the
degree of technicality; (b) the scope, selection, sequencing and presentation of material; and
(c) the relevance to teaching and learning. The grammar, which is defined as the knowledge
about grammar needed by the teacher and the way this is made available to the students in the
form of lesson or material. Since pedagogical grammar is the result of a process of filtering
and interpretation at different levels, pedagogical grammar teaching involves the form, the
meaning and the use.

1.3. What is the role of grammar in English language teaching?
Prior to the 1970s the necessity of formal grammar teaching met almost no
disagreement. It was a common place that a major portion of curriculum was devoted to
learning grammatical terminology, memorizing rules doing exercises, practicing drill or so on.
However, many different and even contradictory views emerged during the latter half of the

10
twentieth century. These different views about language and language learning process below,

from Krashen, whose insistence on the primacy of acquisition has tended to downplay the
value of deliberate grammar teaching. In Krashen and Tarrel’s influential Natural Approach it
is claimed that learners need to be exposed to a lot of comprehensive and meaningful input at
a level just above their own for acquisition to take place. The study of grammar has only a
secondary role in the language program with the goal to produce optimal monitor-user,
programmers who can use grammar as a supplement to acquisition when they have time, when
the focus is on form, and when they know the rules (the Monitor Hypothesis) (Krashen and
Tarrel:1983)
Fanatics of Natural Approach argue that reliance on grammatical syllabus, no matter
how contextualized it is, cannot be sufficient, that a grammatical focus may interfere with any
attempt to communicate. It thus appears to be the case that “we not only don’t have to use a
grammatical syllabus in encouraging acquisition, it is better not to even try” (ibid: 72). Put
another way, grammar can be acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities to
interact in the classroom and grammatical competence can develop in a fluency-oriented
environment without conscious focus on language forms.
Admittedly, some learners acquire second language grammar naturally without being
taught. Immigrants to the United States (especially young ones) who attain proficiency in
English on their own can be a good example of naturalistic acquisition (Lightbown and Spada:
60). But this is not true for all learners. Among the same immigrant group are learners who
may achieve a degree of proficiency, but whose English is far from accurate.
On the other hand, Krashen’s acquisition hypothesis seems to be merely his own
personal observation without supporting evidence. Gregg (1984: 79-100) criticizes that:
“Krashen himself seems to be aware of this: The idea that we first learn a new rule, and
eventually, through practice, acquire it, is widespread and may seem to some people to be
intuitively obvious… It was, I thought, exactly the way I learned languages myself…” Thus
Gregg sees himself as a typical example of the process which consists of knowing the rules,
being aware of them and ending up with an ability to talk about them. This is a perfect process
of acquiring through learning, opposed to Krashen’s claim that learning need not precede

12

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Next, it is worth mentioning that Krashen’s view that the effect of grammar learning is
peripheral and fragile and that conscious knowledge of grammar is available only as a
monitor, or editor may be true to ESL context where immigrant learners are extensively
exposed to the target language but it is not applicable to the ESL context. At our university,
students learn English as a foreign language outside the natural linguistic environment;
grammar teaching must still have an important place in the classroom. We can not expect our
students who learn English for probably not more than three lessons a week to acquire the
target grammar naturally although some students might have access to various sources of
authentic English at home. I stand for Celce-Murcia’s (1992:406-407) point of view that
“Generally, only young, prepubescent learners, and then only those with good access to native-speaking
peers and sufficiently rich and varied native speaker input, can- in the absence of formal grammar
instruction- learn a foreign or second language-with native- like proficiency and accuracy”.

1.4. Two approaches to grammar teaching
As it is mentioned above one of the key issues in foreign language teaching which has
met with little agreement is how to teach grammar. Whether the learner should be taught to
approach the learning task consciously as an intellectual exercise, or whether he should be
encouraged to avoid thinking about the language and absorb it intuitively? Stern (1992)
proposes to call the former teaching strategy “explicit” and the later “implicit”. These
approaches are often contrasted with each other when questions about grammar arise. When
we talk about an explicit approach to grammar we are talking about stating directly, usually at
the beginning of a particular activity, what the grammar is. For example, “Today we are
looking at the third conditional.” On the other hand, an implicit approach to grammar is one
where the students are ‘led’ to the grammar through a series of steps – this is what is meant by
the ‘discovery technique’. In other words, the ‘discovery technique’ aims to lead students
towards a generalized grammar rule or pattern.
Explicit Grammar Teaching:
Proponents of explicit grammar teaching argue that second language learning is, for
many people, a cognitive process leading to and explicit knowledge of the language

as a whole (Corbett). (many of us have probably experienced this kink of grammar teaching,
since a number of textbooks tend to present grammar in this faction). Unfortunately,

15
manipulative drills in most of the textbooks are taken away from the real contexts or put in
shallow and artificial ones, so these drills become rather meaningless to students (Walz:
quoted in Shrum and Glisan: 1994). This is echoed by Samad who claims that teaching and
learning grammatical structures have traditionally involved repetitive drills that have a
reputation for being meaningless and decontextualized. The reason for this is that students
merely repeat the pattern of certain drills without understanding the meaning of the sentences.
It is understandable that such language activities might be boring to a number of students. It is
generally acknowledged that language is context- sensitive and context is important as it
allows students to see how and why different forms and meaning exist. Only by presenting
grammar in context will our students develop a better understanding of meaning and language
functions.
Another made for excluding explicit grammar teaching in language teaching is that “it
is unnatural method of acquiring or learning a language.”(Samad). The scholars explicit
instruction on grammar to master the grammatical system of the language.
In short, explicit method of grammar teaching has some effectiveness such as it gives
students systematic explanation of grammatical points and encourages them to look upon
learning as an intellectually challenging and worthwhile task. But the problem with second
language teaching in which explicitness is stressed is that students become passive recipients
of knowledge, over-conscious of the rules and lacks an intuitive native speaker-like
competence.
Implicit Grammar teaching
At the opposite end of the axis of grammar teaching stand implicit grammar teaching
supported by Krashen (1982) and Dulay and Burt (1973). As mentioned above, defenders of
implicit grammar teaching believe that students can acquire language naturally like children
acquiring their mother tongue if they are provided with sufficient comprehensible input.
In fact, proponents of the implicit approach to grammar teaching argue for several

some situations let our student explore or discover grammatical rules for themselves from our
helpful hints such as information guides, examples and diagrams. In my own teaching I find
combination of the two approaches desirable. For example I often present a structure in
context without grammatical explanation (to allow implicit strategy) then bring out the rules

17
through elicitation from student and finally give them a substantial amount of time for practice
of the structure (explicit).
In the final analysis while it is advantageous for learners to have access to both ways
of teaching, it should be borne in mind that some learners may have a preference for more
explicit way of learning whereas other prefer more implicit approaches. Hartnett’s (1985)
findings suggest that deductive strategy is more effective for student with left-brain dominance
and that inductive strategy is as effective or more effective for those with right-brain
dominance. As a teacher we should be aware of different techniques which provide the
opportunity for both implicit and explicit learning and respect the preferences of learns.
Obviously, it is hard to say which approach to grammar: explicit or implicit is better. I
have argued that both are of equal value. It is the teachers who have to make a choice when to
teach grammar explicitly and when implicit taking info account factors affecting the learners.

1.5. The importance of understanding teachers’ and students’ views to grammar
teaching and learning
According to Giao et al (2004), a foreign language in general, and English in
particular, is a compulsory school subject and one of the national examinations. Students have
to take to get the high school certificate. Besides that a high profit in English and a good
command of English is an opportunity for further study, especially for future employment.
Nevertheless, a majority of Vietnamese students at high school, even at university lack a
sufficient good knowledge of grammar to pass the grammar- based and norm- referenced
examinations.
According to the traditional grammar- translation method, classes are taken students’ mother
tongue with little active use of the target language. Grammar rules were explained in their

language practice that occurs in the classroom. They may provide the basis for the content of
the lessons, the balance skills taught and the kinds of language practice the students take part
in. in other situations, the textbook may serve primarily to supplement the teacher’s
instruction. For learners, the course book may provide the major source of the contact they
have with the language apart from input provided by the teacher. In the case of inexperienced
teachers course books may also serve as a form of teacher training- they provide ideas on how