針對英語為外語學習者探究文法結構教學：歸納或演繹? - 政大學術集成

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(1)?. ?. Advisor: Dr. Yi-chun Liu. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. Teaching Grammar for EFL Learners: Inductive or Deductive?. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 7 Name: Szu-ying Lee 1? . 0. January 2018. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(2) Teaching Grammar for EFL Learners: Inductive or Deductive?. A Master Thesis. Presented to. 立. 政治大. Department of English,. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. National Chengchi University. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Szu-ying Lee 2018/01/04. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(3) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! III!. To Yi-chun Liu. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(4) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! IV!. Acknowledgments. My most cordial thanks go to Dr. Yi-chun Liu, the professor of department of. English of National Chengchi University, for her steady guidance and encouragement. 政治大 throughout my research for this work. As for the reading of the manuscript and helpful 立. ‧ 國. 學. suggestions, I want to thank Dr. Carolyn. H. L. Lai and Dr. David Chi. My gratitude is also. ‧. extended to Dr. Ming-chung Yu and Dr. Judy H. Y. Yu., for their instruction during my study. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. at National Chengchi University.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In the end, I would like to extend my genuine thanks to my parents. Their support and. blessing have made this work completed. Without them, I can’t finish this tough research.. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart, my dear family and professors.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(5) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. V!. TABLE OF CONTENTS. ACKNOWLEDGMENS..………………………………………………………….IV CHINESE ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………....VII ENGLISH ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….2. 政治大. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………..3. 立. Background and Motivation………………………………………………….....3. ‧ 國. 學. Purpose of the Study…………………………………………………………….5. ‧. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………….……………….7 Importance of Grammar…………………………………………..……………..7. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Studies on the Inductive Approach………………………………..……………..8 Studies on the Deductive Approach……………………………….……………14. al. n. v i n Ch Studies on the Combined Approach…………………………………………….17 engchi U Learners’ Language Proficiency and Teaching Approaches……………………22 CHAPTER THREE: METHOD………………………………………...…………27 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS……………………………………………...……...37 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION……………………………………………..…...45 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION……………………………………….…………49 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………...51 APPENDIXES………………………………………………………………………57. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(6) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! VI!. TABLE OF TABLES & FIGURE. Table 1 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Deductive Approach to Teaching Grammar..19 Table 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Inductive Approach to Teaching Grammar...21 Table 3 Teaching Rotation of the Three Grammar Rules and Three Approaches…………...34. 治政大 Table 4 Mean Scores of Classes Under Different Teaching Approaches……….…………...38 立 Table 5 Mean Scores for Conditional Clause Under Different Approaches………………...39. ‧ 國. 學. Table 6 Mean Scores for Relative Clause Under Different Approaches ……….…………..40. ‧. Table 7 Mean Scores for Gerund Under Different Approaches……………….……………41. sit. y. Nat. Table 8 Mean Scores of the Pretests……………………………………………………..…42. n. al. er. io. Table 9 Mean Scores for Each Type of Students Under Different Approaches…................42. i n U. v. Table 10 Results of the Survey...…………………………………………...………………43. Ch. engchi. Figure 1 Mean Scores for Different Types of Rules and Approaches……………………..39. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(7) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! VII!. ! ! ! ! ! !. ! !. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. !. ‧. !. ‧ 國. !. 學. !. 立. 政治大. 109. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. ! !!!!. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(8) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 1!. !. Teaching Grammar for EFL Learners: Inductive or Deductive?. Szu-ying Lee. 政治大. 立 National Chengchi University. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 y. Nat. er. io. al. sit. Author Note. n. v i n C Szu-ying Lee, DepartmenthofeEnglish, National n g c h i UChengchi University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Szu-ying Lee, Department of. English, National Chengchi University.. E-mail: [email protected]. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(9) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 2!. Abstract Numerous studies have investigated the difference in effectiveness between inductive and deductive approaches to teaching grammar. In the inductive approach, teachers provide examples and then guide students toward noticing the patterns of grammar rules, whereas in the deductive approach, teachers provide explicit instruction in grammar rules and then ask students to practice the sentences. Following an in-depth literature review, the teacherresearcher conducted a quasiexperimental study in a high school in Taiwan with 109 student-participants. Three types of grammar rules (gerunds, conditional clauses and relative. 政治大 clauses) were instructed to students through the inductive, deductive, and combined 立. ‧ 國. 學. approaches. Pretest and posttest data were collected and compared. The results indicated that for conditional and relative clauses grammar rules, the combined approach leads to. ‧. signiﬁcantly higher performance than the others. For gerunds, students under the deductive. Nat. sit. y. approach had significantly higher scores. The inductive approach was the least effective. n. al. er. io. approach to teaching grammar to EFL novice learners. The findings suggest that teachers. i n U. v. designing their curricula for teaching grammar need to consider learners’ language. Ch. engchi. proficiency. Future studies should focus on interactions between the three approaches. Keywords: inductive, deductive, proficiency, grammar learning. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(10) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 3!. Teaching Grammar for EFL Learners: Inductive or Deductive?. Chapter 1. Introduction. Inductive and deductive approaches are the two most prominent yet controversial. 政治大. grammar teaching methods; numerous studies have investigated the difference in. 立. ‧ 國. 學. effectiveness between these two approaches. Proponents of the inductive approach usually. ‧. embrace Krashen’s (1980) hypothesis of second-language acquisition, in which teachers. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. provide their students with comprehensive input without explicit rules because linguistic. v. n. competence can be advanced when language is subconsciously acquired. Discovering the. Ch. engchi. i n U. governing rules of forms inductively may result in improved understanding and retention. (Brown, 2007; Doughty, 2001; Ellis, 2002). In addition, learners who are trained for inductive. rule discovery are inclined to manifest more autonomy and self-reliance on learning (Widodo,. 2006). Therefore, proponents of inductive learning believe that learners can acquire deep. understanding, retention, autonomy, creativity, and motivation through it. By contrast, the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(11) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 4!. deductive approach starts by introducing rules with explicit instruction first and then. providing exercises later. Some researchers believe that the deductive approach is more. predictable, effective, and timesaving (Widodo, 2006) because the teacher chooses the. material and sequence of presentation. Therefore, it is believed that the deductive approach. can scaffold learners’ grammar knowledge (Fischer, 1979; Herron & Tomasello, 1992).. 政治大 In addition to these dichotomous views, more controversial debates have been 立. ‧ 國. 學. discussed. Some researchers suggested that grammar teaching should consider many. ‧. variables, including the level of complexity of a grammar rule and the learners’ language. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. proficiency. For example, Ellis (1993) argued that teaching simple rules deductively was. n. v i n effective, whereas more complicatedCrules may be more effectively taught inductively. hengchi U Learners excelling at grammatical analysis seemed to fare better with an inductive approach. than those less skilled (p.98). By contrast, Fischer (1979) found that the inductive approach. was effective only when the target grammar rules were easier for the learners. The debate was. further complicated by more findings. Tammenga-Helmantel, Arends, and Canrinus (2014). suggested that the effect of inductive or deductive approaches made little learning difference. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(12) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 5!. in terms of the complexity of grammar rules.. The controversies over grammar teaching approaches reveal that more studies are. required to reach a consensus. To demystify this opaque controversy, the present study. investigated the effectiveness of the inductive, deductive, and combined approaches on high. school students in Taiwan by taking students’ language proficiency into account. Three. 政治大 grammar rules (gerunds, conditional clauses, and relative clauses) were selected in this study. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Specifically, this study was guided by the following research questions:. ‧. Which instructional approach—deductive, inductive, or a combined —is more. n. al. 2.. Ch. engchi. er. io. effective for teaching grammar to novice EFL learners?. sit. y. Nat. 1.. i n U. v. Which instructional approach would be the most effective one when teaching the. grammar rules of gerunds, conditional clauses, and relative clauses?. 3.. How does students’ English proficiency relate to the effectiveness of the three. approaches?. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(13) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. 立. !. !. 6!. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(14) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 7!. Chapter 2. Literature Review. Importance of Grammar. Because grammar teaching contributes to both “acquired knowledge as well as learned. knowledge” (Ellis, 2006), grammar instruction attracts the attention of numerous language. 政治大 researchers and teachers (Howart, 1984; Nassaji & Fotos, 2004). Ellis (2006) maintained that 立. ‧ 國. 學. grammar enhances language learners’ proficiency and accuracy, facilitates the internalization. ‧. of the syntactic system of the target language, and affords the development of fluency.. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. Celce-Murcia (1991) noted that explicit grammatical elements, such as notions (i.e., spatial. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. location, age, and degree) and functions (i.e., social transactions and interactions such as. asking for information or complimenting someone) are significant in teaching communicative. abilities. In addition, in the case of reading, grammar facilitates comprehension of intra-. textuality because reading involves the interrelationship of semantics, syntax, and. graphophonics (Holdaway, 1985). With adequate grammar knowledge, language learners can. gain comprehension by decoding grammatical structures (Eskey, 1987). Grammar knowledge. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(15) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 8!. enables learners to combine lexical items into sentences; thus, meaningful and communicative. statements or expressions can be formed (Widodo, 2006).. Studies on the Inductive Approach. The inductive approach originates from inductive reasoning, which proceeds from. particulars (such as observations, measurements, and data) to generalities (such as rules, laws,. 政治大 concepts, and theories) (Felder & Henriques, 1995). Inductive instruction encourages students 立. ‧ 國. 學. to use the “noticing” strategy (Chalipa, 2013). Teachers provide their students with a series of. ‧. examples and then guide them toward “noticing” a pattern or the production of generalization. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. or conceptual rules (Mautone, 2004). In an inductive classroom, students are first encouraged. n. v i n to generalize the grammatical rules C of the presented examples before teachers explain them, hengchi U which empowers learners to play an active role in practicing the comprehensible input.. Subsequently, learners are encouraged to form a hypothesis regarding the rules and then test it. during the construction stage (Krashen, 1970). Thus, the inductive process allows learners to. develop their learning agency.. Its proponents have claimed that inductive learning may (1) improve learning and. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(16) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. !. 9!. retention (Brown, 2007; Doughty, 2001; Ellis, 2002) and (2) encourage learning autonomy. (Widodo, 2006). Because the acquisition of a second language learning is hypothesized to. mainly rely on an inductive process, eliciting the governing rules of forms inductively is. believed to lead to greater understanding and retention (Brown, 2007; Doughty, 2001; Ellis,. 2002). In addition, Widodo (2006) noted that learners who are trained for inductive. 政治大. rule-discovery tend to exhibit greater autonomy and self-reliance in learning. In contrast to. 立. ‧ 國. 學. deductive learners, inductive ones seem to be more active and motivated in the learning. ‧. process (Widodo, 2006).. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. To further explore grammar pedagogy, several researchers have conducted. i n U. v. comparative studies of inductive and deductive approaches. Cole, Haight, and Herron (2007). Ch. engchi. investigated the effects of deductive and guided inductive approaches to teaching French as a. foreign language at the elementary level to college students. Forty-seven French learners were. taught eight grammatical structures: four with a deductive instructional approach and four. with a guided inductive one. The researcher gathered data regarding the grammatical. knowledge of each structure in pretests and posttests as well as through quizzes administered. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(17) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 10!. immediately after each grammatical sequence. The results revealed that the structures taught. inductively gained significantly higher scores. !. Herron and Tomasello (1992) compared a guided inductive approach with a deductive. approach to grammar teaching. Twenty-six students on a semester-long, beginner-level. French course were divided into two groups of similar age, gender mix, and previous French. 政治大. learning experience. The instructor selected ten French grammatical structures from the. 立. ‧ 國. 學. students’ grammar language laboratory manual. The first of the ten structures was randomly. ‧. matched for either the guided inductive approach or deductive condition for one group; the. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. same structure was then assigned to the other group. Subsequently, grammatical structures. i n U. v. and conditions were alternated for both classes. Under the deductive condition, the teacher. Ch. engchi. presented a model sentence on the board that exemplified the rule; then, he read it aloud and. explained it briefly. The model sentence was related to a topic covered in a video that the. class had viewed. After the explanation, the teacher practiced the correct usage with the. students by leading them in a contextualized oral drill. Under the guided inductive condition,. the teacher introduced the topic of the exercise first and then led the students in the same drill.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(18) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 11!. As soon as the students completed the oral activity, the teacher directed their attention to the. model sentence on the board and led them in filling in the blanks chorally. The results of the. study indicated that the guided induction approach was more effective than the deductive one. in teaching the grammatical structures. The researchers asserted that the students learned. more effectively when they attempted to yield a hypothesis as well as when they received. 政治大. immediate feedback, because they could cognitively compare their developing rules to those. 立. ‧ 國. 學. of more advanced learners.. ‧. Uddin and Tazin (2012) examined the effectiveness of an inductive and contextual. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. approach, and a deductive approach to teaching English grammar to Bangladeshi students.. i n U. v. The students were divided into two groups based on their learning style. “Group A”. Ch. engchi. comprised the students who did not want to learn grammatical structures, whereas “Group B”. comprised deductive learners. “Group A” was taught using the inductive and contextual. approach, whereas “Group B” was taught deductively. The inductive contextual approach was. aimed at students comprehending the lesson and exploring it by relating the material to their. own lives. Students were provided with a comprehensible paragraph including a. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(19) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 12!. representative series of sentences about the past indefinite tense. Students were instructed to. repeatedly read the paragraph until they could internalize the grammar rule. The results of the. pretest and final test were compared. The findings suggested that exposure to the inductive. contextual approach facilitated long-term internalization of English grammar rules. In. addition, the students taught using the inductive and contextual approach were observed to be. 政治大. more confident, motivated, and comfortable than those taught with the deductive approach.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Takimoto (2008) investigated both the deductive and inductive approaches as well as. ‧. their effects on the acquisition of EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. In the study, 60. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. participants were randomly assigned into three treatment groups and one control group.. i n U. v. Takimoto (2008) revealed that the inductive instruction was effective when combined with. Ch. engchi. problem-solving tasks or structured input tasks. At least three possible reasons were. determined for the effectiveness of these two task types; first, the participants comprehended. the language rather than learning it through drill practices; second, the participants paid. attention to “noticing” the underlying pragmatic rules; and finally, they were empowered to. generate knowledge and unfold their agency.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(20) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 13!. Erlam (2003) examined the effects of deductive and inductive instruction on the. acquisition of direct object pronouns in French. The participants were 69 students from three. classes at a New Zealand secondary school. The three classes were randomly assigned to one. of the two treatment groups (deductive or inductive) or the control group. The results. indicated that although the deductive group outperformed the other groups on the form. 政治大. focused tests, it had less effectiveness over time. It was the inductive group that made. 立. ‧ 國. ‧. retention.. 學. improvements gradually. These results suggested that inductive instruction promotes learning. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. According to the abovementioned review, an inductive approach may engage students. i n U. v. in active learning, encourage their acquisition of grammar rules, and improve learning. Ch. engchi. retention. However, the inductive approach has some disadvantages. For example, the process. can be time- and energy-consuming for both the teachers and the learners. Much time is. required for teachers to design materials and for students to discover rules by themselves. (Berendse, 2012; Mohammad & Jaber, 2008). During the brain-racking process, learners. might feel anxious about producing an incorrect or incomplete rule (Berendse, 2012; Tarsoly. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(21) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 14!. & Valijarvi, 2012). Moreover, an inductive approach may be daunting to weaker or slower. students, and only high-level students may be capable of discovering the underlying patterns. (Ausubel, 1963; Carroll, 1964). Similarly, Widodo (2006) asserted that an inductive approach. may frustrate learners who are used to being taught with a more teacher-centered and. deductive approach.. Studies on the Deductive Approach. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The fundamental concept of the deductive approach is to teach a language from. ‧. general rules to specific forms. Language teachers first provide explicit instructions about. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. grammar rules or patterns, and then ask students to engage in language practice (Green &. i n U. v. Hecht, 1992; Norris & Ortega, 2000; Shaffer, 1989). In contrast to the inductive approach, the. Ch. engchi. deductive approach explicitly directs the learning points and therefore can be more. time-saving (Widodo, 2006). Proponents believe that deductive learners can grasp the rules. through direct practice and may be less fearful of drawing an incorrect conclusion (Eisenstein,. 1987).. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(22) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 15!. Robinson (1996) provided an elaborate division of the types of grammatical. instruction. In his study, 104 adult English learners received computerized language training.. He compared four instruction forms: implicit, incidental, rule-search, and instructed. First, the. participants were requested to memorize sentences featuring the grammatical structure.. Secondly, they answered text comprehension questions. The implicit and incidental. 政治大. instructions were designed to trigger learners’ language acquisition, so the participants in. 立. ‧ 國. 學. these two cases were exposed to the linguistic material and were expected to acquire its. ‧. grammatical structures. Moreover, Robinson divided the instructions into two forms:. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. rule-search (inductive approach) and instructed (deductive approach) The participants either. i n U. v. had to inductively distill the grammar rule from the linguistic material (rule-search) or the rule. Ch. engchi. was deductively offered to them from the beginning (instructed). While the deductively. instructed learners were required to apply previously learned rules to compose sentences, the. inductively rule-search learners were scaffolded to recognize the grammar rules in the model. sentences. Robinson (1996) concluded that deductive instruction was more effective in. teaching simple structures; moreover, the deductively instructed learners performed more. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(23) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 16!. accurate grammar rules than the inductively rule-search learners. However, rule-search. learners performed better than the instructed learners with easy grammar rules.. Mohammed and Jaber (2008) investigated the effects of the deductive and inductive. approaches for teaching grammar to university-level EFL students in Jordan. The participants. were divided randomly into two groups: one was taught using a deductive approach and the. 政治大. other using an inductive approach. The results indicated that the students in the deductive. 立. ‧ 國. 學. group had significantly better performance than those in the inductive group. The authors. ‧. argued that the deductive approach was more effective for teaching grammar because the. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. teachers wrote all the rules on the board, provided the answers to the exercise, and discussed. i n U. v. the differences and similarities with the class. Another reason was that the deductive group. Ch. engchi. was afforded more feedback when comparing their answers.. Jiroft and Simin (2013) compared the short- and long-term effects of inductive and. deductive instruction on 40 EFL learners. Tests included a pretest, a posttest, and immediate. quizzes. At the end of the semester, 6 weeks after the pretest, a grammar posttest was. administered to the students to examine long-term learning. A quiz was immediately. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(24) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 17!. conducted with the students following the instruction of each grammatical structure. A t-test. was used to explain which was more effective in the short term. The findings suggested that. the deductive approach was more effective for EFL learners in short-term learning of. grammatical structures. In addition, both approaches were similar in terms of long-term. learning of grammar learning.. 政治大. However, regardless of the advantages of the deductive approach, many researchers. 立. ‧ 國. 學. have reported its limitations. Shaffer (1989) argued that the deductive approach emphasizes. ‧. grammar at the expense of meaning and promotes passive rather than active student. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. participation. In addition, Lewis (1996) claimed that the PPP (presentation-practice-. i n U. v. production) approach, which is associated with the deductive approach, focuses on a linguistic. Ch. engchi. component but overlooks communicative practices.. Studies on the Combined Approach. In response to the dichotomous debate, many scholars support a combination. alternative. Schrampfer and Spack (2005) proposed combining both the deductive and. inductive approaches instead of an entirely liner presentation can improve grammar learning.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(25) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 18!. In addition, Cahyono and Widiati (2006) reviewed studies of teaching grammar and. researched grammar teaching in Indonesian contexts. They observed that a combination. method of induction and deduction yields the best result.. Widodo (2006) indicated that combining the two approaches is indispensable for. creating an innovative procedure to teach grammar. He also believed that the combined. 政治大. approach can be more effective than teaching grammar inductively or deductively alone.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Widodo developed a five-step procedure for teaching grammar. This procedure incorporates. ‧. the concepts of practice and conscious-raising, explicit and implicit knowledge, and deductive. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. and inductive approaches. The steps are used to teach grammar, especially teaching tenses. i n U. v. and modals at college-university levels or even in secondary schools. Widodo indicated that. Ch. engchi. both of the inductive and deductive approaches have their advantages and disadvantages (See. Table 1 and Table 2). Therefore, Widodo proposed that the five-step procedure can be an. alternative approach to teaching grammar. At the first stage, the teacher builds up students’. knowledge of the rule by asking some leading questions and presenting model sentences in. which the target rule is underlined. The teacher implicitly leads students to the whole form of. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(26) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 19!. sentences as an inductive approach. In the second step, the teacher explicitly tells students. some features of the sentence to elicit functions of the rule. This step is explained as a. deductive approach. In the third step, the teacher provides students with some exercises to. familiarize them with the rule. In the fourth step, the teacher presents an assessment of student. comprehension to check whether students have completely grasp the context. The last step. 政治大. aims to expand students’ knowledge. The teacher gives students independent work to be. 立. ‧ 國. 學. expert in applying the rule based on their cognitive capacity. Widodo believed that the five-. ‧. step procedure, a combination of inductive and deductive, can assist teachers in teaching. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. grammar.. Table 1. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Deductive Approach to Teaching Grammar (Cited in. Widodo, 2006, p.127). Advantages. 1.The deductive approach goes straightforwardly to the point and can, therefore, be time-saving. 2. A number of rule aspects (for example, form) can be more simply and clearly explained than elicited from examples.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(27) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 20!. 3. A number of direct practice/application examples are immediately given. 4. The deductive approach respects the intelligence and maturity of many adult learners in particular and acknowledges the role of cognitive processes in language acquisition. 5. It confirms many learners’ expectations about classroom learning particularly for those who have an analytical style. 1. Beginning the lesson with a grammar presentation may be off-putting. 政治大 for some learners, especially younger ones. 立. 學. 2. Younger learners may not able to understand the concepts or encounter. ‧ 國. grammar terminology given.. ‧. 3. Grammar explanation encourages a teacher-fronted, transmission-style. Nat. sit. y. classroom, so it will hinder learner involvement and interaction. io. immediately.. n. al. er. Disadvantages. Ch. i n U. v. 4. The explanation is seldom as memorable as other forms of presentation. engchi. (for example, demonstration).. 5. The deductive approach encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of knowing the rule.!. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(28) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 21!. Table 2. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Inductive Approach to Teaching Grammar (Cited in. Widodo, 2006, p.128). Advantages. 1. Learners are trained to be familiar with the rule discovery; this could enhance learning autonomy and self-reliance. 2. Learners’ greater degree of cognitive depth is “exploited”.. 政治大. 3. The learners are more active in the learning process, rather than being simply. 立. passive recipients. In this activity, they will be motivated.. ‧ 國. 學. 4. The approach involves learners’ pattern-recognition and problem-solving. ‧. abilities in which particular learners are interested in this challenge.. sit. y. Nat. 5. If the problem-solving activity is done collaboratively, learners get an. io. al. v. 1. The approach is time and energy-consuming as it leads learners to have the. n. Disadvantages. er. opportunity for extra language practice.. Ch. engchi. appropriate concept of the rule.. i n U. 2. The concepts given implicitly may lead the learners to have the wrong concepts of the rule taught. 3. The approach can place emphasis on teachers in planning a lesson. 4. It encourages the teacher to design data or materials taught carefully and systematically. 5. The approach may frustrate the learners with their personal learning style, or their past learning experience (or both) would prefer simply to be told the rule.!. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(29) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 22!. Learners’ Language Proficiency and Teaching Approaches. Many researchers agree that individuals’ language proficiency causes differences in. readiness for language learning, and that a proper match of teaching approaches and learners’. language proficiency is crucial for language learning (Skehan, 1989). Given that inductive. approach is more cognitive demanding, some researchers believe that only high-level students. 政治大 could construct hypotheses through an inductive approach. According to Ausubel (1963) and 立. ‧ 國. 學. Carroll (1964), only high-proficiency students could construct the hypotheses necessary in an. ‧. inductive approach. Ausubel (1963) indicated that people acquire knowledge basically by. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. being exposed to it instead of discovering it. In other words, he believed that understanding. n. v i n concepts, principles, and ideas is accomplished through deductive reasoning. Ausubel (1960) Ch engchi U indicated that advanced organizers can probably facilitate the retention of meaning verbal. material. The reasons are that they explicitly draw upon and relate the concepts which are. already established in the learner’s cognitive structure. In addition, advance organizers at a. proper level of inclusiveness supply optimal anchorage. The level of inclusiveness means the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(30) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 23!. degree of conception of the learning task—relative. The learning process may be explained as. a deductive approach.. In addition, Fischer (1979) indicated that whether to adopt a deductive or inductive. approach depends on the similarity and complexity of the rules by means of the learning. transfer principle. To be specific, an inductive approach would be effective in situations. 政治大 where the foreign language rule is similar or dissimilar but simpler than the native language 立. ‧ 國. 學. rule. On the other hand, a deductive approach would be effective in cases where the foreign. ‧. language rule is dissimilar and as or more complex than the native language rule. From the. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. view, high-proficiency students would perform more effectively under an inductive approach. n. v i n if the rule is simpler. However, low-proficiency would gain better in a deductive approach if Ch engchi U they consider the rules to be complex.. Although learners’ language proficiency plays a crucial role in the effects of inductive. and deductive approaches, the findings are incongruent. Some researchers (Ausubel, 1963 and. Carroll, 1964) have claimed that only high-proficiency students could construct the. hypotheses necessary in the inductive approach. However, Shaffer revealed that the weak. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(31) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 24!. students improve more by means of the inductive approach. In addition, Shaffer also indicated. that an inductive approach could be as effective as a deductive approach for teaching difficult. grammatical structures regardless of the learners’ language proficiency.. In her quantitative study, Shaffer (1989) compared and contrasted deductive and. inductive approaches to grammar teaching in three high schools; 319 native English speakers. 政治大 learning French or Spanish as a foreign language participated in the study. To test whether the 立. ‧ 國. 學. complexity of grammar rules correlated with the instructional approach, Shaffer (1989). ‧. designed her research by choosing grammatical structures not found in English. Students were. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. divided into three proficiency levels: weak, average, and strong. An inductive approach was. n. v i n presented to 159 students and a deductive to 160 students. C h approach was presented engchi U Comparing these mean scores, Shaffer (1989) found that the correlation between language. proficiency and approach was not significant. However, the results indicated that an inductive. approach could be as effective as a deductive approach for teaching difficult grammatical. structures regardless of the learners’ language proficiency. In addition, the weak students. benefited the most from using the inductive approach. Shaffer (1989) explained that the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(32) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 25!. reason why an inductive approach was effective was that students were required to verbalize. the underlying rule rather than repeat the examples of the structures. This study indicated that. an inductive approach could be as effective as a deductive approach by using a cognitive. framework for difficult grammar rules. The debates over the three grammar teaching. approaches (deductive, inductive, and combined) and their relationship with learners’. 政治大. language proficiency still remain inconclusive.. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(33) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. 立. !. ! 26!. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(34) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 27!. Chapter 3. Method. The teacher-researcher designed a quasi-experiment to compare the effectiveness of. three instructional approaches for teaching grammatical structures to EFL learners. This. section comprised the following three detailed subsections: the research context and. 政治大. participants, the procedure of the experiment, and data analysis.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Research Context and Participants. ‧. The research was conducted at a vocational high school in northern Taiwan. A total of. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. 109 first-year students participated in the study with an average age of 16 from three. i n U. v. departments: Business Management, Data Processing, and Advertisement Design. The three. Ch. engchi. classes were coded as A, B, C in this study, and each comprised approximately 35 students.. The English proficiency levels of the A, B, and C classes were nearly identical because the. students were randomly assigned based on their entrance examinations. All participants were. native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and had previously studied English as a foreign. language for at least 9 years through formal education. They were later divided into high-. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(35) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 28!. and low-proficiency groups based on their pretest. The teacher-researcher instructed all of the. three classes using the three approaches. In other words, when teaching the same grammar. rule, the teacher used different approaches to instructing the three classes.. Instruments.. The instruments used in this study were (1) one pretest and three posttests; (2) a survey.. Pretest and posttest.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The three grammar rules tested in the pretest and posttests were gerunds, conditional. ‧. clauses, and relative clauses (Appendix I). These three rules were chosen because they are. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. crucial to EFL high school learners and are emphasized frequently in the textbooks. In. i n U. v. addition, the constructions of their syntactical structures differ from Chinese, which may lead. Ch. engchi. to learning difficulties and common errors. Generally speaking, when learning gerunds,. students may make errors related to subject–verb agreement. As for conditional clauses,. students may confuse the tense of the main clause with the subordinate clause. As for relative. clauses, learners may have difficulty in identifying the functions and usages of the relatives,. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(36) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 29!. “which,” “who,” and “whom.” Thus, the teacher-researcher chose these rules to explore how. students’ grammar learning can be improved by using the three different approaches.. The pretest and posttest were designed to be multiple choice tests; all the test. questions were selected from the test pool offered by the textbook publisher. Each pretest and. posttest comprised 10 questions. The participants received 10 points for each correct answer. 政治大. for a total score of 100 points. The goal of the pretest was designed to identify students’. 立. ‧ 國. 學. proficiency levels based on their knowledge of the three grammar rules. Those whose pretest. ‧. scores were higher than the mean were categorized as the high-proficiency students, and those. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. who received lower than the mean score were categorized as low-proficiency students. The. i n U. v. three posttests served as the achievement tests, and each posttest was designed to test only. Ch. engchi. one of the three grammar rules (Appendix J–L).. Teaching materials.. Teaching materials included two items: the participants’ textbook and worksheets. The. textbook contained eight units, each covering two grammar points presented in the order of. grammar rules and grammar exercises. The exercises included filling in the blanks, combining. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(37) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 30!. sentences, and sentence examples. Notably, the textbook was organized in a deductive format,. which explains the grammar rules first, and then follows the grammar exercises (Appendix. F–H). By contrast, the worksheets were designed for inductive practices, which offered the. contextual passage first, and then followed the guiding questions to help learners elicit the. target grammar rule through the passage (Appendix C –E).. Survey.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The teacher-researcher surveyed 18 students from the three classes. In each class,. ‧. three high-proficiency and three low-proficiency students were selected. The high-proficiency. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. students were the top three students, whereas the low-proficiency students were selected from. i n U. v. students whose baseline level was approximately 60 points. The survey questions were. Ch. engchi. designed to elicit students’ reflections upon the instructions that were beneficial to their. grammar learning (Appendix A).. Research Procedure. The research was conducted during the 2015–2016 academic year, from September. 2015 to January 2016. The general procedure included four stages: one pretest, three. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(38) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 31!. instructional treatments, three posttests, and a survey. The pretest was administered in the. third week of the semester to collect data related to the participants’ grammar ability about the. three grammar rules (gerunds, conditional causes, and relative clauses), and students were. classified into high- and low-proficiency groups. The posttests were conducted immediately. after each instructional treatment.. 政治大. The three instructional approaches and the three target grammar rules were rotationally. 立. ‧ 國. 學. applied in each of the classroom. The following, taking gerunds as examples, explains how. ‧. the three approaches were instructed in classrooms.. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Inductive Approach.. i n U. v. When teaching gerunds inductively, the teacher-researcher first presented the students. Ch. engchi. with a contextual passage featuring gerunds. The students were required to orally repeat the. examples after the instructor. Then, the students were allowed time to collaborate with their. peers to figure out the underlying grammar rule from the contextual passage. Second, the. teacher-researcher asked guiding questions, which helped students to “notice” the. grammatical structures through peer discussion. The worksheet with the guiding questions is. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(39) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 32!. in Appendix C (p. 60). The teacher-researcher did not provide explicit grammar rules during. students’ co-construction process until all the guiding questions had been practiced. Third, the. students were asked to orally identify the underlying grammar rules of the model questions in. the worksheet. During the inductive learning process, students are expected to generate the. grammar rules by means of co-construction instead of doing grammar exercises. If the. 政治大. students’ answers were not correct, then the teacher-researcher guided the students to reach. 立. ‧ 國. 學. the correct answers.. ‧. Deductive Approach.. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. When teaching gerunds deductively, the teacher-researcher first explained the. i n U. v. grammatical rule orally in Chinese. Second, the functions of the rule were illustrated by using. Ch. engchi. several model sentences. Third, after explicit instruction, students were asked to practice the. grammar exercises in the textbook. Last, students were required to compose correct sentences. using the freshly learned grammatical structures.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(40) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 33!. Combined Approach.. In the combined class, the inductive approach was used first followed by the deductive. one. The teacher-researcher first provided instruction by following the aforementioned. inductive procedure and deductively instructed the grammar rule later. For example, when. teaching gerunds, the teacher inductively led students to discover the grammar rules using the. 政治大. worksheet (Appendix C) first. Then, the teacher instructed the students deductively using the. 立. ‧ 國. 學. textbook. Because inductive exercises demand more time for team work and self-discovery,. ‧. the deductive approach allows students more time to do grammar exercises than the inductive. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. and combined approaches.. i n U. v. All three classes and three grammar rules were alternately taught by the three. Ch. engchi. instructional approaches. Regarding the rotation of applying the three approaches, to be. specific, when teaching gerunds, the teacher-researcher instructed class A inductively, class B. using the combined approach, and class C deductively. When teaching conditional clauses,. the teacher-researcher taught class A deductively, class B inductively, and class C with the. combined approach. When teaching relative clauses, the teacher taught class A with the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(41) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 34!. combined approach, class B deductively, and class C inductively (Please see Table 3). Thus,. the teacher-researcher could compare the results of the three approaches when teaching the. same grammar rules.. Table 3. Teaching Rotation of the Three Grammar Rules and Three Approaches. 立. Deductive. Deductive. Inductive. Combined. Deductive. Inductive. io. n. al. er. Combined. sit. ‧ 國. Combined. Nat. Relative Clause. Inductive. ‧. Conditional Clause. 政Class 治 B Class 大C. 學. Gerund. Class A. y. Rule. i n U. v. After completing the instruction of each grammatical structure in all three classes, a. Ch. engchi. posttest was administered immediately. The test papers were collected and scored by the. teacher-researcher.. Data Analysis. To answer research questions 1 and 2, the mean scores of the three posttests from the. three classes were calculated and compared for analysis.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(42) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 35!. To answer research question 3, the teacher-researcher analyzed the pretests of the three. classes to classify the high- and low-proficiency students first. Subsequently, the mean scores. of the posttests of the high- and low- proficiency students were compared after the three. classes were taught using the three approaches respectively. In addition, the survey was. conducted to understand students’ perception toward the three instructional approaches. The. 政治大. posttests and the survey results were cross-compared for data analysis.. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.


(44) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 37!. Chapter 4. Results. This chapter is devoted to presenting the results from data analyses. They are provided. here in order to answer the three research questions. The mean scores of the three posttest of. three grammar rules under three approaches are presented here to answer the first two. 政治大. research questions. In addition, the mean scores of the high- and low-proficiency students. 立. ‧ 國. 學. under the three approaches and the survey are used to answer the third question.. ‧. RQ1. Which instructional approach—deductive, inductive, or a combination of the two—is. y. Nat. n. er. io. al. sit. more effective for teaching grammar to EFL learners?. i n U. v. The mean scores of the three posttests of gerunds, conditional clauses, and relative. Ch. engchi. clauses instructed by using the three teaching approaches are illustrated in Table 4. According. to the Table, the mean of the three posttests under the combined approach (M = 76) is higher. than the deductive and inductive approaches, which suggests that the combined approach is. the most effective one for teaching grammar to EFL learners. The mean of the inductive. approach (M = 69) is the lowest, which suggests that the inductive approach may be the least. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(45) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 38!. effective for teaching grammar to EFL learners. !. Table 4. Mean Scores of Classes Under Different Teaching Approaches. Deductive. Inductive. Combined. Gerund. 77 ( C). 68 (A). 73 (B). Conditional Clause. 75 (A). Relative Clause. 73 (B). 68 (C). 75 (A). 75. 69. 76. ‧. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. !. 政72 (B) 治 79大 (C). 學. Mean. 立. ‧ 國. Rule. i n U. v. RQ2. Which teaching approach would be the most effective for teaching the grammar rules of. Ch. engchi. gerunds, conditional clauses, and relative clauses?. Figure 1 shows the mean scores of the three posttests for the three teaching. approaches, corresponding to the three grammar rules respectively. When teaching. conditional clauses and relative clauses, the combined approach is the most effective.. However, when teaching gerunds, the deductive approach is the most effective.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(46) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 39!. Figure 1 Mean Scores for Different Types of Rules and Approaches 80 78 76 74 Deductive. 72. Inductive. 70. Combination. 68 66. 政治大. 64. 立Gerund. 62 Conditional!. Relative. ‧ 國. 學. According to Table 5, students taught with the combined approach received the. ‧. highest grades for conditional clauses (M = 79). However, when taught the same rule. Nat. sit. y. inductively, students received the lowest grades (M = 72). Therefore, when teaching. n. al. er. io. conditional clauses, the combined approach is the most effective, whereas the inductive approach is the least effective.!. Ch. Table 5. engchi. i n U. v. Mean Scores for Conditional Clause Under Different Approaches. Mean. Combined. Deductive. Inductive. 79 (C). 75 (A). 72! (B). DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(47) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 40!. Regarding teaching the grammar rule of relative clauses, students who were taught with. the combined approach received an average score of 75, those instructed deductively received. an average of 73, and those taught inductively received an average of 68 (Table 6). Thus, the. results for the relative clauses are similar to those of conditional clauses.. Table 6. 政治大. Mean Scores for Relative Clause Under Different Approaches. 立. 75 (A). 73 (B). 68 (C). ‧ 國. Inductive. ‧. Deductive. 學. Mean. Combined. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Although these findings suggest that the combined approach has a more significant. i n U. v. effect on learning both conditional and relative clause rules, it is not the most effective. Ch. engchi. approach for teaching gerunds. According to Table 5, students under the deductive approach. outperform those taught by the other two approaches. Students taught deductively scored in. the 77th percentile, whereas students instructed inductively and with the combined approach. scored in the 68th and 73 percentile respectively (Table 7). !. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(48) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 41!. Table 7. Mean Scores for Gerund Under Different Approaches. Combined. Deductive. Inductive. 73 (B). 77 (C). 68 (A). Mean. 政治大. RQ3. How does students’ English proficiency relate to the effectiveness of the three. 立. ‧ 國. 學. approaches?. ‧. Table 8 displays the mean scores of the pretests for the three classes. The results. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. revealed that students’ English proficiency in terms of the three grammar rules was nearly the. i n U. v. same, and the total mean score was 63. Students whose pretest scores were higher than 63. Ch. engchi. were classified as the high-proficiency students, and those scoring lower than 63 were. classified as low-proficiency students. As a result, 56 students belonged to the low-. proficiency group, and 53 students were classified into the high-proficiency group.!. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(49) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 42!. Table 8. Mean Scores of the Pretests !. Mean. Class A. Class B. Class C. 61. 63. 65. Table 9 shows the mean scores of the posttests of the high- and low-proficiency. 政治大. students corresponding to the three approaches (inductive, deductive, and combined). The. 立. ‧ 國. 學. results revealed that the high-proficiency students gained the highest scores under the. ‧. combined approach; however, the inductive approach was the least effective for teaching both. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. Table 9. sit. the low- and high-proficiency students (Table 9).!. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Mean Scores for Each Type of Students Under Different Approaches. Proficiency. Inductive. Deductive. Combined. High-proficiency. 81. 84. 86. Low-proficiency. 59. 67. 67. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(50) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 43!. Although the high-proficiency students performed the worst under the inductive. approach, according to the survey results (Table 10), 67% of the high-proficiency students. preferred the inductive approach. Their perpetual preference for the inductive approach may. be because they were empowered by greater agency to construct their own knowledge. Most. of the high-proficiency students considered the learning environment of the inductive. 政治大. approach more interesting and challenging. By contrast, 100% of the low-proficiency students. 立. ‧ 國. 學. favored the deductive approach; their perceptual preference matched their posttest. ‧. performance. Most of the low-proficiency students reported that they felt more comfortable. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. Table 10. sit. listening to the teacher’s explicit instruction and then doing the related exercise deductively.. Ch. Results of the Survey. engchi. i n U. v. Proficiency. Preferred approach. Reason. High (6/9; 67%). Inductive. Interesting and challenging. Low (9/9; 100%). Deductive. Clear and safe. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.


(52) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 45!. Chapter 5. Discussion. ! ! ! ! ! ! To answer research question 1, “Which instructional approach—deductive, inductive,. or a combination of the two—is more effective for teaching grammar to EFL learners?” the. posttest data of the three grammar rules were analyzed. The results reveal that the combined. 政治大. and deductive approaches are more effective than the inductive approach. This finding is. 立. ‧ 國. 學. congruent with that of Cahyono and Widiati (2006), who indicate that a combination method. ‧. of induction and deduction yields the best result. A possible reason for this finding may be the. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. amount of time that students received to do grammar exercises. Under the combined and. i n U. v. deductive approaches, the students had more time to practice the grammar rules by answering. Ch. engchi. the exercise questions. Nevertheless, in the inductive classroom, students had little time to do. exercises. The amount of time students receive to practice the freshly learned grammar rules. may affect the degree of familiarity and lead to different test outcomes. This result echoes the. finding of Widodo (2006) in that practice is a medium for exploiting learners’ understanding. of the rule and assisting them in applying it.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(53) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 46!. ! ! ! ! ! ! To answer research question 2, “Which teaching approach would be the most effective. when teaching gerunds, relative clauses, and conditional clauses?” the posttest data for the. three grammatical structures were analyzed. The deductive approach led to the most effective. outcomes for learning gerunds. This might be because students, when taught deductively,. were given explicit instruction and model sentences to practice repeatedly. Explicit teaching. 政治大. as well as drill practices reinforce learners’ understanding. This result echoes the findings of. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Mohammed and Jaber (2008), who indicated that the deductive approach was more effective. ‧. for teaching grammar. However, when teaching relative and conditional clauses, the. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. combined approach was the most effective method. This result is congruent with the finding. i n U. v. of Widodo (2006), who indicated that combining inductive and deductive approaches to. Ch. engchi. teaching grammar is more effective than teaching grammar inductively or deductively alone.. The complexity level of the three grammar rules may play a part in this incongruent findings.. Further research is in demand to explore the relationship between teaching approaches and the. complexity of the subject matter.. To answer research question 3, “How does students’ English proficiency relate to the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(54) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 47!. effectiveness of the three approaches?” the pretest and posttests of the high- and. low-proficiency students were analyzed and the results of the survey were examined.. High-proficiency students performed the most significantly under the combined approach.. This result echoes that of Widodo (2006), who indicated that grammar rules must be taught. both implicitly and explicitly. Notably, the posttest outcome of the high-proficiency students. 政治大. differs from their perceptual preference for instructional approaches. Over half of the. 立. ‧ 國. 學. high-proficiency students (67%) reported that they preferred the inductive approach. They. ‧. considered the inductive approach more interesting and challenging when they were allowed. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. to play an active role in puzzling out grammar rules by themselves or through collaborative. i n U. v. work. It seems that high-proficiency students were more motivated by this bottom-up and. Ch. engchi. student-centered process, during which they were empowered with agency, than by gaining a. few more points.. By contrast, as for the low-proficiency students, they gained their highest scores under. the combined and deductive approaches. Compared with the high-proficiency students, the. low-proficiency students care more about the learning product rather than the thinking. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(55) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 48!. process. All of the low-proficiency students (100%) favored the deductive approach. For the. low-proficiency students under the inductive instruction, they seemed to suffer anxiety when. generalizing the grammar rules rather than enjoy the endowed agency. Their insufficient. proficiency tended to hinder their participation in group work, not to mention discovering the. underlying grammar rules, which involves complex linguistic knowledge and meta-cognitive. 政治大. skills. Ausubel (1963) and Carroll (1964) also reported a similar finding in that only high-. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. proficiency students could construct the hypotheses necessary under an inductive approach.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(56) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 49!. Chapter 6. Conclusion. How to teach grammar is a controversial issue; language teachers are challenged to use. a variety of approaches. According to the present study, the effects of teaching three grammar. rules by means of three approaches differed. One preferred approach to teaching grammar. 政治大. does not exist. There are many social and contextual factors interwoven; for example, the. 立. ‧ 國. 學. combined and deductive approaches are more effective than the inductive approach. It may be. ‧. because of the amount of time students receive to practice. In addition, the approach students. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. prefer may not accord with their test performance. Most high-proficiency students favor the. i n U. v. inductive approach but perform better under the combined approach. Moreover, students with. Ch. engchi. different language proficiency influence the outcome of the approaches. As for the. high-proficiency students, the combined approach is the most effective. However, the. deductive and combined approaches are more effective for the low-proficiency students.. Overall, the inductive approach is the least effective for the EFL students. Therefore, based on. the findings, the teaching implication is that teachers must be flexible enough to vary the. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(57) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 50!. teaching approaches according to the specific situation. In addition, when teachers design. curriculums for teaching grammar rules, they must consider numerous factors, such as. learners’ proficiency, the types of rules, teaching approaches, or complexity level of the. subject matter. The research findings should be interpreted with caution because of the. limitation of research time constraint. Further research is required, especially research in. 政治大. respect to the relations among the complexity level of the target subject matter, the learners’. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. language proficiency and teaching approaches.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(58) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 51!. References. Ausubel, D.P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaning. verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology.. Ausubel, D.P. (1963). The psychology of meaningful verbal learning: An introduction to. school learning. New York: Grune & Stratton.. 政治大. Brown, H.D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. Pearson Longman.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Cahyono, & Widiati (2006). The teaching of English grammar in the Indonesian context: the. ‧. state of the art. Celt, Vol. 6. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Carroll, John B. (1964). Language and thought. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.. i n U. v. Celce-Murcia, M. (1991). Grammar pedagogy in second and foreign language teaching.. Ch. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 459–480.. engchi. Chalipa, S. (2013). The effect of inductive vs. deductive instructional approach in grammar. Learning of ESL Learners. International Researchers, 2(2), 178–186.. Cole, S., Haight, C., & Herron, C. (2007). The effects of deductive and guided inductive. instructional approaches on the learning of grammar in the elementary language. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(59) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 52!. college classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 40, 288–309. doi: 10.1111/j.1944-. 9720.2007.tb03202.x. Doughty, C. (2001). Cognitive underpinnings of focus on form. In P. Robinson (Ed.),. Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 206–257). Cambridge: Cambridge. University Press.. 政治大. Eisenstein, M. (1987). Grammatical explanations in ESL: Teach the student, not the method.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. In M. Long & J. Richards (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL (pp. 282– 292). New Jersey:. ‧. Heinle & Heinle Publishers.. y. Nat. n. al. er. io 27, 91–113.. sit. Ellis, R. (1993). Second language acquisition and the structural syllabus. TESOL Quarterly,. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Ellis, R. (1995). Interpretation tasks for grammar teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 87–105.. Ellis, R. (2002). Does form-focused instruction affect the acquisition of implicit knowledge?. A review of the research. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 223–236.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(60) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 53!. Erlam, R. (2003). The effects of deductive and inductive instruction on the acquisition of. direct object pronouns in French as a second language. The Modern Language. Journal, 87(2), 242–260. Felder, R., & Henriques, E. (1995). Learning and teaching styles in foreign and second. language education. Foreign Language Annals 28(1), 21–31.. 政治大. Fischer, R. A. (1979). "The inductive-deductive controversy revisited", The Modern. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Language Journal, 63(3), 98–105. doi: 10.2307/325777. ‧. General language competence and adult second language reading. In J. Devine, P.L.Carrell. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. and D.E.Eskey (Eds.), (1987). Research on reading English as a Second Language. Washington, D.C.: TESOL.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Goner, Philips, & Steve Walters (1978). "Inductive and deductive approach in TESOL." In. Heinmann (1995). Teaching Practice Handbook Structures: Grammar and Function. (pp. 129 –138). Pedagogy. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Winter. 1990): 451-458.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(61) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 54!. Herron, C., & Tomasello, M. (1992). Acquiring grammatical structures by guided induction.. French Review, 65, 708–718.. Jiroft and Simin (2013). The effects of inductive and deductive instructional approach in. grammar learning of ESL learners. International Journal of Advanced Research. Studies, 76–90.. 政治大. Takimoto. M. (2008). The effects of deductive and inductive instruction on the development. 立. ‧ 國. ‧. 386.. 學. of language learners' pragmatic competence. The Modern Language Journal, 369–. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Mohammed, A.A., & Jaber, H. A. (2008). The effects of deductive and inductive approaches. i n U. v. of teaching on Jordanian university students’ use of the active and passive voice in. Ch. engchi. English. College Student Journal, 42(2), 545–553.. Mountone, P. (2004). How to use examples effectively: deductive vs. inductive approaches.. Santa Barbara: University of California.. Norris, J., & Ortega, L. (2000). Effectiveness of L2 instruction: a research synthesis and. quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning, 50, 417–528.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(62) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 55!. Robinson, P. (1996). Learning simple and complex rules under implicit, incidental, rule-. search conditions, and instructed conditions. Studies in Second Language. Acquisition, 18, 27–67.. Schrampfer, Azar B. and Spack, Koch, R. (2005). Understanding and Using English. 政治大. Grammar: Interactive. TESL-EJ Top, volume 9, No.3.. 立. languages. The Modern Language Journal, 73(4), 395–403.. Nat. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Shaffer, C. (1989). A comparison of inductive and deductive approaches to teaching foreign. n. al. er. io. sit. Skehan, P. (1989). Individual differences in second-language learning. London: Edward. Arnold.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Tammenga-Helmantel, M., Arends, E., & Canrinus, E. (2014). The effectiveness of. deductive, inductive, implicit and incidental grammatical instruction in second. language classrooms. System, 45, 198–210.. Uddin, K., & Ahmed, T. (2012). Inductive and contextual approaches to English grammar. teaching. Language in India 12(11), 166.. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(63) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 56!. Widodo, H.P. (2006). Approaches and procedures for teaching grammar. English Teaching:. Practice and Critique, 5(1), 122–141.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(64) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 57!. APPENDIX A: Survey. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. io. y. sit. ☐. n. al. er. ☐. Nat. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(65) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. ☐. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國 ☐. ‧. ☐. ! 58!. 學. ☐. !. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. ☐. ☐. ☐. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(66) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 59!. APPENDIX B: Research Procedure Pretest!. Rule. Class A. Class B. Class C. 治Combined Inductive 政大. Gerund. Deductive. Inductive. Relative Clause. Combined Deductive. Combined. ‧. Conditional Clause. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Deductive. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Inductive. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Posttest!. Data!Analysis!. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(67) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 60!. APPENDIX C: Worksheet—Gerund. Class:. Number:. Name:. Read the paragraph and find out the rules about gerunds.. George and Mary are close friends but they have different hobbies. For example, when. 立. 政治大. they have free time, George enjoys reading books; however, Mary likes singing songs. He. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. thinks that reading is interesting but she thinks that it is boring. Besides, George dreams about. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. living in a quiet country, while Mary dreams about living in a big city. Although they are. n. v i n C h well with eachUother. Keeping the way they are is different in many ways, they can get along engchi the secret of being real friends.. Leading questions:. 1.! Do you notice the location of the gerunds?. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(68) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 61!. 2.! After verbs and prepositions, what is the function of the gerunds?. 3.! At the beginning of the sentences, what is the function of the gerunds?. Grammar Rule:. 立. !. ‧ 國. ‧. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. !. 學. !. 政治大. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(69) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 62!. APPENDIX D: Worksheet—Conditional Clause. Class:. Number:. Name:. Read the paragraph and find out the rules about conditional clauses.. There are many phone services. One service is “call waiting.” If you are using the. 立. 政治大. phone and another person calls, you can put the first caller on hold and talk to the second. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. caller. Then if you like, you can go back to the first. Another service, “call forwarding,” lets. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. you receive your calls even if you are not home. If you know where you will be, you can enter. n. v i n C h calls your phoneUnumber, your call will go to the the phone number of the place. If someone engchi number you entered. Another service is called “voice mail.” If you don’t receive your calls,. you can still get messages. Therefore, these phone services help you contact with others.. Leading questions:. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.

(70) TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR EFL LEARNERS !. !. ! 63!. 1.! When you use conditions, what kind of tenses will you use in the main and subordinate. clause?. Grammar Rule:. !. 立. !. ‧ 國. ‧. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. !. 學. !. 政治大. !. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. !. !. !. DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.ETMA.004.2018.A07.