The Impact of Teachers’ Beliefs on Grammar Instruction and Students’ Grammar Competences

With regards to grammar instruction in mother tongue education, two approaches influence teacher beliefs: the traditional approach supporting explicit instruction and the communicative approach focusing on functional linguistic usage in communicative situations. However, the impact of these ‘teacher beliefs’ is still uncertain. We asked teachers (N=8) in the final year of secondary education to complete a survey on their beliefs concerning grammar instruction. The first data was collected using an adapted questionnaire by Burgess and Etherington (2002), the second part contained open ended questions. In addition, the pupils of the teachers were tested on their grammatical knowledge (N=291).