In Search of the Pedagogical Grammar Concept: A Historical and Methodological Study

Teaching grammar is considered as one of the most important subjects in second/foreign language curriculums and there have been many disagreements and disputes about it over the past 40 years. During this period, the position of grammar in language learning programs has been frequently changed. Some approaches have considered the grammar as the central core of second language teaching, and some have known it as the most important barrier to progress in teaching second language. The current research will investigate the situation of grammar, through reviewing the opinions of theoreticians such as Alan, Dirven, Celce-Murcia, Krashen, Odlin, Ellis, Larsen Freeman, etc. and while accepting a critical and compress manner and examining the evolution and formation of this term. This study has tried to refer to the most important features of the pedagogical grammar, including accompaniment of form, meaning and usage, being corpus-based, paying attention to feedback, and combining the explicit and implicit teaching methods. The result shows that the continuum of teaching grammar in second language had moved from the extreme focus on teaching grammar towards eliminating it, subsequently, based on the extensive empirical researches, it is argued that the continuum has now returned towards a logical focus on teaching grammar, the focus that is called pedagogical grammar. Nowadays, the pedagogical grammar is considered as an independent form of grammar with regard to its particular audience, different teaching methods, adaptation to the curriculum, and second language teaching approaches.

Extended Abastract
1. Introduction
The position and importance of grammar is (and has been) the most controversial issue in second language teaching (Hinckle & Foros, 2002: 2; Widodo, 2006: 123; Larsen-Freeman, 2003: 519). From the first experiences of second language teaching to the late seventies of the twentieth century, grammar has been considered among the basic language skills (Newby, 2015: 13). In the last two decades of the twentieth century, by proposing theories and approaches such as natural order, monitor model and communicative language teaching (CLT)‎, teaching grammar was extremely opposed[1] and instead, focus on meaning and context was suggested. With the beginning of the twenty-first century, more rational approaches to teaching grammar were adopted in second language teaching (Nassaji & Fotos, 2004; Widodo, 2006; DeKeyser, 2012).
 2. Theoretical framework
If we liken teaching grammar to a spectrum, the two ends of this spectrum will include focus on direct teaching and avoidance of teaching grammar. By proposing new theories and approaches in second language teaching in the middle of the twentieth century, especially communicative language teaching theory, this spectrum went toward avoidance of teaching grammar and in opposition to it:
The rules that we can learn and have in our minds as a monitoring tool are not the same as those we have learned before[2] and are not important for communication. Most of them are simple rules that are easily described and remembered (Krashen, 1982: 97).
However, different researchers have pushed this radical opposition towards re-attention to teaching grammar in second language by showing the importance of paying attention to grammar- logically and systematically in the form of pedagogical grammar. ‎
 3. Methodology
Studying the most authoritative resources related to the pedagogical grammar, the present research will describe the evolution of this approach. Although in many resources, the paper by J. P. b. Allen‎ (1974) has been introduced as the first text that independently addresses pedagogical grammar (Odlin‎, 1994; Newby, 2010; Vali Rezaei & Kuravand, 2014; Sahraei & Rezaei, 2016), the pedagogical grammar approach has been first applied independently by James S. Noblitt (1972) in “Pedagogical Grammar: Towards a Theory of Foreign Language Materials Preparation‎” and his research title is devoted to this subject. Noblitt considers pedagogical grammar as a reflection of various grammatical theories, such as descriptive grammar and structural grammar.
The article entitled “Pedagogical grammar” by Allen (1974) is another important and notable research. In spite of the fact that the author, in his article, does not provide an accurate definition of pedagogical grammar, he views pedagogical grammar as a combination of its theoretical basis and practical use and dedicates a significant part of his article to prove this issue that Chomsky's grammatical model (transformational-structural) is an appropriate model for developing the pedagogical grammar. However, Odlin’s (1994) studies later showed that how difficult it is to transform Chomsky’s views into a set of applied rules for the lesson. In this regard, Terence Odlin‎ (1994) also addressed this issue with his work entitled “Pedagogical grammar perspectives”. Writing the book “Pedagogical grammar”, Casey M. Keck and YouJin Kim (2014) took a great step in introducing this approach in English language.
 4. Discussion & Results
Understanding this issue, Rad Ellis (2006), poses eight key questions and examines principles, importance and quality of teaching grammar in second language in the form of eight answers:
1- Teaching grammar should rely on application and meaning of different grammatical structures through focusing on real and meaningful communication activities (and not only on forms).
2- Instead of teaching the entire grammar, teachers should focus on grammatical structures in which learners have problems.
3- It is more appropriate that teaching grammar be included in the program of the learners who are beyond the level of beginners and are in an intermediate level.
4- Rational focus on form is the best approach to teaching second language grammar because it provides an opportunity for learners to perform communication tasks.
5- Language use training should focus on both linguistic output and input.
6- Explicit grammatical knowledge as a useful tool facilitates the subsequent learning process and paves the way for the transformation of explicit knowledge into implicit knowledge.
7- A combination of explicit and implicit teaching is the most appropriate option for second language teaching.
8- Teaching grammar should be incorporated in each lesson and should also be practiced and reviewed along with meaningful communication activities.
 5. Conclusion & Suggestions
During a period of forty years, pedagogical grammar has promoted from an ambiguous concept and necessity in second language teaching to an independent type of grammar on the credibility of a particular audience, different teaching methods and compliance with the curriculum and approaches to second language teaching. The principles of this type of grammar can be listed and summarized as follows:

Teaching vocabulary along with grammar
Corpus-based pedagogical grammar
Emphasis on the need for feedback
Integration of explicit and implicit teaching
Setting the content of pedagogical grammar based on processing considerations and learning ability
Compliance of form, meaning, and use
Teaching grammar based on communication tasks and exercises
Using different approaches and strategies in teaching grammar and assigning a central role to the learner in the classroom
Filling the gaps in attention and eliminating the gap between applied and declarative ‎knowledge

The pedagogical grammar that is written with the above-mentioned  considerations is viewed as an important tool for improving the communicative competence of learners and makes a positive effect on second language teaching.
 



[1]. This extreme opposition has been raised in the form of approaches known as Zero Grammar for about two decades in English language teaching.


[2]. By learning, the author means natural learning in the process of language use.