TY - JOUR
AU - Myhill, Debra
AB - This book takes as its starting point the contested issue of explicit grammar teaching, providing a contextual framing for the book’s focus on learners’ development of conceptual understanding of linguistic terms. A thorough and critical synthesis of the ‘grammar debate’ is provided, drawing on perspectives from both L1 and L2, and from across different educational jurisdictions. This synthesis discusses the historical shift in L1 teaching, especially in Anglophone countries, from a routine acceptance that explicit grammar teaching is a core component of the first language curriculum to one which rejected grammar on the grounds of its irrelevance to the process of language learning. This shift is paralleled, to an extent, in second language teaching, with the move away from grammar-translation approaches to communicative language teaching, where language learners acquire grammatical competence through using the language in communicative contexts, rather than through explicit teaching. Van Rijt observes that this rejection of explicit grammar teaching is predicated on assumptions that grammar should only be taught if it serves the purpose of becoming more literate or linguistically competent, an instrumentalist view, and compares this with a cultural perspective, where learning grammatical knowledge is valuable in its own right. This opening discussion does not shy away from the complexities of this topic, considering, for example, the distinction between form-focused and function-focused teaching, the different linguistic theorists which inform different perspectives, and the ideologically normative views of policy-makers in some countries. He teases out the ambiguity in the notion of ‘traditional grammar teaching’, noting the difference between what might represent traditional teaching or traditional grammar, and arguing that ‘traditional teaching’ concerns itself principally with how grammar is taught, whereas ‘traditional grammar’ concerns itself with what type of grammar is taught. This distinction between how and what provides the impetus for the focus of the book on how L1 learners develop understanding of grammatical concepts, and what terminology might be most supportive of this learning. Van Rijt rightly notes that the extensive literature debating grammar teaching has tended to focus on why grammar might be taught—the pedagogical rationales which underpin grammar teaching. The lacuna in the research lies in the paucity of studies which examine the cognitive conceptual learning of grammar itself, a lacuna addressed by this book. At the heart of this is the idea of linguistic metaconcepts, which are defined as ‘higher order concepts that facilitate the understanding or categorisation of the lower order concepts they thematically organise’ (p. 41). For example, understanding of the metaconcept of agreement might help learners grasp linguistic concepts such as subject-verb agreement. Crucially, van Rijt argues, linguistic metaconcepts generate the possibility of reasoning and rational deduction when learning grammar, in contradistinction to explicit grammar teaching which prioritizes drills and exercises which privilege grammatical identification and labelling. Having established a clear argument and theoretical rationale for the importance of attending to conceptual learning of grammatical terminology, the substantive portion of the book is structured around a series of studies, conducted as part of the author’s doctoral programme, in the context of the Dutch educational system. Each of these studies addresses linguistic metaconcepts progressively building a cumulative body of work. This begins with a survey of academic linguists to elicit their view of which linguistic metaconcepts are the most important for linguists and for school teachers. Although the linguists did not all use the same terms for the metaconcepts identified, there was clear consensus that there were three groups of metaconcepts which were perceived as important: structural, semantic, and relational metaconcepts. Structural metaconcepts are form related, and included, for example, word order and syntactic functions. Semantic metaconcepts are more associated with how meanings are expressed in sentences, such as negation and modality. Finally, the relational metaconcepts represent relationships between linguistic elements, for example, semantic roles or modification. This study was followed by a systematic literature review that investigated which linguistic metaconcepts and concepts are addressed in educational research on grammar, and whether any rationale is offered for the choices made. This revealed that, typically, educational research refers to traditional grammar, with an emphasis on parts of speech, sentence structure, and sentence types. The author argues that this represents a disconnect between educational research and modern theoretical linguistics, which if bridged might generate more helpful synergies for learners. To an extent, these two studies are scoping studies, determining the ‘state of play’. The subsequent four studies reported build from this base, through three exploratory quasi-experimental studies testing out how helpful linguistic metaconcepts are in practice, and finally, through capturing teachers’ beliefs about the potential value of metaconcepts in secondary L1 classrooms. The intervention studies were conducted firstly with undergraduate students, and then in secondary classrooms. All three studies had positive effects, particularly on students’ grammatical reasoning and metacognitive knowledge, and on their capacity to use metalanguage to explain grammatical problems. The final study shifts to consider teacher perspectives through a survey of teachers’ beliefs regarding the potential value of linguistic metaconcepts. This found that teachers were generally positive about the way linguistic metaconcepts in grammar teaching promoted a reflective approach with an emphasis on reasoning. However, the survey also revealed limitations which might affect pedagogical implementation, both in teachers’ own metaconceptual knowledge and in the textbooks used, which rarely draw on metaconcepts and do not encourage reflective thinking. For me as a reader, one real strength of this book is the way it draws on the sequence of studies to build a sustained and coherent narrative about learning grammatical concepts. This focus on conceptual understanding of grammar is a major contribution to the field, given the dearth of attention this has received. In particular, it eschews a view of learning grammar as principally concerned with correct identification and labelling of grammatical items, and instead frames grammatical understanding as the ability to reason grammatically and to explain grammatical phenomena. In the context of many L1 classrooms across different educational systems where the ’naming of parts’ is prioritized, this has the potential for radical transformation of how grammar learning is both theorized and implemented in practice. The studies represent innovative exploratory research, and open the field for many fruitful lines of enquiry for further including, but not limited to, which metaconcepts are most helpful at which stages of learning, and whether the Dutch results are replicated in other educational contexts. Finally, in drawing attention to the disconnect between linguistics research and educational research, the book is a clarion call for great co-operation and collaborative research between the two disciplines. Debra Myhill is Professor of Education at the University of Exeter, UK, and Director of the Centre for Research in Writing, which promotes inter-disciplinary research, drawing on psychological, socio-cultural, and linguistic perspectives on writing. Her research interests focus principally on linguistic and metalinguistic development in writing, the composing processes involved in writing, the talk–writing relationship, and creative writing. Underpinning this research is the principle that literacy, especially writing, is a pathway to empowerment. Address for correspondence: Department of Education, University of Exeter, Heavitree Road, Exeter, Devon EX1 2LU, UK. <d.a.myhill@ex.ac.uk>. © The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Jimmy Van Rijt: UNDERSTANDING GRAMMAR THE IMPACT OF LINGUISTIC METACONCEPTS ON L1 GRAMMAR EDUCATION
JO - Applied Linguistics
DO - 10.1093/applin/amac017
DA - 2022-04-07
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/jimmy-van-rijt-understanding-grammar-the-impact-of-linguistic-O8ZskaTDzl
SP - 169
EP - 171
VL - 44
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -