Prospective English teachers’ enrollment in grammar courses

Grammar courses in the English teaching program are optional. Nevertheless, data analysis revealed that a vast majority of participants have taken at least one of them. The most common reasons for which they feel motivated to enroll themselves in such courses include 1) to improve their writing skills, 2) to be able to correct their own grammar mistakes, and 3) to be prepared to teach.

“My expectations would be improving my writing… to know more about structures of the language because perhaps I get them wrong sometimes, so it would be more like learning how to write.” [Participant 18]¹

“My expectations when taking a grammar course are to learn the grammar rules, so I can teach, express myself well, and to know how to make it easier for students to learn the topic.” [Participant 3]

“To learn how to write, and not to have mistakes in my writing… to have a basis when I am going to teach my students.” [Participant 16]

“…to improve my current knowledge, because I was feeling I was making a lot of mistakes in grammar… so to correct those mistakes and to learn about grammar.” [Participant 11]

These personal aims and interests can be considered factors which positively contribute to prospective English language teachers’ grammatical awareness development. However, although participants have clear and meaningful purposes for taking grammar courses, they often cannot take all of them because of external factors. These include inconvenient schedules, the availability of more appealing elective courses, uninspiring methodologies proposed by some teacher educators, and previous experiences in courses where the importance of grammar was undermined by a strong emphasis on other aspects of the communicative competence.

“I know that there are some courses that are about grammar, but I have not taken those... it was because the schedule, it was not good for me and I wanted to take other course that was about music… the other course in that time… calls call my attention more than the other.” [Participant 1]

“Grammar has been punished here and teachers show us that grammar is something that it is not useful for our Colombian students because it is very difficult, not necessary.” [Participant 10]

“If you know that the teacher just fills the board, he/she is boring and what he is going to say you can find it on a text book, it is better not to take the course. So, I think that the methodology and the pedagogical aspect influence.” [Participant 13; translated from Spanish]

External factors mentioned above discourage future English language teachers from engaging in explicit and formal grammar instruction through specialized courses. Therefore, it could be inferred that their grammatical awareness development will be affected and their chances to succeed in writing academic texts will be less since, according to Andrews (1999b), having a greater dominance in the grammar system of the language is one fundamental ability to develop grammatical awareness.

Similarly, Zhang and Hung (2014) state that L2/FL language learners cannot perform entirely well without explicit grammar teaching. As “learning grammar through formal instruction can facilitate language acquisition” (Ellis as cited in Zhang & Hung, 2014, p. 107), it is necessary to teach it by formal classroom instruction (Shen, 2012).

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards grammar

Varied participants’ views of grammar appeared as an internal factor that can also affect their grammatical awareness development. Those perspectives involve 1) prospective teachers’ consideration of grammar as being relevant to effective teaching, 2) their view of L1 grammar as both a facilitator and a constraint in learning the target language grammar, 3) their positive and negative feelings towards grammar teaching and learning, and 4) their perception of the role of grammar in written discourse.

Importance of grammar for an English language teacher. Participants perceive grammar to be significant in their process of becoming English language teachers; therefore, they strongly believe that excluding it from their training could be a mistake. They remark that beyond using the language, as language teachers they must master it. Consequently, participants prefer grammar to be taught explicitly in order to explore the language deeply by knowing how it works.

“We are going to become English language teachers; we are not just going to be language users but language teachers. If we are supposed to be language teachers, we need to know explicit grammar.” [Participant 7]

“Grammar should be mandatory because we as teachers must have the knowledge to be able to explain our students, if they make a mistake, where things come from, we must know how to explain it from a linguistic view.” [Participant 8; translated from Spanish]

It is evident that for most participants English language teachers should not be hindered from receiving explicit grammar teaching. Regarding this idea, Thornbury (as cited in Andrews, 2007) asserts that “the knowledge that teachers have of the underlying systems of the language enables them to teach effectively” (p. 945). Additionally, Andrews (1999a) claims that prospective language teachers’ explicit knowledge of grammar might lead to effective professional teaching practices. Consequently, it can be assumed that this grammar knowledge learned through explicit methodologies becomes the basis for pre-service English language teachers to be able to explain the grammar system appropriately which, according to Njika (2015), is one of the conditions to develop grammatical awareness.

L1 grammar as a facilitator or constraint to learn foreign language grammar. Some participants believe that Spanish (L1) and English (Foreign Language) share some similarities in their grammar systems. Therefore, they use their knowledge of L1 grammar to help themselves interpret and apply rules when performing in the target language.

“Spanish grammar has helped me because I normally tend to translate English sentences to Spanish ones, so knowing the Spanish structure, I realize how structures have to be in English… for example, present perfect in English is very similar to the present perfect in Spanish; it is almost the same. So, I relate both and likewise I have an idea and it helps me.” [Participant 8; translated from Spanish]

“… Spanish has some kind of structures and rules English has, so I can compare those structures and rules with Spanish ones, so in that way I can find the differences and make adjustments in order to produce a good speech.” [Participant 11]

In contrast, other participants think of Spanish as being totally different from English. Consequently, they consider that L1 grammar is far from helping them understand and produce rules and structures that govern the target language.

“… in terms on grammar, they are very different… if I am going to use my mother tongue as a base for constructing a sentence in English, it is not going to be useful because those little details Spanish has. I consider is an obstacle.” [Participant 10]

According to Arshad, Abdolrahimpour and Najafi (2015), through L1, learners of foreign languages could develop self-regulation and faster thinking which may help transfer their cognitive and metacognitive skills to ease L2 learning. It implies that participants who compare both languages to understand grammar better use cognitive and metacognitive skills that contribute to grammatical awareness development which involves sensitivity to how the language works (Andrews, 1994).

Positive and negative feelings towards grammar. For some participants, grammar has always evoked positive feelings. They associate the term to words such as enjoyment, love, organization, excellence, happiness, and success.

“I’ve always loved grammar, I read a lot of books of grammar actually and maybe that is why… people say that grammar is not enough to be competent, to have a proficient level in English, but grammar for me is very different, I love it and for me it is a feeling of happiness.” [Participant 15]

Conversely, other participants expressed having neutral or negative feelings towards grammar which changed into positive ones after being immersed in the experience of becoming English language teachers.

“Grammar was kind of difficult and demanding at the beginning, but then I developed a feeling of pleasure when using it in my academic discourse essays or whatever I have to write for the 8th semester… At the beginning, I felt not very comfortable using it, but now I enjoy it, I, I enjoy learning grammar. Right now, is pleasure.” [Participant 7]

“Grammar used to make me feel bored and kind of frustrated, but later when being in this English language teaching program, when I understood everything, I saw grammar differently. I like grammar a lot because it gives me a feeling of order.” [Participant 2; translated from Spanish]

Negative feelings towards grammar such as boredom, fear, frustration, stress, difficulty, anxiety, and confusion were found among participants. According to them, these feelings could have originated from bad connotations of grammar, usually encouraged by teachers or peers in the classroom, or because of their lack of grammar knowledge.

“Stress, confusion, frustration... for example I feel frustrated due to complex tenses. I do everything I can, but I do not understand, I did not internalize grammar… then, I feel frustration.” [Participant 13; translated from Spanish]

“Grammar is the boring part of English language, it makes me feel discomfort. Now, I know it is necessary; however, it continues on making me feel a kind of discomfort. It is very difficult, but I need it… I relate it to mathematics.” [Participant 19; translated Spanish]

Although studies about the impact of feelings toward grammar learning on grammatical awareness development are scarce, Hos & Kekec´s (2015) research shows that the effectiveness of language learning could be negatively affected by the beliefs and attitudes students have. In the same manner, Ahmadi & Shaffie (2015) affirm that “learners’ beliefs not only influence their approaches to language learning but also affect the way they respond to teaching activities” (p. 247). Consequently, it can be assumed that a similar effect could emerge when prospective teachers experience negative feelings toward grammar learning. This situation could lead them to develop low levels of grammatical awareness since such negative feelings would cause lack of interest to use grammar correctly even in the creation of academic texts.

On the other hand, it can be inferred that prospective teachers’ positive feelings towards grammar would favor their development of grammatical awareness. Schuman (as cited in Méndez Lopez, 2011) states that when learning a foreign language, feelings are vital to understand and perform successfully in the new language since emotions also shape students’ cognition. Hence, participants who possess positive feelings would be better positioned to learn a new language and to develop grammatical awareness compared to participants who hold negative feelings towards grammar.

The role of grammar in written production. For prospective English language teachers, grammar is closely related to written discourse. According to them, unlike spoken language, in written communication grammar plays a central role in order to provide clarity. Consequently, participants’ attention towards accuracy in the selection of grammar structures is mainly activated when attaining writing tasks.

“The intention of writing is proving performance of the language, because for example when I am speaking I make mistakes, but I can correct them immediately. But in writing the intention is that everything is completely clear and explicit. So, that is why I think grammar is associated with writing.” [Participant 10]

“…when a person is talking you are paying attention to the meaning. There are some things that are impossible to notice throughout speech, but there are others that you can only perceive when you are writing, when you have a written composition. Through an oral speech for me is impossible, so that’s why people tend to do that connection between grammar and writing, because grammar can be only be perceived through writing.” [Participant 9]

Participants’ acknowledgment of the relevant role that grammar plays in written discourse is supported by Baleghizadeh & Gordani (2012) who state that clear and accurate conventions of grammar ensure clarity and avoid ambiguity when writing. Nonetheless, the fact that participants recognize this is not enough to claim that they have developed grammatical awareness. According to Andrews (1994), one of the characteristics of such awareness is paying attention to the meaning we convey and the language we use in communication. Oshima & Hogue (1998) claim that grammar structures help defining the writing tone and style. This is remarkably important if we consider that prospective teachers are expected to write for academic purposes. Therefore, beyond recognizing its importance, in order for future teachers to show grammatical awareness they should be able to identify and explain faulty or unclear sentences in order to correct them. According to data analysis, few participants acknowledged having these types of skills.

Prospective English language teachers’ ability for correcting grammar in written texts

After asking participants during one of the focus group interviews to evaluate a set of sentences which were grammatically incorrect, it was found that they can perceive grammar mistakes in written texts through either unconscious or conscious ways. In the first case, around half of the prospective teachers admitted that they can recognize acceptable or unacceptable grammar usage because the text simply does not make sense to them, without being able to justify their opinions based on grammar rules. According to Smith (2008), “we might be faced with learners who are able to “feel” that a given utterance was ungrammatical without being able to analyze why this should be so” (p. 182). For this author, these types of learners can correct their errors although they do not understand where their errors come from.

“I do it unconsciously. If I’m just reading something and if I see something… I ask, “What is this?” doesn’t make sense to me. So, I read again, and I see that it’s not well-structured, but I don’t give it an explanation… I don’t go into the grammar aspect of it… I see that it’s incorrect, but I don’t think about grammar I just know it’s incorrect.” [Participant 3]

“I recognize what is missing or… or perhaps I see that is weird, that it doesn’t fit a word in there… there are things that are too weird for me or to complex that I don’t know… I wonder but I don´t know what it is.” [Participant 16]

Additionally, it was found that among these participants there exists the tendency to have peers check and correct grammar mistakes in their written production as an alternative to self-correction.

“Most of the time, I do not trust myself when writing texts. It is like an internal fight where I look, and I read again. I try to identify if I made a mistake before handing in my written text. However, I do not frequently do it. I leave my text as it is because when I start questioning myself, I do not know how to answer my questions. I do not know if I am making a mistake or not. What I do is to tell a classmate to revise my text. Then, I see if the correction keeps with the ideas I wrote in my original written text. In my case, it is better that a classmate or a teacher tells me if the text is good or not.” [Participant 2; translated from Spanish]

“What happens is that we do not have a self-assessing culture. It frequently happens to me that if I write something and I know that I have certain mistakes somewhere, I won’t find the mistake because I do not have the knowledge to do so. Therefore, I think that one will always ask someone to tell how we are doing in our texts.” [Participant 10; translated from Spanish]

Otherwise, the rest of the participants expressed that they are able to consciously notice acceptable or unacceptable grammar usage in written texts based on understandings of the grammar system of the language. Accordingly, this knowledge helps them recognize mistakes they are familiar with and therefore correct them.

“It’s easy to recognize those well-formed phrases… taking into account my previous knowledge about syntax, I could give an explanation about what is wrong or what’s missing or what I should change.” [Participant 17]

Prospective teachers who consciously identify grammar mistakes in their written production usually rely on a set of strategies to self-monitor and correct such mistakes. These strategies involve looking closely at accurate samples of structures they had found difficult to manage within their texts, re-reading, and editing. To do so, participants use different tools such as internet websites, videos, music, books, or texts books.

“Talking about grammar, I would say writing, because when I write, I am like… I look for words, and structures and that’s when I learn.” [Participant 18]

“What I simply do is that I look what I write, then I correct, then I re-write. It’s like a process.” [Participant 7]

“I look for a website. It has grammar sections. It has basic, intermediate, and advanced lessons. I always use all of them. Basic grammar to review and advanced to learn”. [Participant 10; translated from Spanish]

“I google it, search on the internet examples or explanations and then I correct.” [Participant 17]

Prospective teachers who engage in processes that involve noticing, reflection, or conscious analysis of linguistic processes upon knowledge of subject matter develop metacognition (Wright & Brumfit as cited in Andrews, 2001), which is an essential feature of grammatical awareness. Notwithstanding, a significant number of prospective teachers in this study were unable to analyze and explain mistakes in written texts by invoking grammatical principles and rules, signaling a gap in their grammatical awareness development. This lack of metacognition could have a negative effect on their academic written production and, eventually, could prevent them from approaching their future learners’ grammatical difficulties accurately.

Prospective English language teachers’ ability to produce metalanguage. According to data analysis, a reduced amount of participants in this study dared to answer when asked to define terms such as grammar, syntax, and morphology. Moreover, far from offering a complete idea that expressed their understanding of these concepts, they resorted to very short statements or isolated words. Furthermore, it was evident that they did not clearly distinguish among the terms presented or between these and other concepts used in the language field. For instance, they defined the term grammar by associating it with words like structures, rules, form, system, coherence, cohesion, tenses, concepts, regulation, correctness, vocabulary, semantics, and competence. Syntax was understood as creating meaning from words, spelling and organizing them. Regarding morphology, participants affirmed that it concerns the organization, composition and shape of words, suffixes, prefixes, and punctuation.

“Being honest, I don’t really know. I have not gone further regarding syntax. I do not feel confident enough to define the concept, and I would not know how to explain it. About morphology, I am not very familiarized with it either, I know that it is like the form of the words; however, I would not be able to defend myself in that field.” [Participant 2; translated from Spanish]

“Syntax Yes. I get really confused; syntax is the way in which language is organized? Like the way in which you organized language, right? Sorry my experience is really poor… Morphology? This is so sad… morphology? I don’t know about that.” [Participant 5]

Prospective English language teachers’ superficial definitions, often not aligned with what these terms really mean, as well as their inability to define them, evidenced their limited capacity to produce appropriate metalanguage, considered by Andrews (1999a) as an essential feature of grammatical awareness. According to the author (as cited in Shuib, 2009), metalanguage can be defined as the ability to describe a word or phrase in grammatical terms. Accordingly, this lack of metalanguage could limit prospective teachers’ ability to look for grammatical explanations when correcting any mistake in their own academic written production since they would not label it appropriately.

Teacher educators’ remarks on prospective teachers’ academic written production

Many of the pieces of academic writing provided by participants had already been graded by their teachers. Although the main purpose for analyzing these texts was to check their current ability to use syntax and morphology, the fact that teacher educators seemed to ignore prospective teachers’ grammar errors, in most of them, was surprising. Even in those few cases in which the teacher called the writer’s attention towards grammar, this was done just by circling the fragment considering revision and adding a note such as “check grammar”, without providing a specific remark on what needed correction. This situation represents a constraint in future language teachers’ development of grammatical awareness. According to Singh et al. (2017), it is teachers’ (in this case teacher educators) adequate feedback provided after reviewing written pieces, as well as the opportunities they offer learners to rewrite, which contributes to high quality production. In addition, teacher educators should require students to hand in corrected versions of their written production where newly acquired grammar can be applied (Bourke, 2008).

Prospective English language teachers’ use of syntax and morphology in academic texts

Samples of academic written texts produced by participants were analyzed with the aim of determining appropriateness in the use of syntax and morphology. Results showed that prospective teachers’ most typical errors were related to verb conjugation and misuse of definite and indefinite articles, adjectives, prepositions, nouns, pronouns, and conjunctions, which evidenced preservice teachers’ lack of grammatical awareness.

Common mistakes regarding the use of verbs found in participants’ texts were linked to subject-verb agreement for the third person in the simple present tense, regular and irregular forms of verbs in the past tense, and treatment of gerunds and infinitives. According to Fengjie, Jia, and Hongy (2016), although verb conjugation in the third person could be easily learned in early stages in the English language process, errors related to this kind of conjugation may be still visible long after. This can happen either by learners’ lack of attention while writing or due to the excessive length of the attributive after subject which can lead the writer to incorrectly use the verb (p.24). On the other hand, participants’ misuse of regular and irregular verb past forms can be explained by having to memorize irregular verb forms when learning the past tense; therefore, “some students are still confused by whether a word has a regular form or not” (op. cit., p .24).

In like manner, participants’ lack of knowledge about the use of gerunds as nouns after certain verbs and prepositions, as well as infinitives that must be used after certain verbs or adjectives to show purpose was evident. Problems related to not knowing when to use infinitives or gerunds are very common as there are not specific rules for using them (Common challenges for Spanish-speaking learners of English, n.d). Besides, Spanish speakers would find this quite confusing since their native language always takes the infinitive form after a verb (Rizzo & Villafane, 1975).

Additionally, data analysis revealed overuse of the definite article the as well as use of the indefinite article a/an for referring to plural nouns. These determiners were mistakenly used by participants who added an n before a consonant sound or did not write it before a vowel sound. In the first case, as expressed in previous lines, these types of mistakes can be explained by participants’ L1 interference. Regarding the second situation, Rizzo & Villafane (1975) affirm that as this kind of rule has no equivalent in Spanish, it is hard for students to master it in the foreign language. Another common mistake found in participants’ texts which can be associated to L1 interference is related to the use of adjectives, either wrongly placed or pluralized by prospective teachers. Even in attributive position, adjectives in Spanish can come after the noun and they must agree in number with the latter which can cause English learners to become easily confused (op. cit).

The most common problem found with the use of prepositions in participants’ texts was related to wrong selection or absence, which affected clarity in many cases. Shen (2012) agrees on that these mistakes often result from mother tongue interference. Furthermore, Singh et al. (2017) revealed that another possible cause associated to prepositions misuse is the poor knowledge students have towards this grammatical category. Furthermore, these authors agree that frequent mistakes are made by students who do not see how prepositions affect meaning in sentences, so they use them carelessly (p. 24).

Another common mistake found in participants’ pieces of writing dealt with the misplacement or omission of nouns and pronouns. Muchemwa’s (2015) study presents a similar case, regarding frequent omission of relevant words in sentences written by college English learners. According to the author, this type of mistake can be explained by learners’ mother tongue interference, overgeneralization and oversimplification of rules.

Prospective teachers’ inaccurate use of relative pronouns such as who, that and which was also an issue in their written production. Even though relative pronouns play an important role when writing elaborated sentences, they are often mistaken (Common challenges for Spanish-speaking learners of English, n.d). This can happen because in Spanish the relative pronoun “que” is often used to refer both to people and objects; consequently, students usually use who, that, and which interchangeably in English. In terms of subject and object pronouns, the most common mistake is the participants’ use of subject instead of object pronouns, causing some parts of their text to sound odd. Lastly, analysis evidenced prospective teachers’ failures for appropriate selection and use of conjunctions. According to Fengjie et al. (2016), this can happen due to students’ lack of understanding about the role conjunctions play in meaning-making.

In alignment with previous research, this study has signaled college students’ errors in academic writing related to the use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. It can be stated that most of these grammar mistakes occur because of native language transfers to the target language, not enough attention towards grammar system, or limited knowledge on some aspects of grammar. Nevertheless, although correction of grammar mistakes should be approached as a common practice among prospective teachers, there is the need to implement both cognitive and metacognitive strategies conducive to the development of grammatical awareness that help them notice, analyze, and involve themselves in the correction of imprecise phrases or fragments (Andrews as cited in Shuib, 2009). In that manner, explicit grammar teaching is fundamental for prospective teachers’ grammatical awareness development as it promotes metalinguistic abilities, knowledge of language system, and consciousness towards language.