Identificación de conjuntos en disputa

2.5.1 Overview and definitions.

Both the teaching of grammar and the assessment of grammatical abilities constitute the most ill-defined domains in ELT (Borg, 1999). The role of instructing and assessing grammar formally and directly remains a perennial area of debate to this day (Borg, 1999). Advocates of explicit grammar instruction and assessment (exalting conscious knowledge of

grammatical forms and their meanings) acknowledge the important role that grammar plays ‘as a fundamental linguistic resource for successful communication’ (Ellis, 2006, p. 85).

According to Purpura (2004), although the way grammar is currently viewed by education, applied linguistics and language learning and teaching has vastly changed from the traditional perspectives that informed grammar testing in the 1960s, very little development has

occurred on the way grammar is assessed in practice. Hence, a lot of the grammar assessment tasks that are currently used, both in standardized tests and in classroom assessment, focus on linguistic structures and discrete-point6 measurements.

According to Brown (2000), judicious attention to grammatical forms in adult language classes could prove not only helpful but also might expedite the learning process given that the optimal conditions for overt grammar teaching exist. There are six identifiable variables (age, proficiency level, educational background, language skill, style/register and needs and goals) that determine the role of grammar in language teaching (Celce-Murcia, 1991).

6 _{‘Discrete-point tests are constructed on the assumption that language can be broken down into its component}

parts and that those parts can be tested successfully. Such an approach demanded a decontextualization…’ (Brown, 2003).

Figure 8 shows how these variables are placed on a continuum, which runs from less to more important explicit grammar teaching.

Figure 8. Variables that determine the importance of grammar (Celce-Murcia, 1991, as cited in Brown, 2000, p. 363)

The view of grammar reflected in the discussion above is restricted to the explicit teaching of grammatical forms. As teaching and assessment are so closely interrelated, this type of psychometric-structuralist approach7 to teaching gave rise to the assessment of formal

patterns of a language structure by means of a discrete-point single sentence format (Purpura, 2004).

2.5.2 Studies on grammar assessment.

There is a substantial body of L2 grammar teaching research that examines teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and practices regarding explicit grammar teaching. What is striking, however, is

7 _{An approach rooted in structuralism and behaviourism that advocates the use of objective items and discrete-}

the relative absence of discussions on grammar assessment consensus on the following: (1) what L2 teachers think about explicit grammar assessments (cognition), (2) what type of assessment tasks are conducted in their teaching environments (practice), (3) what drives L2 teachers to assess grammar or grammatical abilities explicitly (factors) and (4) how the choices made by L2 teachers in grammar assessment influence each other (relationship). In this study, I aim to clarify these issues by exploring EFL teachers’ beliefs about and practices related to classroom-based grammar assessment.

There are some studies on L2 writing assessment that include the assessment of grammar or other linguistic aspects (e.g. Barkaoui, 2007; Jarvis, Grant, Bikowski, & Ferris, 2003; Lumley, 2005). The majority of researches, however, have focused on large-scale and often high-stakes writing exams, such as TOEFL and IELTS. Few studies (but see Neumann, 2010; Lee, 2007) on classroom assessment have been conducted with respect to how L2 writing teachers assess grammar in classrooms.

Neumann examined how writing teachers attend to grammatical ability by analysing a case where teachers, assessing their students’ academic essays after an ESL programme at a university in Canada, had integrated grammar editing tasks and quizzes into the assessment plans for the L2 writing courses. Using a mixed-methods approach, Neumann employed interviews, a questionnaire and document analysis. The results of the data analyses indicate that while assessing their students’ essays, writing teachers mainly focus on grammatical accuracy, the absence of errors and, consequently, the language use that follows grammatical rules.

Relevant to investigating explicit grammar assessment, Hodgson (2017) in his short article reports the effects (on teaching and learning) of imposing separate grammar, punctuation and spelling test (GPS) in primary schools in the UK. The author stated that GPS focuses on ideal and specific grammar structures in a context-free setting. This practice, according to

Hodgson, fails to indicate pupils’ understanding of language and the grammar they have to grasp, while also contradicting the everyday use of language (communicating messages).

Another study which sheds some light on grammar assessment was conducted by Ahmadi and Shafiee (2015). The researchers aimed to explore both teachers’ and learners’ beliefs about grammar teaching and learning in language institutes located in Isfahan. The

researchers used questionnaires, each of which contained seven sections on various topics regrading grammar teaching. What is relevant here is that the sixth section of the

questionnaire (teachers and learners) addressed the issue of how to test grammar skills. The results indicated two contradicting views: the participating teachers strongly emphasised the need for grammar test items at a discourse-level, since it helps in assessing whether the test takers can use grammar correctly in real-life situations. The participating learners, on the other hand, preferred testing grammar at the sentence-level. According to Ahmadi and Shafiee, learners support this stance because the texts given in tests may make

comprehending and responding to test items hard, due to the various structures and complicated grammatical features that appear.