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1. The Role of Grammar Instruction in the
Second Language Classroom
An Annotated Bibliography
Introduction
The past twenty years have seen a dramatic shift in language
classrooms from a focus on grammar rules and drills to more
“communicative” approaches to teaching language. Left behind in
the resulting tumult has been the question: Does teaching
grammar have any impact on second language learners’ rate of
accuracy? Stephen Krashen and others maintain that
“comprehensible input” is sufficient for successful language
acquisition and so explicit grammar teaching is not needed.
Others have challenged this view, arguing that research shows a
definite positive effect for grammar instruction. This annotated
bibliography will review Krashen’s model of language acquisition
and examine the major research that claims to find a positive
correlation between instruction and language acquisition.
Summaries
Fotos, S. (1993). Consciousness raising and noticing through
focus on form: Grammar task performance vs. formal
instruction. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129-158.
In this study Fotos sought to determine whether a focus on
form, either through grammar consciousness-raising tasks or
formal grammar lessons, would result in learners noticing
specific grammatical forms in context. She studied 160 Japanese
university EFL learners who were divided into three classes. The
lessons for one class (the “grammar task” group) included
various grammar consciousness-raising tasks; the second (the
“grammar lessons” group) had formal grammar lessons, and the
third (the “communicative task” group) contained no grammar
content. Three different grammatical structures were presented:
(a) indirect object placement, (b) adverb placement, and (c)
relative clauses. Post-tests were given after each structure was
presented, with one test given one week after the lesson and
another two weeks after. The post-tests consisted of a story or
dictation exercise in which the structure occurred, and the
learners were asked to identify any “special use of English”
that they noticed in the text. Fotos reports that for all three
structures, the occasions of noticing the structures was
significantly lower for the communicative group than the other
two groups; for adverb placement, this group did not notice any
occurrences of the structure. The noticing scores for the two
“form-focused” groups were very similar, although there was a

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decline in noticing from the first post-test to the second post-
test. Since all three groups were comparable in noticing non-
grammatical items, such as proverbs or unfamiliar vocabulary,
Fotos concludes that the differences in noticing grammatical
structures between the communicative group and the other two
groups can be attributed to the grammar consciousness-raising
techniques. She further suggests that the focus-on-form lessons
enabled learners to develop high levels of explicit grammar
knowledge, although she notes that there is still a question as
to whether noticing will result in correct use of the structures
by the learners.
Krashen, S. & Terrell, T. (1983). The natural approach: Language
acquisition in the classroom. San Francisco: The Alemany
Press.
In a summary of Krashen’s model of second language
acquisition, the authors discuss five hypotheses:
(1) Acquisition of a language (i.e., using the language
for communication) is distinct from learning a language
(i.e., knowing “about” the language);
(2) There is a natural order of acquisition of grammatical
morphemes in a second language, just as there is for first
language acquisition;
(3) What is learned by explicit instruction is used only
to monitor performance in certain limited circumstance
(such as when taking language tests) and does not affect
one’s ability to use the language in day-to-day
communication;
(4) One acquires a second language the same way one
acquires a first language—through receiving comprehensible
input; and
(5) Certain affective variables (such as learner
motivation, lack of confidence, etc.) affect a learner’s
ability to process the comprehensible input that is
received, and thus impacts his or her ability to acquire
the language.
Based on the above hypotheses, Krashen concludes that grammar
instruction has an extremely limited role in language
acquisition. He asserts that most grammar rules will be acquired
through exposure to the language, just as they are for one’s
first language, and they need not be taught. Rules that are
taught through explicit instruction will not be acquired, but
will simply be used to monitor performance. Moreover, only
relatively simple grammatical rules and forms (such as third
person singular -s) can be “learned” through formal instruction.
More complex rules (such as those governing use of articles) can
only be acquired. Thus, attempts to teach a language by teaching

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grammar rules are at best, ineffective, and at worst may be
harmful, as focus on grammatical form may interfere with
communication and thus with acquisition.
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (1990). Focus-on-form and corrective
feedback in communicative language teaching: Effects on
second language learning. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 12, 429-446.
In this paper Lightbown and Spada draw on research
conducted in intensive ESL classes for French-speaking children
in Canadian elementary schools. All of the courses were
“communicative,” but teachers in four of the lessons
occasionally focused on form. Lightbown and Spada observed these
classes to see if the different amount of time spent of certain
forms in these classes resulted in any difference in the
learners’ abilities to use these forms correctly in spontaneous
conversation. They examined four forms: (a) the use of have vs.
be in presentation forms (i.e., “The picture has a boy” vs.
“There is a boy in the picture”), (b) the use of the grammatical
morphemes plural -s and progressive –ing, (c) adverb placement
in noun phrases, and (d) use of appropriate gender in possessive
determiners. They found that in classes where there was the most
focus on form, either through direct instruction or through the
teacher’s reaction to the learners’ incorrect usage, the
learners showed greater accuracy in their use of the forms,
although the effect was stronger for some structures than
others. They conclude that incorporating form-based instruction
into a communicative classroom can help improve linguistic
performance.
Long, M. (1983). Does second language instruction make a
difference? A review of research. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 359-
382.
Long examines 12 studies conducted between 1967 and 1980
that compare the efficacy of second language instruction vs.
natural exposure to the language. These studies were done with
children, adolescents, and adults in both ESL and EFL settings
with learners at beginning, intermediate, and advanced
proficiency levels. Long summarizes the results of these studies
and reinterprets the data, sometimes arriving at different
conclusions than those of the original researchers. Under Long’s
interpretation, six of these studies show that instruction does
help; three show that it does not help; two are “ambiguous,” but
could be interpreted to show that instruction does help; and one
shows that exposure helps, but does not address the efficacy of
instruction. Long concludes that these studies demonstrate that
instruction does help and that it is beneficial for both

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children and adults at al levels of proficiency in both
“acquisition-rich” as well as “acquisition-poor” environments.
He admits, however, that the evidence in favor of instruction is
not unambiguous and recommends further research to resolve the
question.
Pica, T. (1983). Adult acquisition of English as a second
language under different conditions of exposure. Language
Learning, 33, 465-497.
Pica studied 18 Spanish-speaking adults who were learning
English as a second language. She classifies six of the subjects
as “Instruction Only” (exposed to English solely in a classroom
in Mexico City), six as “Naturalistic” (exposed to English
solely through social interaction with native speakers in the
United States), and six as ”Mixed” (those who received natural
exposure plus some instruction). Each group consisted of two
beginning, two intermediate, and two advanced learners. Pica
recorded hour-long conversations with her participants and
analyzed their speech to determine the percentage of suppliance
of nine English morphemes: (a) progressive –ing, (b) plural –s,
(c) singular copula, (d) progressive auxiliary, (e) articles,
(f) irregular past tense, (g) regular past tense, (h) third
person singular –s, and (i) noun possessive –s. Her results show
that (a) the order of morpheme acquisition was the same for all
groups, (b) errors of “oversuppliance” (i.e., supplying a
morpheme where none was needed) was greater for the “Instruction
Only” group, and (c) the “Instruction Only” participants
correctly supplied the plural –s more often than the other
participants. In other words, while the overall accuracy of the
groups was similar, the type of errors was different. Based on
these results, Pica suggests that instruction affects second
language acquisition primarily by stimulating oversuppliance of
grammatically correct morphemes and lessening, although not
eliminating, use of ungrammatical morphemes. She concludes that
different conditions of exposure do have an effect on how
learners formulate ideas about language and how they use it.
Pica, T. (1985). The selective impact of classroom
instruction on second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics,
6, 214-222.
Drawing on the data collected in her research cited above
(Pica, 1983), Pica asks whether language learners whose only
source of input is the classroom acquire grammatical morphemes
based on their linguistic complexity. She focuses on the
acquisition of three English morphemes: (a) indefinite article
a, (b) plural –s, and (c) progressive –ing. For use of the
article a, one of the most complex morphemes in English, she

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finds no difference in production accuracy between the
Instruction Only group and the Mixed and Naturalistic groups.
For the relatively simple morpheme plural –s, the Instruction
Only group showed more production accuracy than the other two
groups. For progressive –ing, the Instruction Only group tended
to overuse the form, affixing it to verb stems when it was not
needed, and therefore showed less production accuracy than the
other two groups. From this analysis, Pica concludes that
classroom instruction seems to help acquisition of simple
morphemes such as plural –s, but inhibits acquisition of less
simple morphemes such as progressive –ing. Furthermore,
instruction seems to have no impact on acquisition of complex
morphemes such as articles. Pica therefore recommends that
direct instruction be limited to the simpler grammatical
morphemes and exclude the more complex forms.
Pienemann, M. (1984). Psychological constraints on the
teachability of language. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 6, 186-214.
Pienemann studied ten Italian children of migrant workers
who were studying German as a second language in an elementary
school in Munich. The focus was on word order acquisition, which
Pienemann notes proceeds in four stages for speakers of Romance
languages learning German: (a) subject-verb-object, (b) adverb
preposing, (c) particle shift, and (d) inversion. In this paper,
Pienemann looks at two children, Teresa (whose interlanguage was
at Stage 2) and Giovanni (whose interlanguage was a Stage 3).
Both children received the same instruction in inversion.
However, Teresa did not incorporate this structure into her
interlanguage, while Giovanni did. Pienemann suggests that it
was the instruction that caused the change in Giovanni’s
interlanguage, because (a) the process took only a few days, vs.
months for natural acquisition; (b) Giovanni applied the rule in
4 out of 5 possible contexts, which are usually not acquired at
the same time; and (c) another child learner in the study
acquired inversion in a similar manner. However, Pienemann also
asks why Teresa, who received the same instruction, did not
demonstrate the same result. His answer is that each stage of
the word order acquisition process is a “prerequisite” to the
subsequent stage, so Teresa, at Stage 2, could not “skip” to
Stage 4 even with the benefit of instruction. As a result,
Pienemann proposes a “teachability hypothesis” which states that
instruction cannot change the process or order of natural
acquisition. It can, however, change the rate of acquisition, as
demonstrated by Giovanni’s rapid acquisition of the inversion
structure.

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Van Patten, B. (1988). How juries get hung: Problems with the
evidence for a focus on form in teaching. Language Learning
38, 243-260.
In this article, Patten critiques studies by Pica (1983,
1985) and Long (1983) that claim to show a positive effect of a
focus on form for beginning language learners. First, he
criticizes Pica’s conclusion that a focus on form led her
Instruction Only subjects to use the plural morpheme –s with
greater accuracy than that shown by the Mixed and Naturalistic
groups. Van Patten points out that the subjects in the Mixed
and Naturalistic groups spoke a dialect of Caribbean Spanish in
which deletion of word final –s is the norm, while those in the
Instruction Only group in Mexico City spoke at dialect which
strengthens word final consonants. He then suggests that the
learners in all three groups were simply transferring their
native dialect phonology to English, leading to a greater use of
plural –s by the Instruction Only group and a lesser degree of
use by the other groups. He also points out that this morpheme
was the only one cited by Pica for which there was a significant
difference in accurate usage by the Instruction Only group,
lending support to his claim that phonological transfer and not
instruction was the cause. Van Patten also questions Long’s
conclusions that a majority of the studies cited in his review
article (1983) show a positive effect for a focus on form. Van
Patten finds that in several of the studies, increased accuracy
was found on only a few grammatical morphemes, such as plural –
s, and questions whether this difference was a result of grammar
instruction rather than some other cause, such as pronunciation
practice. He further notes that the means of assessing language
ability varied from study to study. Of the six studies that
showed an effect for instruction, for measured language ability
based on performance on discrete point tasks, which are not
necessarily an accurate reflection of the ability to use the
forms in real communication. Finally, Van Patten suggests that
factors other than explicit grammar instruction, such as learner
motivation or increased opportunities for interaction in the
classroom, may have influenced the performance of the subjects
in these studies. He concludes that the research thus far has
failed to prove any connection between focus on form and
increased accuracy for learners in the early stages of language
acquisition.
Conclusion
Even after 20 years of research, the question of the
efficacy of grammar instruction for second language acquisition
remains controversial. Some of the research cited above does
appear to show a positive effect for grammar instruction;

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however, that effect seems to be limited. The studies of
Lightbown and Spada (1990), Long (1983), and Pica (1983, 1985)
show a significant effect only for certain relatively simple
grammatical morphemes. Pienemann (1984) demonstrates that that
instruction can affect the rate, but not the process, of
acquisition, while Fotos (1993) shows a positive effect of
instruction on noticing forms but does not examine whether
noticing leads to acquisition. Moreover, as Van Patten (1988)
points out, the increase in accuracy documented in some of these
studies may have resulted from factors other than instruction.
The research raises other questions as well. First, much of
the research cited above has been conducted on children or
adolescents. Can the conclusions drawn from such studies apply
to adult learners as well, or is adult second language
acquisition different from that of children? Second, what is the
role of learner variables on the effectiveness of instruction?
Is instruction more effective for some learners than for others?
Third, how does instruction affect acquisition? Can “learned”
rules, contrary to Krashen’s claims, become “acquired,” or is
instruction simply a form of consciousness-raising that leads to
the form being noticed in input, as Fotos implies? Finally, in
most of these studies, assessment of the learners’ accuracy in
using the forms came a relatively short time after the
instruction. Will the increased accuracy shown in these studies
remain in the learners’ output permanently or it is a short-term
gain?
Clearly, we are far from being able to give a definitive
answer to the question of whether teaching grammar has an impact
on the rate or accuracy of second language acquisition. However,
the research examined in this bibliography, while not
conclusive, is at least provocative, and should lead one to
hesitate before totally banishing grammar instruction from the
communicative classroom.