[Draft written 2014, proofs April 2015; to be published in MacArthur,Charles;
Steve Graham and Jill Fitzgerald (eds) Handbook of Writing Research
(Second edition) (New York: Guilford).]
Grammar instruction
Richard Hudson
University College London
Grammar instruction:
A brief history (and geography) of grammar teaching
Grammar instruction is an extremely ancient art, and almost certainly one
of the oldest branches of formal education in literate societies. The reason for
this is its close relationship to the art of writing, which defines the notion of
‘literate’. As early as the start of the second millennium BC, Babylonian scribes
were studying clay tablets showing lists of verb forms in two languages: a dead
language (in this case, Sumerian) and their own language, Akkadian (Gragg,
1994; Huber, 2007). Four thousand years later, grammar is still a central pillar of
education in many countries, and this chapter is evidence that it is still under
consideration even where it was abandoned in the twentieth century.
During the intervening centuries the study and teaching of grammar
tracked the development of literacy, as witness the term grammar itself, derived
from the Greek grammatiké, as in techné grammatiké, ‘the art of writing’ (which
itself was built out of gramma, ‘letter’, derived from gráphein, ‘to draw or write’).
The Babylonian grammarians may have influenced Panini, the founder of the
Indian grammatical tradition used in the teaching of Sanskrit -another dead
language (Black, 1991; Shukla, 2006), and meanwhile, Alexander’s empire and
the Roman Empire disseminated the cultural legacy of classical Greece across
Europe and Asia, with the result that grammar dominated the education of
medieval Europe. As in Babylon and India, grammar was a tool in the teaching of
a dead language (Latin), but as the vernaculars rose in status, it was applied to
them as well; so young Shakespeare learned to write (and speak) Latin by first
learning how English grammar worked (Gwosdek, 2013), and schools
established in England at that time were called ‘grammar schools’.
2
Since the medieval period, grammar teaching spread throughout Europe;
and in many European countries and ex-colonies, grammar still flourishes in the
classroom. To mention one example, the Czech Republic takes the teaching of
grammar so seriously that school children’s analyses of sentences might be
sufficiently accurate to use in projects such as machine translation (Hana &
Hladka, 2012). Another European country, France, has returned from a
temporary grammar-free period during the 1960s and 1970s to their more
‘normal’ state, though with some changes to the approach (Bentolila, 2006;
Fougerouse, 2001). In short, most countries in Europe do see grammar
instruction as an important part of their school curriculum; and the same is true
of previous European colonies such as Brazil.
The big exception consists of all the major English-speaking countries,
and in particular Britain, the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In all
these countries, systematic instruction in grammar went out of fashion during
the 1960s and 1970s (Rothery, 1996; Kolln & Hancock, 2005; Carter, 1996;
Locke, 2009). At least in Britain (the country I know best), this change started in
the teaching of first-language English, and then about a decade later extended to
foreign-language teaching. In Britain, the outcome was a school system in which
virtually no grammar at all was taught in any state schools, though it persisted in
some fee-paying schools (Hudson & Walmsley, 2005). The USA presents a more
complex picture (Cutler & Graham, 2008; Kiuhara, Graham, & Hawken, 2009;
Gilbert & Graham, 2010; Applebee & Langer, 2011). On the one hand, we note
“the anti-grammar policy that has dominated the American English curriculum
for forty years” (Kolln et al., 2005), p. 16), and the compromise of ‘grammar in
context’, which advocates a very small minimum of grammar to be taught only
3
when relevant to the individual pupil (Weaver, 1996). On the other hand, many
schools also continue a long American tradition of ‘sentence diagramming’
(Brinton & Brinton, 2010, Florey, 2006; Hefty, Ortiz, & Nelson, 2008) which has
never had much impact on British education.
This brief review of the history and geography of grammar instruction
has raised a number of general issues which are reviewed in the next section.
The rest of this paper will continue to focus on the teaching of writing; but it will
also emphasise that writing is only one possible application of grammar.
Issues in the teaching of grammar
The main issues fall reasonably clearly into these five categories:

Why should grammar be taught?

When should grammar be taught?

How should grammar be taught?

What grammar should be taught?

Who should teach grammar?
In each case, the term ‘grammar’ means explicit teaching about grammar,
including technical terminology.
Why should grammar be taught? Grammar clearly has a cost – the time
and effort expended by both the teacher and the students – so it is important to
be sure that it produces benefits that outweigh the cost. At least in principle
grammar teaching could be helpful in a number of different ways:

in the teaching of writing (the main focus of this chapter)
4

in the teaching of reading, where it can be shown that complex syntax and
vocabulary are easier to read after some explicit instruction (Chipere,
2003)

in the teaching of foreign languages, where it is widely accepted that
'focus on forms' (i.e. direct teaching about grammatical patterns) is
helpful (Norris & Ortega, 2000; Ellis, 2008a; Scheffler & Cinciala, 2011).

in the development of general cognitive abilities - an aim which has
vanished from recent discussions of grammar teaching, but which was
explicit in nineteenth-century school books passages in passages like the
following:
Grammar is eminently a means of mental training; and while it will
train the student in subtle and acute reasoning, it will at the same time,
if rightly presented, lay the foundation of a keen observation and a
correct literary taste. The continued contact with the highest thoughts
of the best minds will create a thirst for the "well of English
undefiled." (Baskervill & Sewell, 1895), no page)
In short, it is not only writing that may benefit from a knowledge of grammar – a
point missed in most of the research; and the study of grammar, like the study of,
say, mathematics or literature, may be good for the mind.
When should grammar be taught? The question of timing has two parts,
relating to age and to time-tabling.

How old should pupils be before they can benefit from teaching about
grammar? One belief is that grammar is too difficult for children in primary
5
school (i.e. up to the age of 11); the contrasting view is that even primaryage children can benefit.

As far as timing is concerned the choice is between systematic teaching,
with planned instruction in grammar following a syllabus based on the
internal logic of grammar itself; and the approach mentioned earlier called
‘grammar in context’, in which grammar is taught only as and when it
becomes relevant in the teaching of writing.
How should grammar be taught? The ‘How?’ question divides into three
parts.

What should be the role of technical grammatical metalanguage? Three
answers have been defended:
o None at all – grammar should be taught through activities such as
‘sentence combining’ (Hillocks & Mavrognes, 1986; Hillocks, 2003)
without using technical terms.
o As target – the main purpose of teaching grammar is to teach
terminology, with rote memorization of definitions continuing a
very long tradition of grammar teaching based on the catechism (Gwosdek, 2013).
o As instrument – the main aim of teaching grammar is an
understanding of how language works, so teachers need
terminology to communicate with pupils.

Is language itself the best medium for showing how a sentence is
structured, or would it be better to use some kind of diagrammatic notation?
6

Should the examples used in the teaching be made up, or should they be
taken from published texts or other sources of actual usage?
These questions distinguish two very different kinds of grammar instruction:
 the extraordinarily long tradition sketched above , in which children
memorized definitions that led to verbal descriptions of words in
specially selected sentences.
 teaching aimed at a deep understanding of grammar which can be
demonstrated by drawing structure diagrams for almost any sentences.
What grammar should be taught? This question breaks down into four
parts.

What approach: prescriptive, aimed at the avoidance of error, and
typically consisting of a long list of ‘common errors’, or descriptive, aimed at
understanding of the pupil’s existing grammatical resources and also growth
through learning new resources.

How much grammar: very little (just the main word classes) or the
entire contents of one of the recently-published ‘blockbuster’ grammars of
English (e.g. Huddleston & Pullum, 2002) - or something in between? And
more precisely, how much grammar is needed by teachers as opposed to
pupils?

What areas: syntax, morphology, lexical relations, meaning or
pronunciation? Each of these areas is relevant to some aspect of writing:
syntax to sentence-level structure, morphology to spelling, lexical relations
to vocabulary choice, and pronunciation to both spelling and punctuation;
7
and all these aspects of writing are important because they affect the way in
which subject-matter is evaluated (Graham, Harris, & Hebert, 2011).

Which ‘school’ of grammatical theory, if any? This gives a three-way
choice:
o school grammar, often called ‘traditional grammar’ because it
transmitted the tradition of grammar taught in school without any
research input; this tradition can be found in any school-grammar
textbook of the early twentieth century (e.g. those in the UK
authored by Ronald Ridout);
o the research-based but ‘theory-neutral’ grammatical analysis of
the blockbuster grammars;
o Systemic Functional Linguistics, which has a large and active
constituency among teachers and teacher-trainers (e.g. Williams,
2004, Derewianka & Jones, 2010).
Who should teach grammar? If grammar is only relevant to writing,
then it should be taught by the teacher of writing, whether a primary generalist
or a secondary specialist. But if it is also relevant to reading and to foreign
languages, and foreign languages are taught by a different teacher from writing
and reading, these teachers should collaborate in one of two ways.

One way is minimal collaboration, with neither paying much attention to
what the other teaches. However ridiculous this policy is, it is widespread in
the UK.

In contrast, maximum collaboration brings together the teachers of first-
language writing and reading and of foreign languages in the sharing of
8
terminology, activities, insights and plans. The foreign language teacher
reinforces and deepens the ideas and content introduced by the firstlanguage teacher, and both teachers and pupils benefit.
Another fundamental issue for teachers is how they should develop their own
knowledge of grammar to the point where they feel confident presenting it to a
class of (possibly) thoughtful pupils. In an ideal world, a new teacher would have
a solid foundation in elementary grammar derived from primary and secondary
school and refined during undergraduate study, and many countries do indeed
provide this ideal world. For example, in the Netherlands, teachers have a solid
training in grammar and reportedly enjoy teaching it (Gert Rijlaarsdam at
http://teach-grammar.com/context#nl). Unfortunately, the grammar-free
decades in the UK and other anglophone countries have produced a serious
problem: a generation of established teachers who learned very little grammar in
school.
Theoretical models of grammar teaching for writing
Discussions of grammar teaching and writing tend to polarise round one of
two views:

Grammar teaching does not improve writing.

Grammar teaching does improve writing.
These views are generally supported as much by political and educational
ideology as by careful argument, so it is hard to find anything which could
reasonably be called a ‘theoretical model’ of how grammar teaching might affect
writing. The rest of this section is an attempt to fill this gap.
9
We start with an important distinction between two kinds of teaching
about grammar, which we can call 'teaching grammar' and 'applying grammar':
Teaching grammar introduces the ideas and terminology of grammar,
and teaches them as a system. It includes terms such as ‘noun’ and ‘noun phrase’,
‘relative clause’, ‘subject’ and ‘modifier’, as well as the understanding and
knowledge needed to recognise examples and to discuss the pros and cons of
competing analyses. This knowledge is a major part of what in the UK is called
‘knowledge about language’ (Carter, 1990), so we can call it ‘knowledge about
grammar’, a conscious awareness of grammatical patterning, in contrast with the
unconscious ‘knowledge of grammar’ that every speaker has.
Applying grammar uses knowledge about grammar to help in teaching
other subjects, such as writing. For instance the teacher could use terms like
‘relative clause’ and ‘modify’ in discussing alternative ways of expressing the
same idea. This is still a kind of ‘grammar teaching’, and good teaching of
grammar may often lead directly to applications of grammar, but conceptually it
is as different from teaching grammar as physics and geography are from
mathematics. This distinction will play a fundamental part in the following
discussion.
One rather obvious model links teaching grammar, via knowledge about
grammar and applying grammar, to improved writing - a three-step model:
 Teaching grammar (TG) produces Knowledge about grammar (KaG)
 KaG enables Applying grammar (AG)
 AG improves writing.
10
This is the model implicit in traditional prescriptive grammar teaching; for
instance, it makes no sense to teach pupils to improve their writing by not
splitting infinitives until their knowledge about grammar includes the term
‘infinitive’. Figure 1 shows the elements of this model and how they interact.
TG
produces
KaG
enables
AG
improves
writing
Figure 1: A three-step model of grammar for writing
This model has two important characteristics which contrast with the
assumptions implicit in almost all the research on the effectiveness of grammar
teaching in the teaching of writing:

It does not assume a direct causal connection between teaching of
grammar and writing skills. It predicts that it is only applying grammar that
affects writing skills; teaching grammar on its own is not enough.

Nor does it assume that the teaching of writing is the only possible
application of knowledge about grammar, so writing does not have to justify
all the costs of TG.
In contrast, most of the research outlined above assumes that, if grammar
teaching has any effect on writing, it must be a direct consequence of teaching
grammar; and all the costs of this teaching must be justified by its positive effects
on writing. These assumptions are incorporated in the one-step model of Figure
2. One of the curious characteristics of this model is that teaching grammar
produces knowledge about grammar which has no direct connection to any
improvements in writing.
11
produces
KaG
TG
improves
writing
Figure 2: A one-step model of grammar for writing
This is the model which has been refuted by a mass of research since the
mid-twentieth century which has shown that teaching grammar, in itself, does
not improve writing. However it does have the virtue of recognising that
teaching grammar doesn't just lead to knowledge about grammar. This idea can
be developed in two directions.
First, teaching grammar can expand the student’s knowledge of grammar
(KoG); so they learn new patterns. It is commonly assumed, in government
documents as well as in academic research, that children merely have to learn to
use their existing KoG. For instance, the National Curriculum for England
published in 2013 requires Year 2 pupils to ‘learn how to use ... some features of
written Standard English’ (Anon, 2013) – implying that the pupils must already
know what these features are, so all they have to learn is how to use them. But
maybe young children simply don't know all the elaborate grammar and
vocabulary of academic English. Patterns such as the book in which I saw it are
almost as foreign and unfamiliar to them as the French equivalent.
Consequently, one reasonable goal for teaching grammar is to increase students’
KoG.
12
Another goal is a more diffuse and general ‘awareness’ of grammatical
patterning, often described as ‘language awareness’ (Carter, 1994; Denham &
Lobeck, 2010; Hawkins, 1994). By studying grammatical structures, children
learn to ‘notice’ them in their reading, and therefore to learn from them in a way
that they might not if their only concern was the meaning (Keith, 1999). A great
deal of research in second-language acquisition has shown the benefit of this
kind of noticing (Ellis, 2008a). Moreover, the same awareness of grammatical
structure presumably also helps learners to write better by noticing patterns in
their own writing and evaluating them against the alternatives - past or present
tense, main or subordinate clause, clause or noun phrase, and so on.
Adding these two extra elements (increased KoG and awareness) to the
earlier three-step model gives the model in Figure 3.
increases
KoG
improves
increases
TG
produces
awareness
enables
noticing
improves
writing
enables
produces
KaG
enables
AG
improves
Figure 3: A complex three-step model of grammar for writing
To make this model concrete, imagine a lesson about relative clauses. The
lesson starts with examples from a passage of writing, and explores the ways in
which these examples work. Some are very elementary, such as (the man) who
13
came to the door, but others are more challenging, such as (his famous father,) a
picture of whom hung over the mantelpiece. At first this example is so unfamiliar
that the students can only guess its meaning, but through a mixture of formal
analysis and discussion the teacher explains how the syntax works. During the
discussion the students learn a number of technical grammatical terms, including
relative clause and ‘pied-piped’ relative clause (a term used in modern
grammatical discussions of this pattern). The lesson ends with the class
producing their own examples of pied-piped relative clauses in descriptions of
objects in the classroom.
In terms of the model in Figure 3, teaching grammar is what the teacher
says about relative clauses and their sub-types, such as pied-piped relative
clauses. It introduces technical terminology, but more importantly it makes the
students aware of a grammatical structure to which they had not previously paid
attention. (Incidentally, the previous sentence contained an example of a piedpiped relative clause.)
The effect of this grammar teaching is, first, an expansion of the students’
existing KoG (through the learning of the pied-piped pattern). Second, it
increases their general awareness of grammatical structure through the
experience of studying one particular pattern in detail, and this awareness
enables noticing of relative clauses. Every relative clause they notice in their own
reading or listening increases their knowledge of grammar, and being able to
notice relative clauses will help them in future lessons about writing. And third,
it increases their knowledge about grammar in the area of relative clauses,
which equips them with both the understanding and the terminology they will
need in these lessons. For example, it will allow the teacher to say things like:
14
“How about using a pied-piped relative clause here?” or: “Remember – when
you’re using a relative clause one of the options to consider is pied-piping.”
One further theoretical model remains to be discussed, namely the one
assumed by the ‘grammar in context’ movement. If grammar is only taught when
it is directly relevant to a writing task, then there is essentially no systematic
teaching about grammar because the teacher has to provide whatever
knowledge about grammar is needed at the time. Whether and how the new
item of knowledge relates to the items that students know already is a matter of
chance, so the students’ understanding of grammar is unlikely to be more than
an unstructured list of unrelated items. The model (in Figure 4) looks very like
the one in Figure 2, but unlike the latter it does not invite an expansion of the
aims of grammar teaching; indeed, it assumes that grammar teaching only exists
in the service of writing.
produces
KaG
AG
improves
writing
Figure 4: Another one-step model of grammar for writing
Research questions and methods
Research in the area of grammar instruction has focused on two questions:

What is ‘mature’ grammar? In other words, what is the target of
teaching, the knowledge of grammar (KoG) of a suitably literate adult, and
how is it different from the children’s existing KoG?
15

How, if at all, can teaching about grammar (TaG) help to move children’s
KoG towards mature grammar?
These two questions are conceptually quite distinct, as is the research that they
have provoked. The following review focuses on writing research, ignoring the
vast literature on children’s speech.
Research on mature grammar uses the usual methods of textual
linguistics: collecting and grammatically analysing a corpus of relevant texts. In
this case the corpus consists of two sub-corpora: a collection of selected mature
writing representing the range of genres and styles which adults are expected to
read and write, and a collection of children’s writing representing the typical
abilities of children at various selected ages. In principle, each collection would
be exhaustively analysed, with a complete syntactic and morphological analysis
of every word in every sentence; and then the two analyses would be compared.
However we all know in advance that most of the grammar is the same, and since
the ultimate aim is to find how mature writing is different from children’s
writing, it makes sense in this research to concentrate on patterns where the two
collections are known, or at least believed, to differ. This selection is a
methodological necessity, but also a point of weakness because the researcher’s
subjective choice may well miss points of difference that are less salient but still
important.
This research has a relatively long history, dating back at least to 1924
(Stormzand & O'Shea, 1924), and culminating in the work of Perera (Perera,
1984; Perera, 1990; Perera, 1986). We now have a solid basis of statistical
information about broad changes on the route to maturity (Hudson, 2009), but
16
we know far less about the particular words and structures which can (and
should) be taught. Most research stopped in the 1970s but the new climate
makes it relevant again, so one hopes that new projects will push forward the
earlier achievements.
The second research question is about whether and how teaching about
grammar can help to improve children’s writing. The method in this case is
classroom-based research in which the effects of TaG on writing are measured,
and the effects can be isolated by comparing a ‘treatment’ group (who do receive
this teaching) with an otherwise similar control group who do not. An alternative
method is a simple before/after comparison with a single group.
The matched-groups paradigm is generally considered (e.g. Kolln et al.,
2005) to have started with a research project in 1962 (Harris, 1962), in which
five classes ‘with grammar’ were contrasted with five without. The treatment
received by the ‘with grammar’ class was one grammar lesson per week over a
two-year period. Otherwise the two groups received similar teaching, which
meant that the grammar learned by the ‘with grammar’ group was never applied
to the children’s writing. This is a clear example of research based on the simple
one-step model of Figure 2, in which teaching grammar is expected to impact
directly on children’s writing, without any intervening application. This project
stimulated a spate of similar projects during the next two decades in the UK and
the USA (reviewed in Andrews et al., 2004a; Andrews, 2005).
One of the key variables in this research is the content of the grammar
taught to the ‘with grammar’ group. To state the obvious, the effect of teaching
grammar is likely to vary according to what the teaching consists of. This varies
17
considerably in this research, and includes at least four very different kinds of
teaching, which produced predictably different results:

traditional grammar;

transformational grammar (Bateman & Zidonis, 1966, Elley, Barham,
Lamb, & Wyllie, 1979);

morphology and spelling (Nunes & Bryant, 2006, Graham & Santangelo,
2014);

‘sentence-combining’ – an activity in which the teacher presents a
number of simple sentences for the class to combine into a single sentence
(Hillocks et al., 1986; Graham & Perin, 2007a).
The research showed consistently that traditional grammar and
transformational grammar had little or no effect on writing, whereas
morphology and spelling produced a clear positive effect, as did sentence
combining.
Another variable is the teachers’ own competence. Given that teachers, at
least those in the UK, were teaching grammar purely on the basis of what they
themselves had learned at school, it would not be surprising if their grasp of
grammar was uncertain. This suspicion is supported by a remark in Harris’s
thesis about a group of teachers:
sixteen teachers of English, all of more than two years' experience ... the
sentence 'Thinking it would be late, the man ran to the house' was analysed
in a passing comment to the... teachers, and at the second meeting a week
later they were asked to analyse into clauses the sentence, 'Thinking it
would be late, the man ran to the house where his friend lived' ... only four of
18
the sixteen teachers managed to provide a correct answer...’ (Harris 1962:
57, quoted in Walmsley, 1984)
Poorly prepared teachers are unlikely to produce good results in any
subject, and it is hardly surprising to read in one report that hardly any pupils
had learned even the most elementary grammatical concepts during three or
more years of instruction (Macauley, 1947). This finding contrasts sharply with
the enthusiasm for grammar found among Dutch teachers (Tordoir & Wesdorp,
1979), who believed strongly that it had a beneficial effect. As mentioned above,
the Dutch enthusiasm for grammar persists in spite of the anglophone
scepticism. One plausible explanation for the difference is that Dutch teachers
have a more solid grasp of grammar.
Teachers’ own knowledge about grammar is clearly a critical constraint
on research on the effectiveness of grammar teaching, and especially so in
countries such as the UK where most teachers learned very little grammar at
school and none at university. Research has shown that both primary and
secondary English teachers typically feel, and are, inadequately prepared to
teach grammar (Cajkler & Hislam, 2002; Williamson & Hardman, 1995). The
most recent research projects in the UK have recognised this problem, and found
two solutions: either a researcher takes over the teaching (Nunes et al., 2006),
or the regular teacher is given extra training in grammar (Myhill, Lines, &
Watson, 2011). Perhaps it is not surprising that the results of these projects are
different from those produced in the 1960s and 1970s when it was assumed that
teachers were grammar experts. Indeed, one explanation for the decline in
grammar teaching during the early twentieth century is that universities failed to
provide the academic training that future teachers needed (Hudson et al., 2005).
19
Findings
A recent research review "argues that there is no evidence for the assumption
made by policy-makers and researchers in the UK that knowledge about
grammar is a useful tool in helping school pupils to write more fluently and
accurately." (Andrews, 2005) In other words, the review supports what the
author elsewhere calls “the prevailing belief that the teaching of the principles
underlying and informing word order or 'syntax' [generalised in 2005 to
‘grammar’] has virtually no influence on the writing quality or accuracy of 5 to
16 year-olds.” (Andrews et al., 2004a:1)
Although the conclusion is an accurate summary of the research reported,
there are reasons for reconsidering it. First, the review overlooks a major
research project on the effects of teaching morphology (which, as the study of
word structure, is a major area of grammar). Bryant, Nunes and Hurry showed
that teaching about morphology affected children’s writing by improving their
spelling (Hurry et al., 2005; Nunes et al., 2006; Nunes, Bryant, & Olsson, 2003;
Nunes, Bryant, & Bindman, 1997; Nunes & Bryant, 2011). For example,
compared with control groups, 9-11 year-old children improved their use of
apostrophes (Bryant, Devine, Ledward, & Nunes, 2002), and 7-8 year-olds spelt
better (Nunes et al., 2003). Their main point is:
an important, though shockingly neglected, fact that one of the best ways
to help children become experts in their reading and spelling is to make
sure they are thoroughly familiar with the morphemic system in their
own language (Nunes et al., 2006:3).
A second weakness in the report’s conclusions is that it explicitly excludes
from ‘grammar teaching’ the one method for teaching about syntax which is
20
generally accepted as effective in improving writing: sentence combining. As
explained earlier, sentence combining is an activity for pupils in which they
combine a number of simple sentences into a single larger one. A separate
review by the same team is devoted to sentence combining and concludes that:

Sentence combining is an effective means of improving the syntactic
maturity of students in written English between the ages of 5 and 16.

In the most reliable studies, immediate post-test effects were seen to be
positive, with some tempering of the effect in delayed post-tests. (Andrews
et al., 2004b).
Other surveys have reached the same positive conclusion about sentence
combining (Hillocks et al., 1986; Hillocks, 2003; Graham & Perin, 2007b).
But why does this activity not count as grammar instruction? It is explicitly
focused on formal patterning, and there is no reason to doubt that the options
available could be articulated in technical terms, even if that is not an essential
part of the activity; indeed, it seems likely that the use of metalanguage would
increase the benefits of the activity. Moreover, there is no suggestion that it is
only done ‘in context’, in reaction to particular issues in the students’ own
writing, so it is a clear example of teaching grammar, rather than applying
grammar. As a challenging activity likely to raise important grammatical issues,
it is an excellent candidate for any collection of methods for teaching grammar;
so teaching grammar it certainly is.
A third weakness in the report’s negative conclusions about grammar
teaching cannot be blamed on the report’s authors, but is probably the most
telling: since the report was written (in 2004), an important research project by
21
Myhill and her colleagues at Exeter has demonstrated that explicit instruction in
grammar does, in fact, improve students’ writing (Jones, Myhill, & Bailey, 2013;
Myhill, Jones, & Watson, 2013; Myhill, Jones, Watson, & Lines, 2013; Myhill,
Jones, Lines, & Watson, 2012). In contrast with all the earlier projects, Myhill’s
intervention was focused on specific grammatical patterns such as modal verbs,
and (in terms of our third model above) it applied the taught grammar directly to
writing tasks. In contrast with all previous experimental investigations, later
tests showed a very strong positive effect on writing. The strong effect is all the
more remarkable for the fact that neither the students nor the teachers knew
much grammar before the intervention started, so teaching grammar had to start
from scratch. In terms of our earlier theoretical models, Myhill has discovered
that teaching grammar does indeed improve writing, provided that the grammar
is also applied.
In conclusion, although the research since the 1960s has shown that it is
possible to teach grammar in such a way that it has no effect on writing, we now
know that, given the right focus and methods, grammar instruction can have
clear benefits for writing.
Further research
For too long, research in the area of grammatical instruction for writing
has been driven by the hope that it was not necessary. As explained earlier , the
twentieth century saw grammar downgraded not only in schools, but also in
universities where the lack of research led to a lack of teaching and several
generations of under-trained and under-supported grammar teachers. Since the
1960s grammar has turned into a hot topic for academic research; but by the
1960s many school teachers were sick of teaching this apparently pointless and
22
difficult subject, so they welcomed research evidence that seemed to solve the
problem at a stroke. Now that the pendulum is swinging back towards more
grammar teaching, it is easy to identify yawning gaps in the research that should
underpin it.
The most general gap concerns research in countries other than the
anglophone ‘triangle’ of the UK, the USA and Australia. As explained earlier, there
are many European countries (and their ex-colonial dependents) where the
teaching of grammar was never interrupted (as it was in the anglophone
countries) and is still an important part of the school curriculum. Some of these
countries have very successful programes in the teaching of grammar, as
exemplified above by the Czech Republic, but we simply do not know what
research, if any, has been carried out on the effects of this teaching on writing (or
on any other skills). Almost as important is our ignorance of research in related
areas of education, and in particular research on foreign-language teaching
(including English as a foreign language), where the consensus has also shifted in
favour of explicit teaching through grammar (Ellis, 2008b). Rather obviously, if
the teacher of first-language literacy and the foreign-language teacher both apply
grammar, the case for systematic grammar teaching is overwhelming and it is
essential for the two to support each other.
More specific research gaps correspond to most of the issues listed in the
first section:

Why should grammar be taught? Although we now know that it can
benefit writing, we still don’t know its other benefits, such as its effect on
reading (but see Chipere, 2003) or on general cognitive development.
23

When should grammar be taught? The practice of other countries shows
that some grammar can be taught to young primary children, but at what
age should the various parts of grammar be introduced?

How should grammar be taught? What are the most successful
pedagogies for the teaching of grammar? For example, is there a role for
diagramming systems and other kinds of special grammatical notation? And
how can teachers expand and consolidate their own limited knowledge of
grammar?

What grammar should be taught? Which grammatical constructions
should be explained, and at what age? Are some kinds of grammatical
analysis better than others for use in schools?

Who should teach grammar? Even if grammar is initially taught by the
teacher of writing, it will also be used (and reinforced) by foreign-language
teachers. But, paradoxically, it is the latter who may well know more
grammar, so collaboration may help both parties at a time when teachers
are struggling to upgrade their own knowledge of grammar.
In the words of an earlier review of these issues, “the debate clearly needs to be
recast, and the research agenda also” (Locke, 2009).
Implications for instruction
The present state of research shows that applying grammar is not, after
all, a waste of time in the teaching of writing. But this is only true if the teaching
is clearly focused on growth-points in the children’s grammar. These points may
involve low-level transcription skills of writing such as spelling, or higher-level
composition skills such as reviewing the ordering of elements or choosing how
24
much detail to provide. In almost every case, writers have to make grammatical
analyses and grammatical choices, and the more understanding they bring to
bear on these analyses and choices, the better. But the research shows that it is
not enough to teach the grammatical system; if this teaching is to affect writing,
then it must be explicitly applied to writing.
A more theoretical conclusion for instruction is that the teaching of
grammar can, and should, be separated from the application of grammar. For
example, the teacher should be able to apply terms and concepts such as ‘relative
clause’ or ‘modal verb’ for which pupils already have the deep understanding
that can only come from systematic teaching; and the terms are just as relevant
for reading and foreign-language teaching as they are for the teaching of writing.
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