awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Explicit Grammar Teaching Pays off; the Case of MoroccanBouziane & HarriziMike OrrIntroductionCommunicative competence, including grammatical competence, has received a greatdeal of attention in second language teaching and learning (Canale and Swain, 1980; Savignon,2011). This competence requires form-function-context mappings which can be put simply asproducing accurate and appropriate exchanges and/or sentences. However, before second /foreign language learners reach a good level of proficiency they move from “ignorance throughinaccuracy to accuracy” (Shepherd, 2010, p. 354). Particularly, grammar is an essentialcomponent of communicative competence (Canale and Swain, 1980) and its teaching andlearning have been largely investigated from different perspectives, starting from zero-grammarclaims (Krashen, 1981, 1982, 1993) to the consensus reported after surveying a large body ofresearch showing that there is enough evidence to argue for the teaching of grammar (see Ellis,2006, for many studies arguing for this). Within this framework, this study investigates whethernon-native speakers perform well in grammar nearly a year after having received explicitteaching of grammar for four semesters.Moroccan learners join English departments at university after studying English as asecond foreign language for four years in the secondary school. They receive input in whichgrammar is an important component. At university, they have grammar as a subject for foursemesters but many of them still show modest performance of accurate and appropriate choice ofstructures and words both in their spoken and written productions. Reforms implemented inMoroccan universities (2003, 2009, 2014) all aimed to prepare graduates for the job market orfor graduate studies. Ideally, BA holders from the departments of English must attain a degree ofcommunicative competence that will allow them to use their knowledge of English asappropriately and as accurately as possible. However, more reforms are still needed. This state ofaffairs brings many questions to the surface: is the teaching of grammar handled effectively? Arethe students making good use of grammar input? What needs more improvements? How are theimprovements to be implemented? Within the framework of these questions, this paperdiagnoses students‟ weaknesses so as to suggest effective ways for remediation. It attempts toanswer the following research questions:1. Which grammatical structures do EFL learners retain almost a year after explicitlearning of grammar?2. To what extent is explicit teaching of grammar useful for constructing grammaticalcompetence?1. Review of the literatureCommunicative competence is the aim of any language teaching program includinguniversity programs such as the English Studies programs in Moroccan Universities. Extensiveresearch has been done on the nature of communicative competence since it was first coined byHymes (1971) as a reaction to Chomsky‟s (1965) competence and performance dichotomy inaddressing knowledge of language. Subsequent research has resulted in communicativeframeworks that address teaching communicative competence (Savignon, 1972; Munby, 1978;Canale and Swain, 1980, 1989, 2001; Brown, 2007), and testing communicative competence(Bachman, 1990). The communicative competence, which any system of education targets, isdefined in The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguisticsas:“knowledge of not only if something is formally possible in a language, but also whether it isfeasible, appropriate, or done in a particular speech community” (Richards and Schmidt, 2010, p.Arab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org65