English Grammar Teaching in Practice : Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes

Sammanfattning: Grammar teaching has been controversial since the introduction of the Communicative Language Teaching perspective. In addition, the steering documents, namely the Swedish syllabi and the CEFR are quite general on what and how to teach grammar, thus allowing teachers’ interpretations about the importance given to grammar in EFL/ESL classrooms. The present study focuses on English teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices towards grammar in the final year of compulsory school and the first year of upper-secondary school in Sweden. The principal aim is to find out why the English teachers propose grammar or not and how they enact grammar teaching. The research is empirical. The data consist of teachers’ interviews, and they were analysed using content analysis. The results have shown that teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices are mainly related to students’ levels and objectives even if they have different views on grammar. Then, teachers have shown great adaptability in their grammar teaching practices both in the diversity of means and methods. Furthermore, even though there are slight differences between the final year of compulsory school and the first year of upper-secondary school in the steering documents, grammar teaching is enacted differently for each level. Besides, on both levels, grammar teaching is linked to communicative skills and included in a more general communicative task aimed for students’ learning in EFL/ESL classrooms.