L1 (Dutch) grammar education has been subject to strong international criticism because of its pedagogy and its curriculum content. Linguists argue that there is too much focus on rules-of-thumb and lower order thinking. This focus is claimed to bring about language proficiency in L1 on the one hand and increase the learners ability to acquire foreign languages on the other hand. However, there is no empirical evidence to support these claimed effects of L1 grammar education. In recent years, the question that is at the heart of the still quite lively discussions on grammar seems to have shifted from ‘why teach grammar at all?’ to (a) ‘which grammar should be taught?’, and (b) ‘how should grammar be taught?’. Because our native language is so evident to us, de-automation techniques seem to be required to promote language awareness. De-automation can possibly be achieved by comparing the grammar of different languages. By looking closely at the grammar of foreign languages for comparison, awareness towards the native language can be promoted, as well as towards the foreign languages. In this study we address two questions: 1. Which linguistic concepts are desirable for comparative grammar education in L1 (Dutch) and in L2 (English and German) in vwo4, according to teachers? 2. What knowledge is used by students in L1 grammar tasks and to what extent is their L1 (grammatical) knowledge transferable to L2 (English and German)? The first question was examined by questioning in-service secondary school teachers of Dutch, English and German language via an online questionnaire, followed by three focus group interviews and analyzing the outcomes. Thinking-out-loud protocols were used to answer the second question.Based on these outcomes, we will present and discuss the opportunities for an integrated intervention aiming at trans-linguistic language awareness in secondary education. SummaryCurrently, the curricula of various subjects on languages in Dutch secondary education are being revised. Recently the following conclusion was drawn concerning the current content of Dutch language education: "[It] has too little focus on the conscious use of knowledge about language (...) the balance [needs] to shift from factual knowledge to insight, understanding and application (....) It has to focus on the development of language awareness." (Neijt et al., 2015). The completion of L1 grammar education has specifically been subject to strong (inter-)national criticism (Fontich & Camps, 2014 and Van Rijt, 2015). Parsing is, for instance in the Kerndoelen (De Boer, 2007), described as supportive of achieving Dutch language proficiency and of the acquisition of modern foreign languages, but there is no empirical evidence to support these claimed effects (Bonset, 2011).A possible explanation therefore concerns the current design of (traditional) grammar education, in which language is presented as a puzzle that is neatly arranged and can be solved with the necessary rules-of-thumb and control questions according to an unambiguous structure (Coppen, 2010). However, this image of grammar is not in line with reality (Coppen, 2010). Moreover, the grammatical awareness and the analytical skills that go with it, currently stand on their own (Neijt et al., 2015). Grammar education only deals with a few superficial parsing terms and leaves almost all linguistic insights from the past century aside (Van Rijt 2015).Grammar education should focus on deeper processing of the language system and language use. Then, is the hypothesis, grammar education can indeed provide a positive contribution to the acquisition of language awareness in Dutch and in modern foreign languages: the reasoning that leads to the 'good' answer must be more important than 'the right answer' itself, whereby pupils realize that language analysis is messy at the core (Coppen, 2010), sometimes there are several good answers, and the linguistic context determines which of those good answers is the optimal answer (Coppen, 2010 and Neijt et al., 2015). Which information contributes to finding a solution is often unclear in advance (Coppen, 2010). Pupils should learn to analyze their own language utterances and those of others based on knowledge of and intuitions about language and language use in general.In this research study we have investigated two questions: 1. Which linguistic concepts are desirable for comparative grammar education in L1 (Dutch) and in L2 (English and German) in vwo4, according to teachers? and 2. What knowledge is used by students in L1 grammar tasks and to what extent is their L1 (grammatical) knowledge transferable to L2 (English and German)? In order to answer the first question data were collected from an online questionnaire and three focus group interviews with in-service secondary school teachers of Dutch, English and German language. The aim was to determine which of the seventeen linguistic meta concepts, a selection of the concepts composed as a result of a study of Van Rijt and Coppen (2017), lend themselves the best for comparative grammar education, according to teachers. To determine which knowledge is used by students to solve grammatical tasks in their native language and to which extent their L1 (grammatical) knowledge is transferable to English and German and vice versa, thinking-out-loud protocols were used. The 14-16 year old target group students were confronted with multiple grammatical tasks in both their native language (Dutch) and the modern foreign languages (English and German). Their verbal, as well as their written expressions were analyzed and categorized.
| Period | 12 Aug 2019 |
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| Event title | Jure 2019: Junior Researchers Thinking Tomorrow's Education |
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| Event type | Conference |
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| Conference number | 18 |
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| Location | Aachen, GermanyShow on map |
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| Degree of Recognition | International |
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