Does Direct Grammar Instruction Improve Students Performance on Grammar-based Tests of English as a Foreign Language?
This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that direct grammar instruction has a positive impact on the test performance of learners of English as a foreign language. At first sight, the results appear to indicate that direct grammar instruction had a negligible effect overall on test performance. However, a more detailed examination of the results suggests that there was a marked positive effect in the case of some students. Furthermore, the test itself proved useful as a diagnostic tool and as a measure of student progress. Perhaps most significant is the fact that a comparison of the results of a pilot study and the experimental study itself raises issues about the significance, or otherwise, of research on teaching and learning second and foreign languages that is based on single experiments. Teachers of languages (international, community and indigenous) need to be sure that experimentally-based research is both robust and of direct relevance t
