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Volume 6 Number 3, Autumn 2009, Pages 1-401   


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Teaching Grammar: A Survey of Teachers' Attitudes in Vietnam

    Le Van Canh and Roger Barnard


Although it is now generally agreed that grammar should be an integral element of second language programmes, there is still a diversity of opinions about how it should be taught. In this paper, attention is first drawn to relevant issues raised in reviews of the teaching of grammar derived from SLA research and teacher cognition. This paper then reports a survey of Vietnamese teachers' attitudes towards grammar and grammar teaching in their own particular teaching contexts. It uses a questionnaire adapted from that used in a 2002 survey of teachers of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in British universities and in a 2008 parallel survey of EAP teachers in New Zealand. The key findings of the present study are presented and then discussed in relation to those of the other two surveys. They indicate that these EAP teachers in Vietnam, like those in Britain and New Zealand, appreciate the centrality of grammar in their language teaching and have a critical awareness of many of the problems and issues involved. The findings suggest that the teachers favour a discourse, rather than a decontextualised approach to the presentation of grammar and there is an emphasis on systematic practice of grammatical forms and the correction of grammatical errors.

Keywords: Grammar, Vietnam, teacher attitudes, survey, EAP