Abstract:
In the Sri Lankan context, long after the introduction of the Communicative Approach to
language teaching, the tendency is to base the teaching of English on the teaching of
grammar. Unarguably, grammar is an important component of language. However,
there are many issues in relation to teaching and learning of it. Teachers adopt different
methods to teach grammar which students are unaware of. The deductive and inductive
approaches, also known as rule-driven and discovery approaches respectively, are the
two popular ways most teachers use to teach grammar. This study investigated the
perception of 15 English teachers who teach both secondary and tertiary levels and 80
students of tertiary level on teaching and learning grammar: the effectiveness of explicit
teaching of it, and the specific sub-components of grammar which learners found
difficult or easy to learn. Questionnaire surveys were followed by discussions with the
sample. It was revealed that teachers like to teach grammar and students like to learn it.
Both parties are aware of the importance of having a sound knowledge of grammar for
language development. However, students feel that learning grammar in isolation is
boring. Nevertheless, they are reluctant to do away with grammar lessons. It was
revealed that majority of the teachers were completely unaware of grammar teaching
approaches.
