Taiwanese Teachers and Students’ Perceptions about Inductive and

Deductive Grammar Teaching: A Qualitative Study

S0641012, 呂惟馨

I. Rationale
 Research of grammar teaching in Taiwan
1. Most of the studies about this issue in Taiwan focus on discussing the
necessity of and the attitude toward English grammar teaching;
however, few of the studies investigate the details and the different
types of grammar teaching method. (Lin, 2008) (Lin, 2016)
 Grammar teaching
1. “Teaching grammar plays a central role in every English foreign
language (EFL) teacher's classroom and has been the focus of language
teachers and learners for many years.” (Alzu’bi, 2015)
 Deductive grammar teaching and Inductive grammar teaching
1. “The literature on the effects of deductive and inductive teaching of
grammar rules has received substantial attention in past decades.” (G
& D, 2013)
2. “…even if a series of studies using the same instructional sequence had
been performed, it may not have produced clear-cut results since the
answer … may very well be: ‘it depends’. It may depend on the nature
of the rule or syntactic structure … the group of learners…” (G & D,
2013)
3. “The effectiveness of deductive and inductive approaches has been
investigated in empirical studies.” (Alzu’bi, 2015)

II. Study Purpose

1. To deeply understand the Taiwanese teacher and students’ reaction and
perceptions about the two grammar teaching methods.
2. To grow the awareness of inductive grammar teaching.
3. To find the difficulties and the advantages of using inductive way to teach
grammar.
4. To provide a tailored inductive-grammar-teaching-related research for
Taiwanese.
III. Study Questions
1. What are the teachers’ perceptions about deductive and inductive grammar
teaching?
2. What are the students’ perceptions about deductive and inductive grammar
teaching?

IV. Methodology

1. Participants:
a. The way of sampling:
Unrandom sampling – purpose sampling
b. Sampling principles:
(1) Teachers:
The one who has not built a firmed teaching mode.
(2) Students:
The one who does not have a lot of experiences of grammar learning.
c. Two groups of participants
(1) New teachers
- Number: 4 (2 females & 2 males)
- Background:
(a) Profession: EFL teaching
(b) Career:
‧ Fresh graduates
‧ The teacher who starts his (or her) career for one to two
years
- Age: 23~30 years old
(2) Students
- Number: 80 (40 females & 40 males)
- Background:
(a) junior high school grader (7th grader?)
(b) no experience of cram school English learning
- Age: 12~15 years old (?)
d. Protecting the participants:
(1) Sign consent forms:
To protect the participants’ voluntary participation
(2) Permission from the Institutional Review Board:
To protect the participants’ human right
2. Context:
a. The number of English courses per week in junior high school in Taiwan:
3 courses

3. Procedure (4 weeks)
a. Overall introduction:
- The teachers will be able to use both of the grammar teaching
methods to teach the same groups of students that the researcher
initially randomly assigned to each of their classes.
- The students will be able to learn grammar in the two grammar
teaching methods from the same teacher in the same class.

b. Detailed steps:
Step1 (Before week 1):
- Explore the teachers’ knowledge about inductive and deductive
grammar teaching.
*Tool: a mini survey
Step2 (Week 1):
- Supply enough background knowledges, such as teaching skills,
the way to implement the grammar teaching methods.
*Tool: lecture and workshop holding
- Let the teachers to choose the sentence patterns to teach in the
following two weeks.
Step3 (Week 2 & Week 3):
- Conduct to teach and learn the grammar which were chosen by the
teachers. (3 courses per week)
- Write the reflective diaries
- Have a test on every Friday
- Week 2: Deductive Way
Week 3: Inductive Way
*My question: Will the priority of the teaching method influence
the result of the research?
Step4 (Week 4):
- Reflect on the experience on the two to three weeks
*Tool: group interviews
4. Instruments
a. Reflective diaries
(1) Purpose:
- Learn more from the participants’ personal perception
- Collect the participants’ description of the learning situation in
different grammar teaching method
(2) Process:
- The teacher and the Ss write down their diaries after per course
(6 parts of diaries in total)
(3) Content:
- In their native language
- Guiding question according to the purpose
b. Students’ grade
(1) Purpose:
- Observe the grades differences from different learners after
learning through the two grammar teaching methods
c. Focus group interviews (semi-structured interviews)
(1) Purpose:
- Find more information through the interaction between the
participants
- “Support the findings from the reflective diaries” (Gönen, 2019)
(2) Participants
- All the teachers
- 8 of the students (from the different classes)
(3) Process:
- Give some guiding questions
- Give them space and time to think and interact
(4) Context:
- At a classroom in one of the junior high schools
- Grouping (2 rounds):
a. [2 Ts + 4 Ss] / [2 Ts + 4 Ss]
b. [4 Ts] / [4 Ss] / [4 Ss]
- Tape recording
(5) After the interview:
- Tape recording: transcribed into text
- Data analysis by coding electronically
 5. Data Analysis
a. Theory: grounded theory
b. Coding:
- Categories according to…
(1) The participants’ preference of the grammar teaching method
(2) The relationship between the preference and the grades
(3) The similar perceptions
c. Cross-Check codes (intercoder agreement):
- Find other coders to do the coding independently.
- Use qualitative computer software package to check the consistency
of coding

V. Reference

Gladys Jean & Daphne´e Simard (2013). Deductive versus inductive grammar
instruction: Investigating possible relationships between gains, preferences and
learning styles. ScienceDirect, 41, 1023-1042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.
2013.10.008

Li- Li Lin (2008). The Role of Grammar Teaching in Writing in Second Language
Acquisition. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED503439.pdf

Mohammad Akram Alzu’bi (2015). Effectiveness of Inductive and Deductive

Methods in Teaching Grammar. Advances in Language and Literary Studies,
6(2), 187-193. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.2p.187

Safiye İpek Kuru Gönen (2019). A qualitative study on a situated experience of

technology integration: reflections from pre-service teachers and students.
Computer Assisted Language Learning, 32(3), 163-189. https://doi.org/ 10.10
80/09588221.2018.1552974